#The Inator Method

[ferbracket]

Candace Competition

Game avatar. ''Hmm, maybe they should call it Jump, Duck, and Blow''

Gamer. ''I'm all hooked up and ready to multitask.''

[masterdizzi]

On one hand I ADORE how Doofinshmirtz dives into a song by roasting people

On the other hand, people actually make a living by selling their toenails, doesn't make it any less wierd tho

Thought about it because I just ripped off one of my toenails by accident

[athena-muldrow]

Stanford: "A possum?"

Stanley: *duct tapes a knife to Shanklin's back*

Stanford: "SHANKLIN THE STAB POSSUM?????"

Gravity Falls but Shanklin is like perry the platypus or something

[scam-alerts]

🔎Scam Exam(ination)🔍(updated 3/4/25)

Seen as: I would like a commission of my son/pet... Scam Type: Commission

Also: See this update on how scammers are changing the scam.

Accounts running this scam: furrynachodelusion breeariaga7

Proof of iloveartworks being a scammer can be seen/found here and here. The other accounts listed above all follow the same script and additional proof and can usually be found in the tags: #scam, #scams, or #scam alert.

IMPORTANT: Update as of 1/31/25 - They are now threatening law enforcement if you do not send them payment via the fake paypal email. This is a scare tactic. Please see that section once you get to it. Thank you.

-----

Being open to commissions isn't uncommon if you're an artist.

You may often find yourself receiving messages from strangers looking to commission you for a picture of their OC or even their favorite ship.

But if you receive a message like this, you should be careful you don't fall into a scammers trap.

-----

How it starts:

it starts by receiving a message from another user requesting a commission. Again, typical common practice if you're an artist.

What they ask for at the start, is usually the first red flag.

IMPORTANT 1/15/25: These scammers are now sending Asks and commenting on peoples posts asking 'are you open to commission? Send me a DM.' So please be aware of this as well!

Here are some images of how this scam conversation starts:

Images provided by: (1)@neogandw, (2)@foggywiz4rd, (3-4)@maikaartwork

🚩Red flag's (part 1)🚩

I want you to draw my son/daughter.

I want you to draw my son/daughter's pet.

It's a blank blog with no posts/reblogs

It's a blog that's only a few days/week old.

While this request seems simple enough, this scam gets worse.

Here are some recent examples of the dog they will request:

-----

An offer too good to refuse:

Now you may be thinking, 'surely this can't be bad or malicious, right?' They just want you to draw a picture of their child or their child's pet! And that's definitely what the scammer wants you to think. Which is what brings us to the next set of red flags:

Left image from @neogandw, right image from @maikaartwork

🚩Red flag's (part 2)🚩

'I will pay you $200-$500+' (an amount way way beyond your normal asking price.)

'I just want the best you can do.' (They don't know how to answer questions related to details such as pose, background, style, objects you want included, etc.)

'It's for their birthday/holiday' - ' I want it done as soon as possible.' (They will push that you do this with a sense of urgency so you don't ask questions.)

-----

The Catch:

Now, if you haven't reported and blocked them by now, and you agree to take this persons commission, this is where the catch to this scam comes into play.

If you tell the scammer to send you an invoice, they will refuse.

If you tell them to use your preferred method, they will refuse.

Those methods just 'wont/don't work', you see.

What they really want, is your PayPal email and your name.

From here they will say that they sent you payment, and that you should check your email. Or that 'they got an email and something went wrong' and that you should check your email.

And here is where the scam comes to ahead.

They will send you a fake email meant to look like it came from PayPal that looks like the ones shown below:

Second image provided by @badlibbing

Second set of images provided by @petxka, thank you!

This third image comes from @elrealelchunk on 1/31/25 and is very important. Scammers are now threatening law enforcement if you do not send them money.

Again as noted in the top of the post, this is 100% a scare tactic.

-----

What this email means / How this scam works:

In the case of screenshot one (provided by @neogandw) the 'MONALISA' is the person who was trying to commission them.

The payment hasn't 'went through', and the e-mail (from 'fake PayPal') is saying that they, the artist, needs to send $200 to 'MONALISA' to 'expand the limit' of their account to get the $500 that is owed to them.

Read the e-mail and think about what you're being asked to do:

'You are to send (name) money to expand your account.' You are to send someone money, to get money.

If your account is limited, why would you need to send another PayPal user money to 'unlock' your account or 'expand it', and not just contact PayPal itself to try and resolve that issue...?

This is not how PayPal works, in any sense.

This is just a way for them to scam you.

There are also a handful of red flags in this email alone.

🚩Red flag's (part 3)🚩

The sender address is not from an official paypal.com address, but instead a gmail.com address. This means that this came from a person, not a company.

The formatting. Let's be frank, no official email from PayPal will ever look like this.

The spelling/grammar issues are everywhere.

Weird url's at the bottom of the email. (I removed them for safety reasons)

Additionally: You may also find or see links in this emails instructing you to 'go here' to unlock your account. These are phishing (wikipedia) links that they will use to steal your PayPal login information. Never click links in emails asking you to 'fix an issue' with your account unless you can verify who the sender is.

