#peak character trait imo

[8bitgalaxydoes]

It will never be not funny to me how Aziraphale had a whole ass crisis about being sent to Hell for lying to Gabriel, but present day Azirpahale will lie through his teeth about literally anything <3

[sugar-phoenix]

yeah sex is cool, but have you ever had a conversation with someone about analyzing characters you both love in a piece of media that you are both hyperfixated in that spanned multiple days?

[nightcolorz]

I would love to hear your thoughts on autistic Armand, if you haven’t already spoke about this! Imo he’s very autsitic coded, and it’s very precious to me as an autistic iwtv fan :]

OMG!!! RUNS AROUND. Yes lmao I talk about this a lot actually it is one of my favorite Armand things to meta about bcus I’m also autistic and he is my special interest🙏I was trying to find some of the stuff I’ve written about autistic Armand but tumblrs search engine makes it near impossible to find anything so I gave up 😭, but believe me they r out there. Even tho I talk about this a lot I would love love love to talk about it some more for u anon because I can never get enough of armandtism.

I first figured Armand was autistic when I was reading the vampire Lestat because when he is first introduced he is completely non verbal and only communicates through the mind gift. through further explanation it’s very much implied that he does this because he finds putting his thoughts into words hard and he considers just projecting them into peoples brains much easier. Armand speaks out loud for the first time like more than halfway through the book, and lestat is surprised to hear him lol. This is super autistic I feel like that’s obvious 🙏 it’s basically the vampire power equivalent of using a non verbal communication device. Armand having trouble with connecting with people, understanding how to “fit in”, and talking r prevailing parts of his character throughout the whole series (not just tvl) which solidified my headcanon into basically a canon fact in my mind lol.

When Armand is first introduced in iwtv his strangeness is chalked up to his vampirism, but it’s soon revealed throughout tvl and qotd that Armand is considered a strange outcast by other vampires. The things he struggles with r unique to him and r not representative of vampires in general. His otherness/strangeness can also not be chalked up to his trauma or his age turned because Armand was also an outcast as a young child. It’s described in the vampire Armand that Armand was not understood by his parents or his community because he was obsessed with and freakishly good at painting. His community interprets his unusualness as a sign of some divine intervention, the priests believe he is a saint or a prophet sent to earth, even at times saying things implying that he is “not human”. Unusually high quickly developing skill in childhood is an autistic trait, as is hyper fixation on an activity/topic that becomes a core identity factor and prevailing obsession. The affects of Armand’s trauma only worsen the severity of his autistic traits. C-ptsd and autism often overlap and coexist in autistic people who were traumatized in childhood, which seems to be Armand’s case.

in queen of the damned Armand is at his peak autistic lol, I feel like this is when most book readers gain that head canon. The Devils minion chapter revolves around Armand using Daniel as a guide to help him learn how to be “normal” and to blend in to the modern age. Armand can’t seem to figure out how to blend in on his own because he is unable to understand social norms of any time period enough to integrate himself into society. Armand is in love with technology and what most would consider monotonous sensory experiences. He stares at his own reflection for hours, he loves kitchen appliances and watching ingredients whir in blenders, cameras, he watches the same movie over and over again and never gets bored of it. The way Armand fixates on technology really reminds me of how a lot of autistic people played as children. He enjoys repetitive, sensory behaviors over “fun”. For Armand this means watching the same things repeatedly, which is a form of visual stimming. There r moments where Armand is trying to understand his world, but is so blind to what he is trying to understand that he goes about his discoveries wrong. Such as in qotd when he tries to interrogate strangers to gain information on societal norms but he only gets uncomfortable glances. Armand is desperate to understand and to connect but he is consistently inherently alienated, whether it be from humanity or from other vampires or from himself.

Armand also can not process his memories comprehendingly. This is part trauma part autism, but autism is def a factor. Because of his repressed trauma induced memory loss Armand finds it difficult to talk about himself to people. This is worsened by Armand being unable to comprehend the aspects of story telling that he needs to be able to tell people about his life. Armand explains to Daniel that he vividly remembers small details, such as dates and weather, but he could not tell Daniel what “things were like” because he “doesn’t know what that means”. Literal thinking, the inability to grasp vague, fiction based concepts like narratives and metaphor, and strict fixation on minor details like numbers, are all autistic traits!

Armand also struggles heavily with emotional regulation. He is described as often having intense and extreme meltdowns where he cries and screams and breaks things. Armand is easily bothered, in tva he mentions that he covers his ears when he is overwhelmed. The vampire Armand begins actually with Armand becoming overwhelmed in public and trying to escape to an attic so that he can be alone in silence. Armand copes with his intense emotions by putting on a mask of neutrality. He is often described as expressionless and blank, uncanny. But this is a mask, and when Armand can no longer mask and his disguise lapses his facial expressions r described by lestat as being so over the top and emotional that they are disturbing and weird. Over the top unnatural facial expressions as well as blank unreadable ones are both autistic traits. For Armand he is naturally overly emotive to the point of being considered horrifying, and he hides this by taking the opposite extreme. Either way, either expression Armand puts on causes him to be socially outcast.

Armand often describes feeling like there is something wrong with him that causes him to be isolated from others and he’s not sure what it is. In prince lestat he tells Gregory that he doesn’t know why it’s so hard for him to have relationships when other vampires are fully capable of doing that. In the vampire Armand he explains to David that he’s crazy because his mind isn’t built right and his senses are tripled so he shouldn’t bother trying to understand him. I rlly relate to this as someone who felt like I was from another dimension as a child bcus i didn’t know the unspoken life rules everyone else did.

Armand is often treated like a child by the other vampires and assumed to be emotionally immature and too fragile and insane to be helpful. Armand says in the vampire Armand that he doesn’t consider himself an adult because he can’t function like one. This could be due to the age he was turned, but it’s shown to us that characters like Benji and even to an extent Claudia r able to self regulate and function appropriately despite being turned even younger then Armand was.

in conclusion, book Armand is an autistic person who was never given proper support or understanding because the environment and the time period he was born in decided to alienate him further rather then work to help him socialize and learn appropriate skills, and because of the necessities he has been deprived of and the horrible trauma he endured Armand is never able to learn to function in the way he was likely capable of. this recessive quality in pair with his autism caused Armand it be unable to cope or self regulate or learn ways to understand himself since he wasn’t given a chance to in his formative years. He’s a great representative of what many autistic people who experienced intense child abuse experience.

