#asktheherd

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What are your thoughts on Totally Spies?

only watched one episode when I was a little kid and I think it cemented a lifelong phobia, so nothing coherent beyond "aahhh" and "help me" lmao

the impression I get purely from pop culture osmosis is that the series' basic premise is "wouldn't it be funny if james bond was all lame and girly and stupid", so I'm not super motivated to get a closer read on it. I mean, the valley girl accent parody is right there in the name ..

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I don’t want to worry about the shadow of world war, I’d rather worry about Shadow the hedgehog

I like that this one still comes with some level of spiritual unease. fitting for the character. we all hope that little guy is gonna be ok 🙏

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Hullo, I wanted to ask you something about your Tf2 analysis from a while ago (which I really really appreciate and think about often with a more than recommended amount of skepticism to accompany my enthusiasm, I'm not going to go debate lord on you though) and I'm not too sure how to go about it or if I should. I'm nervous. Nonetheless:

You've outlined the improvident way that it was revealed that Spy is Scout's absent-yet-presently-present father and why that was a such a folly in the initial discretion of the game, as well as how that could have been executed differently while maintaining and potentially expanding it's comedic satire that it is dependent on. My question is: Do you think that, with the same retconish way that occured with Scout and Miss Pauling, there could have been a way for them to avoid the foiling trope without taking away from their own premises, too?

If it helps I'm completely neutral on it as a ship and am not pushing for some shippy debate thing, from skimming over your blog I've superficially gathered some critique on gender politics, correct me if I'm wrong but mostly as it pertains to heteronormative, patriarchal, generally inflexible presentation in media. So I'm really curious on how that could be applied here! Sorry for this strange, lengthy ask.

disclaimer up front that it's been a while since I made that analysis post and I barely remember what I said in it, and I might not even agree with all of it myself anymore (aside from like. the basics. TF2 is satirical comedy, the comics fucked up by overlooking the "satire" aspect, Spy being Scout's real dad was a stupid twist that ruins a perfectly good joke for the sake of a very silly plotline with poor payoff, etc)

that aside, Scout and Ms. Pauling ..? it's really hard for me to imagine a way they could have ended up together that wouldn't feel contrived.

Ms. Pauling's character in the comics is, in general, on very shaky ground with the game's tone, in my opinion. she's severely held back by the fact that she was not created to be a major character in the first place - her character design is understated and unfocused, her personality is quiet and mellow in a world full of bombastic characters who easily outshine her, and she cannot easily produce natural-feeling comedy. it's clear that she was created to be an extension of the Administrator's character first and foremost, and a "straight man" for zanier characters to bounce off of as a hard second priority. she was supposed to stand in the background and look normal and non-threatening as a foil to the main cast, and occasionally imply that the Administrator has eyes and ears everywhere, and is constantly pulling strings from behind the scenes.

Ms. Pauling worked extremely well for the role intended for her, but pulling her into the spotlight and essentially making her the protagonist of the longform comic was a mistake, in my opinion. she's not funny enough to make good use of her "screentime" and attempts to make her funny often feel too noncommittal and cutesy contrasted with the rest of the cast, because getting too crazy with it would feel out of character. on the contrary, the more serious and emotional aspects added to her feel too vulnerable next to all of these stone-cold (and largely-male) killers she's hanging out with. these missteps, combined with being the female character with by far the most focus in a mostly-male cast, makes her feel like a shitty "the girl one" stereotype.

for that reason, I don't think she could have ended up with Scout without the relationship feeling forced and distractingly heteronormative.

our main woman being smaller, cuter, quieter, more well-mannered, less quirky, less bombastic, and overall less impactful than all the male characters is one thing (that already sucks). but then also ending up with the shitty sexist guy who's been harassing her since the moment they were on the same comic page together? miserable. unsalvageable. then we're at a critical amount of shitty tropes stacked on top of each other

Ms. Pauling's one saving grace in all of this is that at the very least, her character orbited another female character this whole time, and her entire arc is about her relationship to this other woman. I genuinely really, really enjoyed that aspect of the comic. I think the whole plotline was a poor choice for a TF2 comic specifically, but if it hadn't been a TF2 comic? Ms. P would've been a way more enjoyable character, with so much less baggage. her relationship with the Administrator is fascinating, and the way the narrative essentially used her as a crowbar to open up the treasure chest of secrets that is the Administrator's motives and backstory was fantastic.

