#baby jack crit

[soullessjack]

hot take but if you can only enjoy an autistic character when they’re being woobified and infantilized and you actively go out of your way to ignore or refute any of their actual personality and adult traits to keep woobifying them then maybe you just don’t like autistic people

[jackexmachina]

the thing about peace of mind is that the milkshake half is obviously perfect, no notes

but the snake half is AGONIZING it's completely wasted on Donatello and I can't think about anything else when Felix is sad because they put him in a TUPPERWARE CONTAINER WITH NEWSPAPERS ON THE BOTTOM??

[quietwingsinthesky]

if i ever say anything mean or anything that sounds like character crit of the spn characters, please mentally append “and that’s why i love them” to the end of it because i promise you, whatever terrible thing im saying they did, i enjoyed it immensely and wish they did it more

[maipareshaan]

Again i am sorry i acknowledge this is petty and i don't actually support but lol i love when heller proshippers get harrassed, i hope they get hate, i hope they get into a blocklist and i hope someone makes a anonhateblog for them again shsnsbbsbsvzgzdbb

[ryttu3k]

Thoughts on Doctor Who - Rogue, which is largely theorising on who the character is! (Yes, yes, I'm a truther for that theory.)

So we got: 1) Kylie and Lady Gaga (and Billie Eilish which I didn't recognise), 2) Dungeons and Dragons (roll for initiative), 3) Libertango!, 4) Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, 5) cosplay, 6) Bridgerton (which, not my thing but pretty important overall), 7) a Shalka reference?? and 8) gay longing.

Oh yeah we're back.

Shades of the Family of Blood with the Doctor wanting revenge for Ruby's apparent death. Dude trapping someone for centuries in an empty barren dimension is worse. That's worse, right? Doctor, babe, you see how this is worse, right?

Love the foreshadowing with Ruby's earrings.

Rogue mentions a new boss and paperwork. I wonder if this is the same new boss that Beep the Meep mentions?

Spent the entire episode trying to work out why the Duchess looked familiar. Took me until the credits to see it was Indira Varma. Welcome back, Suzie Costello!

Who is Rogue?

Fuck it I'm a Master!Rogue truther. The evidence, as I see it:

The name. The Rogue seems quite appropriate for a notorious renegade!

lbr setting up an intrigue involving cosplaying bird aliens for Doctor Enrichment 100% feels like a Master thing to do.

The Kylie. The Master is a Known Pop Music Enjoyer (see: Rogue Traders, Scissor Sisters). Also 'Can't Get You Out Of My Head' is hilariously on the nose for the Master's… everything.

The ship, complete with TARDIS-esque central column and also being a mess.

He lost someone. The ship was made for more than one, and he lost someone.

The Master, gaming, and crit fails.

The TARDIS got grumbly. She, of course, has a history with the Master.

Rogue has to be a time traveller instead of just a human-looking alien from the same time period because. D&D and Kylie weren't around in 1813.

The ring! The ring! Come on!

Arguing across the stars.

So apparently it wasn't just Libertango they were dancing to. At least one site makes mention of the fact that given the rest of the contemporary music in the episode, it was most likely the 1981 Grace Jones song that heavily makes use of Libertango - called I've Seen That Face Before.

Okay so one major thing against him being the Master - more or less sacrificing himself to save Ruby. And that's where I keep coming back to the ring. What if it's something like a chameleon arch? It literally wouldn't be the first time an arched Master became generally more altruistic and caring, it happened in his first story back. Which was, needless to say, written by RTD! (I realise this one was not but he's still showrunner and lbr if he told me, "Hey, do you want to write a Doctor Who episode that references D&D, cosplay, and the return of the Master?" I'd be jumping up and down saying, "UM, YES?" at quite a volume.)

Not necessarily the Master specifically, but 'the one who waits' could be an apt description for someone whose last words to the Doctor were, "Find me."

Like yes there are 100% Jack vibes but also. Look. Look…

Continuity

Another Susan Twist appearance, this time in painting form. We'll be getting the payoff for that next week, looks like!

Ruby mentions some of her past, including the snow, which feels like a significant thing to mention.

Absolutely playing with the stories are real theme here, with cosplayers taking things entirely too seriously, and Rogue's entire Thing being based on D&D.