Im rlly happy with the shows portrayal with Armand so far partly because he is omg, so autistic. Show Armand shares so many of book Armand’s autistic traits. inability to understand himself or others, fixation on small details but inability to understand the big picture, etc. even his iPad is autistic asf! My ipad is my comfort item that I carry around with me to self sooth, and this is def the vibe Armand’s iPad gives me in the show. Even assads performance is autistic! He is able to play Armand masking and Armand unmasking, the stilted expressions he gives and the blank stares, the uncomprehending earnestness. AGHHHH!! Assad stims with his fingers when Armand is nervous too which is just an amazing touch. I hope the show explores Armand’s autism, because that would literally be a dream come true. Even still, for now I’m satisfied.

thank u so so much anon for the ask this made me so happy 🙏❤️ autistic Armand means so much to me and has gotten me though some tough times. Understanding and analyzing Armand helps me understand myself better and feel more comfortable with how I am. Earlier this year I gave myself a concussion because I was harmfully stimming during a meltdown, and while I was in the emergency room I was holding the vampire Armand and imaging that he would relate to what I was going through. So yeah he is very special to me too! And once again it makes me so so happy that u got me to talk some about it. I hope this was coherent or interesting lol I felt like I was all over the place

[shapelytimber]

Wanted to paint some of my favorite characters, nothing more nothing less

[COMMISSIONS]

Way too much yapping like an embarrassing amount, the individual portraits and the template I used below vvv

I shouldn't be allowed to talk about my favorite characters- especially to people who (presumably) don't know them xjfkdk apart from the very popular ones ofc

ILLYA KURYAKIN (The man from U.N.C.L.E)

gay ass little Russian spy I love him he is so *dramatic* and a huge nerd and a Beatles fan and into fashion design- perfect pocket size blorbo ;w; also seeing a Russian character being given a positive leading role in an American tvshow from the 60s ?? Yes he lives in New York and works for UNCLE America.... But he is still a communist ?? Incredible ! Also I really like the fact he isn't given the cliché personality traits often given to Russian characters i e anger issues drinks a lot violent ect (looking at you shitty(imo) modern remake... What did you do to my little guy ;;). In a close contest with Spock for the "gayest man from tvshow" of the 60s..... And in my heart he is winning djdkd for me the gay subtext of muncle hits so much more because it's not a scifi show- it's closer to home, Napoleon and Illya were *like that* in the present day of the 60s, they were both human, and no alien fuckery made them go to the village more than once or play house in the suburbs or get attached ass up to get pegged on a regular basis... Truly a show that feels written by an old queen and a guy with the biggest fem dom fetish jkvjjkb (don't get me wrong tho I adore star trek tos and spirk too <3)

KUROO HAZAMA and PINOKO (Black Jack)

sometimes I rewatch some of the oavs from the 90s when I'm sad :) I had a huge phase a couple years back when I read nearly all the manga (should really finish it... Or reread the whole thing frankly), watched *all* the shows (bar young black jack, hated that shit) and idk I just love this venal bitch so much- him and his daughter and his conflicted feelings for his tboy ex that he still loves kfkfkf btw I'm dying for a modern take on this like please please please I'd love to see Kei Kisaragi's story rewritten a bit (trans character in the 70s sure was progressive but oh boy-), because him and black jack's relationship makes me so *weak*.... And maybe see him a bit more than in one story- anyway ! When it comes to his daughter Pinoko, it's very hit or miss- when the writers lean on the cute father adoptive daughter relationship it's great, when they lean more on the whole "she has a crush on him" (very much like a child in most case, and he *never* reciprocate thank god) and bring up the fact she is technically 18 a lot (she was an evil tumor trapped in her sister before he created a body for her- black jack shit dw), and she gets jealous of other women.... Well it's terrible and I'm uncomfy :(

EVA KANT (Diabolik)

Look.... You just can't show me danger diabolik 1968 and not expect me to become insane djdkdkdk she is so cool ;; !!! Her and her devious eel of a man (here as a panther, because even tho I haven't read the comic yet, I'm taking an educated guess that all the panther imagery is here to represent him, the lethal twunk always in the all black gimp suit... And if it's not then fuck my entire life ig fjfkkd), the cuntiest het couple you've ever seen, such freaks I love them ! Partners in crime that will blow up the tax offices of the whole country if you try to put a bounty on them <3 they are in the guilty faves category only because I'm this invested in these characters after 1 (one) movie fkfkf watched the first two remakes and was hmmm let's say underwhelmed, could have been worse but going after the 60s one ie peak cinema was hard... I went in fully invested in these heterosexuals and they still fucked up their romance and relationship ;; (don't spoil me the third one btw haven't seen it yet ! I know it's the yaoi one- which doesn't give me much hope for Eva tbh...) I'll soon start reading the comics tho ! Managed to find all twelve volumes of "Il grande Diabolik" in french for pretty cheap so I'm excited for that :D (might scan them and upload them online because omg I tried finding scans in *any* language and only found a dubious website that sold digital copies for 7€ a volume ??? What is this)

UTA (The Void / Тургор / Turgor / Tension)

Apathy girlyyyyy she just like me for real for real nfkfk what absolutely charmed me about her is yes her design, but more importantly her chamber's design (if you've never played the void, a sister's chamber is a space that represent her. You get a sense of who she is by exploring her chamber before finding her and talking to her soul it's great). The lonely island out at sea, her laying down on a suspended steel boat in a grotto, looking passively at the moon by a crack on the ceiling.... And the moon is looking back. Incredible ! I love this game so much

KIM KITSURAGI (Disco Elysium)

Do I really have to explain this one ? When I played the game with quiji I remember I kept saying "when Kim talks, we *listen*" djkdk we did get a good grade in Kim Kitsuragi and got him to dance in the church <3 this fucking centrist cop wormed it's way into my heart and many others because of course he did. The only Kim K in my eyes. Also funny anecdote : before I played Disco Elysium, I had one concept art masterclass where a kinda famous concept artist came to give advice, make us really stressed then give us a shitty grade.... And when I tell you this man looked so much like Kim ??? Same haircut, glasses, face with a scar *exactly* where Kim's portrait has a stark shadow on his cheek and he was dressed in an orange top- truly uncanny. Anyway, Kim is so fucking cool how does he do it

DARK VADOR (La guerre des étoiles)

*sight* not surprising if you know me... and to be clear when I say Vader I don't mean Anakin Skywalker, post barbecue only zouz here. I refuse to yap about this man djdkdk I already do that way to much in ao3 comment sections

And here is the template I used ! Don't know who made it tho sorry...

PS : all these where made in 2-3 hours each :D wanted to challenge myself by painting quickly, and I mostly (looking at the Eva Kant one that gave me trouble) succeeded !