it just would've been better as its own thing. controversially, I think the TF2 comics should've been about the main characters from TF2, not some random minor character who got promoted into a main character role that she really wasn't fit for. and also if you're gonna promote a random side character to protagonist, at the very least pick someone who works for the genre and tone. or at least find a way to make her character enjoyable on the first read, instead of only in retrospect when you know the big twist at the end.

the writers couldn't figure out how to do any of that, but at least they didn't make their extremely mid Relatable Girl Protagonist kiss some annoying dude. she spent the whole comic obsessed with an insane gilfy old girlboss. and isn't that all any of us can hope for

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hold on I’m gonna need you to elaborate on the guy who LOST A FOOT while you were chilling drunk??

-leans way too close to microphone- public transport is an imperfect science

it was many years ago when I was ~18, one of my first times going drinking with friends. we all got sloshed to some degree but it was new to me so I was more affected than the others, I think.

anyway we had to go home by bus and we went to one of those bus stations where lots of buses pull up in the same area. there were some pushing and shoving to get into our bus (lots of drunk teens running around, it was some kind of large scale event iirc), and a guy from my group lost his balance and took a step back right as another bus pulled up behind us and it crushed his foot

thankfully some of the other people in our group were sober enough to call an ambulance and some were trained in first aid. I was on emotional first aid duty, hopefully that also made some kind of difference ??

but yeah he went to the hospital and afaik they were gonna try to reconstruct his foot, but then he got an infection and had to have the whole thing amputated.

he came back to school a few months later though! I think he finished his education and everything. used crutches to get around for the rest of the time I knew him. it seemed like everything turned out okay, thankfully!

but yeah that's the story of the time I went drinking and a guy lost a foot! I guess in the moment it was scary but frankly a lot of terrible shit happened out there in nowheresville on the daily, so I don't think about it much. it was just kind of a weird night and I'm just happy he lived and was able to regain a high quality of life again after the fact :)

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what's "dead end paranormal park" and why do you regret watching it so much?

Dead End: Paranormal Park was a netflix cartoon series from a couple years back that people were hyping to hell and back for its diverse cast of characters, especially its gay and trans male protagonist.

I gave it a shot, and unfortunately I just found it really obnoxious. as I understand it, it was based on a semi-dark/serious web original property made for adults, but the cartoon targeted a lower age rating and seemed to be trying to appeal to like a steven universe type of demographic, with a similar art style and some softer themes around queerness/mental health/family troubles/growing up.

in my opinion, the result was shallow and annoying, with an ugly art style and poor animation quality. though it was more explicit in its representation than its contemporaries and inspirations, the characters felt like something out of a 2016 one-shot autobiographical tumblr comic about the struggles of being [identity]. it felt like an insincere attempt to win over a demographic starved of better options by doing the blandest, most inoffensive cookie cutter "diversity" it could get away with, and cutting corners on absolutely everything else. it felt cheap.

to put my thoughts into perspective, I like steven universe just fine. I find media for kids interesting as a subject, so it's not like I'm mad at Dead End for being a simple story for kids. steven universe was a really nice introduction to the same sorts of themes, just done a lot better, with a great cast of characters and for the most part really beautiful art. it's not the demographic or the subject matter or the attempted art style that's the problem, it's the fact that it is clearly trying to hop on a trend it was not well-suited for and fumbled the execution at pretty much every step.

despite being kind of a dumpsterfire, it still grew a moderately-sized fandom, I believe? but I honestly could not make it past more than 7 episodes, even though I would in theory have liked to see what else it would do just because the intersection of kids media + queer themes is interesting to me, even when done badly.

tl;dr it was one of those "why is no one watching this show with all these explicitly queer characters ?!" type of shows people on tumblr love to pass around and tell each other to watch, and the inevitable answer to that question is "because it fucking sucks"

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I dont think we've ever really spoken, but How have you been? Any new fun projects? :]

I've been doing pretty good, thank you!! I think I'm a little psychologically hungover from 2024 because a lot of big changes happened in my life. but they were good things! so now I'm in some kind of adjustment/recovery period haha <3

as for fun projects, back in autumn, I was taken on as an official artist for the free pet collecting browser game DragonCave, so I've been making a bunch of pixel art of little dragons to pitch to the site. so far, I've worked on the Quantari Dragon with two other artists, and I solo'd a joke "dragon" called the Pink Dino. I've got lots more in the waiting pen, so hopefully more will join them soon !!

