ideahat-universe

[ideahat-universe]

Modded Balatro on Android is possible! (and not easy to do, but here's a tutorial to help you do it).

Part of the fun of PC gaming is being able to mod games, and devices that run Steam games can still use mods BUT android ports cannot. This is due to the fundamental differences between Windows, IOS, and Android.

So modded Balatro on Android was out of the question.

Or so it appeared.

Turns out early on people realized that Balatro uses an engine called Love which is very easy to dissemble and dissect. So before the official Mobile port came out, players were able to extra the Balatro files from Balatro, turn those files into a zip, and then run the game as a zip file through the Android app Love2d.

Eventually this process became automated and if you have an android device in developer mode you can allow the app on a PC to install Balatro and transfer to save files along with it.

Well, as it turns out, this process can also allow you to install a modded version of Balatro, but it's uh, not transparent how it exactly works or what can go wrong.

But I figured it out! And I can show you how.

NOTE:

I will not provide a copy of my modded Balatro. You need to buy Balatro and install it on Steam. Buy a cheap key before you try to outright steal. That's my opinion.

Yes, you will need a PC. The mod files run through Lovely Injector. Lovely Injector supplements the mod data into the Love Engine, so when Balatro runs, Lovely Injector dumps the Mod game data into the game's loading process.

Guess what doesn't exist on Android? Lovely Injector.

Now pathing could change that but god help you if you want to change where lovely Injector pulls mod data.

So you can change that information at will so that it can pull the mod information from the pathing that Android uses. I tried to figure that out but could not do it. But that is a thing you can do.

Now with that out of the way, let's talk about how I figured out how to add modded Balatro.

Okay, so the first step is to download the tools you need. You have balatro of course, so now you require Balatro Mobile Maker and a couple Batch scripts. Also 7-zip

Here's a link to download 7-zip

And here's a link to download Balatro Mobile Maker, a list of compatible Mods, and the Batch files you will also need.

NOW, if you want to edit the textures and music on Balatro follow these steps.

Step 1: Go on nexus or any other website that hosts Balatro mods and download texture and music focused mods.

Step 2: Open Balatro.exe (easily found by right-clicking Balatro from your library and selecting “browse local files”) using 7-zip and extract the resources' folder, you can extract the whole thing if you want to, but it's not necessary.

Step 3: Fire up your art program of choice (it has to have built in transparency, so NO MS Paint.) Open both the default sprites you want to change and the mod sprites you want to use in the change, and just start copying and pasting. Keep in mind that there is a 1x and a 2x of most sprites, but you only require the 1x of a given sprite because once you're done editing you can just can resize that image to the resolution of the 2x and nothing is out of place. Also. If you are editing hologram Joker, make the sprite translucent. I saw several artists screw that up. You just need to make the sprite translucent, and it will work like the original hologram Joker does.

Step 4: Take that edited Sprite sheet and re-open the Balatro.exe file as an archive again. Overwrite the default sprites with your edited ones in the archive and close it. Now, Balatro will run with those edited sprites as the default ones.

Music has the same steps, only difference is that you'll need to change the file type to .OGG and you'll want to rename the music file to whatever track you want to replace. (Note that editing music files this way will result in the soundtrack being slowed down for whatever reason. You can compensate for that by presumably speeding the track up in Audacity)

Step 5: You will power up Balatro Mobile Maker and run it. The program should fetch all the tools it needs to run correctly. It will ask permission for various actions several times, just say yes to the most logical choices, fps 30 can be left blank. You can run the executable wherever for the most part (at least for this process it doesn't matter) and it will find your legal copy of Balatro, unpack, format it into an APK compliant format, and then repack the file to be played as an APK. Now you have a version of Balatro that plays with modified textures and music files.

That's pretty good, but what if you want to enjoy all the fun and interesting modded jokers?

Well, first off, you'll need to temper your expectations. Some of the best Balatro mods also completely overhaul how Balatro works, and the Mobile Maker cannot cope with maintaining that functionality with Android. I provided a folder of all the mods I know won't break the game at boot. Whatever happens after that is out of my hands.

Step 1: Delete whatever mods you have already in your Mod folder (excluding Lovely and Steammodded). Go into the lovely folder and delete the files in the dump folder as well.

Step 2: Drop the mods I provided into the mod folder and run Balatro. Assuming you didn't have any issues with the game finding Lovely or Steammodded you should have booted into the main menu with the Mod tab accessible. Play a new game and do a couple hands. Don't worry about winning the round, just play a couple hands so that instance of your game is saved.

Step 3: Run Balatro Mobile Maker. Run it as normal, but when it gets to the part where it asks if you want to transfer save files, leave it alone and Run Balatrofoldersetup.bat. That will copy and move around a bunch of files needed for the Mod Transfer process. Once you clicked that Bat once, go ahead and tell the Mobile Maker to transfer your save file. When it's done, click on Balatrofoldercleanup.bat to turn things back to normal. If you forget to do that, Balatro on your PC won't run. Don't worry. If you forget to do that, clicking on it at anytime will still work as intended.

Step 4: This is the hardest step. Doing Step 1-4 over again because X thing happens.

If your pc is hooked up to your android device and mobile maker is supposed to be installing it on your Android device (and has the permissions to do so) but doesn't install it. Try again. If the App just plain crashes, move the app to a different folder and try again. I hear it works best in folders where the Balatro.exe file actually is, but I alternated between download folder, Balatro Mod folder, and the actual folder that contains the Balatro game files and there was no real difference.

If the save transfer finishes in a couple seconds, it didn't work. You can confirm it by opening the Balatro game and seeing that it's just default Balatro without the Mod tab. If the save transfer process takes several seconds to actually transfer the data, then it's actually legitimately working. If you boot up and see evidence of your previous game progress and the mod tab, you're in! Enjoy it friend!

Addendum:

Yes, I know that people have gotten Jen's Almanac, Pokermon, and especially Cryptid working on Android, I don't like using the Jen and Cryptid mods because they're just insane and exist for the spectacle.

The Vanilla Joker mods dilute the collection of Jokers making the really powerful cards less likely to show up and making really odd niche cards more likely to get in the way, this adds a bit of challenge. Jen and Cryptid having many face roll jokers eliminates that, however.

Also, a lot of overhaul mods require modifying the shader files to get the game working on Android, and I just don't know where to begin fixing that. I tried the patches and they didn't work.

If you know the solution to "error validating vertex shader code: Line 125 error '/': wrong operand types: no operation '' exists that takes a left-hand operand of type ' global highp float' and a right operand of type ' const int (or there is no acceptable conversion)"

Post it on this web zone, I'm not the only one wanting a solution for that, and no one on the Balatro Mobile Maker GitHub had a solution (that worked).

There are other mods I skipped that probably worked but didn't personally want in my pack, so go to Mirahaze and download whatever mod you like and go through the steps I tried. If you boot up the Android app, and it crashes, specifying that some abbreviated file linked to a specific mod was not found or had trouble installing, get rid of the mod. You could fix it, but if you could do that, you probably didn't need my help to begin with.

[ideahat-universe]

Say good night, ENA!

There were a lot of gags I passed on for this one. I just couldn't decide which one would be the funniest. You do the others!

[ideahat-universe]

Blue Bince Binted

I can't do it. I want this, but I can't. Not only that, but I would like to enjoy Blue Prince,

When you listen to Northernlion rant and watch the positive reviews detailing and summarizing why Blue Prince is great and that you not liking it is purely a skill issue, I don't *pan through zoomer lingo dictionary,* feel seen?

Because to me, I feel like Blue Prince is half of a fantastic idea combined with a tool to stretch the game out and make it more worth playing to the average audience. Roguelike isn't adding to the gameplay formula, it keeps the gameplay formula from appearing shallow and indistinguishable from other games in its true genre, which is the puzzle genre.

To me, a bad Roguelike, (and this is going to be funny if you read my Palworld post) is something like Azure Dreams.

