#i get that the characters look the way they do to be appealing and marketable to children but FUCK that bro

[beef-unknwn]

Rochelle Goyle if she slayed

[transmutationisms]

oh i would actually be curious to hear your thoughts on lolita book covers in that case. i do get the sense that some of the covers are designed to uncritically titilate and seem to misunderstand the text, but that could obviously be an assumption on my part lol.

oh i agree that the cover designs tend to run counter to nabokov's intentions, both in the text and in the literal instructions he gave about covers lol. they pretty clearly rely on putting some young girl on display, which is exactly what nabokov did not want to do visually; they also tend to suggest dolores as some kind of seductress (sultry gazes, pouty lips, &c). clearly this is precisely the opposite of what the text tells us about her.

however when evaluating these visual choices i find that many people portray them as some kind of originary and culturally polluting act: that is, a narrative emerges that the problem here is people misinterpreting 'lolita', and then publishing it with covers that will do harm to young girls &c. i think this is lazy analysis and fundamentally makes idealist assumptions overestimating the effect of cultural products (books, book covers) on problems, like the sexualisation of children, that are in fact grounded in material relations, such as in this case the status of children as legal property and the total power granted to adults over them. that is to say, these broader conditions are at root the reason that cultural products like the cover of 'lolita' look the way they do, and chalking it up to individuals not understanding the book is never going to get us very far; and also, although some of these covers are pretty egregious, they are the reflection rather than the cause of the sexualisation of children, a problem that would continue to exist even if every edition of 'lolita' ever printed just said "humbert humbert is an unreliable narrator and dolores haze is a child he is preying on" on the cover.

fundamentally i also think this sort of conversation often elides some more interesting points about whom these covers communicate to and what they say. you suggest they are meant to "titillate"; although i would agree dolores is often shown as sexual, desirable, and seductive, i'm not sure that's the same as assuming the cover is trying to arouse the potential reader. for one thing, to put it bluntly, this style of cover tends to be associated more with books marketed to women than to heterosexual men. and more broadly, and this is something the lolita podcast really fails to understand imo, the phenomenon of people reading 'lolita' and relating themselves to dolores is not mutually exclusive with this type of rhetorical construction of dolores-through-humbert's-eyes. that is, often what appeals about dolores is, i think, precisely the fact that through her, people find a way of discoursing about or simply re-enacting the kind of sexualisation that they are already subjected to or have been in the past, whether or not at a level as explicit and extreme as what nabokov depicts.

i'm not really interested in a simple moral condemnation of the people who design these covers; that critique writes itself. they are obviously bad and facile, and reflective of precisely the culture of child sexual abuse that nabokov's text condemns. but if we are interested in the reception of these objects, or interrogating the cultural meaning and implications of their existence, i just think there's a lot more going on here than what the podcast portrays as a simple sort of 'broadcast' model of mass media wherein the 'lolita' book cover and trope is beamed out to unsuspecting innocents who are then exposed to its nefarious elements. dolores appeals to people for lots of reasons, some prurient, some pitying, some openly self-projective, and these are not mutually exclusive with one another nor are they mutually exclusive with readings that reproduce elements of the very lolita character that humbert creates and uses to silence and re-write dolores. we can be uncomfortable with that and refuse to talk about it but if that's the position someone wants to take then i'm not likely to be interested enough in their opinions to, like, listen to their podcast about this book lol.

[tinydefector]

Hi, since the requests are open, could you write brainstorm x human or perceptor x human SFW/NSFW at your discretion. I just read your book "Human's effects" and I really liked the way you wrote brainstorm. Have a nice day.

Human effects 11 - Brainstorm

So I'll be doing more of these with characters, and if I have another part asked for Brainstorm on this series, it will be a smut piece.

Brainstorm x Human reader

Warnings: light lust mention

Word count: 2.7k

Brainstorm masterlist

Human effects masterlist

__________________

Brainstorm's optics focus on the data pad in his servos, a hum resonates from him along with a small chirp as he filters through the multiple different subjects he had been doing research on. His processor aches from the amount of engex he had consumed the cycle before while at swerves.  The seeker haphazardly pays attention as he walks down the hallway of the corridors of the ship toward the lab, his optics flicker when they lock on the one of  liaisons, very specifically the Ambassador that he along with many others from the night before hand had been ‘fantasises’ about. 

 

 He had so many questions he wanted to ask them in person about human biology but in honesty didn't know where to start, they were an organic species, bipedal mammals who in many aspects were very similar to Cybertronians. His optics linger on them, taking in their frame type, tone and all up rather visual appeal. He could understand why humans were so sought after on the black market, they were soft and rather plus from what he could observe. 

" heya stormy" they call out with a smile as they make their way over to him. Brainstorm jolts from his musings, systems heating with embarrassment at being caught distracted by his thoughts, his engine lets out a hitched whine as fans whirl. But their smile seems warm, non-judgmental, and he relaxes fractionally, they didn't have the ability to read his processor, he was fine he rationalised to himself. 