If you send these people your money, you will get blocked and never see them again. That's just how this scam goes...

If you'd like another variation of this scam which talks about money wiring, you can check out @maikaartwork's version by clicking here!

-----

Final thoughts:

If you fall for a scam like this, thankfully there still might be hope.

Contact PayPal and explain what happened in detail. Show them every shred of evidence that you have showing that you were scammed including the name of who scammed you, and the email that sent you the scam, and who you wound up sending the money to.

If you use the messaging system that uses the AI chat bot, ask it repeatedly to 'speak to a real person' until you get sent to a live agent. (this is stupidly frustrating but sadly it's what you have to do.)

And remember, take screenshots and report these users to the websites they are running these scams on. If they DM you on tumblr? Report the DM. If they do it on insta, bsky, twitter or even discord?

Make sure you report them there too.

ALSO: Beware of recovery scammers. This is anyone coming into your DM's telling you they can 'help you get your money back' after you made a post talking about how you got scammed. These scammers are just looking for a quick buck.

Here's a post about ethical hackers (aka recovery scammers)

Other helpful guides on spotting scams. (by @kyra45)

[buskingalbatross]

results of a quest to identify the cicada in dnp’s rodent boy summer instagram post

[video: an audio comparison of dan howell's mediterranean cicada imitation and two real cicada species from the med]

abstract: following a perceived dearth of interest in the cicada latched onto the wall in one photo of the ten in dan and phil’s most recent joint vacation instagram post, the authors of this post (buskingalbatross and an anon who instigated this quest) have endeavored to determine its identity at the species level. using resources such as naturalism networking site iNaturalist, various scientific research articles, a databank of Mediterranean cicada song audio files, and Dan’s imitation of cicada screams in the AmazingPhil video “How Phil Nearly Died,” we have concluded that the cicada is most likely an East Aegean cicada (Cicada mordoganensis). obtaining these results would have been impossible had we not received assistance from @/bitchslapblastoids, who generously provided the herein unnamed geographical location* of dan and phil’s summer rat and relaxation destination. I would also like to thank @/pierogish for providing feedback on comparisons of cicada audio files with Dan’s cicada noises.

[image: the individual in question]

methods, results, and conclusions below the cut.

*the authors of this tumblr post would like to flaunt their scientific achievements unencumbered by potential discourses surrounding the unearthing of this location, and thus have chosen to omit its name from this post. the authors of this tumblr post nevertheless understand that the location can be discerned by those curious enough to discern it. the authors moreover state that they harbor no wish to compromise dan and phil’s privacy.  

methods and results

iNaturalist’s search feature was used to gain an awareness of what species of cicadas have been observed on the mediterrranean peninsula where dnp went on holiday. a spreadsheet was created to organize data such as cicada common names, scientific names, the number of observations for any given species, the reliability of those observations (that is, how likely the observer was to have correctly identified a cicada; a high quality identification is referred to on iNat as a research grade ID), the period of time in which a species is the densest in numbers (most prevalent in its aboveground habitat), appearance, and, finally, a link to an audio file containing each cicada species’ song. audio files were the last piece of data to be acquired, and so were added to the spreadsheet very last.

once a list of species had been determined and entered into the spreadsheet, we compared the appearences of each candidate cicada species to dnp’s instagram image. all in all, we looked at seven cicada species: the black sorrow cicada (Cicadatra atra), the ash cicada (Cicada orni), the common cicada (Lyristes plebejus), the red cicada (Cicada haematodes), the east aegean cicada (Cicada mordoganensis), the geminate cicada (Lyristes gemellus), and Cicada lodosi (a species name now possibly defunct but with 4 observations in the area of interest in the past five years).

[images: left - the east aegean cicada; right - the ash cicada]

then, I decided to read a truly excessive number of scientific research papers about cicadas in the mediterranean. why did I do this? besides reasons of entomology-associated passion (and legitimate professional interest), I did it because I learned that it turns out that basically, the aegean sea constitutes a “hot spot of cicada diversity,” with numerous species across different genera that nevertheless look—pretty much all the same! quite quickly, it became apparent that one blurry instagram image would be insufficient to determine the species. in fact, even if the image had been crystal clear, it wouldn’t have mattered. apparently, many cicadas of the eastern mediterranean are not morphologically distinct (meaning, again: some of them look identical) and what differentiates them is actually, primarily, their songs. they are “acoustically divergent,” with females being able to locate males of their own kind by their unique calls alone, not their looks. different species also tend to be distributed differently across this region, by which I mean some are only found on certain islands, or in certain areas of Italy, the Balkans, Greece, or Turkey, or Greece and Turkey, etc etc. I needed to read to form a better picture of all of this, essentially, and to gather clues.