In Azure Dreams, you have only one location. The Tower of Monstrosity, you can go up or down the tower depending on a few factors, but it's just that one tower and the village adjacent to it and there are like maybe 40 to 50 unique maps in the tower.

At first the game is all about discovering ways to survive to the next floor, finding good weapons and loot, breeding and training monsters to provide you support, and upgrading the village and advancing the plot.

Once you start getting a few good monsters (usually the ones that evolve) and you start upgrading your favorite sword and shield, your inventory starts to settle, and you start mastering the gameplay loop to an extent that you rapidly run out of interesting encounters.

That's when you start running into very specific walls;

for instance, your items and monsters have a usefulness limit. You won't survive without them, but more items are needed to travel and survive the harder floors, but you are barred from carrying more than a few items into the tower.

This means rather than just allowing the player to come up with a unique and powerful new set of synergies based on what they unlocked and discovered in previous runs, you force them to find everything outside a couple of items you allow them to have for every run and the experience becomes very bland as you now only have unlocking the ending to look forward to.

Does that sound familiar to you? Because that does to me. That sounds like Blue Prince.

The non-Euclidean house is a series of puzzles, but as you progress through the game the rooms start to exhaust in puzzles and can only offer you pick-ups to extend your run, most of which you can't keep even though it would just make finishing the game easier.

So you try your best to wring the ending out of the game after having completed all the essentials to unlocking the last room, you just need certain rooms in certain orders and the last room and whatever random pick up that would enable that to allow you the ability to put the game behind you.

Why do I like Roguelikes? Well, there are a bunch of Roguelikes I don't care for at all really, I don't like any roguelike that plays like Smash TV. I clearly don't like Roguelikes that have you crawling through a dungeon, and honestly, I'm not a huge fan of Deckbuilding (with hearthstone inspired card designs) card game roguelikes.

What do I like? Well, I like it when a Roguelike allows for players to reach the end of a run having crushed a good portion of the game or beat it by a hair, based purely on the player's resourcefulness. Incredible wins, clever synergies, and achieving euphoria.

I truly think that the best part of a good Roguelike is turning random chance and chaos into control, and then achieving what was once impossible by one fell swoop.

That power fantasy, doesn't exist in Blue Prince, there's no true chaos to tame, master, and then turn into a hideous extension of your high level game knowledge. The puzzles are the game, and the puzzles are the same in every run. The rooms are random and the items in a given room are semi random. You never really get to break Blue Prince over your knee. It gets limp the longer you go on, and then it's just a race to finish the game.

Having said all that, this is still an award-winning game, more than likely. Enough people like it on Steam to stay positive.

If you asked me what I would do to make this game better, well, aside from removing all the RNG elements and just leaving it as is with the puzzles (It never hurt point and click puzzle games of the past to be a singular play through).

I would make the house more fantastical and liminal.

The home has an ominous tone, but it's really just an empty house that happens to have one of the most interesting gimmicks a house can have.

This should be the house from House of Leaves, or have every room designed by a surrealist artist. The game mechanics are the same, but every room has its own disorientating design that the player has to decipher to progress. To me, telling the story of the home's history through a bizarre yet specific series of art styles and home decor choices would be more interesting than the reams of text we have to read to gleam the plot of the story of Blue Prince.

Typically, I would respect the opinion of a gentleman like Northernlion, but I think he's wrong. It's not entitled gamers who can't wrap their head around a great slow burn. I think those people had a sunk cost fallacy, they invested too much time into the game because they wanted to get it, and they felt that them beating it would make it worth it, but most walked away.

So I'm tired of pretending that Blue Prince is this great game. Blue Prince is mid, and I'm tired of pretending it's not.

[ideahat-universe]

Surreal, but not incomprehensible.

A lot of people are getting into ENA and seem to really enjoy it, which is GREAT. But what I don't like to see from people is the Single Core processing that takes place with understanding ENA.

I can't even tell you which one is worse, so I'll just list all the bad takes.

How many drugs did the artist take?: None, for the artistic process. This is a correlation fallacy. Artists are sometimes suffering with mental illness or stressors due to a variety of different factors, and take drugs to cope with those factors.

But they typically do not use these drugs to tap into the creative part of their mind.

Really think about it. Imagine you spent years honing your craft and seriously creating a unique style for yourself, only for people to think that the key to your success isn't hard work. It's narcotic usage.

I need to observe this high: This is as bad as the previous one. For starters. We have a drug addiction problem. Please stop passively promoting it by suggesting that what you or anyone else should be doing is consuming mind-altering drugs for the sake of watching a cartoon.

Weed smokers, I'm looking you straight in the eyes with this one. Smoking weed impairs cognitive functions. It slows your ability to process things and shortens your memory capability.

Humor is often dependent on the element of surprise as well as sharp timing with gags. If you are constantly high on cannabis, you are processing at an extremely slow speed, which means comedy at a moderate pace is much funnier and absurdist jokes hit harder because your comprehension is weaker.

If you need to be high to enjoy something, you're basically insulting it because when high, you have lower standards.

ENA makes no sense. It just vibes: NO, NO NO, Common mistake, but sad mistake. Just because you can't understand everything in ENA doesn't mean that the ENA series is entirely incomprehensible. We can't speak about the full plot of Dream BBQ because we have to see the future chapters, but the story of all the other ENA episodes are straight forward.

Auction Day: ENA visits an auction, and it's a real auction (also the auction day shows up at the end of Dream BBQ with much of the same characters).

Extinction Party: is ENA going to a party (that she technically wasn't invited to) just so she can give a compliment to her friend Moony.

Temptation Stairway: Moony and ENA race to get a seemingly magical wish granted.

Power of Potluck: ENA misunderstands the directive of ding-dong ditching as a way of having fun, with the idea of just having fun in general.

None of that required Matpat to make a three parter video essay or a Video Essayist to make a 5-hour break-down, and it didn't require a content creator sitting down to dissect every musical note used in every scene in ENA to figure out what the plot of a given ENA episode is.

It's all the little things that don't make sense. We don't know if it's taking place in a digital world or in some afterlife/purgatory or some strange combination of those two. We don't understand the design ethos of most if not all characters. Furthermore, we don't understand why they talk the way that they do, and we don't understand various little things like doors, genies, blood IDs, Mannequins, or even ENA as an entity.

Or do we?

ENA's universe just is. There is no bread crumb trail, there is no lore dump in the form of various audio recordings. (well, there are audio recordings, but it's not exactly a lore dump) there is no fish out of water or a newbie to have the world explained to them. Everyone in the ENA series understands their universe to such an extent that nothing needs to be explained, even though so much of it doesn't make clear sense.

It is like going to a foreign country and trying to figure out what people are doing when you don't understand anything about them. Which is funny because half the cast of ENA speak a variety of different languages that are all understood by every other character but is not understood by the audience across the board.

There is consistency in the madness of ENA's world (or worlds, as the case may be)

For instance;

Blood ID, seems like a strange thing. Is it actual blood? Not sure, but blood can be used to identify people in real life, and it functions that way in game as well. In Extinction Party, ENA is expected to offer a blood sample to enter the party. In Temptation Stairway The Shepard gives ENA a blood ID to pass inspection in a future area and sure enough Mariya checks the ID and recognizes that it's not ENA's blood. It's someone else's identification. Blood is needed to attend the Purge event, and bus stops in Uncanny Streets require a blood ID to use.

It really is just identification.

Doors have been a consistent feature since Extinction Party. Light blue buildings or objects that can take a person to a different realm.

Doors require an owner to govern it. Temptation Stairway explicitly shows off the realm of the Great Runas who governs their door, Ulysses says that the door is fully closed. What is the door? The light blue mannequin that Runas, ENA, and apparently Moony traveled through.

At the end of Dream BBQ, the Uncanny Streets takes on a very pale and gray aesthetic with most characters and creatures replaced with talking gravestones. This environment matches the look and has a similar sound to Auction Day.