Season ranking

As of s40e06:

73 Yards

Rogue

The Devil's Chord

Dot and Bubble

The Church on Ruby Road

Space Babies

Boom

[thisisnotthenerd]

and now for our 2022-23 intrepid heroes season:

quick episode descriptions:

no place for a prince or princess: first level one battle since the corn cuties. an army of constructs plus the fairy. buttoned up. crit to pull attention. the first of the red gems. running screaming puppet boy. ylfa's bottleneck. pib and alphonse. pib facing the fairy godmother. murph's bad turn. gerard is almost insta-killed. ylfa getting overwhlemed as everyone dies around her. gerard rolls an 18 and pulls the shard out of the fairy into himself. total party kill. ylfa is the only one who doesn't elect to fail.

the curdled web: trying not to fall off the web. first crit with a death blow mechanic. faerie fire on pinocchi-crow. spider drops from the ceiling. ylfa eats a spider. look alive, wet, naked spiders on your 10, 11, 12, 1 and 2 and behind the and the 10 and the 11. senator! we're all on our own in the dark, little boy. weird spider goo. ylfa crits. monster girl bonding.

trouble in tuffeton: cleaning up. mayor harold hopps. adult sleepover. gerard assisting crits. finding the ritual. the wicked fairy clawing her eyes out. you are seeing something you absolutely should not see, the face of a divinity you don't worship, the fucking smile of a devil that you never believed in. the children look into the face of horror. the stepmother eats grandma. pinocchio crits on cutting his strings. going to the lines between.

the baron of bricks: split narrative and battle episode. you came with a handmaiden, a butler, a jester, and a second butler. how do wolves like sex. the book is tugging. he's in the fucking stew. huff and puff, little girl. heat metal on the copper. stay mad, baby. giant moving spoon. the soup is lava and does 18d10 damage. he has eaten of the soup. mother goose goes down. spilling stock on the fires. little red riding hood successfully grapples the third little pig. 51 damage from the spoon. just another blue collar little cat working his job at the factory. full nelson. the culmination of pinocchio's story.

terror on toy island: a soft little touch. mer-king's insect plague. no daddy. pib getting the little guys. i'm so fucking scared! the water surges around the mer-king. the terrible dogfish is here. daddy-meter is spinning. pinocchio crits to figure it out. pinocchio screaming to wake the dead. with the eyes! you were about to instantly die. gerard is wearing full chain mail in the ocean.. rosamund & ylfa are swallowed. the sea witch shows up. murph causes a nat 20. call of destiny. rosamund gets the eye with a seven. i'm a lion in the water. pib's acrobatic crit. one v. one.

leap of faith: using the code word. red and la bete. pivot after pivot after pivot. gerard giving the note to elody and failing so hard. 🎶 her hair is everywhere! 🎶 pib succeeding by not being social. pinocchio starting off drinking whiskey with bubblegum and telling cinderella they have her book. timothy with rapunzel truly fucking it up so hard. rosamund and snow white. attempting to put cinderella in her book. jumping out the window. getting attacked by dwarves. nat 20 perception as they leave. nat 20 to repel the gander. we're the giants.

in the land of giants: we might be the giants. ice knife. princess or bully? a bunch of tiny wizards. jack 1v1ing timothy. get in the crevice. animate objects. fuck alphonse. a really sharp bird. gerard lands some hits. shatter on some birds with a side of existential crisis. ylfa critting twice to carry tim and take so many opportunity attacks. the goose is loose! pinocchio is attacked by alphonse and goes down. goose casts heal. failing on insight. you have collected all of the golden belongings of this battle. nat 20 save for alphonse a cricket shot a rocket at me.

the trials of baba yaga: the aftermath of pinocchio's persuasion. my hot form. pinocchio select. i'm always pissing. stray from the path, but stray together. gerard sees rapunzel, gives up his name for elody's, and goes full frog with a crown. rosamund encounters the fairies, gives up her true love, and takes on the briars again. ylfa meets her grandma, and walks her great-great grandma to death, having replaced the wolf. pinocchio eaves-peeps on the stepmother, gives up his chance at being a real boy, and gets the stepmother's name. timothy pulls artifacts & puts them in the book, and gives the baba yaga a full page. pib sees the tricksters, goes from a 33 stealth to an 11 performance, and somehow still tricks the giants, after giving his book away. piss stew. i cast banishment on the actual man murph.