"Ah, greetings, Ambassador!” He attempts to mask the fluster that was creeping across his plating, wings twitching lightly. "Lovely sol to find you up and about, I wasn't expecting to see you down in the labs this Cycle." He pauses with a. Raised optic rid wondering why they were down their way, they normally didn't make it a habit to visit the scientist. 

“ picking up some equipment Nautica got for my team, she's been helping a lot with our long range transmitter and also with us getting supplies on Ultra Magnus' request” they hum while carrying a small crate. 

His field radiates enthusiasm, if they were down here at that moment perhaps they had some time to spare him for his own pursuit in knowledge.  "Might I beg for a moment of your time? As Cybertron's chief scientist, I was hoping to inquire about Human biology if you had the time. our records only have some much information on your people and i believe a lot of it is rather outdated, if you'd feel comfortable sharing it could offer insights aiding our alliance." He asked, it was worth a shot and if they Were to busy he could always ask one of the other humans.  

They give Brainstorm another sweet smile as they begin walking beside him towards his destination, they hike their crate of equipment highter as to keep grip on it. "Sure I'm happy to answer questions, it's not like I have much going on at the moment, last I heard Megatron and Mags have Rodimus doing my paperwork as punishment for trying to take Rikko Asteroid surfing.” they laugh as the words fall from their lips. Remembering the look on the speedster face when he had more reports dropped on him. 

“ but if we are gonna play twenty questions you better make it fun!" They tease in a singy song voice. Brainstorm's optical ridges curiously curiously beneath his faceplate at the human's playful jest. He lets out his own amused chuckle at the idea of Rodimus suffering even more paperwork, he didn't envy the Captain and even less so the aching processor he was most likely nursing after the drinks from the late cycle. 

"Scientific inquiry as a game, eh? Now there's an intriguing proposition!" His wings fluttered, promptly intrigued with the idea. Data collection through entertaining exchange sounded rather fun compared to the normal exchange he had with Perceptor. A mischievous lilt crept into his tone as he slowly matched their pace walking together his optics flicker down to them taking in just how small they were compared to him. They just met his knee plating joints. humansWeren't nearly as small as a lot of Cybertronians were lead to believe. He remembered the first time ever seeing them he was quite taken back over their size originally expecting them to fit into the pal of his servo. But seeing them in real life had made him realise a lot of what he believed or old records were rather incorrect over humans, and their biology. 

 "Very well. First question: what gives you energy - nutrient paste, energon, the taste of victory?" His visor gleamed roguishly the last question was more a tease but he found it amusing to watch their reaction. The liaison lets out a hearty laugh at the first question. " hahahah oh by the stars, you really don't get alot of human Visitors do you?. So most of what humans as a whole eat is a mix of meat, fruit and vegetables. We need a mixed diet due to being an omnivorous species, but it varies person to person" they explain, giving his leg a gentle nudge with their elbow. 

Brainstorm cycled his optics,parsing this new data on their nutritional requirements with keen interest, it also gave him more information to jot down later.but he is utterly fascinating that a species derived sustenance from multiple organic compounds rather than a single standardised fuel source. "Meat, fruits and vegetation, you say? Truly extraordinary." He made a note to research Earth's ecological climate zones and harvest periods, he was rather interested in seeing what earth produced, Earth had become one of the largest suppliers of energon when cybertron was being rebuilt as it was a common occurring element on earth, it became the main trade source between the two planets.

"What about cybertronians? Do you guys only consume Energon or do you have other things, i know earth supplies quite a lot of energon to cybertron but do you guys only consume it ?" As they returned the query, he waved a languid hand. "Energon in its various forms comprises the bulk of a Cybertronian's fuel intake, though rarely do we consume it in its raw state. Refining introduces necessary additive alloys and minerals to suit an individual's frametype and occupation. Medics also develop specialised fuel mixes for patients. But we do consume other elements, oils, metals and crystals are other necessary for different platingsor frame types " His wings fluttered in delight talking about the different compounds of energon and how it was used. He was no chemist but did enjoy dabbling in creating different flavoured energon.

 "Recreational enjoyment of other sustenance is not unheard of, however. Certain sensory-inducing additives have been experimented with at social gatherings, such as High grade, energex are a subcategory of energon which has a different effect on a processor compared to casual energon, med grade and such" he hums while explaining the different types of fuel, from the causal to the luxurious. 

“Ah so similar to Alcohol for humans, that's quite amusing actually and explains why Rodimus tends to look like he's hung over” they chuckles again remembering how dead on his feet he looked that morning when they had met for a meeting with the command.

“Oh I wasn't aware humans also had similar, but yes energex and high grade have a rather intoxicating effect and lossens intakes while in group gatherings.” He replies. As they make their way into the laboratory. Perceptor is off in the distance and shoots them both a look as Brainstorm slowly lifts them up onto the bench. Before continuing their conversation. 

“ you mentioned something about chemists, what do cybertronian chemists do?” The Ambassador asks while they place their crate down and begin engaging in conversation once again. Brainstorm felt Preceptor's optics tracking the pair curiously as he began another explanation. “Chemists tend to have a range of different fields, the easiest way for me to explain would be to say that Swerve is a Chemist” His optics shimmer in delight as they trade back Information with the human sitting on the bench. 