In the grayed out, Uncanny Streets, you can find the phone number of the Auctioneer who was selling the Hourglass dog in Auction Day.

With this it can be assumed that Auction Day is not a singular realm but the result of a realm being sold off.

The currency? Chocolates. Chocolate coins have been the currency of this universe since the Auction Day video, and comes up again in Dream BBQ.

Speaking of something not being singular.

There are many, many mannequins in the worlds of ENA, and they vary between moving around and seemingly having sentience to being lifeless dolls littering the environment.

Temptation Stairway shows that there's a link between the mannequins and ENA, and Dream BBQ shows ENA becoming a mannequin to escape the remnants of Uncanny Streets and warps to the mannequin seemingly placed in the hub world strategically.

Season 1 ENA and Season 2 ENA are seemingly different people, with the witches referring to the motherboard item as a gift another ENA gave her and Kane referring to a group of ENA's.

Additionally, in Temptation Stairway, the Shepard refers to ENA as if they were a group and the NO ENA sign at the crowd door is there to forbid any iteration of ENA from entering the realm.

There are multiple ENA's? Where are they? If the Shaman is anything to go by, they are inactive. Multiple instances of the same person can create a disorientating effect, where the thoughts of one are transferred into another person. A theory that ENA asserts as true by saying it along with him in synch as if it was common knowledge, even though the Shaman's words and actions are treated as spurious and bizarre.

The Shaman uses the pool to duplicate a perfect clone of himself and ENA can do the same or alter the form based on a variable we haven't discovered quite yet, but we know that all ENA's are essentially Mannequins possessed by whatever ENA truly is.

There are many mysteries to ENA's worlds, but it's worth considering that most things are just visual and auditory gags, and that a lot of designs are based on mythology, culture, and occasionally random internet references. Sometimes very obscure ones.

This lends to the absurd and surreal nature of the series design, but it's not incoherent. This is not Dadaism.

What baffles me the most is how pervasive this idea that ENA is untouchable when it comes to being understood, that most people don't even try. Where is the Night mind videos breaking down the world of Joel G? Why is there only a GT Live of ENA, even though far less popular games and shows have earned a game theory (or film theory) spotlight?

Why are there channels dedicated to dissecting the plot of Deltarune, even though Deltarune is not a mystery and will not have multiple endings to dissect?

Why are there still people trying to figure out the plot of FNaF even though it's been demonstrably thrown together and ret conned seven hundred thousand times and in all iterations of the story it's just bad man kills children?

ENA is way more consistent than FNaF. And maybe this is like asking for the Monkey's Paw to curl, but again, I think it's insulting to look at ENA and just shrug at how weird it is and only define it as "that crazy weird series that no one understands." But then turn around and make a multitude of videos covering a random ARG where the plot is that a demon is killing people and treat something very straight forward as if it were a complex mystery waiting to be thoroughly solved?

This is exactly what drove David Lynch crazy when he was making Twin Peaks. Make something that requires effort to understand. Everyone writes it off as a quirky, drug infused nightmare that you need to watch while high. Meanwhile, the bland, straight forward serial murder mystery is slurped up like so much creamed corn in a can.

I'm not asking people to roll around in cold sweats at 2:00 AM, wondering who Unforgiven Frank is. I just think something this well put together series deserves actual reverence and shouldn't be mined for Wacky Zacky internet thumbnails.

[ideahat-universe]

One Letter!

Okay, so I went back and watched a Total biscuit video where he talks about the differences between Roguelike and Rouge lite and saw that it was 50 something minutes, so I just opened the transcript and told an AI to summarize it instead.

Now I actually understand the difference.

Still one problem though. Rougelike and Rougelite have a single letter difference that phonetically sounds the same.

That's fucking annoying. In order to say Rouge lite verbally and have people know what you're talking about, you basically have to lean hard on the word "lite" roguelike.

What is the difference, you may ask? Here's how the Orbit AI summarized it based purely on what Totabiscuit said.

"Rougelike refers to a specific subgenre of video games with random elements, procedural generation, and permadeath, as defined by the Berlin Interpretation. Rougelite, on the other hand, is a term used more loosely to describe games that incorporate some or all of these elements but may not strictly adhere to the Berlin Interpretation's definition."

I mean, when you look at that definition I don't even understand why we bother to call something Rougelite, why does it matter if a rouge inspired game doesn't have every gameplay element that was originally in rouge?

[ideahat-universe]

There are Lies, Damned Lies, and Genetics

So lets talk about something that is already controversial. College Sports. It's nice that a lot of Black Americans find success in sports and sports are still one of the most popular past times for Americans to bond over.

So about Slavery, you know black slaves were sold by other blacks for goods and resources right?

Ya know the Ashanti, Dahomey, Igbo, and Yoruba (among others) sold us for firearms, textiles, alcohol, beads, and other manufactured items.

African children are worth at least one crate of alcohol right?

Anyways, after they were sold like cattle the grooming began.

Not the kind you're used to hearing these days.

Dog grooming more like. What happens to dogs happened to Black African slaves. Eugenics basically. Bred for physical tolerance, bred for endurance, bred for good breeding (slave masters sampled the product on that one).

And the end result is. Black Americans being some of the most physically exceptional human beings in America.

But that's the thing. When you put your talents into playing sports you are directly benefiting from decades of slave era eugenics that were done to black slaves.

When everyone talks about what the exact impact of damage slavery did to Black Americans what they should say out loud is "We think slave owners bred intelligence out of blacks."

Which is probably true but after breeding with whites (often not with consent) and other races like the Native Americans and the Hispanics, it's mostly a moot point. A white supremacist might still believe that Black people don't have the capacity for intelligence because they can't pass an IQ test with a big enough number but I think otherwise.

Black Americans can be quite intelligent when given the chance.

BUT that opportunity doesn't arise when you decide to pursue a career in entertainment and especially in sports. Colleges and the sports industry is highly greedy and manipulative. You've all seen the king of the hill episode where they try to fast track the idiot football player.

That's not hyperbole. If you are really good at sports you get to go on an escalator where you don't have to worry so much about school work, just remember to catch the ball and run fast. When education focused colleges started dipping their toes into sports, it was for the money and it was at the expense of a child's education, often a Black American.

And you know what happens when they play those games, especially football, brain damage, broken limbs, permanent and incredibly expensive physical damage that puts them out of commission for the rest of their life.

And what then? Back to school? They would need months of tutoring just to acquire the GED and you and I both know how crazy it is looking for a job when you don't have a bachelors.

But that isn't all.

Athletes get fleeced all the time. The average American who passed high school is generally quite illiterate on how finance works, well it's even worse for the Disney Fast Pass educated who weren't taught anything about money. Now they're rich they probably don't even think about their transactions until the credit cards bounce.

That just makes them big piggy banks for people to smash, and they do get smashed quite often.

And it's important to think about this meta contextually.

Europeans bought black slaves so they can do the job that other races can't or wouldn't do. They bred them for physical labor and nothing else.

Years later, large sports conglomerates effectively purchase college students with great skills in sports to put that same physical labor to use in making them generational wealth, meanwhile those players often end their lives with very little money and a whole lot of pain and anguish.

Now I won't go full Afro Centrist and call this slavery 2.0, but it is exploitation.

They are exploiting people who want to desperately escape poverty and are also taking the path of least resistance.

The solution is simple.

We restrict the amount of money college campuses make off of these young players. (Paying them a salary would probably give them pause for thought).

And make actually educating every potential sports player mandatory. They should know something in STEM before they start playing for some team.

How do we get Black Americans the education they need?

We put them in a quiet room, and then we have them read a book, read a book, read a mother fucking book.

Okay fine, we have them read articles or text documents of books instead.

They don't know how to read? Oh for the love of. Go on one of those websites where you can play abandon ware games for free and have them play Reader Rabbit!

And then when they have the basics of reading, well, give them a copy of Captain Underpants and DBZ volume one.