[image: some of the papers I read]

after perusing all of this fascinating literature—and also squinting really hard at dnp’s picture and the photos of cicadas we had accumulated—I came to the conclusion that, most likely, the cicada was either Cicada orni, the ash cicada, or potentially more likely, Cicada mordoganensis, the east aegean cicada. both had three observations recorded in the region of interest (the most observations of any species), and both had the most similar coloration and patterning to dnp’s cicada. my predilection for the east aegean choice stemmed from two things: 1. the east aegean cicada observations were of a higher quality (research grade) than the ash cicada, and 2. the papers I had read were telling me that while east aegeans were prevalent along the entirety of the our region of interest, ash cicadas were more constrained, geographically, to northern Turkey and the Greek mainland. in fact, according to mediterranean cicada scientists, no ash cicadas had ever been found on islands as southeast as Samos and Ikaria, two islands relatively close to the peninsula where dnp’s cicada resides. this contradicted the observations on iNaturalist.

apparently, this difference in distribution has a lot to do with the tectonic and geographical history of the eastern mediterranean. where certain cicadas are today has a lot to do with where warm refuges from ancient glaciers existed thousands and millions of years ago (cicadas like the heat). also, and I should not necessarily subject you to this tangent, but did you know that about 5 million years ago the mediterranean sea simply gave up on existence for a little while? ... during the Messinian Salinity Crisis, the mediterranean simply stopped being a sea for a little while and almost dried up completely, allowing certain creatures that could not otherwise traverse an entire sea to disperse across it, except for where there is a huge ass canyon in the seafloor, and—

[images: highlighted, pertinent sections of papers discussing cicada distribution; relief map of the mediterranean seafloor]

anyway, what we were sorely missing at this stage were sound recordings of the cicadas. despite the evidence against the ash cicada, this cicada is still one of the most commonly found cicadas around the aegean sea. also, some of the studies I found were ten or more years old—who knows how climate change or other factors may have impacted the location of cicada populations since they were published.

while the audio of the cicadas outside in Phil’s video is poor, Dan does an imitation at 00:30 of what they’d been hearing during their trip. knowing Dan, this imitation is not merely a made-up, vaguely cicada-like noise, but an actually good approximation of the song that had been driving them crazy (this whole study mayhaps hinges on this lmao). if only we could uncover audio of these cicadas, maybe we could know for sure if this insect was of the ash or east aegean variety.

thankfully, at this point I was still reading papers. even more thankfully, the ten individuals who seemed to have cornered the market on mediterranean cicada studies since the 1970s made a website, and mentioned it in one of their papers. it is an exceptional, beautifully designed website called cicadasong.eu that evokes the ad-free, uncluttered, cozy and homemade feeling of the early noughties internet. it almost made me cry, and @/pierogish reported that seeing this website made her realize that in all these years recently spent online she had been choking, and only on cicadasong.eu was she finally able to breathe freely. on this website, there happen to be embedded YouTube videos of high quality audio recordings of all the european cicadas its creators have ever studied.

at last! comparisons of cicada songs to Dan commenced, and we were able to play the ash cicada’s sound alongside the east aegean’s and Dan’s. at the top of this post, you will find the compilation of these three sounds. here are the links to the original audio videos of the east aegean and ash cicada.

the main unit of sound—the chirp—of a cicada’s song is known scientifically as an “echeme”. in these audio files, you can perceive that, for the east aegean cicada, the duration of the echeme is longer, meaning the number of echemes per second is lower. this rhythm, and in general the structure of the east aegean cicada’s song was, in comparison to the ash cicada’s, deemed to the ear of all the authors and contributors definitively more similar to dan’s cicada song. thus, this final piece of evidence seemed to complement the rest of our data and confirm our initial assumption of the cicada’s identity.

conclusion

accumulated data has lent support to our hypothesis that the cicadas suffusing the atmosphere of dip and pip’s holiday resort with their ebullient, lascivious songs were east aegean cicadas.

[tikihoneybee]

Do you have a secret as to how you achieve the silliness in your art? Is there a goofy method? A sopping-wet-cat-inator, perhaps? How do you achieve the “i need to put them in a shoe box and shake it violently” look? I love your art btw,,,,

i collect A LOT OF silly pics and memes on my phone and I think that inspires me a lot. it provides instant silliness whenever i want. and aww <3 thanks for liking my art!

[bl0oregardf0ster]

Foster's Imaginary World character info No. 1!

"No other mischievous but quite soft troublemaker in the world is compared to the one and only Blooregard Q. Kazoo! He's very on the way to annoy, prank and cause trouble when ever he slides through the scene! Despite that, he has a soft spot for his close ones, especially for a certain special boy..."

- Fosterview's info sheet on Bloo

⟬THIS SHXT IS LOOOONG/SRS⟭

✧❁❁❁✧✿✿✿✧❁❁❁✧

Requirements!

✐ 2870 ichor

✐ Get 100% research on Twisted Bloo

✐ Complete all Berry mastery missions

"Oh Bloo... Suck a huge ruckus... Always stealing the spotlight whenever he wants... It's not like anyone really cares about him and his antics anyways..."