[crescentpaws]

i genuinely don’t understand what is so appealing about gethen?? imo, there is absolutely nothing that makes him unique. i’m curious as to why some of you guys think he’s more interesting or more cool than FINTAN of all people. (i know fintan is still the more popular character overall but obviously there’s been a lot of gethen posting lately)

(yes this is a rant partly inspired by the keepblr sexyman comp but also i’ve been thinking this for a while anyway so. the comp was just my motivation to actually write this down. (though if i’m being real it seems like a lot of the support for gethen in the poll was a result of wanting fintan to lose, rather than actually wanting gethen to win) anyway here we go)

gethen is. not interesting at all to me. he doesn’t have a backstory or a reason for joining the neverseen or anything, he’s just There and for some reason y’all love him for that. even fucking UMBER has more lore than him atp and we don’t even know her real name or what she looks like (and she’s not even alive anymore 💀). he does crimes. that’s about it. i don’t understand. every other member of the neverseen also does crimes. gethen hasn’t done anything to set him apart from them character-wise. what’s his motivation? what drives him? what is he hoping to get out of this? i have no fucking clue and frankly it just makes him a boring character to me. just your classic “haha evil villain” guy that has absolutely no depth. and most of the things people think he’s cool for are things any of the neverseen members could have done. it doesn’t say anything about his character specifically. he tried to kidnap sophie in book 1? so did everyone else. sophie punched him? sophie would have punched literally any neverseen member at that point. he’s hot? so is literally every single elf in the entire series. he killed mr. forkle? fintan killed kenric (also, i don’t understand why people think he’s more “willing” to kill people than fintan is? are we all forgetting the time when fintan was fully committed to killing an entire species…? (+ humans count too) fintan has 100% done worse things than gethen has. no one ever talks about “gethen’s big plans”)

every time gethen has shown up in the series so far it’s been like okay… so you’re just here with your buddies to carry out a plan that you didn’t come up with. cool. meanwhile fintan is out here doing dramatic reveals and giving evil speeches. gethen has literally NOTHING going for him y’all i’m sorry 😭 even the way he talks is similar to fintan. like he genuinely has no unique character traits. who is this guy. he’s just a follower. and even if he IS planning on taking over after vespera & gisela, that doesn’t make him special. i’m sure MANY neverseen members have been waiting for the leaders to doom themselves. it once again doesn’t really say anything unique about him

the only prominent thing i actually ever hear gethen fans talk about is his fucking sword. which. again. is not a character trait. and yknow what? the only reason he uses a sword in the first place is because he doesn’t have a cool ass ability like fintan does. i actually can’t think of a moment where gethen’s telepathy has been remotely useful (other than in lumenaria, but his extra mental energy is a side effect of his ability, so it doesn’t count as using the actual ability itself. not to mention he had help taking down the castle. oh right and whose idea was that again?? and sure he read tam’s mind when he was with the neverseen, but that was because gisela basically kidnapped him. gethen played no part in carrying out the actual plan. plus… the neverseen didn’t even seem to actually do anything with the information they got from tam. what was the point of that)

fintan is in prison because he was knocked unconscious after grady made him beat himself up. peak pathetic sexyman material. you have all been brainwashed by propaganda!!!! /j

tldr: everything gethen has done is something fintan has done too/is something fintan is fully capable of doing. which makes fintan the better character. & he actually has lore. and personality. thank you for coming to my ted talk

[biocrafthero]

hi i remember you mentioning bpd mafuyu like a while ago and i have thought about it a lot since. could i maybe ask you to elaborate………. /nf

I talked about it on my sideblog which basically summarizes my thoughts but I'll add some more here while I'm at it :3

I find formal diagnostic criteria to be a bit finicky especially depending on the psychiatrist's view of the disorder when they diagnose someone with it, so a lot of my thoughts about it are based off of my own personal experience. Please note I am not formally diagnosed but highly suspect myself to have the disorder

A lot of Mafuyu's BPD symptoms are characterized by lack of emotion/being extremely out of touch with one's own emotions. In Main Story she expresses these feelings quite clearly, saying that no matter how much she searches she can't find anything (a statement made referring to her sense of self). As the stories go on she does grow and is getting closer to finding her "true self", but smth nice about it that I talk about in my sideblog post is that this builds off of her [vaguely defined] personality traits

A large part of why she likely has BPD is obviously because of her mother. Her mom is very much emotionally enmeshed with her daughter, smth that other posters can explain a lot better than me and also something that can be found in these events:

What Lies Beyond Guiding A Lost Child (third focus)

Farewell, My Mask (fourth focus)

And So, The Needle Begins To Move (sixth focus)

Do keep in mind I haven't read Reeling In The Lights (fifth focus) because I'm waiting for it to get to English server nglllllll

In each of these events, we can observe how Mafuyu's mom intertwines her emotional state with her daughter's. The whole "be a good girl and you'll make me happy/proud" thing speaks for itself, but something that's very notable that came up in Mafu6 is how whenever Mafuyu's mom starts getting upset Mafuyu immediately drops everything to make her feel better. At the end of this particular event, Mafuyu is driven into a dissociative spiral after her mom left the room to go calm down (AFTER MAKING A WHOLE SCENE OF GETTING UPSET!!!). Mafuyu perceives any moment of her mom being upset as her fault

The fact that her mother relies on her to such an extent for stability like this, on top of the fact that she actively isolates her daughter socially—Main Story, Immiscible Discord (Kana3), Mafu4, and probably other things I'm forgetting—as well as the lack of privacy between the two of them (again, Kana3) means that Mafuyu literally did not have the room to develop her own independent sense of self.

It's not like this was just something that started in her teen years either, since we literally see how Mafuyu's mom used a traumatic event to emotionally manipulate her very young daughter (Mafu3, specifically when Mafuyu was very young and got lost as Phoenix Wonderland, a sequence of events we see through a flashback). Emotional abuse like this can have extreme negative consequences, especially at such a key psychological developmental stage for children that age.

I may be missing a thing here or there because I am a little tired but yeah this is some more rambling about that from the top of my head. I really do think that Mafuyu has some kind of personality disorder, and borderline fits her the best imo.