What? The stats show that boys read more when the books have images in them. That's how I got well read. I read Garfield Comic strips Graphic Novels.

I stand by what I said earlier this week, black culture is dying and will die or be assimilated by other races (wouldn't be the first culture to have that fate) BUT if you want to enrich black lives you have to push Black Pop culture off the pedestal and put STEM back on and then I dunno, practice monogamy?

What do I look like FD Signifier?

I didn't do this because I want to be some huge champion for black lives around the country. I did this because making posts like these is part of a ritual where upon hitting post I never have to think about this ever again.

It's a really negative subject matter and my data shows that people like the feel good posts more but this is what I have for Black History month. Black History month for all future months will be ignored.

You're welcome.

[ideahat-universe]

Black Nerd Comedy

Before we get started lets establish terms. What is a nerd? Let me bring you an old image that I imagine few have read.

This is my reference for the difference between Geeks, Nerds, and Dorks and already it feels like I've talked about this subject several times before but for the sake of the conversation. Dorks indeed have nothing in common with Nerds and Geeks other than being on the autistic spectrum basic social ineptitude BUT to add to that. Dorks seek social validation and the path of least resistance is oddly enough through the pastimes of geeks and nerds.

After all the casuals to any given subject matter won't know anything and just a little bit of reading, watching, and listening to expert information gives you an edge over casuals and you can pass yourself off as an expert. the appearance of an expert grants you prestige, but with prestige actual experts will test you on your knowledge and that's were gate keeping comes in.

Think about it this way.

Ed Edd and Eddy are all labeled as dorks but in reality only one of them applies to this archetype.

Ed is a Geek. He has an obsessive understanding of B movies and other forms of fiction and science fiction. When he isn't messing with the Eds he watches TV. The second he wears a costume he has 100% accurate cosplay/roleplay of that character.

That's geek hours all day.

Edd is a Nerd. Almost all of his knowledge is practical and has a comprehensive understanding of all multiple aspects of STEM. It's applied in a absurd way but he's also a teenage boy hanging out with his friends. Worst case scenario is that Edd shares the same fate as Dilbert as an Autistic Savant someone who has The Knack.

Eddy, is just a con artist, his only skill is in occasionally passing his persuasion checks. Ed has to do all the heavy lifting and Double D does all the logistics.

Eddy is the dork.

That's all well and good, but aren't we talking about Black Nerds?

ARE WE?

In all time on earth, having met and seen all kinds of people in the black community, I have never met a single black person that perfectly fit the media archetype of the Black Nerd.

By that I don't mean that Steve Urkel doesn't exist and that there are no savants in our demographic. No, what I'm saying is the Black Community applies a ton of social pressure on everybody that participates in it.

Anyone truly smart that also wants to have friends will have to jump through those hoops in one way or another. The end result is Stefan Urquelle. Most "nerdy" blacks socially blend in but are highly intelligent and very well read.

Here's the thing about the social ineptitude. Just because it comes naturally to everyone else doesn't mean it can't be learned, it can be taught. I should know. I had to learn it. I spent years observing how people interact and everything.

I gained a lot of power from choosing my words wisely and letting actions speak for themselves.

Even though we love Steve Urkel and various other silly black Nerd characters, they are an absolute work of fiction.

Most of the time. That overlap with Geeks and Nerds does allow for a semi accurate depiction of Black Geeks who still undergo some level of social adaptation but lot of their media consumption is either done through the lenses of their black identity or a substitution for it.

That phenomenon of Japanese characters like Goku or Naruto or Superheroes like Superman and Spiderman that get black coded is the result of black geeks merging their black community socialization with media that was created well outside of their community.

Confuses the hell out of Dorks people who don't understand how two different cultures can exchange ideas and find harmony through expression.

That's why we get so many shows and forms of media where a white character is made literally black or some other ethnicity. It's because Dorks are socially inept and assume you can only like something that is intentionally coded for you to consume.

A lot of that stuff flops because it was fine as is. No one has to make Goku Black or Hispanic to appeal to those demographics. People like Goku because he's Goku.

Basically, what I'm saying is, we need more Black Geeks in media. I'm just kidding! Having Geeks or Nerds in a show requires actually understanding the quirks and characteristics of people on the spectrum and we have not yet consistently escaped the caricature phase yet.

All this talk about socialization and I keep forgetting that people on the spectrum have been living their lives on the internet more than in public. Instead of talented and clever black minds we could end up with people like Puppychan. Well now I've just made myself sad...

[ideahat-universe]

No one likes this reboot. Why? I'm not sure, To me it's just as bad as any other black show and especially the original Good Times.

That's right. I don't in fact think Good Times was an inspirational touchstone that spoke a great truth about the black experience.

I mean, I do agree that it does speak truth about the black experience but that doesn't make it good, it just makes it relatable.

What are you relating to? Why the same thing we relate to in every Black American show.

White on Black Racism

Crab Bucket behavior

and then basic family gags that apply to almost every family show.

Oh and a catch phrase. That's always good to have in your show.

Look, I'm just not convinced about this "I'm above this trash in particular." Behavior I'm seeing.

Tyler Perry didn't make himself rich, he got in his stupid grandmother suit and did an unflattering impression of his grandmother to the tune of millions and all of his shows with or without Madea were all highly offensive and massively repetitive stereotypes about black culture.

I didn't watch those shows. I drew the line with Madea. Okay I watch one Tyler Perry movie but I didn't like it. I thought it was okay, it still played into terrible stereotypes.

I mentioned this when talking about the Boondocks but black people are very aware of how fucked up our culture is. Sometimes we blame white people for it but the open secret is that we are very well aware of the spy in the base.

Ancedote! my father worked in a nuclear plant a long time ago, it was probably well paying work but my father had better aspirations, he had ideas he wanted to present to the higher ups. But upper management was against new ideas. So he tinkered on his idea in secret. Only his best friend (who was black) knew.

His best friend ratted him out and got my father fired and his reason for it?

Crab mentality! Unironically he didn't want my father to get a leg up on him!

My cousin went to jail because his friends were criminals and when the cops came he was left holding the bag, my cousin didn't commit any crimes, but he had to go to jail for having the wrong kind of friends.

And if that sounds familiar it should. It's in every black show. Even a Disney cartoon like the Proud Family can't escape shitty black friends holding you down because it's THAT pervasive!

People talk about doomscrolling content and how twitter posts and instagram posts and tik tok videos can get in your head and make you hate everything in your life.

Black people have been doom scrolling for decades via television.

Award winning black films are almost entirely about racism and slavery.

This leads to insane casting choices like Whoopi Goldberg being in the color purple because she's a black actress. Her entire career is of being a D list actress and a failed comedian.

She's in the Color Purple, an award winning touch stone film and one of THE movies you have to like if you want to keep your black card and one of the actors in it is named FART GOLDBERG.

That's not even her real name!

It's Caryn Elaine Johnson. She calls herself Fart Goldberg as a way to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

We have two faces in black media, the horrors of racism and prejudice, and HAHA, Isn't funny that you're unreliable, selfish, and stupid?

It can make a person go insane. And it has. We cope with intense dissociation. And that's why the smoke detector alarm goes off and no one hears it.

Well okay! We do have good shows with good role models like with shows like the Cosb-ooh. Oh.

Um. How about Different Strokes, oh wait. Life was really bad for them.

Well at least we have the Fresh Prince of-

Never mind. At least we have Steve Urkel. Patient zero for the black nerd stereotype, which is good?

Television sucks. Why do we even watch it? Lets go back to looking at birds.

[ideahat-universe]

Remembering Bernie Mac

If the Boondocks was my favorite Black American cartoon and comic series, what was my favorite Black Sitcom? There's a lot of choices.

Family Matters, Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, My Wife and Kids,

Lots of options. I can tell you which one is on the bottom of my Black sitcom list

On the top was the Bernie Mac show. I have such good memories of watching Bernie Mac with my father, we would rent through Netflix, it would show up in the mail and we would watch the whole season in one sitting.