the ending of all things (part 1): geas on scheherezade. pib crits immediately on rapunzel. the bird is dead. bad persuasion checks. scheherazade be normal. pinocchio persuades mira. i'm a fucking frog, elody. no one liked that. she poked me with a d4. ylfa drops la bete into oblivion. rosamund goes down, gets revivified and consumes thumbelina. gerard eats rapunzel. breaking concentration with vicious mockery. rosamund crits on snow white for an insta-kill.

the ending of all things (part 2): a friendly platonic kiss. ylfa gets scheherazade's book. crit on the blue fairy. animate objects. flat william. firing a rocket to knock a hat off. the concept of beaky. pib's very good turn. elody hits the hand. ocd boyfriend, add girlfriend. the stepmother appears. you're a dumb motherfucker and I'm going to kill you. using so much pc creep to get the orange hat fairy. crit on the stepmother. baba yaga is banished. pib kills god. almost everyone goes down. all rise to roll for the fate of the universe. 18 from zac. you've thrown the orange hat in the Box of Doom without any permission. stealing everything back from the baba yaga. determining their own stories in the end.

[vaicomcas]

Housekeeping post

About

I am a "bitter Cas girl" as they say (I resisted this label for a long time because I am old and don't like to call myself a girl but I can't find a better label). The Dean-critical kind. Disliker of the Winchesters in general.

Castiel is the only fictional character I have ever cared about. Castiel is incomparably amazing and heroic and intelligent and BAMF and knowledgeable and the show did everything it could to take it away from him just to prop up the glory of the Winchesters. Even the kindness and the caring that they let him keep was in service of the same goal. I started the blog because I just couldn't stand it.

I do not ship in general (but can enjoy it in small doses), but because I hate how Dean treated Castiel I especially do not enjoy that ship. However, Castiel being in unrequited love with Dean is important to me. I know, it's an awkward position to be in.

I may come across as bitter and joyless. I know of course my perspective is just that, no amount of foaming at the mouth will make it more righteous than anybody else's. But when it comes to Castiel I do not try to be fair and balanced. Please don't hesitate to block me if you find my opinions upsetting.

Links to my index posts, fics etc below the cut.

Ongoing interests (reference for myself)

Castiel Sapta and Crowley Sapta (celebrating as aspect of Castiel or Crowley every day of the week)

Index posts:

My Castiel Manifesto series (my opinion about various narratives regarding Castiel)

Justice for Castiel series (my catalog of bitter Cas girl grievances typically centered around a specific scene)

Bitter Godstiel fan series

collection of classics such as endiness posts

Index of Crowstiel parallels

My Fics

Unbroken (alternate season 15 after episode 3)

Heart of a hellhoud (castiel and hellhound Juliet and Jack in a post Season 12 AU, later Crowley)

The Miracle (a bitter cas girl vent ficlet, very Dean-crit)

The Confession (another bitter cas girl vent ficlet that rewrites 15x18)

A hellhound at dawn (snapshots of Castiel, Juliet, Crowley moments in Season 6 universe, for Juliet Appreciation Week)

The Earth Still Rises (my new WIP, aka crowstiel on the moon, aka justice for godstiel)

My HCs and AUs

Don't believe Naomi (hc of what really happened when Cas was extracted from Purgatory)

Godstiel 2.0 (hc alternate ending for Moriah)

Seven milliseconds (AU behind A little slice of Kevin standoff scene)

Baby Tanya the Nephilim (AU where Cas, Crowley and Nora were coparents of Baby Tanya who is a Nephilim)

Heaven for animals and plants (hc)

Castiel was resurrected by gods of the world (hc)

Crowstiel birds AU

Crowstielnatural

The other civil war (hc)

Second Rebellion (hc)

The garrison and garrison as physical space (hc)

Winchesters as ICE agents AU

[princesstillyenna]

I posted 1,367 times in 2022

That's 833 more posts than 2021!