- Madam Foster's dialouge upon purchase

✧❁❁❁✧✿✿✿✧❁❁❁✧

Stats!

Health 🖤💗💗

Skill Check 🌟🌟

Movement Speed 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Stamina 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟

Stealth 🌟

Extraction Speed 🌟🌟

✧❁❁❁✧✿✿✿✧❁❁❁✧

Abilities!

Hit the paddle! ⟬Active⟭

Bloo will pull out a paddle ball and start playing with it, alerting EVERY SINGLE Twisted around the map, while also giving the player a small speedboost for 10 seconds!

⟬Cooldown: 30 seconds⟭

Bloo've been pranked! ⟬Passive⟭

There is a roughly 25% or higher chance to turn an item picked up by ANY player into a trap that can stun Twisteds for 3 seconds and immediately make them lose aggro

Ability dialouges!

"It hit? It hit!"

"Finnaly! This one is not broken!"

"Boing! Boing!"

✧❁❁❁✧✿✿✿✧❁❁❁✧

Skins!

Exclusive!

vintage ⟬Mastery⟭

St☆r-Time ⟬GamePass⟭

Sentence: Death ⟬Halloween⟭

Sparkling Water ⟬Summer⟭

Gijinka-inated ⟬April Fools⟭

Opposite AU ⟬April Fools⟭

Mr. Snowman ⟬Winter⟭

Anti-Cupid ⟬Valentines day⟭

Troublesome Pisces ⟬Seasonal Zodiac Event⟭

Normal! ⟬THESE SKINS ARE REFERENCES LOL⟭

Bad opposite dare day

Deodorant mascot

Big cookie business

Rock schlock star

Evil force of darkness

Billion gakuran

Shadow deceit

Cream soda rapier

Zapfish saving 4th agent

Pararel order

✧❁❁❁✧✿✿✿✧❁❁❁✧

Interactions!

Bloo "MAAAAAAAAC!"

Mac "Oh! Hi Bloo!"

Bloo "Do you wanna see what i got prepared today?"

Mac "No Bloo! You know what happened last time?!"

Bloo "Come ooooooooooooon!"

Mac "No Bloo!"

Bloo "... Fine..!"

Mr. Herriman "Master Blooregard, i really doubt of your measures and methods in completing floors..."

Bloo "Wha..?"

Mr. Herriman "I trust i could count on you to refreain from your usual immature childish behavior and knuckleheaded shenanigans?"

Bloo "Uhm, they're really more like hair brain schemes!"

Mr. Herriman "If they were hair brain they'd be clever!"

Frankie "Bloo..."

Bloo "Yes Frankie?"

Frankie "Do me a favor and... Actually be somewhat tolerable for once..."

Bloo "..."

Bloo "Yeah... Sure..."

Frankie "Thanks!"

✧❁❁❁✧✿✿✿✧❁❁❁✧

Twisted form

Rarity

Main Character

Appearance

Twisted Bloo's appearance resembles Twisted Finn's! Since i design Bloo as a shark, his legs and tail have fused basically ⟬Merman Bloo/J⟭. His tail and back fin have also deformed to. His chest is also shown to be completely ripped out, alonside with all his organs completely exposed ⟬Yep. Blame CN hijack of 2008 for this/J⟭. He also has 2 set expressions! Before panic mode, his face will be sad-ish ⟬Basically Bloo's expressions in "Bloooooo"⟭, but in panic mode, his face will change into an enraged one!

Research info

"One of the Main Characters in Foster's Imaginary World. He was very overwhelmed of everything and everyone, all the unfair treatment and being seen as nothing more than just a pathetic black sheep finally made him snap for once. After an incident involving his best friend, his brother, his creator that lead to his death, and then his transformation, this Twisted had finally released all his repressed rage towards all the other Friends, finally repaying and making them go through the same way as he did back then. Beware of any puddles or trails of ichor scattered across the map... And if you hear gurgling... Hide..."

Stats

Speed: Slow ⟬Pretty much becomes the 4th⟬?⟭ fastest twisted in panic mode⟭

Vision: Slightly higher than average

Attention Span: 4 seconds ⟬Increases to 10 in panic mode⟭

Special abilities

Twisted Bloo will crawl around the map leaving a trail of ichor behind that disappears after 5 seconds, how ever, stepping on the trail will result in getting Slow III for 5 seconds! So be careful where you step!

On the map, there will be puddles of ichor scattered around everywhere in random locations ⟬From 4-8 depending on the map size⟭. It is adviced to not step on them, since doing so will result in Twisted Bloo jumping out of the puddle and attacking you, not only making you lose a heart, but also giving you Slow III for 5 seconds!

⟬THE TRAILS AND PUDDLES BECOME SLIGHTLY BIGGER IN PANIC MODE!⟭

✧❁❁❁✧✿✿✿✧❁❁❁✧

Trinket!

Lousy Paddle ball

Increases skill check chance by 33% and decreases cooldown by 10 seconds, BUT decreases stealth by one star.