Please note again that this is all based off of my personal experiences and my own knowledge of borderline. I am NOT formally educated on the subject, what I'm doing here is basically peak "recognizing myself in the fictional character" or whatever

Also smth funny that's semi-related is that during Imprisoned Marionette (first focus) Mizuki refers to helping Mafuyu as "basically rehab" WHICH IS REALLY FUNNY AND IT ALWAYS STUCK WITH ME LMAO

[songspirits]

rating fanon portrayals of the outsiders boys

note: my guesses on the canon personalities probably arent even true lol this is my opinion

-

ponyboy curtis

5/10

sometimes the portrayals are really good!! but i hate that often, people portray him either as a moody brat or a weak baby. he is canonically a good fighter, especially after the fire, though he doesn’t like to. hes a loner, hes a reader, hes a pacifist, hes a good kid.

you have to remember that the outsiders is literally written in HIS POINT OF VIEW!!! ofc yes he’s a sassy and snarky teenager but he is also so intelligent and smart. hes a loner, but the gang would never shun his company. he has so much depth that a lot of writers often forget. hes a 14 year old kid with thoughts of a adult and can only do so much. thats what makes the outsiders so relatable to alot of people. its his intelligence that makes him and darry argue, because of how darry sees himself in ponyboy

but also on the other side of the coin ponyboy is a fragile character after the events of the book, because he is 14!!! but he has thoughts!!

i feel like people forget his good traits and only focus on the bad (and oh my goodness does this count for darry too!)

sorry for my rambles i just love his character so much :-(

darry curtis

7/10

besides fanfiction.net and like 30% of the fics on ao3 hes actually a solid portrayal most of the time, but tons of people forget that his relationship with ponyboy wasnt actually that batshit awful. sure theyd butt heads alot and go back and forth but they love each other thats why they did that. hes so much more than just an angry man who happens to be ponyboys brother.

hes a man who peaked in high school (IM KIDDING) and lost it all not because of his brothers but because of his parents. there was probably some strong resentment there for a while until they died. darrys problem or flaw is that he cares too much and his fear turns to anger. its love for sodapop and ponyboy that brings him back when he realizes his anger is doing more bad than good for his little brothers. It’s opening up and allowing his brothers in that helps his character.

that being said, people often focus more on his bad traits than his good traits. its a running theme in the outsiders fandom, i’ve noticed

sodapop curtis

7.5/10

highest rating i have on this list!! fanfiction.net outsider fics ive gotta say i actually just cant handle it so thats why it isnt a full 8 and ao3 is a 50/50

people put that hes soft but also forget that hes wild. hes batshit CRAZY. hes just as protective as darry and just as snarky as ponyboy. hes soft!! hes rough!! sodapop curtis is a dynamic character!!!!

johnny

5/10

ehhhhhh, most johnny portrayals i’ve seen are either really good or really bad. kinda ponyboy’s problem, being seen as weak. hes just a dynamic character who is allowed to be weak but also has so many strong traits about him. he is a frightened wounded animal to most but to the gang hes something more than that. also, snarky and ‘over’ johnny portrayals are great.

dallas

4/10

most portrayals i’ve seen are pretty good but its the same problem ive seen in all the boys— they only focus on a few traits dallas has (aggressive, tough, hardened) and stick with that. forgetting the youth in dallas winston and making his character honestly… less tragic?

imo the tragedy of the outsiders is the youthfulness in all the boys and how shitty situations couldnt make them more vulnerable, so i would love more of a vulnerable dallas in fics around the gang. another thing, people forget how much ponyboy really does mean to dallas. johnny and ponyboy were both his brothers and he’d did so much for the both of them precisely bc of that

two-bit

5/10

again.💔people forget how DYNAMIC these characters are!!! two-bit knows when to get serious for the love of god!!

steve

1/10

what portrayal. ☹️ppl dont write him enough and if they do its like one line #justiceforsteve

in conclusion

the outsiders fandom often have such good portrayals but only for one part of their character. this isnt to shame anyone or anything!! but this is just a helpful criticism ?? for any writers out there portraying the boys!! trust me i had to think abt this too lmao

[akkivee]

i’m still not sure what was ranked lol??? but ig it’s a ranking of which hypmic media is peak hypmic media????? and some notes lol

s tier:

the manga and chuuou stage!!!!!

tho knocked for its inaccessibility, inability to hear the character voices and insert raps, and it being behind canon, the manga is still just like, the best way to consume hypmic’s canon lol

you get the drama tracks and additional storytelling for those tracks AND stories that help build hypmic’s world and characters!!!

the best way to consume canon tho imo is reading the manga to the drama tracks whenever you can lol

the chuuoku stage was originally a tier but i was asked to put it higher and therefore it is LOL

the stage as a whole would be a tier i think, despite some misgivings about it lol

but the chuuoku stage had peak acting, peak character moments and bonds, peak canon interpretations and it was sick seeing a group of women oppose the women’s rule while lowkey guilty of what chuuoku was doing as well 😫👌

also seeing honobono in the flesh and our first auxiliary media honobono too where she was just as terrible and terrifying as you might expect thanks hypstage lmao

sucks it’s not very accessible tho lol

a tier:

the drama tracks and the legends era stage!!!!

tho the drama tracks are my s tier lmao, i can acknowledge it can be hard to sit down with a couple dozen or so drama tracks when a good majority of them are 30 minutes each lol

all of the canon drama tracks are very accessible!!! side media not so much lol but the majority of the main story is on youtube!!!!

but bc the manga was made to accompany the tracks, you don’t get the full picture as you would with the manga lol

the legends era stage, despite not being the most faithful to the character portrayals, showed character flaws in peak dramatique lmao

thru the side characters you get a lot of worldbuilding that is relevant to canon despite its other universe status

it’s my issues with its characterisations and ESP the blatant disregard for the women that doesn’t have it higher lol

it’s pretty inaccessible too lol

b tier:

arb and hypdream!!!!!

hypdream is new and i haven’t played it but creating ghost versions of the characters where their character traits are Slightly skewed is automatically peak writing for me LOL

and any game that calls ichiro pretty is aight by me lol

arb is really cool!!!!! it’s mostly b tier bc it’s incredibly inaccessible lol but it’s zany and in character crazy lmao

like sometimes character traits are played up for a comedic effect but it doesn’t detract from the character itself lol

i also think the main story is cool!!! the arb ocs are very neat and the divisions intermingle in ways canon simply cannot provide

it also being paywalled knocks down lol

c tier:

the current era of hypstage!!!!

they haven’t done anything lol

like them doing og get together stories is nice ig and even if idk how i feel about them forming nagosaka alongside the og divisions, i can appreciate them weaving their narratives together so they all begin together

there’s a sanitation of a few characters that are already showing thru that might be a detriment in the long run idk where the stage is going tho lol

like i mean there felt like there was an attempt on nuanced characters in the first era of the stage and idk if it’s been carried over based on what we’ve seen so far??? maybe a bit???? idk i think only time will tell

always on that inaccessibility ✌️

d tier:

rhyme anima!!!!!

i don’t hate rhyme anima let me just preface lmao!!!!!!

it was originally on c tier but i felt a little offended putting it next to the stage lol

it’s a little too silly i think lol like arb is fun silly but rhyme anima doesn’t have enough charm in its silly

it might be bc the character portrayals toe being offensive tbh lol i always commiserate with mtc fans watching samatoki be bastardised like that 😭😭😭

ramuda too imo but idk if that’s my place to comment on lol

like arb tastefully exaggerates their characters, rhyme anima made caricatures of them 😭😭😭

tho i will always be amused by kuukou being so sanitised of his insanity lmao he’s smart and you can actually see that and it’s so funny to see lol

[steamedlotusroot]

I translated Lego Monkie Kid’s Cantonese Extended Opening

In the tags of my first post I said I wanted to translate the lyrics of the extended OP of the LMK Cantonese dub and I did it :D

Translation notes: (some translations are wonky bc either the og lyrics are ambiguous, I didn’t have enough space to translate the phrases fully, or my Cantonese is rusty)

“All reveal your true forms to me immediately!”— 現形 means to appear/reappear. I personally interpreted it as the spirits/demons showing their true forms when SWK is fighting them, but simply “reveal yourselves to me” works too

“I truly can’t help how popular I am these days.”— One of my wonky translations I think. The og lyric is more like “really, I’m trending right now, I can’t stop it even if I wanted to / even if I tried.”

