#also damn that style is fun to emulate

[skeletood]

Scout Pilgrim and her cool lesbian roommate.

[imsosocold]

Ace Attorney characters that I think are related

In addition to my “ Godot is Manfred’s other child” agenda.

Richard Wellington and Frank Sawhit:

My favorite pack of thieves. I like to think Frank was stealing in order to earn enough for him and his son to survive. And then Richard was trying to get enough money to bail his father out of prison but once learning who the defense attorney would be for Maggey decided to try to avenge his father. I want them to have a tearful reunion in prison and then escape together to rob more rich people <3.

Furio Tigre and Wocky Kitaki:

Have you seen the last names?!! In all seriousness I think them being related would make the overall crime scene more fleshed out and make its story more cohesive. The Cadaverni rage wouldn’t be over a member getting in an accident with just some thug, but a member of a mob, a rival to power in “Los Angeles”. Though I don’t think Tigre would be considered a legitimate member of the family by the Kitaki line themselves, I think Wocky would look up to Furio as an older brother figure and base his persona around him. Wocky’s aggression to Phoenix is less funny now though.

Polly Jenkins and Goldy Gerwitz:

Imagine the only person who ever cared for you took their own life and you lost everything and now all you have left to turn to is material items. But then coincidentally you come across those who indirectly lead to her suicide but you are too scared do anything and you regret for the rest of your life for your inaction. Just fun with the bois over here.

Herman Crab and Larry:

A STEM and artist duo returns, this time as brothers! It’s the most romance repulsed aromantic against the world’s strongest romanticist ( but Larry is also aro spec, I can feel it in bones). Neither of them can ever have a normal last name and Larry only took his mother’s in order to avoid people making jokes about him having crabs (* cries in the pain of bad nicknames*). In all seriousness , both Larry and Herman are incredibly talented, noble people who will ride and die for those they care about. While Herman would be annoyed by his much younger brother’s antics, he’d still genuinely care for and look out for him. And Larry naturally would be down to help his older brother with any of his schemes.

Simon Blackquill and Daryan:

My favorite black and white animal themed mysterious, dramatic men. I think them being related would tie the Apollo Justice series' events and characters more closely together and give much needed characterization to Daryan ( yet one of many aspects of wasted potential in the Apollo Justice series). Daryan becoming a detective because he doesn't believe Simon could do such heinous acts in a mirror to Klavier and Athena, him trying to gain whatever influence and power and wealth he can which could potentially aid his family. Daryan agreeing to smuggle the cocoons both because he genuinely wants to save people like Simon did, laws be damned, but because being in the good graces of such a high ranking official, in addition to the large sums of money he'd gain in return, could be what saves his relative. The reveal of this plan would hold so much more immediate consequences and affect a wider reach of characters. And Simon, trying so hard to help and protect all those he cares about all on his own, with Daryan being a reminder how damaging that mentality can be and that no matter how hard the both of them try they can't save everyone!!!!

Also yes, Daryan keeps the hair for Simon's sake, who styled it that way as a prank.

Tyrell Badd and Luke Atmey:

Luke wanting nothing else than to be just like his cool, smart, popular father but feeling like he can't properly emulate him on his own, so he lies and cheats to attempt to do so in turn becoming everything his father is against and hates.

Also Luke feeling like his father prefers Kay over him BYE-

Payne and Geiru:

Imagine following in your ancestors' footsteps to join the law system in order to bring ‘pain’ upon evil doers but one of your family members decides to fuck that and runs off to become a rakugo artist of all things. And then you find out years later that they had a child who committed murder in their name and you didn't even get to come across her in court. Poor Payne can't ever catch a break.

Ron and Joe Darke:

The worst father and son duo who commit crimes and escalate situations because they have terrible problem solving skills yet despite that cannot be convicted for the life of them, the former only happening with false evidence. But the main reason I like this idea is because it means Ron took his wife's last name "DeLite" since she is the light of his life and now he isn't in the 'dark' anymore.

Boo all you want.

Jinxie Tenma and Uendo Toneido:

Two of the best ( and underrated) Ace Attorney characters in addition to being great mental health representation! I think they'd have great chemistry and interactions as siblings. Also Uendo deserves a wrestler father who can beat shit out of ableist fucks and law enforcement. <3

Gumshoe and Dogen:

Such a slut for the idea of Gumshoe wanting to tear himself away from the family name and to do good by saving lives instead of ending them yet working in an incredibly deadly, corrupt system that goes against his ideals and desires.

Also Dick's still definitely hurt that Dogen seems to care more about Simon Keyes than him >:)

Constance Courte and Sebastian:

" Uh, if Constance Courte was Sebastian's mom, wouldn't Blaise had make her disappear-"

Bitch, he tried. That loser husband had to back down.

Unfortunately, Constance wasn't able to take her son with her and decided to throw herself even more into her teaching of law, her indirect way of fighting her husband and preventing people from becoming like him. I like to think she got to reunite with her son again after Blaise was finally arrested and Sebastian continued his prosecuting career in her honor.

Anyway Constance Courte is cool and deserved more screentime ( and to be written into a better case lmao).

Cody Hackins and the Fey clan:

I just want more perspective on the Fey family from those AMAB, I can't believe the main AA trilogy went into Kurain Village and the Fey Clan and didn't expand on this. Anyway, Cody's lack of spiritual power, supposedly due to his sex, in addition to losing his mother led to him and his father being discarded from the main clan and looked down upon. Refusing to accept the position of a branch family given to him, Cody's father took the two of them away from the village. While initially having trouble adjusting to such a drastic change in lifestyle and environment, the two of them were overall happier. Cody still faintly remembers Mia and Maya as some of the few people in the village that were kind to him and is unable to accept Mia's death, believing she and Maya "fused powers" and simply cohabit a body now. On a happier note, Steel Samurai is both Cody and his father's comfort show and they and the Fey Sisters ( and eventually Pearl) watch it together.

The Von Karma and the Justice family:

Okay, with names like those, centered around concepts considered essential to the judicial system, they have be to be connected somehow in this series. Whether they're distantly related or rival families or what, both family lines and their influences absolutely permeate the series.

Also 100% the reason Kristoph took Apollo in as his mentee was to spite the Von Karmas.

Lauren Paups and Matt Engarde:

Polar opposite (half) siblings: Lauren is shy while Matt is outgoing, Lauren has low self esteem while Matt thinks highly of himself, Lauren’s a dreamer and romanticist while Matt’s cruelly aware of how the world works, Lauren’s wishy washy and easily swayed while Matt’s is rooted in his ideas and beliefs, Lauren can’t hide feelings or thoughts while Matt constantly wears a mask, yet their most prominent trait, the one that they share, is that they’ll do anything for who or what they believe in. Also they both share self destructive tendencies when seemingly stressed (Matt scratching and Lauren cutting up pieces of their hair) in addition to being heavily dramatic. Unfortunately, I don’t think they ever got the chance to properly know each other but nonetheless the duo would be close ( as much as they’re allowed to be anyway).

Also this beta design for Lauren is Matt Pre- T and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Give me your relationship hcs, I love to hear the brainworms from other people and have them play with my maggots <3

[terrence-silver]

Can you please do Terry (or twig) losing his v card to beloved 💌

Okay, but lets make a little funnier and it's this era of Terry;

And him just flat out lying he's a virgin. He's lying. His justification and explanation for his lack of action is (and I'm making this up as I go along and so is he) that deliberate celibacy and sexual ascetism is good in preserving high levels of chi and chakra energy, that witholding from physical pleasures strenghtens the body's core and makes a person a better, more disciplined fighter due to surpressed aggression and he knows this for a fact, because after learning Tang Soo Do under his Master in Korea and returning from Vietnam, he's also travelled all over Asia and observed the Shaolin monks do it. Yes. Shaolin monks. He strived to emulate the best of the best since. Isn't every man's goal in life to be the next Bodhidharma incarnate?

Might even gift you with a book on the subject.

You know, for references and sources.