✧❁❁❁✧✿END! THANKS FOR READING!✿✧❁❁❁✧

@blo0st4r

[zosonils]

phineas and ferb episode pieced together from a dream i had: that ducky momo game that candace played obsessively in one episode shuts down, because it’s an mmo for children and the year is no longer 2009. obviously candace is end of club penguin level devastated so phineas and ferb try to cheer her up by making their own version of the game, which because they’re phineas and ferb is like this massive hyper immersive augmented reality construct that spans the entirety of danville, and i guess there’s like a message in there about how their big extravagant approach to everything isn’t always the answer because while it’s sweet that they’re trying to make her feel better candace doesn’t want a new better ducky momo game, she just wants her crappy browser based ducky momo game back because it’s special to her. i didn’t dream the doof and perry b plot but i can see doofenshmirtz having a thematically relevant heartbreaking backstory about the mmo [Medieval MethOd acting] he used to play as a child for a fleeting moment of happiness being unceremoniously shut down when the drusselstinian government dropped flash compatibility [blinding each other with bright lights was a central mechanic that the game simply didn’t function without]. maybe he makes an inator to delete everyone else’s beloved mmos [perry the platypus can you please help me troubleshoot my inator all it does is shut down online roleplaying games for some reason] and that’s what wipes phineas and ferb’s elaborate ducky momo fan project out of existence. i also didn’t get an ending but i reckon it should end on like it turns out that baljeet backs up the entire internet every couple months just to be safe or something, so they actually have the source files for candace’s comfort baby game right there, so they set up a sort of ‘ducky momo rewritten’ server so that candace and people like her can come back to the game whenever they want. linda gets home and is like so what’s this about phineas and ferb remaking that computer game of yours and candace is too happy to even really care that she can’t bust them for turning danville into a virtual reality exhibit she’s just like look phineas and ferb got ducky MMOmo back on my computer post server shutdown see :) and turns her laptop to her and linda says well wasn’t that nice of them good on you boys. oh there you are perry, roll credits. they should be paying me for this

[crevicedwelling]

i apologize if this isnt a good question, but how do you tell the diff. between assassin bugs and leaf footed bugs? i have a photo of a bug, and seek/inat said just.. general leaf footed bugs, but i know it could be wrong.

if it helps any, the tips of its antennae are orange, like a very bright orange

there’s a bunch of ways to tell but a quick at-a-glance method is to look at the antennae: leaf footed bugs (Coreidae) have blunt-ended, thick antennae while most assassin bugs (Reduviidae) have tapering antennae that end in a fine, hairlike point.

another good way to tell is to check the rear pair of legs for a flange that gives coreids their common name; not all coreids have leafy feet but I can’t think of any commonly observed reduviids that do.

Leptoglossus oppositus (Coreidae)

Arilus cristatus (Reduviidae)

Pselliopus cinctus (Reduviidae)

Acanthocephala terminalis (Coreidae)

[huayno]

Yeah, as much as i love sayo and relate to her as an oldest sibling her thing with Maria kinda sickens me? Growing up I learnt to take on a bunch of burdens to make sure my younger siblings were doing good, and even at my worst I tried not to drag them down with me (not sure if I always succeeded but I tried). So sayo dragging maria down with her in this murder suicide plan makes me a little ill.

I guess I can understand why tho. Sayo was always the youngest before, she was never put into a position of responsibility for someone younger than her, not until Maria but even then it was sporadic. Sayo was always at the bottom so that sort of responsibility was foreign to her, like I didn't really get that I had to responsible for my siblings until I was at least 10? Maybe older, its not an inate things, something has to force you to realise that the older people around you are lacking and that you have to step up to fill that gap

But by the time sayo realised the ways the adults failed maria sayo was so deep in her suicidal ideation to think of any alternative solutions

to me it's less about responsibility (since neither the servant shannon nor the witch beatrice can take this explicitly familial role) and more about power, specifically clair's ascension as a witch and maria as the first person outside her initial circle of accomplices to see her. it starts off with a relatively innocent bit of magic and becomes deeply intimate and deeply manipulative. i'm not sure how much ryukishi ever felt troubled by clair's influence on her because of how much he defends illusions of the heart and maria's coping methods in particular. i think it's also significant that clair feels some gratitude towards genji and kumasawa who played with her life in similar ways, and that she makes narratives from kinzo the foundation of her identity despite how he horrifies her. the biggest difference from the other adults is how little power clair had over every other part of maria's life—which is why she put so much into their shared fantasy world.

[oscconfessions]

sometimes i have reasons for being kin with object show guys..like? personal similar trauma? or same issues??? and i genuinely love how connected i can get to these shows to a level like that with characters and being fixated on object shows and the characters i kin helps me get through it... and then there's bumper switch from tts. like. why is bumper switch here. i dont know!! but i vibe i guess. (also tts is good and i wish more object shows utilized different animation methods like that outside of like an art episode or something cuz genuinely mine-inator (??) is the last thing i expected but its entirely welcomed considering i love those kind of animation styles already)

.