Good times. Fast Forward though and while I still have good memories there are things I don't like about it.

I don't like the children, in fact, I don't like the children in most Sitcoms regardless of race. Mostly because it's the same archetypes. The boys are little imps that always cause trouble but are otherwise dumber than a box of rocks, the teenage daughter is a bitch that is apparently five seconds away from being teen pregnant. And the youngest gets spoiled rotten.

These kids were basically foisted onto the lap of Bernie (effectively being Bebe's Kids). The show is mostly driven by these three kids being bastards (but mostly the daughter, jeez did the writers hate the daughter).

Also Bernie has a wife, she's pretty. That is all.

There are few flaws with the show that I think create a ultimately negative social narrative.

First off, Bernie Mac did have to take care of someone else's kid but he also had a kid before that happened so he wasn't some child hating loner whose lavish lifestyle was stunted by suddenly being a pseudo father.

I guess the end result is still the same, deal with children by threatening them with violence. Carrot and stick? No. Stick and Stick. And that treatment only "works" when you have a certain culture that basically enslaves the child, forcing them to grow up and live a certain way and they never break out until college.

Black people do not have that culture. You beat and yell curse words at the kids until the girls come home pregnant and the boy comes home with an ankle monitor.

It doesn't actually work. It didn't work on me when I was growing up, it only made my relationship with my father shit for 20 years and all my nieces and nephews have like questionable directions in life.

Even like the really smart cousins still ended up having children out of wedlock, getting locked up, and living from home to home.

So it doesn't work. You can't be a doormat but you can't be a brutal taskmaster but this show doesn't make that distinction, it's more favorable of the Rinse Repeat cycle of the kids doing something wrong, threatening to beat the kids to a bloody pulp, and then someone who grew up in that toxic environment saying "Lol, relatable!"

That aged really poorly for me and it's just really fucking annoying and repetitive.

Also, Bernie in the show has a trophy wife. In real life his wife was normal looking and I don't like that replacement. Bernie marrying a normal looking woman spoke to a modest upbringing and perspective.

Him getting a really beautiful woman I'm sure from a hollywood writer perspective is relatable but it makes Bernie look really conceited and makes their relationship really shallow and fake.

When a woman of modest means gives some guy telling jokes on the subway a chance and they get married and he makes a bunch of money and they have a child together and raise it together is like a really wholesome message than his life was turned upside down in a mostly negative way when he had to take in someone else's kids and his life was better when he was childless.

[ideahat-universe]

I'm awake! Stop asking!

All right, so I guess if we're in the neighborhood lets talk about the phrase "Woke"

You may notice that I don't really use this word. That's because any scenario where I would use the word "woke" I would probably say "awake" instead.

Say for instance the supposed origin of the phrase.

Black American folk singer-songwriter Huddie Ledbetter would say "Stay Woke" after his spoken word performance in reference to several black teenagers being falsely accused of raping two white girls.

Since then the phrase "woke" is a shorthand for "Stay awake to white supremacy that exists to oppress black."

One problem though, because it was shortened to 'woke', it started getting broadened.

Wake up to the injustice of racism.

Wake up to the injustice of sexism.

Wake up to the injustice of authoritarianism.

Wake up to the injustice of capitalism.

Wake up to the injustice of homophobia.

Wake up to the injustice of transphobia.

Asking people to wake up to social injustice was co-opted by whatever sort of civil rights or social idea that was out there trying to spread the word out.

Eventually the phrase became so saturated and deeply rooted in socialist values that those who were anti social justice started calling people who tell you wake up "Woke" in a derogatory way.

"Stop being woke I'm trying to get some peace and quiet in here!"

Now people have amnesia about what it even means even though it means the exact same thing it did before it's just now;

Wake up to the injustice of racism and then be called a twat for waking everyone up about it.

But don't beat yourself up for not knowing that the difference was so small.

The first mistake was coining this catch phrase in the first place.

That's right, it's Leadbelly's fault! Someone get their skeleton out and have it atone for this social contagion!

What did that actually do in the end? What has being woke done for anyone aside from insomnia?

Aw yiss, lets stay awake and gloom and doom about the idea that every social injustice is not 100% atoned for.

Stay awake, if you want. Or go to sleep. I don't care. No one really cares. Except your doctor. He would recommend 7-8 hours of sleep so don't care about the injustice of reality for at least 7-8 hours a day.

[ideahat-universe]

Face like a frog

For a long time I have had a disagreement with my mother about the Disney film as The Princess Frog.

She didn't like it because it was demonic. This confused the hell out of me. My father was like "But you read the Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe." and I was like "You watched The Little Mermaid as well as every other Disney film with magic in it."

She couldn't explain why she didn't like it beyond those simple, seemingly hypocritical terms. My mom isn't one of those "Do as I say, not as I do." people so this was mighty vexing.

Just recently though, I think I figured it out but it required additional research.

Viewers, when does the Disney Princess Frog take place?

1920s in New Orleans. The story of the frog prince is in the medieval ages but you already knew that but that's just one anachronism.

The other? Voodoo in the 20th century. In the 18th century Protestants were already stamping out pagan worship and teaching black slaves the good book (mostly to mollify them as the bible advises slaves not to be violent).

So by the time the movie happens voodoo was socially unacceptable and against the law. You would have protestants up your ass and of course racist white people punishing you for your jungle magic.

The whole idea of Voodoo is that you speak with spirits for guidance but in the Christian faith anytime you speak with a spirit that isn't the big three you are speaking with a demon. Speaking to your dead grandma? Nope, demon, Got a message from a celebrity at 3:00 am?

No, demon.

This means that even the "good" voodoo shaman Mama Odie is demonic by basically all standards of that time.

I get it, "Oda, who cares about Christianity, it's not an essential part of black culture!" to which I say, "actually it is."

Since the mid 18th century Black Americans have majority adopted variations of Methodist and Baptist Christian faith.

So this movie about the first black princess, takes a white medieval story and then slaps voodoo shamanism on top of it and then paints it in an era where voodoo would be rejected by the majority of people, including Black Americans who are Christian and would consider anything involving voodoo to be demonic and objectively evil.

There's plenty of reasons why this movie failed, it's kind of slow, the cast of characters start and end with Dr. Facilier.

It's a really slow movie with one good song but part of why it doesn't work is that it's just a mish mash of things white people think represent black people.

Jazz music! African royalty! Voodoo! Get some churchy music for the good Voodoo Shaman (completely heretical) song, Strong independent black woman setting up a business in New Orleans. Frogs! because black people eat frogs in that area? Am I right?

Now this critique is all well and good but what would the alternative be? I don't know, a christian black American stamping out a evil voodoo shaman?

Faith: New Orleans edition?

As a Disney princess film though? Black Christian faiths don't typically let women be anything more than deacons.

Lets circle back to the beginning. Prince Naveem. Now we don't have a lot of evidence of an African Prince ever visiting America much less during a time when blacks did not have equal rights and several minorities were oppressed but if we can have an African Princess. Just change some things around and there! First Disney African Princess.

Wait, African Princess? That's not the same as a Black American Princess. FUCK.

America never had a king which means America never had a princess which means there could never be a Black American Disney princess.

There is no system of traditional nobility.

We'd have to do something crazy and call a black celebrity a "Princess" because Hollywood celebrities is the closest to traditional aristocracy.

But how do you make a movie about Josephine Baker and not have it be an offensive mess like Pocahontas ended up being?

I'm starting to see that this idea was doomed from the start.

[ideahat-universe]

Groan Rivers

All right, so I'm not a fan of Obama, I voted for him twice, and honestly, he let me down. Didn't really accomplish anything I wanted from him and I had what I would have considered very small desires.

The fact that black people came in droves to support him on the grounds that he would have our backs and did nothing about inner city gangs and shootings but made sure to bail the corrupt bankers out was not great.

But just because I don't like Obama's term, doesn't mean I'm a hater. Lets flip the script and be pro Obama for just this post.