“But now I have to hide away,”— The lyric for “hide away” 神隱 very specifically refers to gods/immortals/spirits going into hiding

“From now on, keep the Golden Staff with you at all times,”— In the original JttW text, SWK’s staff is called the 金箍棒 “gold-hooped staff/rod”, but in Cantonese the staff is more commonly called the 金剛棒, which doesn’t have the “hoop” character. It’s just a gold stick 

“Only rely on having enough audacity,”— I think it’s supposed to be “have a lot of/enough courage” but it can also mean “audacity”, and since this song is about SWK and MK I think the word “audacity” fits them much better haha

“I will reach the peak for a competition of skill.”— This is an instance of Cantonese being so compressed and concise that I have no idea how to structure the sentence in English

“Endure for the sake of loyalty,”— 捱義氣 means doing a favor out of personal loyalty that you might not want to do (eg. you help your friend clean his car when you hate cleaning cars cuz he’s your bud!). I think “endure for the sake of loyalty” is a goofy way of translating this but I dunno what to write instead

“Assemble surprises.”— I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. This is a very literal translation

“The me today,”— Longer version: The me I am today

“Chock-full of abilities.”— OG lyrics 一身本領 go a little bit like “the whole body is full of skills/abilities”. I wanted to just write “full of talents” but “talent” isn’t quite accurate. I went with “chock-full” cuz it sounds funny

“Clash with fire in a duel,”— I like to think that this line refers to Red Son and I like Red Son :]

“Carrying an endless mission,”— I originally wrote “shouldering” instead of “carrying”, but because 懷 means “embrace/chest” or “harboring”, I thought “carrying” sounds less grueling and more accurate than “shouldering”

“Eyeballs looking around,”— “eyes staring wide and round” probably fits 眼仔睩睩 better, but hopefully “eyeballs” sounds wide and round enough?? And I wanted to turn it into an action so I described the eyes looking around like they’re on guard!

“Grappling arduously with the enemy,”— Lots of ways to translate 搏命: fighting for your life, wrestling for your life, blah blah blah. I hope “grappling” is evocative enough 😭

“Quick-witted actions, be clever,”— I’m not sure if it’s “quick-witted, actions sharp and clever” or “quick-witted actions, be sharp and clever” 💀 靈活 means “mentally flexible”, sharp醒 means “smart, clever, alert, quick-witted”, something like that

“It’s called the NSoFFM,”— The lyric lacks a pronoun in Cantonese so I’m not sure if it means “call me/you the NSoFFM”, “call for the NSoFFM”, “you’re called the NSoFFM”, or something else. I interpreted it as SWK listing a bunch of traits and saying “someone like this will be called the NSoFFM”

“Skyrocket to ascension / I rise at Flower Fruit Mountain.”— 飈升 means shooting up really quickly/suddenly. I’m not sure what “shooting up” means in this context so I kept it as vague as possible. I also translated 飈升 in two different ways “skyrocket to ascension” and simply “rise” even though both lyrics mean the same thing in Cantonese. “Skyrocket” is most accurate IMO, but it sounds weird by itself

“I always strive for self-improvement,”— The og is just “I forever self-strengthen”, which sounds weird to me so I expanded it

“When I wedge into the crack,”— No idea what this means?? I’m guessing it’s supposed to evoke the image of SWK jamming a weapon into a crack? Also I wanted to write “wedge into the fissure” but when I googled “fissure” it showed me results for anal fissures and I was so put off by it I just used “crack” instead, even though “crack” sounds much sillier than “fissure”

“Demons please relax, lest you lose control.”— Nothing to note, I just really like the original lyric. It’s so cocky and badass and SO Wukong (or MK!) /pos

“Use kindness as the mark of recognition,”— Not sure what this really means? I interpret it as “kindness is my goal/principle”, but 記認 means both “marking” and “recognize/remember” so uh

“Evildoing is difficult to regard as the elder brother,”— The og lyric sounds fine but trying to understand it is?? It’s not “evildoers”, it’s “the way/path of evildoing”, but then it says “it’s difficult to be an older brother (non-familial)” like who is it difficult for??? Also “brother” here means a fellow disciple/classmate under the same teacher/master/school, so like the relationship between SWK and the other pilgrims (except their master, of course)

“I can’t be beat to death, swim carefree at the edge of the sky.”— The most egregious lyric IMO. I have absolutely no clue what it’s supposed to mean so maybe I’m just not that good at Cantonese??? It could be “I can’t beat to death swimming carefree at the edge of the sky” or “I can’t be beaten to death, swim carefree at the edge of the sky”. The swimming part lacks a pronoun so idk who’s swimming? What is happening in this sentence?? Help??

“Risk your life when taking action,”— 拼命 either means “as hard as you can” or “risking your life”. I’m only assuming it means the latter because I interpret this as SWK lecturing MK on how to be a hero

“And the battle lineup is again full of wit,”— I can sorta grasp what this means, but idk how to write it in English. 陣容 means the appearance/formation of your battalion and can extend to mean the array of abilities in a certain lineup. Not sure how to actually describe this though 😭 also I used “clever” for sharp醒 earlier but changed it to “wit” here so it’d be a noun and sound like an ability or something

[cancerian-woman]

I saw an awful ranking of tvdu witches recently where somehow Vincent was ranked last.

Curiously, if you feel like answering, who would appear in your top 10?

Vincent at 10 is insane! Power debates exist so heavily with the TikTok/Reddit crowd is because witches were so undervalued in general and for some characters while they have their power. It’s really their only character trait seriously.

I know you didn’t ask but the TO women (and characters in general) suffer from this the most. In TVD while the supernatural world leads all plots they still have a real life outside of that or plans despite bad writing imo. Elena was a vampire learning how to be a Doctor. Caroline a vampire learning Journalism. Stefan worked in a mechanic shop for months! Tyler did give up on the police academy training but the consideration was there! Then the TO characters: Davina was a harvest witch and that’s all she was. A career or education plan was NEVER mentioned for her. Hayley hybrid-queen and a mother but ambitions? Career goals??