[kamalakhanrulesmiddleearth]

I'm having 4am opinions apparently

I feel like what most MCU movies and/or Disney shows lack nowadays is good comprehension of the villains unless they're shows about the villains, especially in genres like superhero movies. Thought of this ranking system today that might help explain what I mean with four examples. It's an axis between menace and scale.

Dr. Doofenshmirtz (Phineas and Ferb count as superheroes, right??)

low menace, low scale.

Doof is comic relief for a reason: everyone knows he's not going to succeed and doesn't have any really evil schemes (much to his chagrin) like killing or even hurting anyone. His menace is for petty vengeance at best. And he doesn't aspire to take over more than the tri-state area, and doesn't think or plan much beyond his latest inator.

The Joker

high menace, low scale

Now before the comic junkies come after me, I know there are multiple variations of the Joker for which this might not be true, but most versions I've seen align with this. Joker is the bad guy in every sense of the word. He's toxic and sadistic, killing without thought. No doubt he's menacing. But he's low scale because he, like Doofenshmirtz, rarely plots beyond the next scheme or betrayal, and keeps his mayhem to the confines of Gotham City. He's a crime lord, not going for world domination, but he's well written and scary, which makes him such a classic villain.

Thanos

high menace, high scale

Thanos brings the big guns to every fight and challenges literally all of the avengers at once, which few villains can boast of. His scale is undeniable and catastrophic, not only global but universal in the MCU. Dusting half of the population of, well, everything, is a pretty big goal to shoot for. He's also fairly menacing, with the earlier post-credits scenes featuring him in the shadows and literally everything to do with Gamora and the methods he uses to take the Infinity Stones. Some people argue he's too weak or too OP, which makes me think he's pretty well balanced.

Hades

low menace, high scale

Hades from Hercules is the last example in this analysis, ik it's a kids movie so OF COURSE the villains will be less menacing but the guy is also iconic and funny and relatable. Intends to destroy the gods and Hercules, but is more disposed to bargaining like a car salesman than overt cruelty. That said, his plan does involve full Olympian destruction so he's got plenty of scale. These kinds of characters are a little less common, so harder to define, but can be very effective if written correctly.

I think Disney/MCU stuff lately has veered more towards too sympathetic villains with a ton of power or too cruel villains with not enough power. a proper supervillain has a balance of both, and I wouldn't mind seeing a few more of the high menace/low scale villains, or, even better, low menace/high scale villains who are a bit out of their league. comment with any thoughts and where you think other villains fit on the chart :)

[headcannonballs]

I might elaborate on these individual incidents on later posts but upon multiple viewings I can finally put words to why I hated the characterizations of multiple characters in the LotR movie trilogy.

It is because PJ & Co. 's favourite method of storytelling is to pull down side characters to build up their own heroes.

And I'm talking about the 'holy' trinity of Sam, Aragorn and Thorin.

Frankly, book readers should've seen it coming from a mile away.

So let's start with Sam. Raise your hand if you've ever seen any fan trumpeting that Sam is the 'real' hero. And nine out of ten, these fans were introduced into LotR through the movies. Congratulations Pete, you've succeeded!

Now before touching the Tolkien letter 'supporting' this idea (where if you read the full letter you'll understand Sam is only more of a chief hero when compared to a very specific character and that character is not Frodo *coughAragorncough*), I would like to draw attention to one simple fact - is there any other major character in the trilogy that has more of his flaws ignored, covered-up or outright repurposed to become a good quality? Because I come up with nothing.

Sam is the quintessential hobbit. He represents all their best traits - that assured loyalty, the steadfast friendship, the simple appreciation for nature. But he is also a representative of all of their worst traits - the closed-mindedness, the blind adherence to hierarchy and the prejudice against the lowly and the unknown.

But Sam does none of that!

Yeah, you'd be correct - if you only watched the movies. That is precisely the point.

The absolute heart of LotR is Frodo's journey, but Frodo is a 'terrible' male lead for a Fantasy themed action adventure film. He is a middle-aged man who sets out on a selfless journey to save the world (but not for himself). He doesn't have a dramatic character arc, majority of his battles are internal and require monologues, and the only visible sign of his burden is completely up to the polish of the individual actor's performance. For the epic type of film PJ planned, Frodo is a nightmare.

But there is an easy solution for this - Frodo is accompanied by Sam throughout the entire journey. Sam, unlike Frodo, has underdog written all over him. It is easy to make a character arc about a nobody becoming a somebody. He has a major battle one-to-one against a giant spider. He is allowed a large variety of emotions that don't require depth (excepting key moments) because he is meant to be simple-minded.

So what does PJ & Co. do?

They make Sam the main lead, of course. The beginning chapters are understandably condensed, but Sam still gets his 'dropping eaves on Mr. Frodo' part of the story untouched, whereas all of Frodo's planning, all of Merry's intelligence, and Pippin and Fatty's contributions were all cut out.