You could land yourself with a tome called The Private Lives Inside the Shǎolínsì.

It takes all the willpower in the world not to royally chortle at that one even as he says it. So, he's well into his thirties or even early fourties, it's the 80's, and yes, he's a virgin by choice. Of course, again, he's lying and making things up for the fun of it. Mainly to gage your reaction. See how you'll treat him for it. How you'll act. What you'll do. If you'll be surprised. Disappointed. What your opinions on the matter even are. If you'll even like him after that. If you'll believe him because the man isn't a fool and he's aware of what he looks like and the effect he tends to have on people. There's no particular gender or age limit to virgnity but he also knows he isn't the usual poster child for purity. Maybe it'll add to his mystique in your eyes. Maybe you'll try to dissuade him from maintaing such a strict standard of living and he can act all coy and hard to get about it. Maybe you'll admire him for it and he'll pretend to be humble. He doesn't know, but he wants to discover because it holds so many possibilities and it is also so damn amusing, this little social experiment, and lets admit; the man's very much a troll. Just the entertainment value of it turns him on, and there's always the chance of him roleplaying being despoiled and being on the recieveing end of it without you knowing it is all pretense. Of course he's not a virgin, though. Far from it. Which makes this whole thing even more schemey, sinister and juvenile. He's quite possibly ludicrousily experienced and has apetites to match for every vice under the sun and he's, pardon my language, bullshitting you, for lack of the better word, but does it so convincingly and sweetly one can never tell. Could even be a test he poses for himself; to see what type of misiformantion he can sell to people and get away with.

How well he can act certain things out.

Not to mention how much he wants to dangle himself in front of you like the forbidden fruit you can't have because of his, ahem, convictions and beliefs. Convictions and beliefs he doesn't even really have. Quite the contrary. The handomest man you've ever met also being sexually celibate? He wants you to explode with desire and frustration and him having the last laugh.

But, Terry Silver is definitely the type of man who would land himself in bed with you, after much back and forth and pretending celibacy goes hand in hand with his particular style of martial arts, and believably pretend not to know what to do once he gets to that very same bed. Worse (or better) yet. Doing something like this isn't nessecarily a sign of his distaste for a person. Could very much like you and still play a prank on you.

[pigeonwit]

HI!! i am SUCH a massive fan of your work and your writing style and the way you write javid ... do you have any tips on making description and dialogue/switching between the two not sound clunky?? im having trouble 😭 im eating all your fics rn btw ... gnawing on em

oh!! goodness that is high praise - well first of all thank you, that is so sweet of you to say, and i'm so flattered you felt like you could ask me for help on that. but i gotta be honest, i'm very much an amateur and i really don't feel like i have much right to give 'advice' as it were - i'm still figuring out a lot of stuff myself tbh. but something i can definitely do is tell you what i do, why i do it and how i try to improve my own writing, as it's something i think about a lot and therefore something i feel very comfortable telling people about - but again, disclaimer, this is just what works for ME. i used to be really hard on my writing because compared to the work of other people i've seen, i felt like i was being way too flowery, overstaying my welcome on a lot of passages, being overly preachy, etc etc - but trying to emulate other people's writing entirely just doesn't work and completely sucks the fun out of it. so this is just what works for me. anywhore lets get to it

so i focus on a few things when i'm writing dialogue, the biggest one being 'Do People Talk Like This?'. now that's not always the most helpful question to ask yourself since everyone talks differently and there's really no point trying to categorize it, but where i find questions like that help the most for ME is when i'm thinking about what the character's thought process would be in saying this. for example if i'm writing oscar and morris, it just doesn't feel right to have them say shitty things for the sake of being cartoonishly shitty, because what's the thought process there? 'haha i'm gonna humiliate this kid because i'm just evil!!' no one. no one does that. they have their own reasons for wanting the newsies to feel beneath them, and even if i'm only writing them for a line or two, i want that to be the thing i get across, rather than just 'the delanceys are assholes' (even if their purpose in my fics is usually to be assholes).

i also try to draw from reality a lot, conversations i've had, things i notice when people speak to me. it's difficult since i'm autistic and therefore misread things or miss things entirely, but i try to do my best from my own experiences. a lot of my scribbles so far have just been casual little snippets of javid conversations 'cause that's a really fun way for me to get to know the characters and how they'd behave in casual conversation. i really like looking into davey's weirdness and so i draw from a lot of the weird things i do, the weird jokes i see other people make that i find so damn funny, weird body language that i love, etc etc. and it's fun to see how the characters react off one another when they're just being silly. sometimes i just need to lock two characters in a room together in your mind and see what they do - it doesn't really accomplish anything in terms of fic, but it helps me get to know them and how they interact with each other.

as far as descriptions go, the thing that helped me the most was (and you're going to laugh here) going outside. i know, touching grass actually did improve my writing, it's shocking. i'm pretty lucky since i live in a seaside town with a lot of forest areas so i spent a lot of time last spring/summer just walking around with my head fully empty, and if i had any thoughts come to me that i liked, i put them straight in my notes app the moment i got them. it felt pretentious as hell at first, and yeah, some of them aren't GREAT, but it's better to have my thoughts written down somewhere i can access them again rather than just not have anything to work off of at all. i've started just carrying a notebook around with me so that if i ever have a thought that feels worth keeping i can just jot it down right away. it can literally be any thought, i think i have a line in there about a can of redbull. anything that keeps the thoughts coming. i also keep a little list of quotes my friends have said as well - it's mostly funny stuff like "adren says: FUCK CHARITY!!!" and "i love his seven year old boy swag" but every so often i get something like "time is irrelevent, the sun will still be up in the afternoon", which i think of every time i feel like shit for needing more rest.

also something that people told me to do a lot which i HATED hearing but fuck if it's not true, is to just read. like when i was in my contemporary lit class and i could just chew over alys conran for a week or two it was like a factory reset in my brain. holy fuck i love alys conran she is a goddess she IS the blueprint. she completely redefined how i look at and interpret my surroundings. and ali smith - i wouldn't say i'm a huge fan of her stuff but the way she does dialogue and character voice is SOOO special to me. i hated being told 'just read!!' because i KNOW i should be reading but unfortunately my energy is dogshit and taking in new informaton is hard, but honestly it doesn't even need to be a whole book. it can be anything. i've had my shit rocked by tumblr posts and fanfic drabbles. anything that can make me go 'huh i like how they did that' or 'hm no i don't think i like how they phrased that' is helping my understanding of how i want to write.

(and in a similar vein to that - having character tags is so helpful for me!! like i'll see the vaguest thing and be like 'yeah davey would say that' or 'oh that's jack energy' and even though it's small it still improves my understanding of the characters and how they interact/think/speak)

in terms of switching between the two, i think i have a pretty obvious pattern when i write dialogue; "the first part of dialogue", then we look at the character again, how they're saying the words, what their body language is like, what they're thinking, "and then we finish what they're saying." that works for me because i'm a chronic overthinker and i like being able to focus on the little things the characters might be trying to say without saying them outright, like if davey's stimming for a specific reason or if jack's body language is more stilted than it should be because he's hiding something, or if the narrating character is focusing on something specific that the speaking character is doing for whatever reason. but i've also been trying to notice when i'm overdoing that pattern and when it feels right to change it up a bit. i want to try and improve my pacing, since sometimes i'm spending waaay too long slogging over prose when i want a scene to feel fast-paced and intense, and sometimes i feel like i'm glossing over something that would be important to the character. so sometimes (like when jack first appears in run boy run) i want the character to go into bullet-time to emphasise the weight of what's happening and what they're experiencing, and how the character FEELS about things when they're given time to properly experience it, but other times (like in their argument at the end of the chapter 4) i want things to snap and crash into each other very quickly to emphasise a character's fight-or-flight response, how they react to conflict, what they do when they don't have time to properly think about what they're doing.

and,,, yeah i think that's everything i can think of. again i'm not gonna act like any of this is gospel, i don't even know if this is even helpful to anyone besides me, i just know that this is what goes through my head when i'm trying to write effectively. whether or not it works is up for debate - i'm still in uni and i'm still trying to explore what works for me and what doesn't. but honestly i'm very proud of the progress i've been making and it was really fun to just talk about that for a second, so thank you roman, this was very lovely! have a wonderful day :)

[kingsis]

Just a lot of thoughts below. No common theme tbh

Perhaps I should do a tutorial on how I draw spam sometime? I've seen a couple tries of emulating my style so I think it might be fun to give a Direct way to do it. Not to say the emulations were bad! I just think it would be fun 2 do.