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you're so right on that bronies post...like...thats such an interesting thing to think about but its so true

I know, right ?? sexism in fandom is so rampant, with the number 1 leading shitty trend currently being female characters being overlooked/sidelined/simply ignored in favor of male characters with the exact same traits - especially the unwillingness to develop under-utilized female characters the way under-utilized male ones are

meanwhile bronies in 2012 were not only INTENSELY invested in developing mlp's female main cast, they also extended that same hype to practically every other female character that got more than a second's screentime on the show. the common joke about bronies is that they were all a bunch of weirdo basement-dwelling perverts (and yeah, some of them were, in more or less harmless ways), but I dare say the MAJORITY of brony fandom content was like. massive genre-defying fanfictions. dozens upon dozens of entire albums' worth of songs of every genre. super-detailed crossovers with other media. character analysis! piles upon piles of femslash written with incredible detail and care! art, craft projects, a bunch of genuinely cool shit, all centered on girl characters who other fandoms wouldn't have given a shit about!

like, again, I'm not saying the brony fandom was Cool, Actually (I think the whole phenomenon was layered and complicated, and I don't think I'm the right person to decide if it was a net positive or not), but I AM saying that there was something really, really interesting going on gender-wise over there and I wish someone smarter than me would talk about it without either airbrushing out the issues or being demonstratively disdainful about it out of fear of being deemed a Pevert Apologist (bad) or Cringe (worse)

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Wow

I came here from the ducktales '17 as vines vid lol

Oh my gosh

I keep forgetting I made that, I just got randomly possessed one late summer and did all that for a fandom I'm barely in

10/10, it was fun, would do it again!

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Saw your goal to collect every pokémon card ft. Mew. Did you have a wishlist for that, or..? Like. Plz say more. I wanna see your mew cards lol (and see if I have any of the ones you need!)

ough the siren song of more mew cards ... so tempting !!!! thank you so much for offering, that's so cool of you omg

my collection is still quite new (I get most of them shipped in from other countries and I need to watch the $$$), so I'm still missing a lot. have some (blurry. whoops) photos of the ones I have thus far:

cute, right? :3c

my specific goal is to get one of each type of mew card, and, if it exists, in holo, with english text, in as good condition as I can afford.

the holo fire-type delta mew in the second pic is my pride and joy ... they normally go for hundreds of dollars depending on condition, but I found one with a very minor misprint for a fraction of the price. I also looooove the movie promo card in the center in the first pic, I managed to trade for that one when I was little and I've held on to it ever since <33

I use this list of mew cards on serebii.net to keep track of releases! I don't have a wishlist, but if you happen to have any of the older cards, water-type delta mew or _____'s mew, I would absolutely love to negotiate something!! I'm a dummy when it comes to figuring out shipping and all that, but for one of these special friends, I would go the extra mile ... set up a p.o. box or smth ............ life finds a way !!!!! I crave the little images ....

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i agree with your takes on rain world so much please keep talking

Anonymous said: i need every post-downpour fan to read your post at least three times

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ok so huge apologies to these awesome anons who were being super supportive after I wrote this post months ago expressing frustration with certain fandom interpretations of Rain World.

I actually wrote out a full reply to another anon that goes into more detail about some of the issues I talked about! but then I got super sick and handling all of that took priority, and it ended up sitting in my drafts for months.

I wanted to write more in response to these anons, but I lost interest in the subject, so I'll just post what's been in my drafts, in case anyone still wants to read! <3

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FYI the frog teapot post links to a site that buys cheaper stuff and upsells it massively. On the website it costs nearly 150 usd (its on sale for 80 right now yippe /s) but you can buy the same exact thing on amazon for like 30. Same goes for other products on there I'm pretty sure

a warning/tip for the people! thank you, anon!!

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i will provide a question: did you ever get to play the oxenfree sequel? if yes, thoughts?

I did indeed! I had a good time with it. I don't think it comes anywhere near the brilliance of the first game, though, and in certain ways, it diminishes the impact of the original imo.