Lets debunk a terrible rumor that has been floating around for several years. Only the most brainrotted know this but it's a real rumor, the rumor being that Michelle Obama, is a man.

The idea is that Barack Obama is gay and that his daughters are adopted and that Michelle Obama is trans but not the kind of trans that takes hormone treatment or did top or bottom surgery (and manages to have a perfectly feminine voice) but just effectively a man in a dress.

Yes, this is not based on some objective factors that show up when authenticating a transwoman as having been originally a man, this is way more sexist than that. It's abusing a woman's identity because she's not attractive enough to meet some standards of what a woman should look like.

But who started this rumor? Where did it come from?

It was Joan Rivers.

Yeah she said Obama was gay and that Michelle Obama is a man.

She doubled down on this later I believe by 'complimenting her.'

Here's the quote so you can get a better idea on who we're dealing with.

“I think it’s a compliment. She’s so attractive, tall, with a beautiful body, great face, does great makeup. Take a look and go back to La Cage Au Follies (sic). The most gorgeous women are transgender. Stop it already … and if you want to talk about ‘politically correct,’ I think this is a ‘politically incorrect’ attack on me because I’m old, Jewish, a woman and a ‘hetty’ – a heteosexual … and I plan to sue the reporter who, when he turned off his camera, tried to touch me inappropriately on the a** - luckily he hit my ankle. Read the book … if you think that’s silly, wait to (sic) you see what I say about FDR and Eleanor!”

Okay, so first off, notice that she doesn't apologize. She essentially doubles down by saying that Michelle Obama has a great body (for a man), a great face (for a man), does great makeup (for a man pretending to be a woman), says she's attractive (for a man), and is tall (a masculine trait).

Finally she says that other transwomen are just as pretty which sounds like a compliment but read between the lines, Joan Rivers (or most people for that matter) don't get transwomen confused with regular women so while on the surface it might sound like Joan Rivers is saying Michelle Obama is very attractive and good looking she's also saying that she's a man, she can tell from a mile away that she's a man, she doesn't look like a woman but is a very pretty man in a dress.

She then deflects with some nonsense diatribe about how she has enough victim points to not be hounded about her statements about Michelle Obama.

Not too long after Joan Rivers made that statement she died, you know what Oogway says, there are no coincidences.

So the rumor mills starts rolling and the next thing you know this falls into the lap of Alex Jones who promotes the idea that Michelle Obama goes by the name "Mike" and evolves it to "Big Mike" and Ben Garrison adds to it by creating this infamous image.

Every image since then from Ben where he draws Michelle he uses the supposed Dead name and draws her as unflattering as possible.

But Ben Garrison shares the load as every photo of Michelle from the waist down was edited to have a penis bulge. As if the tens of millions of people who voted for Obama twice would only notice that once Trump started running.

It's not like people weren't looking for any reason to beat Obama in his two campaigns. The whole reason why the birth certificate controversy happened was because Hillary's people were looking for dirt on Obama. At that time both Hillary and Obama said that marriage was between a man and a woman and they brooked no ground for the LGBT community. Hillary coming out with dirt that Michelle Obama is a man in a dress would have devastated Obama's campaign and apparently is so blatant just any picture of Michelle in a dress gives away the goods (pun intended).

She could have just taken a picture of Michelle Obama and play the Mike Myers clip.

She didn't do that, why? Because Michelle Obama is a woman baby!

Lets take it from the top. Joan Rivers was the one who started the rumor. Why did she do that? Easy, Joan Rivers was a bitch. She was a failed comedian who pivoted to being a gossip who would talk shit about stars as they walked across the red carpet.

Not only that, by the time Joan Rivers started doing that she was losing her looks and she was constantly around way prettier people than herself. She went under the knife, often. She also took a lot of drugs and at the age of 81 she died due to a lack of oxygen that took place during one of her many procedures.

Oh hey, Joan Rivers died while under the knife, the fix is in am I right fellas?

Maybe, *sniff* maybe, or maybe Joan was in terrible health from decades of drug abuse, got unlucky, or genuinely had bad surgeons working on her.

There's no way to objectively knowing for sure but Occam's Razor suggest Joan River's poor health on top of the surgeons possibly being inept is why she died and that the timing was a coincidence (Oogway be damned).

Alex Jones and Ben Garrison are supreme Obama haters. Ben draws Obama in an equally unflattering way and Alex Jones, well Alex Jones basically platforms every conspiracy or rumor (as long as it doesn't target Jews).

After that, one boomer edits a penis onto Michelle Obama's outfit and another believes it's a unedited photograph. Rinse, repeat. Additionally there are just trans truthers. People who think Everyone in Hollywood is trans. A woman with a little bit of muscle? Transmale, A guy with a baby face? Transwoman.

These people are failing their perception checks while the DM says "You believe you saw that."

And how do you disprove this? Birth Certificate? That can be doctored, pictures of Michelle pregnant? Those can be edited. Everything can be edited into looking real, especially now. And these people believe microplastics are actually nanomachines rewriting the human genome in real time.

You can't convince them, but just because the conspiracy is stupid and highly insulting doesn't mean your only answer is "I can't believe he said that, he's such a bigot!" because that's you telling them that they are right.

Just shut down the argument with a pithy counterpoint.

If you believe Michelle Obama is a man you believe the opinion of a drug addicted comedian who gossiped for a living.

[ideahat-universe]

The Boonies

Every now and then I think about what was the most influential piece of media I consumed in my youth and it's hard to say what really lasted. Sure I loved reading Supermegatopia but I don't really like super heroes, sophomoric humor, or the general furry community so a lot of stuff is like that where I just like it but it doesn't have real influence.

I can't say that about Boondocks though but it's not like it's a compliment.

The Boondocks, both the comics and the cartoon show is definitively a black pill (pun not intended) that long term, killed my interest in black culture and put me from being highly supportive to cynical.

I grew up in a fairly diverse community. I got mugged by people of every race and had friends of various races as well. Black teachers, white teachers. All of them bad at teaching.

At the time when I read books about slavery I felt manipulated. Like I was being convinced that I should hate white people because of slavery and decades of abuse. But in my current life I had white friends and black bullies. Many black bullies.

I would be mocked for having a funny accent. I spoke in a way black Americans do when they want to mask their true accent from judgemental whites.

I just don't speak Ebonics to any extent.

So that and the fact that I just listened to whatever, played whatever, and read whatever made me alien to my black peers.

But until the Boondocks came out I really didn't know what the differences were because I just saw people as individuals for the most part and all of my friends were equally estranged and discerning so 2 and 2 were never put together.

After watching and reading Boondocks it was clear that Black culture has been, I don't know, poisoned? And it's not even worth talking about it because we all know it's been poisoned. Literally every piece of black media made for black people by black people typically has some sort of commentary on how black people keep each other down.

And white people. Oh jesus, white people think they know the solution. It's their fault. They did the racism which has ruined black people even to this day, they have to fix it for us somehow.

Whenever I hear this rhetoric I just think of this clip from the Boondocks.

Just stop. I know there are black people who tell you to do this occasionally but just stop.

It doesn't end there. What about the speech Huey gave during the R Kelly Trial?

It hurts how true this is. Black Culture can't discern who is or isn't innocent, who should or shouldn't be influential, and if you asked thought leaders in the Black Community it's by design. Do I need to bring up the Malcolm X clip again?

And I should note that I don't like Malcolm X. He was a black Segregationist. He wanted a separate but equal black and white community. I just want one. An American community but there's too many ways to divide people for that to actually be possible so I have to play the cards that I'm dealt and I'm typically dealt the cards that points out that most people are tricked into supporting bad people simply through solidarity and that understanding the essentials of right and wrong doesn't actually do anything because people who worship celebrities and political figures don't have morals. They have rules and these rules don't make the world a better place to live in but it does preserve whatever group it represents.

How about Uncle Ruckus? Has anyone noticed that Uncle Ruckus' theme sound familiar?