I have a love hate relationship with Hotel California. It's a good god damn song. But I heard it literally Every Day after school for like 2 years. I put it in one of my playlists to antagonize myself.

I often wonder what people think of me. Am I a good person? Am I doing right by myself? I don't know. I hope I'm good. I hope I'm kind and approachable. But looking back at my last relationship.. I don't know. It was definitely my fault but he also made me so upset so often. I hope I don't do that to anyone else

I get compliments about my line art a lot. Usually along the lines of "it's so smooth/clean/etc" Here's a fun fact: my hands are chronically shaky. Probably because I don't eat enough but I digress. I want you to open your art program and find the stabilizer. Or correction or whatever the fuck it's called. Turn it up to the point you can make a somewhat unsure line into a confident one. Bam, you're already 70% of the way to how I do my lines. The rest is experience and a trained eye ;]

I really want someone to hold and kiss and love. I have so much of it, and I can't give it to anyone near me. Why? I already dated most of my friends. It would be weird. Just really want someone I'm close to that I can snuggle up to again. I miss that comfort.

I realized, after I made the Blue and Spam post, that Pink is ALSO based on a family member. See, my mom has 2 sisters. The one like Spam, and the one I accidentally made Pink act like. For ease, Mo is pink, KT is spam, and Ma is blue. Mo fucking HATES KT. Doesn't want anything to do with her. But just like Ma, if KT actually needed her help, she'd be there. Begrudgingly, of course.

I wonder how long it usually takes people to make art like mine. For me, if it's just Spamton and no other characters/objects, it takes maybe 2 - 3 hours. That's the full piece. From sketch to post. I'm very fast at what I do so I wonder. I truly do!

My music taste leans heavily towards rock, but hard rock has never caught me quite as much as the rest. Maybe I just haven't found the right kind. Honestly finding new music is always a treat. My mom absolutely loves Rush, and I can see why! But I also love pretty much Everything! Musicals to pop to acapella to fuckin opera if it's good. Rock is a Huge genre, so I guess that's why my taste is so open to begin with. Gotta say tho, raising your kid on motley crue and guns n roses isn't the Best idea if you want an Obedient child.

I love drawing hands. I enjoy the process of feeling out the movement and flow. Hands are so expressive and I genuinely love drawing them. I can understand ppl hating them, but that doesn't mean I agree. Just take the time to learn and you'll see.

Oh right, I should say if you have any opinions/commentary/whatever abt all this shit I'm totally down for a full on rant. Ok. Time to sleep.

[steves-strapcollection]

For the fanfic ask game 🫶

H

E (peace of mind)

A (icbhicbh)

R

T

Aaaaah Sandy thank you so much for the ask, this was stupid cute omg

H: How would you describe your style?

Oh jeez, coming in swinging right out the gate. I have... idea how to describe my style. Like I know I'm big on the dialogue and the inner monologues, and I'm huge on injecting the voice of the POV holder, even when it's third-person POV. Idk if that's a style but like [gestures vaguely] yeah????

E: If you wrote a sequel to here i have found some peace of mind, what would it be about?

Okay, so, I'm already writing a sequel to peace of mind, and that sequel is about Steve and Eddie figuring out being together while being apart, and also Steve kind of grappling with his own growing sort of fame on social media. Also other things. That I'm keeping... hush hush.

A: How did you come up with the title to i could be honest, i could be human?

i could be honest, i could be human was named after lyrics from the song Werewolf by Motionless In White. I got obsessed with the song, and I decided that those lyrics would make a sick fic title.

If you haven't listened to the song, you definitely should~*~

R: Are there any writers (fanfic or otherwise) you consider an influence?

If I had to pick an influence, i would have to say Maggie Stiefvater and Naomi Novik, specifically for the way they both weave these immersive, magical stories? Oh! And VE Schwab! Same reasons, just... the way these authors flesh out their worlds, make it all feel real, even the magic? I especially really admire their ability to juggle multiple characters, and multiple POVs, and how each character feels Whole and Separate, like they're living and breathing, y'know? It's a quality I try to emulate in my own writing, and I hope I succeed.

T: Any fandom tropes you can't stand?

Damn, I already said "miscommunication" on another ask with this. I don't know if this counts as a trope, but I don't like... Hanahaki!AU and I think a lot of it comes down to the miscommunication aspect of it.

Send me more of these fun fanfic asks!

[dailybayonetta]

Dunno if somebody already came asking you this but, what do you really think about the graphics in Bayo3? They look very bland to me and somehow backtracked, even in the first preview trailer I was like "damn, this is not good". Look at Bayo2, a game from eight years ago, it still looking hella good and pretty, but Bayo3? Not even the hair moves or characters expression are giving that classic Bayonetta visuals. Honestly, for a rich company like Nintendo they should, y'know, gave more dedication on the graphics 💀(also, this is NOT a hate ask towards Bayo3, but comparing to the others two games in the franchise, this is the weakest in both graphics and gameplay)

Nope, actually so far noone talked about it! Yet! And yeah, I agree. Especially coming from someone who now used all three games on my pc by emulating them... Bayo3 is sooo rough. It's doesn't really holds up, even worse on handled mod. The way that wicked waves and wings look. At least it barely has fps problems like some other games (looks at smt5) or Astral Chain (that at least was running 30 fps only) so I guess sacrifices had to be made, so Bayo3 would run mostly 60fps. What also is so weird, not only Bayonetta 2 was literally made for WiiU which is even weaker system, but it runs perfectly on switch, in both handled and docked. And it looks fine in handled, unlike Bayo3 which cuts so many stuff. Thought If I had to guess porting already existing titles (bayo 1+2) is much easier than developing a game from the scratch on hardware? And switch isn't the easiet console to develop on, it's sure ain't no ps4/ps5/xbx1/xbxs and pc and etc. If to defend platinum somehow. But I think it's isn't just the graphic, it's just overall the artstyle (direction of artstyle?). Like, I get it, this game is departure for the series, but does it have to look so unisprised sometimes? So many empty space? Oh wow... destroyed Tokyo I guess. With roofs... REMEMBER WHEN WE WENT TO HELL???? Or visited ancient cities that looked unique and magic? Now we have anicent China and it's burning i guess :/ Oh look, there's an Egyptain lvl that contains three buildings and lots of sand to slide on, rocks and nothing else! Plus, yeah, the movement overall in cutscenes feels unnatural sometmes (my god did i felt so wrong when i saw how bayo1 bayo looks in bayo3 at the start and here i thought that bayo2 version of it was bad), and like Bayonetta cutscenes were always exgatarred, but this time it's not in a normal way? Again, the direction is all ovedr the place? Viola is overly animated, like her movement is so different from the rest of the cast, Bayonetta is mostly stiff I wouldn't say she feels as acrobatic or floaty. And like I said before, the script doesn't saves this mess either, you have this characters talk with each other but instead of having dialogue (hell it doesn't even need to be meaningful it can be just fun) they are like info-dumping or something (guess this also had to do with who's directing english adaptation this time around) To my suprise, I kind of disliked how Jeanne looked in the early trailers, but she actually looks fantastic (except the make up) and probably my favorite this time around. But her treatment is another story. And it's not even really Nintendo's fault, their current console has AND can handle beautiful games, I just think Platinum has quite massive ideas for action game and that requieres hardware that can handle and run it, switch isn't just build for that. Cause at the end of the day - it's handled system.