I think the first game played to the genre and writers' strengths extremely well. the tight focus on a handful of kids exploring a spooky island is inherently vulnerable, which is great for a horror game, doubly so for a very emotionally impactful horror game. the characters being snarky, petty and immature a lot of the time makes them feel like real teens trying to be cool in the face of some crazy shit. I found the entire cast incredibly likeable, which was super important, since the majority of playtime is spent having conversations with them.

by contrast, the sequel has a bigger scope, the main characters are adults, and they have a lot more resources at their disposal. the dialogue feels stilted and juvenile coming out of adult characters - one or two adult characters sounding like teens would be fine as character traits, but when every adult character sounds like they left high school yesterday, it breaks believability. with so much help, information and tech at their disposal, the scares also seem less like a threat and more like a challenge ... and since you really have to go out of your way to fail most of the scenarios, there's precious little left to create real tension.

a big drawback of the sequel is also just that ... we're stuck with two main characters who have negative amount of chemistry. the first game had a small web of complex relationships already laid out for the player to explore. the characters' motivations for wanting to know each other on a deeper level were rock solid. on the other hand, the protagonists of the sequel are work colleagues who have never met before, forced to work together by circumstance. there's no reason for them to try to open up and bond the way the kids do in the first game, so the long conversations about childhood trauma and whatever else comes off forced. this is a big problem when 90% of the game is just mucking about in dialogue trees while walking from place to place.

another problem, I think, is that the sequel leans too far into building lore that ultimately goes nowhere. it does a whole lot of explaining that serves no thematic purpose and is generally uninteresting. by the time everything is explained, the story is over and precious few elements come together in a meaningful way. the first game did well at not getting in its own way, simply explaining just enough for us to understand the context in which the characters exist and the framework on which the themes and emotional gut-punches are built. it feels more immersive because it doesn't stretch believability further than what is needed to tell the story it's telling.

I really wanted to love Oxenfree 2, because it's protagonist is fun, faceted narratives surrounding parenthood are in terribly short supply, and the visuals and vibe are all great.

unfortunately, I feel like everything about it is too ambitious for the limits of its genre and the skill level of its writers. it pulled a Stranger Things season 2 and took a "more is more" approach, instead of realizing that for character-driven horror stories especially, "more" is often less.

I still love the original game a ton, though the way the sequel wraps up that story is unsatisfying and anticlimactic to me as well. it honestly kind of kills the vibe to watch a beautiful tragedy play out and then it's followed up by a little final toot of a fix-fic ending. I think finally getting to undo the tragic ending of the first game could have been an incredible emotional journey for the player ... if, again, there was actually a real risk of failing, and the themes and emotions of the narrative were given room to breathe, instead of being crowded out by everything else.

but yeah, that was my experience playing! a perfectly fun romp for the spooky season, but ultimately forgettable compared to the absolutely legendary first game.

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I was not either of the other two invisible asks but I am manifesting their visibility in your inbox via sending an additional ask that may be invisible

this one is visible!! what on heck's green earth is going on

thank you for conducting this experiment, at least now I know my ask box works to some extent!

I feel like I remember smth about blocked users being able to send asks and they show up as invisible? maybe someone I have blocked tried to send me something? very mysterious

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ok but honest animorphs disclaimer, the books are aimed at younger kids so the writing is simplistic plus... honestly not great at times even taking that into account and might not be your cup of tea if you aren't into the story enough to give it a pass. it probably also suffers from atla nostalgia disease where people first read them at an impressionable age and say it can do no wrong. i did reread them all like six years ago and still enjoyed them but i can admit they're not the greatest thing in the world. I honestly am not sure if I would have enjoyed them now had i not read them as a kid (there's also So Many books. it did not need to be as long as it is lmao)

I love a lot of children's media that sucks much more if its heart is in the right place (or it's just weird enough. side-eyes sonic the hedgehog), so who knows! we'll see if I ever get around to picking it up. I hear the author is nice at least, which makes me 120% more inclined to approach it with love in my heart :]

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recent gaza donation post you reblogged is indeed fake, there was a post debunking several recently made blogs saying roughly the same thing, all with the same icons. that blog is one of them. i personally scrolled down and the first post reblogged was 17 hours ago

god that fucking sucks. the absolute inhumanity it must take to take advantage of a tragedy like this.

I deleted the post, thank you for telling me, anon.

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trick or treat!

hmmmmm I think I will be giving out random funny pictures I have saved on my puter >:3c