Don't know what I'm talking about? Are you sure?

What is the significance? None probably. I just thought that was interesting and no one else ever says anything about it.

Nice little Ice breaker. Ya know. Cool things down a bit. Lets talk about something nice that I like about The Boondocks. It's quite funny. It's held up really well, and the choice to draw it in a faux anime style allowed it to stand out in both the newspaper comics and on television. It's to this day probably one of the most well animated Black Cartoons since, maybe the remake of the Proud family and Afro Samurai.

In fact it was too good. Aaron McGruder kept complaining either mental, emotional, or physical exhaustion from making the comics and presumably the show as well. It's funny how things turned out in the end, both features were very well done and very influential and controversial and in the end it just gets cut off.

Did the Boondocks encourage positive discourse on Black and White American culture? No, it made a lot of funny race and political memes.

Oh! It also encouraged racist people to call black people Uncle Ruckus in addition to Uncle Tom. So that was nice. Nice in the same way a ladder falling on your foot is nice. I never heard of black people being called Coons and related more now than I have in my entire life of living in the deep south. And it's usually black internet personalities having beef with other black people over politics.

This is unacceptable. If you see the political system we've been dealt with as nothing more than a game of Red Vs Blue you honestly don't have any business even voting much less condemning people about who they vote for. It's fundamentally clueless thinking to assume that one party is good and the other is bad. We're not even supposed to have a two party system specifically because you can manipulate people with this thought process.

And while we are on the subject of talking about Politics.

Obama.

It's actually amazing that this episode about Obama was all about ripping the varnish off of anyone who thought Obama was a good candidate for presidency and it happened right out the gate.

Most people started to turn on Obama by his second term (that's why he actually struggled to beat Mitt Romney despite Romney offering basically nothing worth voting for) but this was out during his first term and it was like "Obama isn't doing any of the stuff he should do as a democratic candidate, we'll support him anyways because he's black and it's good for the clout and maybe we can cause more trouble and he'll look the other way because he's also black, also he's handsome. And black."

As someone who voted for Obama and turned into a icicle to be physically there for his inauguration I was not a fan of how cynical this episode was.

But now? Yeah, it was right. About everything. That's why Trump got into office. Because everything said in this episode of the Boondocks was true and that reality was so harsh that people just jumped ship and not only went from voting democrat to voting republican but voting for Trump, three times in some cases.

Mistakes were made.

We have just one more clip about this and I'll wrap this up. This one is directly from Aaron McGruder from 2003.

Aaron McGruder talked about the using up of Moral currency 22 years ago.

Guess what? We're in debt. We owe millions of dollars worth of moral currency.

What can you do? Change black culture from the inside.

It can't be done. We can't keep having this conversation about what we need others to do or what we need to do. It's too late. We're bankrupt. We're morally bankrupt.

Black Culture must cease to exist if Black Americans want to live in a better world. It's can't be done through force, or by nagging, and it can't be done as part of some political group initiative.

You just have to give up on the idea and just do what you can for yourself.

TL;DR Boondocks pretty good. I like it when the funny white man does the funny dance.

I like it when Stinkmeaner says the N word or when Uncle Ruckus says the N word or when anyone says the N word really!

I like it when everybody is kung-fu fighting. The Boondocks is like an anime! I like anime!

Watch out Tom! If you go to prison you would be raped! Isn't it funny to assume a soft spoken well adjusted black man is too weak to resist being sexually assaulted? Sexual assault is so funny!

I like it when Huey Freeman gives a thought provoking speech that should invoke self reflection in the black community but never does! IT'S JUST LIKE REAL LIFE. I love Huey P Newton!

Tom's relationship is on the rocks because he married a white woman who only married him because he was black but oops! He's not black enough!

Statistics, statistics, Riley is a statistic!

7/10

[ideahat-universe]

More Proud than normal?

Okay, so when I heard about the Proud Family reboot I got nervous. People were talking about the Proud Family going woke, but having actually watched the show back in the day, I remember it more or less being woke already.

I kind of already knew what I wanted to say about the Proud Family, but I was worried about going too hard, and I didn't want to make a post without having seen the remake beforehand, so I rewatched the first five episodes of the original series and the first five episodes of the reboot.

And I discovered!

That there aren't drastic changes between the two versions.

Yeah uh, I don't know what to tell you, I set up a Bingo Card expecting. Well, let me show you my Bingo Card.

This is based on my original memories of the show and from hearsay about the new show, and let's just go down how prominent any given element was in those ten episodes I watched.

Onetime character Cameo: Most characters are reused, but occasionally the show would have a character only show up for one episode, usually celebrities or one dimensional characters that exist to only serve that plot. One notable character was Stinky because for some reason Stinky got canned in the remake, but we'll talk about that later.

Penny's Mom Is also here: Penny's mom Trudy is the straight man of the entire family, which makes her the least entertaining character in the whole show. Having said that, there wasn't an episode where she didn't have at least one line of dialog.

Paranormal/Supernatural: The Proud Family actually has a lot of surreal moments, usually involving Oscar's concoctions and schemes, but really anything can happen as long as it makes the plot go forward. This happened a lot less in the remake. In the original, Penny had psychic powers (but only for one tiger) and there was a magician that knew real magic. Penny also went to the Matrix and learned to fly (Won't be the last time, either). Penny also gets peer pressured by a duplicate of herself that existed for a sight gag. In the remake, aside from Oscar antics Penny magically gains the voice of Ton Loc.

Real person Voicing Themselves: The Proud Family has a habit of referencing real people in pop culture, and especially real people in Black culture. In the first five episodes, not a lot of show up from either series aside from Ton Loc. Lizzo also showed up, but I can't tell if it's actually her.

The Reset Button was pressed: Sometimes things get so weird or screwed up that the only logical choice is to pretend most of it didn't happen, but the Proud Family is pretty good at remembering things. The remake is even better at remembering things than the original.

Talking out of both sides of the mouth: This is when a moral gets so screwed up that they validate the moral when they're supposed to be condemning it. This happened more in the original than it did in the remake, usually this involves her friends doing one thing and saying another or Penny getting what she wants from Oscar because we can't allow Oscar to get a win, which undermines the theme of the episode.

Latino Barney Rubble: This was for anytime Felix Boulevardez shows up. Is the character funny? No, not really, is the character bad and annoying? No, Not really. He's actually very mid, but he is basically Oscar's only friend in the show, and they have a Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble dynamic so he really only exists in the show to facilitate that, and the show was good at giving him a wife and daughter who also contribute (although if his daughter didn't exist it would make the show better). Also, they have the way better grandparent.

Funny Hispanic Pimp Man: This was when Papi Boulevardez showed up on screen, which is always a pleasure. In the original series he would laugh so hard that his mic would blow out which made it that much funnier, but in the remake the audio equipment no longer clips when he laughs which makes it less funny. Still, the gimmick of him insulting Sugar Mama to her face is still fun given that no one else gets away with doing that.

Gross Sisters Cameo: Probably my favorite characters from the show, the Gross Sisters in the original show just rob people. Also, their dad is a titan, but that's beside the point, in the remake they kind of scam people, it's a little unclear, they mostly hustle and still use a little muscle. Additionally, their song about demanding money is not bad. In the original, no one mentioned why the Gross sisters are blue. We all knew it was because they never put on lotion. There is a lotion culture in the black community. Black don't crack? It does if you don't apply lotion every day! Be sure to get the coconut oil. That's the good stuff.

Actually Laughed: It's anytime I couldn't resist having a good laugh. It never happened in the remake, but it happened several times in the original.

Penny is a bitch: Anytime Penny fulfills the stereotype of the bratty, moody, teenage daughter. Happened way less in the remake, but was fairly often in the original. To be fair, I tried to not count anytime she was having a reasonable argument with someone like Oscar (although if she called Oscar by his first name than referring to him by his honorific, then that usually got her dinged).