Plus, add to that, that currently it's quite common thing to go into more greedy / realistic style over the actual artstyle with a fun sense. I'll be forever mad that such good game as DMC5 got stuck in the most basic ass looking artstyle with scanned real people for characters and making it's locations and level design the most boring things ever in comparision to previous titles. Same goes for Baoy3.

[loregoddess]

3, 11, 13 and 14 for the Fire Emblem ask game?

3. What titles have you played? So far I've only been able to play the newest titles, Awakening, Fates, Echoes, Three Houses (and it's Warriors spinoff), and Engage, although I've technically played the DS Shadow Dragon remake via an emulator bc my DS copy got sold but I just uh, got bored and have never finished it. Also playing FE on a computer emulator's a...really weird experience and I prefer using a console, so I've had a hard time getting into the older games (although I did read the entire script for Path of Radiance and part of Radiant Dawn, and one of these days I'll watch playthroughs of both games if IntSys doesn't remake them or port them to a system I actually have).

11. A character that deserved better? Oh where to start. I feel like a lot of the Fates cast suffered in the characterization department bc there were so many characters and the writing team got stretched way thin, and so there's a lot of playable characters that get ignored by both IntSys and the fandom who I think are a delight if people would just look past their joke trait for five seconds, but for unplayable characters I think Lilith could have benefited from more attention bc she's very cool but there's so much going on in Fates that she's kinda...sidelined too. (Also I have a Lot of thoughts about Ikona as a character despite her being very dead, never getting a design, and barely having any story significance, but that's probably more a me thing).

For Echoes definitely Faye (rip) bc damn if the writers and fans didn't do her dirty. Like Fates, we'd be here all day if I listed every grievance I had about every 3H character, but my guy Cyril deserves the world and not the treatment he got from the writers (mostly for the spinoff) and especially not from fans. For Engage, which I am fairly happy with overall, well...Marni, you would have loved Alear's giant friend-family-group if only the writers loved you as much as I (and a few other fans) do.

13. What do you like most about Fire Emblem? Oooh, there's a lot, I mean I keep coming back to the series for a reason, right? I really enjoy the overall gameplay but especially some of the weird mechanics that make it so I can do wild things every playthrough despite usually sticking to similar strategies overall. Narratively I love, love, love the characters and especially the supports, there's always such a wide variety. It's also really neat to see the art style change every few games bc it means there's never really one "look" to FE (even if I'm way biased bc Hidari has been my favorite lead illustrator so far; I really do enjoy seeing all the different art styles, it's so fun). Also the music is always excellent, and I've actually quite enjoyed the full voice acting the past few games

14. Something you really don't like about this series? The fandom. I mean, okay, yes there's lots of things I could complain about for the games themselves (I'm not fond of the loli dragons as a visual design trope, I think a lot of the fantasy racism is handled in poor taste, I'm not a huge fan of the split-routes as a gameplay or story mechanic, the gender-locked classes are so stupid to me, etc. etc.), but like? Honestly more so over the past few years than when I first got into FE, the fandom's been a really exhausting experience bc any problematic tropes that get used in the narrative are nothing compared to the actual issues I've come across in the fandom (i.e. some fans are racist--and specifically antisemetic--towards other fans over these fictional characters, and honestly I think real live people getting harassed over some fiction media is way scarier than the issues of race being handled poorly by the writers).

Like, yes I still haunt the FE tag bc I have half the fandom here blocked, but it's exhausting to have to keep updating my blocklist after so many years. Anytime I talk to someone in-person about FE I always add the "but listen the online fandom sucks, so maybe avoid it". Like, sure the fandom's not as toxic as what I've heard about some other games, but damn.

Not to say the fandom's all bad--I never would have found your blog if not for FE, and there are so many fans who are chill and fun, and I love seeing all the fanart and headcanons and theories and other fun things, and I do enjoy reading a good critical analysis when I can find one too as well as just general analyses like when people look at the Buddhist themes in the games or the recurring narrative themes (brings me back to reading research papers in college if they're written a certain way), and I still love making my own art stuff for FE and coming up with my own silly headcanons and theories and analyses. Because despite everything my experiences with the negative side of the fandom have somehow, miraculously, not withered my deep love of the characters and series overall. So like, there is a lot of good here too, and I try not to focus so much on the negative aspects of things I enjoy bc it doesn't do anything for me. But sometimes I am Very Tired, y'know?

[tyzuma04]

My thoughts on:

Alright so, I've wanted to go back and replay some of the games from my childhood and see what I think of them now with today's topic being New Super Mario Bros. released back in 2006 (Damn). So to start off strong, I think this is the best New Super Mario Bros. to date. While we need to wait for Wonder to come out, as of now, the first title ranks supreme among them all. So much good qualities about this game to be listed! The art style is of the early 2000's GameCube era of Mario, the best one in my opinion, with the levels and themes that we'd come to find boring via overuse in the next few games, feel a lot more lively and fun here. There are so many enemies that are exclusive to this game that haven't come back too, which helps make things feel more unique as a result. This game has such a good Vs. mode with the multiplayer that I'm mad it hasn't returned in any games since. Mario Vs. Luigi was so fun to play and it should be a crime it hasn't come back. Also the bosses? Best we've seen in the series because they're not all just the Koopalings overs and over again. (i.e. Wii, 2, and U/Deluxe). All of them are different in design and their attacks, and while they are very easy (unless you're trying to beat a boss with the mini-mushroom powerup to unlock Worlds 4 and 7), it's neat to at least see them all be unique in some way. You even get to see Petey Piranha from Sunshine make an appearance as a boss. That's so cool! So basically, replaying this brought me tons of childhood joy to come back, despite some trouble I had with certain levels being a little hard, I had a blast playing this! I'd love to recommend this game to people but the only other time Nintendo ever re-released it was on the Wii U Virtual Console. So unless you either... A. Own an original copy to play on a DS or 3DS B. Own a Virtual Console copy on your Wii U You'll need to either emulate the game on PC (I think melonDS might work good) with a totally legal copy you own or play it via an SD card on a modded 3DS or 2DS (which is what I used) I give it a 9/10!

[twistedtummies2]

The Devils I Know - Number 19

Welcome to “The Devils I Know!” For this spooky time of year, from now till Halloween, I’ll be counting down My Top 31 Depictions of the Devil, from movies, television, video games, and more! Today’s Devil is a “Cup” Above the Rest. Number 19 is…The Version from Cuphead!

“Cuphead,” I must confess, is not a game I’ve played, but I am familiar with it thanks to the power of YouTube. I’m not likely to play it anytime soon, mostly because…well…it’s deliberately designed to be harder than a diamond-studded crab shell, but I am nevertheless utterly in love with its sense of style. The game is fashioned to be similar to the cartoons of the 1930s, as made by Disney and ESPECIALLY by Fleischer Studios. It contains lots of gags and references to those cartoons, and the art style, music, colors and more are all meant to evoke the imagery and iconography of those old cartoons and all their weird, silly, sometimes downright freaky craziness.

In the original game, the Devil is the main villain, but he’s actually not that major a character onscreen: much more attention seems to be given to his right-hand man, King Dice. The Devil is the final boss, and the cause of all our misery, but he’s more akin to Sauron or Palpatine: the mastermind pulling the strings whom we face in our final confrontation. As a result, there’s really not much to say about the game Devil…but things are rather different in the animated series, released to Netflix. In “The Cuphead Show,” the Devil is once again the main antagonist, but this time he’s a MUCH richer and more prominent character. In fact, the roles (or rather “rolls”) between himself and King Dice are reversed: the Devil appears or is referenced in many episodes of the series, and so far King Dice has only appeared in two and never been referenced beyond them. Kind of ironic, really. The Devil in the animated series is voiced by Luke Millington-Drake. I know nothing about this actor at all, but DAMN I wish I did! The man has talent galore, and it’s all display in this series: his Devil is absolutely HILARIOUS, given the slapstick nature of the show, but he also brings some interesting edges to the character, making him entertaining but also rather interesting. He’s also got a killer singing voice, which really feels in the vein of the old-fashioned crooners of the time period this show is meant to emulate. While he’s far from the smartest or most threatening Devil ever depicted, the character is just a ton of fun to watch, and easily my favorite part of the TV series. If I were only judging the game version of the Devil for this ranking, the character probably would have been an Honorable Mention and nothing more. In the cartoon though, the Devil steals the show from top to bottom, and is more than deserving of a place in the Top 20.

Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 18! HINT: A silver-tongued classic.

[pb-dot]

Film Friday: Hardcore Henry

In general, I'm fond of movies with a bit of thought behind them. It doesn't have to be high art based on deep philosophy, but generally a thematic idea or concept discussed through the medium of film is a good start. I generally also expect movies to happen from the perspective of some nondiegetic observer, but today's movie rasies the question of "hey what if we said bollocks to all of that and made a FPS Game movie?" Honestly, that's very bold of them.

Henry's day is off to a rough start as he wakes up with more robot parts than human parts, only to discover that his freshly augmented body has made him wanted in the worst way. Generic evil science man with magnetic powers, Akan, wants him for use in his super soldier program, and a conglomerate of identical individuals named Jimmy also has their design on him.

Henry, rendered mute by being interrupted before his voice program could be installed, finds himself living through a 2010-era first-person shooter, with lengthy sequences devoted to length parkour chases, very scripted-seeming stealth, turret shooting on rails, and of course, gratuitous nudity. A somewhat rarer partial song-and-dance number also occurs at one point, but I'm of the opinion that the shooters of the era should also feature those.

It's all very silly. There is a theme of sorts about memory and identity going on here, but it feels like an afterthought. This may be intentional, considering how Henry's enough of a blank slate that the plot has nothing to gain traction to, and it's the kind of unforced error that a shooter of the era may have made.

Now, I am cutting the movie a bit of slack here, because it is very fun in a very stupid way. Sharlto Coperley is having a lot of fun bouncing around in the various ludicrous avatars of Jimmy, although I would argue perhaps not enough to excuse the unfortunately very era-appropriate No Homo-jokes.

There is however no denying that it's in the action that the main appeal lies. The action scenes are often chaotic, but uses that chaos wisely, mostly to disguise cuts and give the movie's budget a helping hand by distracting from occasionally dodgy CGI and compositing. It feels like damning with faint praise, but Hardcore Henry has really perfected the look of the mid-budget game, and as a mid-budget action movie, that is honestly pretty cool, it's not an easy style to emulate.

There's, I would argue, no small amount of art in achieving that look and sense of internal consistency. Of course Akan turns up semi-randomly to beat you up some and you never get around to striking back. It's a cutscene and he has metal-manipulating powers to rob you of agency. Of course Akan folds like a cheap chair once you actually fight him, boss battles in shooters were often just uninspired quicktime-events in those days. Of course we're in Russia, in addition to being a cheaper location to shoot, it's the easiest way to ensure none of the people we murder are red-bIooded Americans, which was considered a bit faux-pas to shoot at in games of the era. I could go on, but many of the aesthetic or logic flaws in this movie fit in like that. Not all of them of course, but I'm mostly trying to stick with the positives here.

Hardcore Henry is a dumb movie, but it's dumb in a decently entertaining way. People not fond of gratuitous violence or (perhaps intentionally) bad plots need not apply, but if it's your bag, it's a very decent bag

[the-firebird69]

So just to be square and straight you need a front fender on ours and rear rear suspension but this configuration and a pink gas tank it's going to be larger and a larger motor in the base will be similar on the bottom and the Chrome motor and a chrome frame and I want to have beige handlebar grips a beige seat and beige sidewalls. I also want long tassels on the handlebar grips and a beige enclosure around the front light which would be big if you can't get the three lights the big one in the middle and two lights all enclosed with the beige leather joint cruise control lady I didn't say anything rude you jerk That's funny though is aren't big changes and he knows it and he's just saying it and on the tank I want the HK symbol the one with the wrenches and stuff I don't like his skull one and he's going to do that and the colors that usually comes in in the right size and he says what about an emblem Harley-Davidson has the name and we can put an emblem instead of the name cuz the name is kind of rude and I say that's nice so you make an emblem out of the one with wrenches and be like Chrome and black and he's going to do that and it's nice and like a closure panel in the middle of the tank with the beige on it and the finish and tank will be pink I kind of like that with the emblem so you went on my idea and it's been better he likes it too and to be an emblem on the gearbox and he said they can show besides motor that says it's kind of like well and he's laughing but that's how you do it so it's not bad and it'll be like the same style as the emblem and we can sell the emblem on everything it's kind of like a badge or a patch like a circular it's true it is circular so he's going to go ahead and do that he's going to post it show people what we're saying

Hera Zues

I got that and I'm going to make the emblem and I know what you're saying Harley-Davidson used to have one as much classier than the name and in this case it's better and safer and some dangerous job and I do need assistance from my people with it anyone who feels like they're up to it. And yeah they do make stuff and they do get things together this will be a fun thing to do so maybe they can make their version they can have a competition and critique them because I like a bike design between us three and they agree and our spouses will help us yes

Terry

And we think it might work doing it that way so we get the idea and something to do with Harley Davidson motors and he gets it

Hera I'm already happy with our decision to go ahead with this and we will try and make our vision and we're going to compete

We're going to go ahead and make cars first and block you

Trump Terry c actually said it Terry c but I guess they're into that kind of thing and they are

We'll start making ours now and it's a cool idea to go ahead with this and to do it and really it'd be a nice inexpensive kit people can put together and we can send the frame how welded up and painted and still be less expensive and it's a great idea cuz I was kind of fits inside it you can actually Mount the motor and some other things and you leave out the rest of it and it fits in a smaller box and it's not much smaller but it's smaller and easier to ship

Dan

We have built a lot of choppers and this should not be a big deal and we will use the square too idea I know what you're saying we have to get going on it and we're going to try and do that we need factories we need people we need you to volunteer to get it going and I might do the beer thing and it looks horrible and the stupid and it's probably a mistake but if he thinks that I get the neck and we need it for the matrixson really it's kind of me going down the tubes but I'm going to take the max with me and he's never heard it before except from George and maybe Dave now I think I'm going to emulate them and he says I am and it's really God damn nasty but Georgia stuff ends up nasty and things with my stuff is ready and gross and people into it and they're eating cafeteria food and I'm starting to see something he doesn't like that

Terry c

Olympus

He says he has to eat a lot more he's going to be big but he's just getting fat right now so he's got to slow down on it he's going to get some money later just calm down give me this big huge fat guy with me big fat guy ken

I do love this in holidays you two are going to be huge porkers and he keeps wanting money so I can go out and buy more food he's got enough food now he's got enough food for like 3 weeks

It never happens and you should eat up and rest and it's true too he needs to he's going to have a nice day tomorrow he says he's probably get up late and have breakfast and eat a humongous dinner a little early it's a good idea I just got nuts and everything this is going to be nice I can't wait

Hera

This is a lifesaver so we're going to get going on it and we have our teams and he wants to have a build off in other words we're going to do a competition too to get the model we're going to use and it's going to be the same one with a whole bunch of shops of ours so you want to be able to sign on anybody who wants to do the build off and you think you can beat us or we can beat you and no that's what he says I sort of get that and Frank Castle hardcastle Duke nukem Blockbuster in and we want to do the competition and it's going to be for a speed on top speed handling and cost and the whole shebang together we'll have a list but really it's what you want out of a motorcycle so it's top speed and performance safety everything will be accounted for but if the thing goes 490 mph and the cost $20 more we don't care we're going to go with it so go ahead with that now

Thor Freya

Yeah okay we're going to have our own competition but where do we in-house and he says it's not a problem nobody else is doing it they don't have the balls they don't see why their ball is wonders they're ballas wonders and they don't understand why I was allowed you guys are acting nuts but now I do and I didn't know that was going on until like a week ago and we're aware of that too and I know about cadmium he says and it's not and George is around up there and he has one of those mega comet empire ships who says that I'm working for Dan but the other common empire ships are probably George and I'm starting to see something this is going to be hell I can't believe it and Trump is working for Dan too I'm going to get on this