Sorry, back to the point! I haven’t watched TO in years and my memory is blank on legacies but my ten witches not including the Bennetts(I’d feel a lil biased since I talk about them all the time) and Hope (I do like character but so many issues… see here for some thoughts!) This ranking isn’t about power though more on peaking my interests/creativity.

Vincent

Monique Deveraux - everyone hates & Monique - not me though! This franchise really hates complex women.

Kai Parker

Jo Laughlin

Davina - Would’ve liked to know more of her.

Celeste Dubois

Dahila - Interesting as a villain

Lizzie and Josie

And the Martin witches were a huge missed plot!

[secondarysefikura]

Just watched Advent Children (I’m fairly new to FFVII) and I love the fact that Kadaj is the most prominent remnant out of the three because even though Sephiroth had incredible strength and charisma, what imo defines his character the most is his constant hatred for humanity and his desire to find and reunite with his “mother.”

I think it makes a lot of sense for Kadaj to be the main remnant: both on a story level and on a technical level.

Story wise, as you said, Sephiroth really is defined by his anger and his desire for family (in particular, a mother). So it makes sense for his main remnant to be the one that is made up of his anger. It's also really cool getting to see what Sephiroth's anger is like without the constraint of his more reserved/cool/calculating side.

Loz is...I love him but he is not a personality trait. I'm sorry jocks who peaked in high school, but being strong or fast isn't a personality trait.

Now, on a technical level, Yazoo was a BITCH to animate. His hair would never cooperate and would fly all over the place. The animators basically had to put him in as few scenes as possible or else the movie would never get done.

[annethehater]

GET TO KNOW YOUR MUTUALS 💋

Tagged by my beloved @violaobanion ❤️‍🔥 Thank you my boubou.

What's the origin of your blog title?

I’m a Richard III (the Shakespeare psycho boy) girlie. I love antagonists and anti-heroes as a general rule and well, he’s my boy, my blorbo, as the youth say. Richard is referred to as a bottled spider and my favorite interpretation of Dick (so far) was by Arthur Hughes *shocked gasp* and he’s very cute, so... Here we are, cutebottledspider. 🕷️

OTP(s) + shipname:

I don’t often ship characters but when I do, I do it hard. The hardest is Shardlake/Barak, from the Shardlake book series and cruelly cancelled TV show. Also, Richard with anyone.

Favorite color:

Black 🖤🕷️🐈‍⬛ ⚫️ (it is a color, I will die on that hill.)

Song stuck in your head:

I don’t have one rn but if I had it would probably be something by the Chemical Brothers or some Vladimir Cauchemar flute filled track. Also love me some Charli XCX and a ton of other stuff.

Weirdest habit/trait:

Not suuuuure. I guess wearing sun glasses inside sometimes when I’m alone and no one’s here to call me a weirdo lol. Also, I vomit quite often.

Hobbies:

Rather recently started making gifs and it’s addictive. Otherwise, reading, keeping a common place book, messing about on my computer (I love notion, obsidian and keeping up to date with front end dev in general). I used to love writing but I’m having a hard time doing it recently.

If you work, what's your profession?

Graphic designer and occasional front end dev (self employed).

If you could have any job you wish, what would it be?

Beach bum. I’m just glad I get to work in my pyjamas.

Something you're good at:

I don’t know. I’m not brilliant at anything imo but maybe I’m wrong.

Something you collect:

Nothing. I don’t like to have a lot of anything.

Something you forget:

Lol, everything, all the time, especially words.

What's your love language:

Feeling like people know you and knowing people in return, as in noticing and remembering little things and trying to understand even when it isn’t easy. When someone says « I know you » and I feel like it’s true, I feel all fuzzy. Paying attention and seeing the little things. It matters to me. Also I'll stuff you with waffles until you puke. I’m toxic like that.

Favorite movie/show:

There are way too many but I guess the most timeless things for me are Succession, It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia, Curb your enthusiasm, Back to the Future, Fight Club, Twin Peaks, LoTR trilogy, All about Lily Chou Chou, and I love anything with fucking Leslie Nielsen. There’s probably some stuff I’m forgetting because it also depends on my mood.

As for more recent stuff, I loved the Substance, quite enjoyed Nosferatu, looooved Ripley (Andrey Scott my beloved) and well, I thought Shardlake was an okay adaptation and deserved more that one season. It was an extra special treat to have an actor I adore play two of my favorite characters ever. And Antony Boyle (phroar) was a perfect Barak. The casting was the best thing about this show.

Favorite food:

Favorite animal:

Cats and Dogs. Also rabbits.

What were you like as a child:

Quiet and shy.

Favorite subject at school:

None, hated school. Being done with school was like being born a second time.

Least favorite subject:

Above all, I hated P.E.

What's your best character trait?

I’m rather generous I think. Maybe. I tend to be a glass half full person most of the time (don’t count PMS lol)

What's your worst character trait?

When I hate, I hate hard. Also I might be quick to judge sometimes. Also it’s only bad for me bu I eat my feelings andI get easily addicted to various things.

If you could change any detail of your life right now, what would it be?

I’d want to be skinnier and more athletic. In better physical condition as a general rule. Also can someone pay for permanent hair removal for me? It’s okay, you can PayPal me.

If you could travel in time, who would you like to meet?

Shakespeare I guess. Also I’d want to see what my parents were like when they were young. I feel like my wee mom would have been adorable.

No pressure tag: @attaboylew @yourfriendlyneighbourhoodsimp @peachessndreamss @beforeviolets

[gaygajeel]

what are some of your honest gripes with Mashima?

this is a large can of worms to open, and i feel if i had the time & energy i could make my own 2 hr long youtube video essay on the topic- but the biggest thing that always comes to mind first is the general treatment & depiction of women, both in the writing itself and the art. while theres certainly other things baked into the writing, art, & character designs- such as repeated instances of racism, transphobia, homophobia- the most in your face issue imo is the misogyny baked into his work. im obvs most familiar with fairy tail, ive only half-heartedly skimmed some of his other works in sheer curiosity. but within fairy tail alone, women never really feel like they get to be truly their own, fully faceted characters. they have to revolve around a man or the men in their life, they have to be sexy & appealing to said mens eye (including young girls)- or, theyre the butt of an "ugly women" joke (the way virgo was introduced comes to mind, for example.) im a trans man whose been presenting as such for all my adult life, so only part of my life i can really see reflected in these issues. but even not being someone wholly, truly impacted by the effects of misogyny anymore, its such a glaring issue to me in his work. i could never recommend work of his without ten million asterisks regarding the issue. beyond issues such as that... something that always irritates me about fairy tail is i think there are cool concepts at hand, and neat character arcs. whenever i revisit ft i always am hit with how much i like grays character arc in the beginning, i like the messy family drama of the dreyars that gets introduced/hinted at, i like the different forms of magic. i genuinely like the concept of the dragon slayers a lot, i think its neat! but many of these concepts and character aspects introduced are hinted either dont get explored, or get beaten into the ground too much. examples of both for the sake of it- gajeel being a spy for ft to get dirt on ivan is never truly explored, when we already had an arc of laxus fucking around with the guild due to family shit. as for concepts being beaten into the ground... even as someone who really likes dragon slayer magic, everything revolving around the dragon slayers in the end gets old. this goes for character traits as well being used to hell and back, causing stagnant characters, such as juvia never becoming someone outside of her love for gray. i love fairy tail and how cheesy it is and so many of its characters, but it truly is one of the bodies of work in my life that has so many glaring issues from the creator that its not smth i often talk to other ppl about. its peak garbage to me. i love the characters, i also hate so much of the writing mashima baked into them. i love the concepts and the ideas, i hate so much of the execution. it is one of those series i hold in my hand like, "i wish you were put in more capable hands."