658 posts created (48%)

709 posts reblogged (52%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@newdorkrangers

@princesstillyenna

@greymichaela

@dearericbittle

@nebulein

I tagged 652 of my posts in 2022

#group chat shit - 443 posts

#gcu - 441 posts

#tilly writes - 74 posts

#lovely nonnies - 52 posts

#gcu18+ - 39 posts

#kriedbanajad - 34 posts

#new york rangers - 28 posts

#tilly thinks - 26 posts

#con crit discourse - 23 posts

#tilly reads - 17 posts

Longest Tag: 133 characters

#like i've been typing for the last five minutes trying to make my fingers go to the right shift key and my whole hand is like brah no

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Every now and again I will be reminded that Jack did a MAGIC TRICK at the ASG and had a MINI BABY JACK HUGHES WITH HIM and he STILL DIDN’T WIN and I get super mad about it. SUPER MAD. He worked so hard. SO HARD. HE DREW THAT MAGIC BOX IDEA HIMSELF OK?

26 notes - Posted August 21, 2022

#4

I cannot put into words how much this means that this picture not only exists... But that it was the only one henke chose to put up from the day. I can't. I just can't.

30 notes - Posted September 20, 2022

#3

when even the boomer white men on the facebook page ship them

See the full post

37 notes - Posted September 29, 2022

#2

😭❤️😍😘

113 notes - Posted June 25, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

164 notes - Posted January 23, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[tobiasdrake]

Here we go. Tackling my first Gym.

Full disclosure, I like to use randomized teams that get rerolled periodically for funsies. Heading into Artazon, I pulled:

Surskit

Gimmighoul

Ralts

Charcadet

Steenee

Nacli

Seeing that this Gym is Grass-Type, I get a little nervous. Charcadet has Type Advantage, but Gimmighoul seems like dead weight, Ralts is super weak, and Surskit and Nacli are at a Disadvantage. Can Charcadet carry this battle?

I remember that Surskit is Water/Bug. Bug is good against Grass. Does Bug resist Grass? I don't remember. We'll take our chances. Save Charcadet for late-stage and lead with Surskit.

Challenge begins.

Pokemon 1: Petilil

I don't have Petilil recorded in my manual Pokedex so I can't check its stats, but I remember it being pretty weak. It's basically a baby, little more formidable than Ralts.

I, however, have made an error. It turns out Surskit does resist Grass so that neutralizes his Water weakness. But. Uh. Here's his movelist:

Water Gun

Quick Attack

Sweet Scent

Soak

GUESS WHAT I FORGOT TO MAKE SURE HE HAD.

Shit. Shit. I go for a Quick Attack. It does some damage. Not much. Surskit's Physical Attack is too shit for a 40-power off-Type Physical attack to win the day. Petilil answers with a Mega Drain that does little damage to Surskit but recovers nearly all of its HP. This is a battle of attrition I'm not gonna--

Wait, did that say Soak?

...

Ha! I just had the stupidest idea. Enjoy your Water Type, Petilil.

I switch to Steenee. Petilil is no longer getting STAB on Mega Drain and Steenee's Grass type resists it. It does jack all. Steenee erases Water-Type Petilil in a single Razor Leaf.

Pokemon 2: Smolive

Oh my god, it's adorable.

This is a new one. I have no idea what it's capable of. It's probably a Special Attacker given its small size, but I figure we'll roll the dice. Steenee uses Play Nice to cut Smolive's Physical power. Smolive responds with a Tackle.

Okay. Good. I hit it with another Play Nice for good measure, then swap in Surskit. Surskit tanks the next Tackle easily and gives Smolive a good Soak. Smolive replies with Razor Leaf, but its Physical power is cut in half and it lost its STAB bonus. All it could hope for was that high crit rate, which did not come through.

Back to Steenee. Her Razor Leaf is much more effective.

Pokemon 3: Sudowoodo

LOL. My dude, that is not a plant. XD Oh my god.

When I finish laughing, I go ahead and send off the Razor Leaf that will--

Oh. Right. Tera Crystal Thingamabob is a thing. Now Sudowoodo is, in fact, a plant. I didn't expect that. My Razor Leaf barely nicks it.

New plan. Steenee resists Trailblaze, whatever that is, and she's holding up well against his Rock Throws. Well enough to utterly sabotage him. As the fight progresses, Steenee administers a full set of six Play Nices before she gets low on HP.

His next move is going to be Rock Throw, but even with Type Disadvantage, I think Charcadet can take a few 1/4-strength Rock Throws.

I switch in Charcadet, since Sudowoodo's crystallizing has made him Grass-Type. I'm right. One Rock Throw only takes off about 1/4 of his HP despite the super-effectiveness. Hit Sudowoodo with a Will-O-Wisp for good measure, just to really pile on the neutering.