We soon meet Strider, and immediately Sam's foolhardiness is front and centre in the book. He looks down upon this lowly ranger and almost interrogates him only to have Strider illustrate how such behaviour could have easily gotten Sam and Frodo killed. It is Frodo who speaks with wisdom and questions Strider in a more moderate way.

And this entire farce of speaking out of turn happens again when they meet Faramir. Sam is not only not wise, his is foolish enough to make the exact same mistake twice. And similarly Faramir reprimands him and tells him not to speak before Frodo has spoken.

But instead of highlighting these incidents as a flaw Sam should learn to grow from, both times in the movies PJ instead frames the incidents as Sam being justified in his words and defence of Frodo. His bravado is praised as being a loyal friend, instead of the foolish actions they are.

But even with erasing Sam's faults, there is still a problem - Frodo. Frodo's relationship with Sam has become closer than master/servant, but there is still an inate imbalance (more due to Frodo's age and wisdom than anything else) to frame it as just simple friendship.

Personally I feel it is like Sam views Frodo as his senpai, his leading light. And Frodo wishes to guide Sam to learn new things, because Sam's presence as a quintessential hobbit is so much like home that he remains a constant comfort to Frodo no matter the burden of the One Ring.

But Frodo and Sam having a senpai-kouhai relationship is troublesome, because Frodo never leaves. He is the one Sam consistently depends on to lead him, and book!Sam's most major growth actually occurs after Frodo has left for the Undying Lands and Sam grows to become a capable Mayor.

So naturally Frodo has to be weakened to let Sam shine. Firstly, the age difference is removed completely, even going in the opposite direction - Sam is now older than Frodo and cares for him like an elder brother or butler. When faced with dangerous situations like the Nazgul or the troll, Sam is the fearless one instead of Frodo. Sam's wariness is always affirmed by the narrative and Frodo's wisdom in discerning people is putdown as blind kindness.

Nowhere is this more obvious than the Frodo-Sam-Gollum relationship.

In the book, Sam's wariness towards Gollum stems from both the creature's poor reputation, but also from petty jealousy. The threat of betrayal from Gollum is real, yes, but throughout the book Frodo has it under control. He never trusts Gollum more than he needed to, and in fact was winning Gollum's trust with his wisdom, kindness and fair-minded treatment.

But Sam had different ideas. Before Gollum, Sam had always been the closest to Mr. Frodo, not only because of their close relationship, but also because Sam sees himself as the most useful to Frodo. Sure, Merry and Pippin and friends, but neither can serve Mr. Frodo the way he can. Until Gollum.

Gollum is brought in as an indispensable guide and Sam immediately feels threatened. He doesn't actually physically threaten Gollum, but instead resorts to childish name-calling to put Gollum down. He constantly wished to assert dominance over Gollum, to show he is closer to Frodo no matter how good a job Gollum does. Sam basically just wants to 'put him in his lowly place'.

It is this relentless bullying that ends up destroying Gollum's redemption (something also in a Tolkien letter, but Sam fans won't bring this one up), and forces the destruction of the ring to be 'an act of God' instead of Gollum's own will.

This is the biggest flaw in Sam - that he is quick to judge and slow to pity, a trait highly unsuitable for a ringbearer, much less the 'main' hero. This is also the main reason for Frodo's character change and the dynamics change in the relationship between all three.

It is extremely difficult to just cut out all the antagonistic actions Sam has taken against Gollum, so instead the path PJ & Co. took is to 'make Sam right'.

Instead of Frodo being in control and trying to make Sam and Gollum get along, make it that Frodo is the helpless one and being pulled in two different directions. Sam, being the hero, is correct. And Gollum naturally has to be wrong. Frodo, because of the 'evil influence of the Ring' chooses wrongly and believes Gollum, giving rise to the infamous "Sam, go home" scene.

This change of the relationship dynamics both strengthens Sam's moral position as well as weakens Frodo's wisdom. And to PJ & Co. that is a good thing, because now Sam is truly the main lead.

I'll think I continue Aragorn and Thorin another day, but you can be assured that PJ & Co. just uses the same tricks again *coughFaramirandThranduilcough*.

[godtiers-for-real-justice]

I am very pleased to annouun☾e that my ☾ompletion of the tuutorial was a suu☾☾ess! ∑:^);🌕

I am…rather uunsuure as to where I ☾uurrently am, to puut it bluunt. Or as to the exact method of my transportation here, or of the exact methods that allowed Mod Werewolf to manipuulate the dimensions of my hive, or as to why the lo☾ation I have been transported to is ☾overed in ash and buurnt post-wildfirean trees, buut I am suure I will find these answers in duue time!;🌖

And another discovery of note, it has tuurned ouut that the skuull I had been keeping within my hive (very long story) belonged to a violetblooded ☾onduu☾tor who lived (from what I have dis☾erned) at least 500 sweeps ago. Very fas☾inating!;🌗

If ouur other ☾rewmates do wish to parti☾ipate alongside uus and ouur ☾aptain, I will be more than willing to provide to this vessel as muu☾h information as I am able to obtain uupon this jouurney;🌘

Will keep youu all uupdated! ∑:^);🌑

[scam-alerts]

❗❗Scam Update❗❗

Previously on... 🔎Scam Exam(ination)🔍

Seen as: I would like a commission of my son/pet... Scam Type: Commission Scam

Please read this post for a complete rundown of this scam.