Terry c

Oh okay the hell part is that George might be floating around and there are more than one of those things I'm starting to see it too

Dan

Holy s*** this is what we're looking for we got to get on this

Mac

It is true we have our dealings with George

Thor Freya

I got to get in line but here I am I'm going to get this going and I got to compete he's right this frame sturdy and it can hold those motors finally something makes sense and they look cheap enough ratty enough I mean this is hell on Earth and this is going to make it worse but okay I can't believe we're doing this but we have to and it's brought back by Jason so he is inviting him to do a build off with himself I guess he says he's going to do it with Brad and he's going to get going on at me thanks it says we used to be friends it sounds kind of the same relationship kind of was

Zig Zag what's the office wants to start up a Sudd company with us and he says I can't do it with you and we have ways of doing it we can ship you products and it says that's kind of the same thing I'm going to look into it cuz this is how I can't do a damn thing he wants to do it he says he has about 20 micro berries they're actually breweries and we can start up tonight and he says he wants to the concert the concept is what we were saying which would be 1 l 2 l and the big mouth to start and he says we're going to make huge beers to start he says yeah 2 l fits in any cork hand he says that's remarkable and they'll buy tons of them it's in human was so stupid I want to go ahead and do this so I'm going to go down and I'm going to start it up I know where to get the stuff and you guys can be sales people and he says we'll try and get over there but this is the idea and you sell it inexpensive and you'll make millions and millions of dollars the first hour and I know I'm going to go ahead and do it I'm going to have a friend drive a truck with Ken Ken has to go so he doesn't drink or take money all that stuff he says he never does and Jason says that it's true Hera says has to watch him like a hawk I got one out there too and no it's not a chicken hawk thank you very much. We're going on this and I'm getting mine in the competition

Zig me too I have a different idea it's kind of swedish it's really fast and it works better Zag you don't need to have the pan on the bottom with all that welding you just use the shoebox cover and turn it upside down and use clips and it's just as strong you don't have all these braces you don't need them and I'm going to do it I'm probably going to win Zag

Olympus

[abcdosaka]

media time

im soo excited for the jjk anime. the manga is really good rn too the fight is so interesting. when gojo dies >>

ive also been reading hiroyuki nishimori manga lately. i started w i'm doshiro bc i was high and i read the description and it sounded funny and i read like 25 chapters and it was actually a knee slapper especially high it was really really good. it started getting a little serious after that so reading it sober i was like ._. but it was still fun. i might reread the beginning bc i really forgot

then i read all of cheeky angel and now i'm watching the anime. im kinda obsessed with it like idk its really really good and same thing happened where it was funny but then shit got really serious toward the end but i think it worked better here. its interesting bc its kinda dated (obviously since its 20 years old) but also very progressive in its view of gender roles.

like since the audience thinks that megumi is a boy and has the mind of a boy she is right to think the way she thinks/behaves, i.e. her want to be cool and reliable and strong is taken seriously but even given the spoiler that doesn't change she's still a serious character which i really appreciate. obviously bro did not have trans people in mind when creating this manga but it’s interesting to see the idea of changing genders taken seriously when normally genderbending is like a fetish thing in manga. and literally every character is bisexual as a result thats crazy. even keiko. i love keiko she's so much funnier in the anime idk who they got doing her voice but she's a star. anyway point is its nice that in the end, even though her identity is important to her, equal importance is given to her as a person

oh also abt the manga. the viz translation is really... like idk who was translating it but anime fans in the early 00s were not real bro nobody talked like that not even in american comics or whatever they were trying to emulate to make them appeal to western audiences. they were doing way too much esp in the early chapters. it got better later on but overall the anime delivers the comedy way better

ig the one thing thats like ermm is that the gender roles are sooo enforced in the society depicted in the manga like ik its how it is/was but damn. my parents go easy on me like i haven't done anything feminine (that was forced on me and wasn't out of my own desire to act feminine) basically ever. and i was never really all that feminine anyway. maybe its bc i was pretty passive too so they let it slide

the early art style was so pretty im kinda sad it changed but ig its nice how stylized it became toward the end. also the 2nd ending is SO good

anyway i will be reading kyo kara ore wa after. reading these made me realize i love delinquent manga. oh i might finally continue reading slam dunk too i'm in the mood for some old shit

what else. i watched paul high. that shit was ASS truly terrible idk wtf letterboxd reviewers are on there was maybe 2 funny lines and im surprised bc some really good comic actors are in that like they couldn't have spoke up and been like hey maybe we should stop embarassing ourselves. points for the lesbian tho i forget her name but its sue sylvester. but anyway i was high and that movie had me completely stone faced like WHAT

last thing. im looking forward to hwasa cb. she released some of her greatest hits when she had auburn hair so i am ready for her to serve

[beautifully-lumpy]

the beautiful person's journal - #3: original caddicarus show tier list/review!

now!! finally time to talk about the caddicarus show itself rather than branding!

so last night, i finally finished my rewatch of the original caddicarus show! it had been years since i'd seen a lot of these episodes, and i saw seasons 12 and 13 for the first time. and man this was definitely an experience. some opinions changed, and some opinions stayed.

it's been really cool to see this dude grow up and change his style over time.

i've put together a tier list that sums up my thoughts, and below the cut i'll give a rundown of my thoughts on each season!

(heads up: this post is LONG. like, VERY long. open the readmore at your own risk.)

season 1!

the season that started it all! i remember watching these for the first time in 2014 as i began watching through all of caddy's backlog. at the time, the episodes weren't that old, but even then the newer episodes felt so different. the jump in quality from season 1 to even mid-season 2 was spectacular.

these episodes were serviceable at the time, and they gave me lots of laughs and entertainment. however, as time went on, these episodes have aged just a little too much for my enjoyment these days. it has its moments, but ultimately it's a product of its time.

favorite episode: santa claus saves the earth rating: 6/10

season 2!

i still enjoyed this season a lot upon rewatching it! it's also aged, but it still gave me so many nostalgic flashbacks. it had been years since i heard the salvaging noise, so when it came on in the voluptuous raider episode i had quite the nostalgic reaction.

i rewatched the grinch doesn't know where things are and the worst thing ever (coronation street) episodes so many damn times, i pretty much know them by heart. so it was great fun rewatching those.

other episodes i loved were destruction derby, croc, the fifth element, and south park.

favorite episode: coronation street rating: 7/10

season 3!

this was a pretty iconic season back when i came along because it was the season with:

the first collab videos, which made up the first two episodes - those being with scarfulhu and the completionist respectively

the lucrative dalmatians 3 video aptly titled "THE WORST GAME EVER MADE", - which was the first caddicarus video to reach a million views and the most viewed video on the channel for over 6 years...and the video that created a whole generation of beautiful people - me included!

the first appearances of the mackay family, specifically in the 200,000 subscriber special formerly titled "bratz: the splatty ratz that are gnatz covered in shatz"...which is still the greatest old caddicarus video title in my opinion.

it's aged, but damn i'd be lying if i said i didn't still love it. all the hidden block stuff, caddy as an adorable little lad just before he moved out of his parents' house, that echoey mic quality before he had the pop filter, the silly game reviewer gimmicks and overarching plot...it's all just too charming and nostalgic for me not to love.

do i prefer it to the videos now? HELL NO. was it fun for the time, and fun to look back on now? HELL YES.

favorite episode: dalmatians 3 (duh) rating: 9/10

season 4!

ah yes...this was the current season when i came! in august 2014, at the age of 12, i became the caddicarus connoisseur i still am today! of course, i just mentioned that dalmatians 3 was my first episode, but i came five months after its release...which means when i clicked on the most recent episode at the time, i saw a nearly-bald caddy in a totally different house. now THAT was jarring.