That winds up being a good idea. It takes three Embers to bring down Sudowoodo, and he's got the edge in Speed thanks to the two Trailblazes he tried to use against Steenee earlier. Rather than failing at the last second, Charcadet winds up pulling through with 3 HP left to go.

Whew! That felt weirdly intense, but I pulled it--

...

Oh goddammit, I should have Tera Crystal Thinged Charcadet. >.< Okay. Takeaway for next time.

[jack-in-the-dark]

Jack Builds Spaceboats: The Martinet, Part 1: Torpedoes for Everyone!

Disclaimer: I am not an expert on this game, and some information I present may be erroneous.

So there she is, one of the reasons I actually started this rambling bit of words that like no one reads.

The story behind the Martinet actually begins way, way back when I first started playing STO. You see, the Akira-class is MY BABY. I adore the Akira-class, it is hands-down my favorite ship in all of Star Trek bar none. I've loved it every since First Contact. And the thing about the Akira-class is that is has torpedo launchers out the wazoo. 15 photon torpedo launchers, and two quantum torpedo launchers, if I'm remembering correctly. So when I started playing STO, I wanted to make that.

Long story short (I'll save that story for when I actually cover my Akira-class build), my Akira-class ended up being surprisingly pet-focused. So, I thought that I would build a pure-torpedo ship (by my standards) using the lessons I learned from making my Akira-class. I chose the Appalachia-class frame for this because she's a funky lil' ship and I didn't have anyone flying one (even though I eventually used the Steamrunner-class skin on it).

She's a very fun little ship to fly, even if she won't be winning any DPS contests (That said, I have seen 150k+ crits from her). I was initially sort of hesitant to use a Blackade Runner Escort for this (that's what STO calls the shared Steamrunner/Appalachia family) because it meant choosing an Experimental weapon, which I usually don't like because they almost always look "off" with the rest of the ship's weapons. But I recently picked up the Heritage bundle, which included the Prototype Hexa Phaser Cannons Experimental weapon, and I gotta say that little damage hose has grown on me, it's almost hilarious to see it used on a ship that functionally has them there to fill a slot.

About her name... Hyperion was fairly self-explanatory, I think, but Martinet is a little more... unusual. There's thematic reason behind it. In Star Trek Online, a torpedo weapon loses a massive chunk of its damage when it impacts shields instead of hull. The Shield Penetration skill can partially mitigate this (thus the name), but torpedoes are still much more powerful if you've drained or dropped your opponent's shields. A martinet is a spanking implement that uses multiple thin leather strips to impart a painful sting without having the mass behind it to cause injury, even with repeated strikes. So like torpedoes in STO, a martinet is best used against, ahem, a bare hull.

[soullessjack]

trying to explain that there has never been a single instance in the show to indicate that jack is intended to be a child/toddler/baby in any way and that all canon actually makes it pretty clear he’s supposed to be a teenager/young adult is like trying to explain that the cheese is under the sauce in a Chicago style pizza

[vidreview]

VIDREV: "We Finally Watched Nukie: The VHS Grading Video" by RedLetterMedia

[originally posted april 24th 2023]

there's so much i could say about RLM and won't, at least not today. you can't claim to have a serious conversation about video essays on youtube (or the tenor of nerd-related online media criticism generally) without talking about the Plinkett Star Wars reviews, and even still that convo would be incomplete without discussing their on-again-off-again relationship with abject somethingawful-style offensive edgelord shitposting. unlike an embarrassing quantity of their contemporary peers, however, the RLM guys grew and learned and changed, which is a big part of why i've stuck with them for so long. i was a teen in the 2000s, i also said slurs and thought being offensive was just good honest fun. i grew up as they matured, in contrast to a sea of other adult entertainers existentially committed to never doing so.