While browsing #scams on tumblr earlier today, I saw a post from the wonderful and very talented @louksna-0 where they were calling out a scam account that seemed to be running the art commission scam.

After messaging them.. I found out something... interesting.

The scammers are now changing their script.

@louksna-0 was kind enough to answer some questions and help explain their interactions with this scammer with me, and even provided me with some screenshots which I'll show you all as well.

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Part 1 - How it start(s/ed)

Note: @louksna-0 has told me that due to being blocked, they cannot access their conversation with this scammer, but they were kind enough to detail their conversation with me to the best of their ability. :)

@scam-alerts: When this person messaged you for a commission, what did they ask you to draw? What was your response, and what sort of images did they provide?

@louksna-0: They asked me to draw two cartoon portraits of a girl with blue eyes and blonde hair, it was 2 photos, but the second seemed to be taken from a video, not a photo itself. I told her alright, the two were separate drawings, one for $18, the other $20. $38 in the end. She started pressuring me for the details of the commission to get the process finished, being cold and even rude.

@scam-alerts: Did you tell them a price first, or did they offer you money first? Was this amount higher than normal, or was it the price of your commissions?

@louksna-0: I told them the price first, they didn't offer a price to pay. They were pressuring me to tell them the final price.

@louksna-0: I say them because although the profile seems like a girl. Her account of PayPal, email confirmation and Tumblr were all different. So I can't really say their gender. Her profile said Elizabeth, her email said mayes Mary, and her PayPal account said Margaret castro.

These were the screenshots provided to me:

image 1 - The scammer getting very persistent in having @louksna-0 check their spam email for confirmation that the money was sent.

image 2 - The different names that appear on the PayPal, blog, and email (in that order.)

Image 3 - A screenshot of the fake email. (the same exact one that can be seen in the previous scam exam(ination) report.

Image 4 - This one is.. odd. @louksna-0 says that this was sent to them by the same email with a request telling them to send a refund, yet it has a very odd and fishy looking link. (they did not click on it.)

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Part 2 - Examining the Evidence

From what it looks like, the scam is pretty much the same 'I want you to draw my <thing>' scam except now they've switched from:

can you draw my son / daughter / pet. to can you draw this cartoon character*

*They might look at blogs now and see what an artists 'style' is to get a grasp on what an artist can do before trying to run this scam? Since not all artists can draw kids and/or pets? So that might be worth keeping an eye on.

They've also switched from:

Offering you a very large amount of money. to accepting commission prices to seem unsuspicious.

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Part 3 - What you should do now

🚩Red flags still present🚩

Blogs sending these asks are either blank or bare in one way in another. Little to no reblogs, maybe 'one' picture or two posted. In this case the scammer just had a picture of a dog that probably isn't even theirs.

They will refuse to pay with any other method than PayPal.

The purpose of asking for your real name and your PayPal email is just so they can make a fake email to scam you.

Stop. Read the email very carefully. Think about what it's asking you.

'you are to send (name) money to expand your account.' You are to send someone money, to get money.

You can't just 'expand' your account by sending another user money. That's not how PayPal works.

Emails from these scammers will always show up in your spam folder because they are not from the real PayPal service. They are 100% fake. Only trust emails about PayPal from a @paypal.com email address. Any email claiming to be from PayPal ending in a gmail/hotmail/yahoo.com address is. a. scam.

Always check your PayPal account via the website or App for issues before responding to someone and certainly before sending anyone money. If you see no issues, there are no issues.

Never click links in an email you get during or after interacting with a stranger when money is involved. If someone asks: 'did you get the email?' Check your spam folder.' Make sure you click the link to fix your account.' It's a scam. And they're probably trying to hack you.

----------

Final thoughts:

Remember, take screenshots and report these users to the websites they are running these scams on. If they DM you on tumblr? Report the DM. If they do it on insta, bsky, twitter or even discord?

Make sure you report them there too.

ALSO: Beware of recovery scammers. This is anyone coming into your DM's telling you they can 'help you get your money back' after you made a post talking about how you got scammed. These scammers are just looking for a quick buck.

I've got a whole post right here talking about what one looks like.

Take care and stay vigilant.

And thanks again to @louksna-0 for being a dear. <3

Other helpful guides on spotting scams. (by @kyra45)

[theres-one-nine-letter-word]

Another little doodle! This one is Amanda Doofensmirtz-Hirano-Flynn as a little kid (6-7 maybe) having stolen Mama Vanessa's t-shirt (she got a matching one a week later).

Image description: a young girl with hair in a shoulder high plat, wearing a overly large t-shirt saying the inator method, with the word inator being inside a star.