but yeah this was the first season after he'd gone to SGC and met hidden block and moved out of his parent's house. with this season we had gems such as the vib ribbon and LSD dream emulator episodes. vib ribbon in particular was my favorite caddicarus episode for years!

i was such a huge defender for this season in particular because of my extreme nostalgic connection to it. it was my favorite for so long. these days that's changed, but i really honed in on that "buzzcut-era caddicarus fan" identity LOL. but that's another topic for another day.

but yeah this season is still very fun! i love it for the same reasons i love season 3.

favorite episode: no one can stop mr. domino rating: 8/10

season 5!

this season lasted a whole year, and that's because episodes started becoming more sparce due to the other side shows caddy had going on at the time. there were also these "easter egg hunting" videos caddy would do for didyouknowgaming between retrospectives installments, and...yeah this was an interesting time.

the episode quality didn't suffer as much though, or maybe that's just my nostalgic view lol. i still loved this season looking back! playstation cheats was basically the blueprint for caddy's content nowadays. cheesy, snow white and the seven clever boys, top 10 games that scared me as a kid, rascal, and legoland were bangers. there was the first month of terrarrrr (arr) with the casper 2-parter! caddy moved in with cerys and the girls! stanley came along! and it was also when the polarizing mohawk came into the picture. but i personally LOVED the mohawk and its variations. ┐(︶▽︶)┌

favorite episode: snow white and the seven clever boys rating: 8/10

season 6!

the first weekly season, and the first season in which the caddicarus intro had a backing track and a melody!

and oh boy...it's DEFINITELY early-mid 2016 in nature. IHE collab, references to stuff like daddy derek and gradeAunderA, the word "cringe" is said a lot...man i kinda miss that era and don't miss it at the same time.

but i still loved this season looking back! i still remember when it started with the 50th episode...that's no longer the 50th episode anymore, but we'll talk about that another day.

this season had the april fools "sonic the fighters" episode, the notification of which woke me up at 6 in the morning. there was the scooby doo and the cyber chase saga, rosco "god's precious water!" mcqueen, caddy reacting to his rascal racers video on his 22nd birthday, and the net yaroze games video that capped off 500,000 subs! ....before they were purged, that is.

favorite episode: 66 net yaroze games rating: 9/10

season 7!

man i liked this season a WHOLE lot more upon rewatching. back then i thought it didn't live up to season 6 but i love it a lot more now. there was the crash bandicoot trilogy videos and the R/C stunt copter and hercules vids that started up the miluk joke...which honestly grated on me after a while, but others seemed to love. each to their own i guess. oh yeah...that month of terrarr was GOD TIER. it was so god tier that it drug on into november.

and man i laughed so HARD at the spice world episode. it aged so damn well, it's on par with his content nowadays!

favorite episode: spice world rating: 9/10

season 8!

the first season in the now-iconic current house! it also started out with the artificially created naturally reached 101st episode on ape escape.

i have a lot of personal baggage and emotional trauma that occurred during the first couple months or so of episodes of this season, so that taints them a bit for me, but i was able to look past that stuff and they're better now on rewatch.

the season was brilliant, although not one of my favorites. we had the episodes on the tweenies, the lion king, parappa the rapper, shadow-man, and experimental videos such as the ones on nursery rhymes and TV shows that scared caddy as a kid. there was the iconic peppa pig episode which created another new generation of caddicarus fans. and caddy sported a beanie for the whole season until the spider-man episode...where he revealed that he had a full head of hair! we hadn't seen him like that for 3 years at the time!

overall this season was great. better than i remembered - i thought it was pretty meh when it was new.

favorite episode: pappy rappy rating: 8/10

season 9!

i thought this was a very, VERY meh season when it came out. i considered it the worst season of the series - 15-year-old me will gladly rant to you about how i thought mega man 8 was the worst episode of the entire series. i lamented my criticisms in an unreleased video i made about the problems with modern caddicarus - again, another topic for another day.

but these days? i like it! i don't love it, but i like it. like season 8, it's not one of my favorites, but it's better than i remember. although i will say it wasn't as memorable as season 8. we still had gems like crash on GBA, phoenix games pinnochio, and abe's exoddus.

i think this is definitely when the flaws of the weekly schedule began to show. as caddy said himself in that arlo podcast episode: "there's only so much you can do in a week". and that's the exact concern i had at the time.

favorite episode: toilet duck rating: 7/10

season 10!

now this is a season i mostly thought was meh. it was pretty forgettable, lots of jokes fell flat and it relied a lot on reference humor (especially that rugrats studio tour episode uuuugh). and as i said before, i could REALLY see the formulaic structure and weekly schedule grating on the show. there was the first bandicoot month, but honestly? i think it's the weakest bandicoot month by far.

i DID remember loving and rewatching the aladdin episode a lot when it came out because it reminded me of older episodes. and man...i remember when caddy said "you miss videos coming out at least every two weeks?" and i audibly said "....YES??"

again...another topic for another day!

favorite episode (or the least mid one in this case): spyro orange rating: 6/10

season 11!

this was the season caddy got rid of the slaughter/salvage gimmick, and that was such a big deal at the time because that's what we were accustomed to for so long. but it's exactly what this show NEEDED.

the show had so much more breathing room! there were experimental episodes, episodes on modern games, one of which clocked in at 40 minutes which was INSANE back then. honestly, i always preferred episodes on older games but that's just me. ┐( ˘ ､ ˘ )┌

...although there was still one glaring problem...the weekly upload schedule.

but this season is still one of my favorites looking back!

favorite episode: a gaming magazine for babies rating: 9/10

season 12!

in all honesty, i thought this season started out pretty eh (with the exceptions of the playstation classic, klonoa and breakout episodes), but it started gaining momentum around bandicoot month. i dunno what it is but something changed between the borderlands and crash butts episodes. yeah the camera angle changed, but it was something else as well. maybe the humor was becoming more refined? i dunno but i was starting to see the TCS revival's DNA forming with this season.

favorite episode: crash twinsanity rating: 7/10

season 13!

and here we are...the final season of the original series. the season that introduced the now-iconic brick wall and the unexpected mid-roll sponsors. and boy...was it a wonderful sneak peek of things to come.

i think that this season - although being one of my favorites - is the biggest offender of caddy's "i wanted to do serious reviews while also wanting to do monty python shit" comment in his behind-the-scenes vid. it especially showed with his videos on yooka laylee, death stranding, and star wars. and those were honestly my least favorites of the season.

my favorite episodes from this season were the ones on gaming opinions, that beautifully chaotic "top 10 sads in video games", peppa pig's album, and thomas PS1. i was laughing so damn hard at those.

favorite episode: thomas PS1 rating: 9/10

and of course, this caps off the original caddicarus show - and come 2020, we were blessed with the almost-perfect masterpiece that is the 2020-present caddicarus show. it's so inspiring seeing how this show evolved over the years - i'll be doing separate entries on the different eras of the channel where i'll be going into much more depth on these seasons.

so how would i rate this show? well, let me calculate my ratings for each separate season...

the original caddicarus show gets...

a 7.8 out of 10!

this is a very solid, nostalgic, and fun show that holds a special place in my heart. there were some points where the show slipped in quality - and had some of those seasons/episodes more time to cook, they could've been amazing. however, this series pales in comparison to the current caddicarus show, which i will root for until the end of time LMAO. there is a reason why those old videos are tagged as such. that's probably an unpopular opinion amongst other fellow caddicarus fans from my era but eh. to each their own.

in the next journal, i'll be going over the criticisms teenage me had for the series - and how caddy seemingly addressed all of them.

[trulyinspiringmovies]

Turning Red

“Turning Red” excels in animation, comedy, and heart, which is a shame because this movie wasn’t released theatrically and has a ton of controversy surrounding it.

Mei Lee is now 13 years old and is experiencing changes in her body. It turns out that her family was blessed with the ability to transform into giant red pandas. When her family made the move over to America, suddenly the blessing became a curse. Now, Mei must control her emotions because any strong emotions will turn her into a panda. She has to wait a month before her family can start a ritual that will contain the panda forever. The only problem is her favorite band, 4 Town, is touring and she needs to make money to buy tickets.