RLM is probably the closest thing i and a fair few millennials (from a very particular background) have to a Roger Ebert. i don't always agree with their takes, and there were a good couple years after The Last Jedi when i stopped watching them because it felt like they were playing too hard to reddit's tastes. i came back to them in 2020, when they (like me) finally just threw the entire mainstream blockbuster hollywood industry in the trash out of exhaustion and boredom, thus kickstarting what's honestly been the most consistently good run they've had in a long time. and i have to say, as someone who has been watching and reading online media crit for damn near two and a half decades now, i cannot overstate the immense psychic value i've come to place on the opinions of actual honest to god adults who like sci-fi and hate what's become of it. their spite for all things corporate schlock gives me infinite life. the fact is they've been producing entertaining, ambitious, and often shockingly insightful media analysis for more than ten years now. their Jack & Jill review remains an essential touchstone on the nepotistic business of modern ad-funded filmmaking! at least for me

but okay, i said i wasn't gonna talk at length about the legacy of RLM so i won't anymore. i'm here to talk about this relatively recent one-off documentary of theirs, which is nominally an extension of a years-old running gag but is in actuality a very matter-of-fact conversation between adults about the role of speculative collector's markets in nerd media. they begin by discussing the news story of a Back to the Future VHS tape selling for tens of thousands of dollars on eBay, thus sparking much buzz about the potential unmined value of old tapes. this serves as a springboard for an honest to goodness investigation of the entire phenomenon: the grading process, the inferiority of VHS, what it means to collect things, and to what extant the whole damn thing is a scam. they approach this topic with all the unflinching cynicism you'd expect of the crew who melted 2,387 vintage Star Wars figures in a vat of acetone simply out of spite.

the real throughline of this video is the question "what creates value?" and their answer is what i came here to talk about. condition, scarcity, and providence are the words they come back to-- how well-preserved is the collectible, how rare is it, how much story does it have as an object? they cite Beanie Babies here, the perennial example of corporatized speculative bubbles. one thing i really appreciate is how they clearly differentiate casual collecting from the activity of speculators. there's a pernicious expectation culturally that anyone who keeps a functionally useless Old Thing (vhs tapes, action figures, trading cards) must be doing so at least in part in hopes that its value will increase over time. as someone who does collect a few Old Things i've always hated this expectation. there's a lot of stuff i used to have and sold because i didn't really have a choice economically, and honestly in most cases it left me feeling kind of dirty. i don't like the idea of a toy that never gets played with, a movie that never gets watched, a card game that never gets played. i don't want to own a thing because it might get me money later. the things i collect are collected because they represent something personal to me, much in the way the RLM guys keep and display their own collectibles.

nothing can be called valuable if you can put a dollar sign on it, in my opinion. can there be a worse fate for matter than to be transmogrified into a metaphorical lottery ticket?

oh i hate this shit. i hate how our entire goddamn economy is just a series of gambling addictions stacked up in a trench coat called "banking." let's set aside cost of living, rent, education, healthcare, etc. i resent how expensive used clothes are now, how expensive vinyl is, old lenses for outdated mounting systems, weird analog a/v equipment, and honestly just like… everything? we're living in an era of such inescapable productive stagnation and engineered obsolescence, the only place left to turn to find something built to endure is the past. the demand for that stuff (and a lack of regulatory pressure to limit resale value) means sellers raise prices exponentially, which ultimately just ends up crowding out all the poors like me who just wanted some stupid little object to put in a corner where we can look at it and feel a fleeting moment of joy between shifts at the Food Pyramid. like i know this isn't A Big Problem but it fucking gets to me. everything old is expensive, everything new is expensive (ESPECIALLY if it's worth the money), and all the while we're just drowning in subscription services that treat every individual bank account like an oil field they've got mineral rights to. voting with your wallet doesn't make a lick of fucking difference when drainage enters the equation. god damned capitalists see a nickel changing hands and want a dime for each finger it touched. i made a video some years ago about all the Halo collectibles i had at the time and how conflicted they left me as i got older. i've all but removed the bookshelf from my recent essays because it just feels weird to me. the collection lingering softly behind you in a youtube video serves the same base function as a framed diploma at a doctor's office, which is… a little bit disquieting? i don't like that the only qualification that seems to matter in the world of media analysis is, functionally, how much money you have. but then that's true for becoming a doctor as well, isn't it. i guess it is kind of true of everything now. so yeah, the fact that RLM share both my enjoyment of collecting and my resentment towards most collectors means a lot to me. makes me feel slightly less psychotic

the big gimmick here is that they get a handful of tapes professionally graded (including a fake one just to see what happens), one of which is a copy of the wretched 80s b-movie Nukie. this is the aforementioned years-long running gag, a film that's been sent to them hundreds of times that they hadn't bothered to watch until producing this video. contending that this makes them owners of the largest private Nukie collection on earth, they proceed to put every single copy they own into a wood chipper to inflate the tape's perceived value ahead of listing their final, graded tape on eBay. i love this. i love this so much. generally i love how often the RLM guys destroy shit. in a world where everything is wrapped in plastic and rated for inevitable resale, there's immense catharsis in simply smashing something into worthlessness. we could use a lot more of that in some slightly more consequential arenas of human existence, imo