Black People Bad: is when black people criticize other black people for exhibiting stereotypical behavior. This might as well been the Dijonay space because she is the most trifling character in the show in either version.

Garfield!: Anytime Oscar yells out Penny's, Trudy's, or on rare Occasion Sugar mama's name. This is a running gag but doesn't happen very often.

Ghetto Dancing: Anytime someone started dancing and it wasn't traditional. Happened less often than you think.

BLM pandering: Only happened in the remake, and it really only came from one character. Maya (and Micheal) are the spare characters that replaced the spot where Stinky used to be (there's also Maya's brother who spends 90% of his time playing on golden AYN Odin and I mean relatable but not entertaining) and Micheal was from the original and got uberbuffed into being a very strong side character and I have no problems with him. I miss Stinky, but Micheal is better at being a friend than most of Penny's friends. Maya however fluctuates between being an Afrocentric Marxist and someone that's tolerable, and it's probably where most of the "Woke" accusations come from.

Having said that. The original run of the Proud Family does get on its soapbox now and again. Penny does many different social speeches, and there was the Kwanzaa episode where they got "educated on what Kwanzaa is." And unfortunately, it's bullshit. All of it is wrong, and Kwanzaa has basically no relevance in Black American culture. There's the Martin Luther King episode, which is better and just random things Penny says to get her way that sound like socialist gobbledygook, but really, most 14-year-olds say stuff like this to get what they want.

A B plot connected: It's typical for a sitcom show to have two plots that occasionally connect, but the Proud Family didn't really do that a lot. It's nothing as obvious as Phineas and Ferb anyway.

Family Bad: Anytime, Penny or Oscar complained about their general family dynamic or did things that spited their own family for personal gain. Didn't happen too often in the reboot (or is it remake? I keep flipping on these terms) but was fairly consistent in the original. Often the show says that Penny's upbringing is what keeps her on the right path, even though the only one with objectively good morals is Trudy.

Black Culture reference: Anytime a pop culture reference that is very specific to black culture is made. So say Ton Loc or some of the books references in the reboot are black culture references. Also, little things like organ music playing when someone is giving a speech (framing it as evangelical as opposed to political) and of course rap music and rap/hip hop culture.

Oscar the Doormat: Oscar is the Meg of the show but depending on the subject of the episode he doesn't always get stepped on. I think. I'm pretty sure Oscar always gets clowned on by someone or even something. Not only that, but I've never seen a show hate a father figure more than the Proud Family hates Oscar Proud (which is saying a lot when you consider writers for All in the Family made Archie bunker into a literal straw man).

Pop Culture reference: Any reference that wasn't black coded. Which was still a lot for either show.

Penny's friends are cunts: This has gotten, so bad, someone made a video about it. Oh, I'm sorry, MANY videos exist about how bad Penny Proud's friends are.

The real question is, why is it like this? Um, okay so. Except of Zoey, who barely has a character in either show. All of Penny's friends are black people stereotypes.

Connect the dots yourself. Yes I know. LaCienega isn't black. She's black coded, look, just go watch Boondocks again! Or any show with a black majority cast, written by black people for black people. Horrible people like Dijonay are part and parcel of black culture. If I had things my way it wouldn't be like that, but I don't so it is.

For the record. The creator of the Proud Family also made Bebe's Kids and that was a cartoon (and originally a standup routine) where the moral of the story is that fatherless black children become destructive and unruly but if you get some kind of man to be in their lives that's better than nothing (which is true by the way but good luck finding a man that wants to put that much effort into a relationship, you're asking a lot of a person unfortunately).

So when you watch the Proud Family, you have to remember that the creator does not have some polished version of what a child of color should be like. He's seen the hood side of children and finds it to be an endless source of humor (that you can occasionally spin into a soapbox message).

Oscar the businessman: Anytime Oscar's failing snack business was mentioned. I don't understand why we have to insist that Oscar is incapable of making a snack that is edible, it's just sugar. Most snacks are just sugar, chips are just fried potato slices with ingredients that are sitting around in a cabinet sprinkled on.

Any moron can make an edible snack by just using what's in the kitchen (although I guess in this case we have to remove the cleaning tools from underneath the sink). So it's a stupid contrivance, sometimes existing to facilitate a plot making Oscar more a mad scientist than a Snack Vendor.

White People Bad: Never happened. Maybe there's like one episode but the Proud Family is not racist (to white people).

Sugarmama World's Worst Grandmama: Sugarmama basically gets dinged whenever she bullies Oscar for no reason which was all the time. I don't know why the show thought it would be hilarious for someone's own mother to hate them and for their abuse to be a running gag but having seen it irl, it's not very funny.

So my final diagnoses is. The Proud Family, both versions are kind of trifling and talks out of both sides of its mouth but if you just sit down and treat it like a comedy, it is funny.

[ideahat-universe]

It all checks out.

So among all this conversation about women looking too manly and how female characters should be designed, I've been keeping quiet on my own personal bugbear.

Monster Girl designs.

I HATE that monster girls are more girl than monster.

It's always 70% woman/girl and 30% monster. Barely enough to look like an actual monster and more like cosplay, like all the female monsters are just humans wearing sexy costumes.

Then there's Ivy from Deadlocked.

Ivy is the perfect monster girl character design.

Let me tell you why.

First off. They gave Ivy a wonderful voice.

As Max from Hotdiggedydemon once said, "The voice of the character IS the character" And we are set up on Ivy's personality where feminine aspects are detected in multiple ways.

Meanwhile, she is a gargoyle, which is a subcategory of reptile, with the gimmick being that it's a monster golem.

Cool, but not a popular trope.

Then again, dragons dominate the reptile group of the furry community. Don't believe me?

Here's a pie chart!

This is part of a larger conversation regarding the homogeneous nature of furry artistic expression.

But I digress. They stuck with a uncommon creature type and then they committed to it with Ivy having no breasts and being ugly.

In fact, Ivy has a similar, goblin like body type as Lexington from Gargoyles

But here's the thing. Gargoyles was a very successful cartoon series so you would think that it has thousands of tags on a gallery site like e621 BUT it's only a thousand less than the Gargoyles general tag (meaning that most of that tag is just that one tv show) but amongst all the characters in that show (that were regularly occurring gargoyle characters)

Ivy is roughly as popular as most of them.

Here's another chart.

Ivy is slightly more popular than Demona.

For reference, here is Demona.

Here is Ivy

Isn't that a fascinating dichotomy? Demona ticks basically every box on being a traditionally attractive character while being visually conservative (can't be too sexy in a children's cartoon), but people are as attracted to her as they are Ivy from deadlocked.

I think it's better creatively to abstain from what comes naturally and try something more experimental. I feel like just because you can draw everyone with a human shaped face, a human head of hair, and stonking great titties, that you should. Sometimes you shouldn't.

But that's just my opinion.

[ideahat-universe]

Look what I found in an estate sale! It's quite old too!

It's a Raggedy Ann and Andy book.

At first I assumed it was a children's book, but it doesn't fit the typical conventions of a book meant to be read by someone who can barely read. Instead, it's somewhere between a chapter book and a children's book.

Kind of reminds me of Little House on the Prairie.

Annabelle screwed a really nice franchise, didn't it? Here we had the perfect doll, not overly sexualized, very modest, very cute, very huggable. Its central theme is love, friendship, and kindness.

Annabelle was some stupid ghost story made by some con artists and it tainted what was a really lovely toy line.

Now what do we have? Barbie, we can't decide if Barbie is terribly regressive because it promotes negative aspects about women's body image, or if Barbie is really empowering because she has 500 jobs and none of them involve being a mother or a wife.

Don't even get me started on Brats.

So much better with Barbie. Here's another image.

I'll be taking good care of the book as it has some age and wear on it.

If it interests you to read it.

You can find it here.

Thinking about it. This would be a splendid book to read to a child before they go to bed.

[ideahat-universe]

Something about the way Paul Lynde drinks the coffee...