It is a damn shame that this movie was robbed of its theatrical release. It’s such a high-quality film that would’ve benefitted from the biggest screen possible. The animation is great. It’s amazing how far computer animation has come in terms of emulating fur. And just like true Disney/Pixar fashion, the pushing of boundaries is not purely for aesthetics. There’s a reason for all the realistic fluff. The fluff really adds to the cuteness this movie was going for, especially with the cats during Mei’s test. What also adds to the stellar animation was the inspired art style. All the characters have that signature CalArts style mixed with anime movement and particle effects. Characters would have their eyes sparkle when they saw something cute or have mini stars coming out when they gave a thumbs up. I’m proud to say that the story for this movie falls into the good half of Disney/Pixar movies. It’s emotional and impactful while still maintaining a healthy amount of comedy. There were so many scenes where I was laughing out loud. I think the most important part about this movie was its metaphors for womanhood. There’s this focus on blossoming from a girl to a woman throughout the whole movie. Turing into a red panda is a metaphor for menstruation. Girls are shown to have crushes on boys. The school mascot is a beaver for crying out loud. This movie is a celebration of womanhood and I think that’s super important to have, especially with a movie this good. I see lots of controversy around this movie because of its on-the-nose metaphor for menstruation and liberal coverage of pad usage amongst women. I simply do not understand why there is an argument. These are just normal things that women have to go through and are being tackled in a lighthearted, family-friendly way. Why are we against the normalization of normal bodily functions? If we can have jokes about farting and be okay with it, then why is this any different? Movies are designed to tackle real-world experiences in ways that are fun and digestible. If you are a man who has a problem with this movie because it makes you feel uncomfortable, then you’re the problem. Stop shaming women for doing what their bodies were designed to do. Don’t silence the experience of any human being just because you were taught to be ashamed of it. If you look at this movie without any bias, you would see that this is an inspired movie with a fun concept and great visuals.

★★★★★

Watched on March 17th, 2022

[xenoblademisadventures]

Xenoblade X's writing is overhated. It has issues, but it also has a number of things that it does better than the other titles. Here are some things X's writing does really well:

X handles its themes the best. The amount of detail it goes into about how societies and people will react to mass death is very impressive. I think the game uses its scope and genre really well for that purpose as well. 1 abandons its themes for plot constantly while 2 executes its themes in poor or problematic ways. X sticks hard to its themes and elaborates on them, especially in its sidequests.

X has some really nice foreshadowing. Given, the majority of it probably hasn't come into fruition. But one thing I really liked in 1's story that I was sad to see deemphasized in 2's was Xenoblade's style of foreshadowing. It made replaying the game a trip and it was just really fun. I think X does this quite a bit too and I love it.

X's mimeosome plot twist was really well done. The actual reveal was sudden and one of the only instances where the game takes advantage of the random self insert well in its main story. The twist also just remains relevant on every level. It never stops impacting the main story. It's relevant to a lot of sidequests. There's a gameplay mechanic based around it. And there are several follow-up twists that play off of it. The foreshadowing was kind of minimal, but it was noticeably there. Mimeosomes is just a really well handled plot twist because it feels like an addition to the plot that really gets played with in interesting ways.

X has the best written sidequests out of any of the games by far. 1 has a lot of fetch quests while 2's sidequests emulate X's in terms of them feeling like side stories involving random NPCs, but X's Normal Missions, especially, often feel like they contribute to the core of X's story. You can't get a full view of X's themes, the consequences of the narrative, or even some major plot twists and events, without engaging in the sidequests and NPC dialogue. That could be seen as good or bad, but it makes X's story less character driven and more zoomed out. X's Normal Missions also take advantage of the self insert character and have you making a lot of meaningful choices. Sidequest chains have arcs with rising tension and conclusion. If you play the game, you cannot get the full experience without engaging in the side content.

Besides the sidequests, X just has really fleshed out NPCs. It's certainly a thing that some of the sidequest antagonists are legitimately better written than some of the major story antagonists by a very noticeable margin. Probably my favorite NPC is Erio, who goes through a stronger character arc than several voiced characters through her series of sidequests. The NPCs feel like actual characters rather than props, which is impressive considering that there are literal hundreds of them. 1 and 2 also do this to an extent, but it was the most promoninent in X.

People don't give the character writing in this game enough credit. The fact that every single character, including major, minor, and NPC characters has a slightly different reaction and perspective on Earth blowing up is actually incredible. And those perspectives all make sense and are interesting. X really should have elaborated on a lot of its secondary characters, but they never really felt like they weren't thought out. Lao is the only playable character that really recieved the focus he deserves and his story is really damn good.

The confrontation in Chapter 11 is my favorite moment in the series. Seeing Elma's and Lao's perspectives clash, where they're both coming from, and Lin's reaction is also really damn good. I also like how the scene gets paralleled in Chapter 12. It's really strong character work.

I fucking love Elma. I love her seeing her worldview and how different it is from any other protagonist in the series. She's pragmatic but caring. She accepting and diplomatic but willing to throw down. She's just really level minded except that one time with Goetia. She acts almost like the events of X aren't even really her first time dealing with something like this. It's also interesting that her biggest fear was being rejected by the ppl she's put in so much to protect and their answer being "obviously we accept you." Normally that kind of character writing isn't phrased as a plot twist, but it's interesting that it was here since ppl can be on the other side of that. Also she's cool as fuck 😎. Why are half of her attacks at least as flashy as 2's Blade arts? Amazing. I want more Elma. She and Mythra are my two favorite characters in the series.

X has this really great sense of mystery with its environments. This isn't literal writing, but it's still a form of storytelling. The rings in Oblivia are a good example. They immediately stick out and make the player wonder "what are those?" "who built them?" "what happened?" And you're going to be hard pressed to find an answer to that question. There's other stuff in the game's world that invokes that feeling. You can find incomplete answers to some of them and form theories by connecting NPC dialogue to collectible descriptions, but the larger point is that they do a good job invoking questions and theories in the first place. X's world design is good at that.

I think it's funny that every enemy species in the game has a multi paragraph essay about their biology and how they operate. It's a meme that mating patterns are brought up frequently, but it's a fun amount of worldbuilding that give more life to the already really alive feeling enemies. X has really extensive worldbuilding that just isn't in the other games.

Overall, X has a zoomed out writing style. I believe the reason people dismiss it is that X doesn't have a lot of good emotional impacts or escalating stakes in its main story. At the beginning of the game, your goal is to find the Lifehold Core. At the end of the game, you prevent the Lifehold Core before it runs out of battery and you stop it from being blown up by one of the aliens that blew up Earth. There are very few points in the plot where the main characters are brought to their limits. And that's because the major characters don't have clearly defined arcs. Lin wants to make flying skells to honor her parents, who died in an engineering accident, she does this in a side story. Elma is super focused and dedicated to humanity's survival but the nuances of that are challenged exactly once. She spends the majority of the game largely unreadable and she only becomes interesting in retrospect. The flashiest character writing happens in sidequests, which people are likely to miss due to X not giving the player any reason to assume they'd matter (on top of sidequest NPCs usually being harder to remember due to the generic nature of NPCs).

Xenoblade X's writing is really good, but the things that makes it good and the places that are good differ so much from the strengths and weaknesses of 1 and 2's writing that there's no guarantee overlap between the two. 1 and 2 have more cathartic stories than X, but X has a much more macro one.

I'd like to briefly bring up Majora's Mask because Xenoblade X tells its story in a very similar manner. With Majora's you will still get the themes of disaster and death if you rush the main story, but you'll be missing a lot of the atmosphere, stories, and nuances if you do that because every NPC is writing like their own person while the protagonist is mostly just a vector to view those stories from. I think Majora's does this better than X by quite a bit, but X has a similar structure with how it tackles its themes. I'd like to see more games that take advantage of their NPCs to tell their stories.