the tape sold for $80,600 and the proceeds were all donated to charity. that's awesome. but i wonder to what extent this whole episode works as an experiment. it certainly proves that you can create value where none ought to exist, though i think they should have listed a second Nukie tape without publicizing it like a week before releasing this vid just to have a control sample to compare from. but what i keep asking myself is, did destroying all those tapes ACTUALLY increase the speculative value of Nukie? it's not like they were in circulation before, and certainly the RLM guys had no intention of selling them down the line. the purpose of the wood chipper stunt is to create scarcity, but that scarcity only really exists in the narrative of Nukie as a running joke in RLM's videography. you're not bidding on the tape because it's the last, you're bidding on it because it's a funny joke from a youtube video. and that's providence, right? of course all that context imbues this worthless object with a parasocial value, it's the same thing as bidding on a prop from a movie you like.

but what kind of kills it for me as a proper experiment is that they explicitly say "we're donating the proceeds to charity." of course people are going crawl over each other to bid higher on this thing now, the internet LOVES seeing big numbers go to good causes. on the one hand, that's more providence. all of this is part of the mythos. whoever won the bid got plastic trash in exchange for giving RLM an $80k tax writeoff, which i think is hilarious. but that's precisely what pushes it into the realm of a stunt for me, rather than the proper experiment the rest of the vid puts a lot of effort into setting up, because our guys are very much pressing their thumbs on the scale. which, you know, i'm not REALLY complaining about this. anything they listed would sell for a lot, and i think we all know the aspiring VHS speculative bubble is a pile of shit. it doesn't need to be proven even faux-scientifically. but if we just seclude ourselves in the self-contained universe of this one video on its own, i feel like the stunt of the tape auction eclipses and maybe even undermines a lot of what came before. would it have been better if they'd held onto that now more-scarce graded tape with the intention of auctioning it off for charity someday at an unspecified date? for me, maybe yes. but of course everything you'd do to avoid unduly influencing the results of the auction ultimately results in giving less money to charity. i dunno. i don't even know if i'm complaining about anything at this point. i just know i've watched this video twice (once when it released, once last night because i was bored) and both times i found myself feeling somehow vaguely uneasy by the end. what does that mean? does it mean anything? supposedly it's my job to figure that out, but here i am at the end of this review and i've come no closer to really resolving it. maybe i am just unfairly cynical about youtubers doing charity.

in any event, i think this Nukie vid is an excellent example of what makes RLM special at their best. if you want a much more pure, personal, and distilled exploration of this emotion but filtered through the realm of memes stolen by corporations, definitely check out RLM's Dick the Birthday Boy: The Legacy Continues. anyway it's a good video so go watch it

[thispit-thelame]

Pokemon White Nuzlocke: Attempt One

Episode 1.1: Third Time’s the Charm

Level Cap: 14

Well, lol. It has indeed been a little bit since my first post where I set the stage for this nuzlocke, and while I’d like to say that it was because I was making great progress with it and just haven’t found the time to post it all, it was not. I bought Elden Ring in the steam sale, and as I feared it would, it has ate my waking life whenever I’m not busy with work and such. Very very good game lol.

That being said I have finally completed my first leg of the nuzlocke and beat the first gym, though it wasn’t without a few false starts. Guess that this means this isn’t actually attempt one but eh, I’m the archivist here. First attempt was going fine enough but I accidentally killed my route 2 encounter, a Patrat, with a crit, and then my Lilipup I caught on route 1 died to me having to sacrifice them to a bide using Patrat in the first gym which I didn’t know they knew, and Lilipup hit a crit turn one. Already down two encounters I decided to just reset. Second attempt saw me losing to Cheren in the first room so that was another automatic reset. But the third attempt? Third time’s the charm baby.

I chose Oshowatt as my starter, if only because water is usually a safe option when it comes to starters. Waterfall/Surf (usually) being guaranteed via TM/HM means you’ll have at least one very strong STAB move to help carry you through the game, especially if you can get some set up going beforehand.