[oodlyenough]

6-3 turnabout... whatever

i finished this case a couple weeks ago but i've been super busy and now also have covid so i haven't gotten around to it. but for posterity. i must document.

this one really tested my patience lol. WHAT a mixed bag.

the good:

maya... i missed u so much .... it's so unbelievably stupid they wrote you out for so long. welcome back babe

the investigation days were genuinely pretty fun. i loved having rayfa as an "assistant" lmao, reminded me of nick investigating with franziska in 3-5 which was PEAK, and i find rayfa herself is perhaps the most compelling new character aa5/6 have thrown at me. phoenix works really well with a horrible little girl having an existential crisis. she is actually imo quite a well-characterized character having a coherent emotional journey that i am interested in. groundbreaking

the lore around khurain and spirit channelling and how the feys are apparently superior to everyone here lol, like, it's all very silly but... i guess.jpeg. there certainly Is a plot at least. the bar is on the ground courtesy of dual destinies

i think the twist at the end here was ... interesting at least. i don't recall having "actually it was a suicide" as a plot resolution before, so kudos for breaking new ground, lol. the puzzles were mostly a decent level of challenge. that there is gameplay and puzzle solving at all is, again, a huge victory over dual destinies.

i don't know what's going on with ema and nahyuta but honestly it's cracking me up. i keep imagining ema consulting the lesbian masterdoc trying to decipher her feelings

however

the bad:

i made a post about it while playing but phoenix is so fucking dumb now!!!!! it used to make me so irritated that fanon treats him like a dumbass but now it's literally canon. grown ass man needs a 14 year old to tell him what moss is. it's SO goddamn annoying to see a plot resolution / twist / answer / whatever four hours ahead of the playable character, who most of the time now never even gets there himself, bc his 1 personality trait now is "bluff". christ. phoenix baby i'm sorry all your traumatic brain injuries are catching up to you it's not your fault this isn't the real you

what is WRONG with the pacing in these cases. honest question. why is it i can go from being like "this is pretty fun" while investigating to "actually i think we should just take the death penalty, nick" in trial. something so so so tedious about how this new guy handles testimony and i can't pinpoint what it is. there were certainly times in the og trilogy i found cases tedious and trying, especially the third cases lol. but this feels... worse? it was that way in AAI1 and DD too so i think it's this particular writer.

speaking of whack pacing: it's insane that after this obviously arc-heavy case, which leaves khurain in disarray and should have given rayfa and nahyuta existential crises, we're going to do a pointless tutorial-style case with athena and blackquill in japanifornia. why the hell. i like athena, but capcom clearly doesn't, and it just makes everything with her kind of excruciating.

[roxannarambles]

The Real Game Behind "Cat Petterz" - P. F. Magic's "Petz"

(This is an unmodified photo of a cat from Petz 5. YES, the horned headband is literally in the game as a clothing item you can put on your pets)

I dunno if I ever made that post where I told people about the game that Cat Petterz is spoofing. But I thought I'd write a post now since I can't seem to see any in my history. This is for people who want a little more background on the IRL games that Toby is spoofing with Cat Petterz. These games are very near and dear to my heart, because I grew up in the 90s and Petz was one of my very first hyperfixations as a young teen. When I read Noelle's blog posts it was a little unreal for me since she sounded so much like young teenager Roxy did when she was playing Petz back then!

During the Spamton Sweepstakes two years ago, there was a website for the event originally hosted on Fangamer (later moved to the Deltarune website), which contained a bunch of pages including lots of sneak-peaks into the upcoming Ch3 as well as other fun easter eggs. Including a bunch of blog posts made by Noelle.

(Now, as a general disclaimer I'm pretty sure Toby Fox has officially stated that the Spamton Sweepstakes stuff can't be considered canon but it's still fun to talk about)

One of the things Noelle talks about in her blog posts is a game she calls Cat Petterz 2. Here's her first mention of the game in her blog:

Most Youtube videos you'll find discussing the Spamton Sweepstakes stuff fail to mention what IRL game Cat Petterz is actually inspired by. But the game that inspired it is called Petz.

Petz was created by a company called P.F. Magic in the 90s. (More or less the era Noelle, Kris etc seem to grow up in) Specifically, the Petz games were available as stand-alone games titled 'Catz' or 'Dogz,' and they were called 'Petz' if you got a version that combined both cats and dogs. There were 5 versions total of these games. (Catz/Dogz 2 released in 1997, for reference) A different company acquired rights to the 'Dogz/Catz' title from P.F. Magic eventually, but the games they put out under the label are vastly different (and pure garbage imo). So only games 1 - 5 are the P.F. Magic Petz.

Screencap from 2007 I took of my Petz 5 game:

Like Noelle says in her blog post, Catz was a virtual pet game on the computer. Later games did indeed include a pretty advanced breeding system. It was possible to selectively breed for traits in these games just like you do with animals in real life. You also could "hex edit" the game data exactly as Noelle describes. There was a huge online community for Petz dedicated to making these mods for the game. (And yes, we did call it hex editing) I did a little hex editing but I was nowhere near as talented as some people were. Noelle's description of being able to make birds, hamsters, cars, cartoons characters, etc., is no exaggeration. Some people were wildly talented at hex editing. Anso's Petz was especially good at making hexies and putting out guides to making them.

Just as Noelle says, results when breeding two very different hexed breeds together could be a bit unpredictable. But the spooky glitches she describes aren't something that happened, as far as I know. I don't think there was any incompatable pet message (this was a long time ago so I can only report what I recall), and I didn't get any glitchy music. Usually you just got offspring that looked really, really, REALLY weird. (I spent a lot of time breeding these freaks of nature.) The game might freeze or crash if the pet didn't know which sound file to access, or something like that, but it was a pretty resilient game and didn't crash often. Unless you did something extra silly with the game files.