My Route 1 encounter was yet again a Lilipup, which I named Pickles. Thankfully, I know from other nuzlocke of other generations I have done, Pickles is a pretty decent catch. STAB return/double-edge, in additon to other strong physical moves, and the fact that Stoutland is surprisingly bulky means its a jack of all trades, of a sort. The fact that it can have the ability intimidate too makes it amazing for nuzlockes. Unfortunately, Pickles has Vital Spirit as an ability, which will turn into Sand Stream when they evolve. But hey, they’re still pretty good, and absolute miles above my next encounter.

Route 2 we get through just fine, but our encounter is a Patrat named Chestnut. There’s no nice way to put it; Patrat sucks. It sucks so much lol. The only thing it has going for it is STAB tackle and bide, which are pretty much useless after the first gym or so, and Patrat really doesn’t have the stats to use anything but bide for reliable damage, and that’s a horrendous idea for a nuzlocke.

Both Bianca and N fall easily to the mighty beast that is Pickles, as does Cheren soon after with the help of the gift Pansear named Broiler we were gifted in the Dreamyard. From there it was a straight shot to the gym leader Cilian. 

This was a mildly scary fight as Cilian was able to set up a couple workups, but we get through this deathless, but not without a close call. Cilian leads lilipup as we lead Chestnut. We get off three leers while Cilian thankfully only gets a tackle, and then two work ups off. From there it was a swap to Pickles who took their mirror out just fine. Pansage comes out next and since I don’t believe that Pickles will be able to take them out before it gets a bunch of scary stat boosts, I stay in for a turn to hit a tail whip to lower its defenses while Pansage goes for the expected work up. I decide to stay in for one more turn and hit a tackle since Pickles can take a hit, and Pansage retaliates with a critical hit vine whip which we barely survive. I need to swap here so its off to Broiler who I realize made the tail whip pointless thanks to incinerate being a special move, but like 4 incinerates later due to Cilian healing, Broiler who resists vine whip takes out the grass monkey no problem, winning us the badge.

This is the team so far. I’m proud of how they performed in the gym but I’m hoping we can get some other options quickly because lol Chestnut, sorry bud, you’re certainly not a powerhouse.

Post Script:

If this was twitter I would’ve interspersed the thread with a few thoughts/explanations on the game/story so far and what strategies I was going for or what I was planning. I figure if i just leave a little space for me at the end of each section to go over a couple things that should be just fine.

I’m still trying to figure out how I want to format this. I’d like to experiment more with adding more screenshots but I also don’t want this to become unwieldly long. I’ll probably just take screenshots if I get a good/cool encounter or if I end up in a bad spot in a battle. I usually also like to take a pic of the team before and after a gym leader fight but I forgot to this time.

Also the grinding. Gods the grinding lol. I am hoping beyond hope that the grinding gets better as the game progresses because having to grind on lvl 4-7 wild pokemon to get to level 14 was such a pain that I just stopped because I thought 13 was good enough. I do find it really cool how Black/White limit your encounters to purely gen 5 pokemon until the postgame, but man. Only 3 (4 if you count the gift monkey) unique pokemon encounter options before the first gym? That’s rough. iirc this is the most limited your options have been before the first gym in the entire series. Even romhacks are more generous than this. Again, since this is a blind nuzlocke I dont know anything about the encounter tables but I’m hoping it improves a bit as we progress through the game.

Broiler seems to be a good option for an encounter for the dreamyard. Even if I would have liked to hold off until after we got cut and were able to see what was in the grass patch just out of reach, Broiler seems to be a fairly strong and speedy mixed attacker, which will be nice to use. Also fire types are generally rare in most generations, so getting an early one is always a boon.

So far, so good, but I’m def looking forward to the new encounters lol, if only to fill out the party, and replace a few lackluster team members (looking at you chestnut)

[maipareshaan]

I have always been sexy bcz when i got accused of wincest shipping for sharing from Wincest shippers i was like well maybe if you people ever talked about canon i would not have to see their blogs.

[cramenjoyer]

noooo don’t call dean jack’s dad on my sillee poast i was having a good time ahaha~

[selkiebard]

i feel like everyone forgets that like. no one in the SPN cast knew Jack wasn't going to be born an actual baby until like. he appeared. no one knew he was going to be birthed as a nearly full grown man. so like yes, Dean was FULLY 100% ready to gank a fucking BABY.