God, I keep looking at what I've typed so far and feeling like this must look exactly like one of Noelle's blog posts. This feels weird.

Anyway, Noelle describes the offspring as eggs. In Dogz and Catz, the offspring weren't eggs; cats had a litter of kittens and dogs had a litter of puppies, as you'd expect. However, P.F. Magic made another virtual pet game extremely similar to Dogz and Catz which DID involve eggs:

This game is called Oddballz. There was only ever 1 Oddballz game and you could not breed the pets in this game. The pets were not based on real animals, they were just fantastical creatures. When the Oddballz were sleeping, they stayed inside their eggs in the incubator, and when you wanted to play with one, you pulled an egg out and it hatched. It's possible Toby was mixing the Catz and Oddballz concepts together for Cat Petterz. It's also possible his reference to 'eggs' was inspired in part by the 'Bad Egg' you could first find in the generation 3 Pokemon games, which are glitchy eggs that would appear if something was funky with the data. Bad Eggs could not be hatched (trying to do so would crash the game), and because they also couldn't be traded or released, they could fill up your PC storage box and thus were feared. (Of course, the whole 'egg' thing is also probably referencing Pipis, but we already know that)

Here is Noelle's entry about 'secret cats' in her Cat Petterz game:

Most of this blog entry departs from how Catz actually worked. There were not any hidden, secret cats you could unlock in the game. There WERE additional breeds that the company released after selling the games, which you could download from the website and install into your game. (There were additional species of Oddballz, too) But they were not secret and were accessible to all simply by downloading, basically free DLC before DLC was really a concept. That said, I have a LOT of mods added to my Petz game, and I just want to say having too many mods can make the game act wonky (mine now does) so that part is based somewhat in reality.

I also want to say that Petz did indeed run away due to neglect, so that part's based on the actual game too. Basically if you ignored your pets/didn't launch the game for too long they would run away. If you took really good care of your remaining pets, there was the chance your runaway pets would return, though.

There was no way for a pet to run away from happiness. But happiness WAS an actual meter in the game, among the many meters a pet had. (all such meters were hidden values. I have a mod that can show the hidden values though.) So in theory one could mod the game for something like that to happen.

The next Noelle entry that mentions the Cat Petterz game:

The "special visual style" Noelle mentions makes it crystal-clear beyond ALL doubt (not that there was any doubt before tbh) that this is a spoof of P.F. Magic's Petz. You see, each pet is made up of a bunch of balls as building blocks. If you look at a picture of a pet, you might be able to notice the balls:

It's a bit easier to see on my cat Lullaby here, since she's a hexie breed with a lot of wacky colors: the middle dark blue ball of her belly, the lighter blue ball of her rump, etc.

They're actually called 'ballz' in the game files because everything had a z stuck to the end, lol. Here's a sample of what a breed file looks like when you open it up to modify it:

This is part of a breed file for the Alley Cat breed. This is what hex editing involved, opening these files and changing the hexadecimal code directly. Noelle is claiming she took the series of numbers she received and plugged them into a breed file like that!

And the result for her was a single, floating blue ball. Obviously a Pipis reference, and also something that would be incredibly easy to mod in Petz. It also again may be inspired in part by Bad Eggs from Pokemon, which cannot be disposed of and can fill up the PC storage and the only easy way to remove them is to wipe the save file (or perform some advanced glitch manipulations). Bad Egg in Pokemon was likely meant as an error handler, which means essentially when something goes wrong, instead of the game crashing catastrophically (haha, cat-astrophically) or allowing glitchy/hacked pokemon to hatch, it makes a Bad Egg. However some fans speculated Bad Eggs were also meant to punish the player for cheating since they often showed up with hacked pokemon/illegal movesets/etc. There also were rumors that Bad Eggs would multiply, like the Pipis in Noelle's game, although I believe that was just a rumor. Regardless, this blog entry seems a fusion of Pokemon Bad Egg spooky stories and Petz game mechanics.

The last major blog entry mentioning Cat Petterz is this one:

The later Petz games did have some mini-games, actually, BUT they were pretty simplistic and not exactly exciting. We're talking tic-tac-toe, rock-paper-scissors, simon says, stuff like that. I wanna show you an example but, um. You know how I mentioned my Petz 5 game has a lot of mods installed and acts weird now? Yeah, it's a bit messed up:

I probably need to do a clean install of the game. Anyway, the Knight up there is who you play rock-paper-scissors with. The game Noelle describes in her blog entry-- and links to-- is most similar to the Scarab Crunch game in Petz 5, which is just a very basic 'click on the thing that appears before it vanishes' thing. There were not special beetles to increase your score, it was a 'catch 6 to win' kind of thing, very simple. Still, it's neat to see just how many details Noelle mentions do have some basis in the IRL games.

Anyway, I hope some of you enjoyed reading me ramble about my beloved virtual pet game from long ago. While it's ancient history by now, the games were actually very popular back in the day. And as I mentioned, the online community for Petz was pretty big. We called it 'the PC' or Petz Community. There were lots of personal websites, webrings and discussion forums dedicated to it. People would hex-edit to create their own toys, clothing items, environments for the pets to play in, their own pet breeds, and so forth. They also would have selective breeding projects, put pets up for adoption online, offer kennel services for people on vacation, and we also had dog/cat shows that we'd compete in. I did a lot of cat shows, actually. It really was a whole big thing, in part because P.F. Magic embraced the modding community, but also because the games were genuinely really good and fun to play even on their own.

Toby Fox making a couple references to Petz during the Spamton Sweepstakes might not seem like a big deal, but it was a huge thrill for me. It feels like I'm one of the few people to even remember these games despite their popularity back then. Glad to see at least a few folks remember it. And that apparently I have more in common with Noelle than I realized.

[t4tails]

sorry to say and sorry for the long ask but you've activated my nerd button because detective comics annual 8 is genuinely one of my favorite comics. it's just very good and a great little character study to the point that it's like. peak riddler , to me. can't get much better than that. it perfectly encapsulates all the traits that make him a fun character imo from his weaselly little bastard personality to how extremely just some guy he is - to the point that he was just ready to live in his own personal hell and be a regular delivery guy forever if it wasn't for that coincidence with the safe. and then he realizes he doesn't even actually like crime unless he gets called a smart boy over it. they had to tag him with question marks on all his outfits cause he looks so average you wouldn't know who he is if he wasn't labelled. "the batman was saint and devil to me". his goofy question mark curls. it's just perfect.

dont apologize youre right its really fantastic. required riddler reading methinks. its so good how he's not even talking to anyone, he's just spurring himself into a breakdown with nothing but his own thoughts. horrible litte freak. he could be a functional person if it wasnt for his deepseated need to be looked at and praised, but not even his current path guarantees him that. he makes me laugh