“I thought Swerve was a bartender?” They reply with a tilted head, their brows pinch in an almost adorable expression to Brainstorm. He has to keep his engine from making a whine at the adorable look. His EM field dances with interest for them. 

“Indeed, chemists work with making, distilling energon and other substances. So in one way Swerve is a chemist but so is Ratchet but they make very different products” He explains. 

“That's so cool, almost like being a human chemist, baker and bartender in one” they hum as they take in the new information they were learning. His optics linger on their hands for a moment before he decides to change the subject of fuel sources. 

"With your permission, I find human epidermal structures utterly absorbing," he began. "The intricate pigmentation patterns, tactile sensitivity... might I?" A single digit hovered millimetres above a forearm, awaiting the liaison's consent before even the faintest contact. It takes them a moment to register the terms from Brainstorm but once they realised he was asking to examine their arm. “Oh sure just wait a second” reply before rolling their sleeves up, hold their arm out to Brainstorm to look at. It catches Preceptor's attention as he raises an unamused optic at how brasin Brainstorm was being.

 "Also heads up you don't need to treat me like glass, humans are pretty resilient so you're not gonna hurt me by touching me unless you're actually trying" they inform. "My thanks for the clarification, as I explained earlier, a lot of our records on Humans is rather outdated, however I'd rather not cause you harm" he responded gently, servos dancing over their arm gently as he takes in the man different markings, patterns and colours that mark their skin. It's highly fascinating to him and he found another reason he believed humans were sought after. It wasn't a subject of cybertronian history he liked but he was interested in learning why humans were so sought after. Soft, pliable, small and would have mostly been very docile. It sent a rattle up his spinal struts as he tries to push the thought a side. 

A single digit traced the patterns of tactile receptors watching the way the little bumps spread across their skin in a visual response to his touch. "Fascinating... your epidermal sensory network far surpasses initial database entries. I've never seen such colours either its stunning" His field pulsed appreciative curiosity as he traced the lines and marking that look like they are hidden under the Ambassador's skin, it makes him wonder how far the marking go but decided it would be pushing it to try and see more, but he knows he will be fantasising about tracing the markings. 

From the corner, Perceptor cleared his vocalizer. "Yes, human biological studies hold fascinating merit. Brainstorm, do refrain from unnecessary experimentation." The other bots voice calls out as he shoots Brainstorm, another disapproving look. 

Brainstorm dips his helm respectfully as he pulls away lwtting the Liason pull their sleeve back down. "No disrespect intended, Perceptor. Merely exploratory observation. Scientific progress warrants cross-cultural exchange plus we need to also rework our old records on human functions, biology and culture." His visor brightened, dispite Preceptor's tone Brainstorm was thrilled with the new knowledge he had gathered just from this meeting.

"Oh don't worry Percy. I doubt Stormy brought me here to experiment on, plus he's curious. I can't say I'm not also curious about you guys either, Earth doesnt have alot of information on Cybertronians outside of the small stuff we had from when you guys were stuck on earth. So i'm happy trading information because we are both interested in learning about each other's people. " They shoot back at the other scientist. Preceptor's optic ridges pinched ever so slightly at the human's familiar tone, though he made no further protest. If they felt at ease with Brainstorm's studies, who was he to force caution upon willing participants? "See that your... observations proceed responsibly," he calls out, it's aimed at Brainstorm but the seeker does not fret too much. 

The two continue chatting between each other trading information with small jokes between them every now and then. The liaison kicks their legs back and forth on the table. It gives Brainstorm the opportunity to truly look at them and appreciate how soft they are, a lustful thought crossing his mind and EM field pulsing lightly which makes Perceptor snap his helm to look at them again. Perceptor narrowed his optics warily at Brainstorm. :. Brainstorm a word.: the other scientist states through comms which makes the seeker go ridged, wings flickering in discomfort. 

Clearing his vocalizer loudly, Perceptor took a deliberate step forward. "Perhaps we will catch you another Cycle Ambassador, Brainstorm and I have much work to attend to, and we wouldn't wish to keep you any longer" he interjected coolly. For his part, Brainstorm cycled a ventilation and reined in his field, hed just had Perceptor call him out on it and the embarrassment was showing with each flutter of his wings. 

The Liaison gives the two scientists a wave once they are set back on the ground. "Well I'll catch you both another time, I'm going to go talk with Swerve about energon, you have me rather intrigued to learn more " They call out lifting their crate back up while heading to the door. Once they had left the Lab it had Brainstorm shifted warily under the weight of Preceptor's dissecting gaze. 

"The human liaison has graciously undertaken representing their kind aboard an unknown vessel to foster cooperation between species. Jeopardising such an auspicious start through any misguided impulse would severely damage relations." 

Pausing his tasks, Perceptor affixed Brainstorm with a searching stare, optics bright with both caution and care for his foolish yet brilliant colleague. "I need not remind you of one of your talents, the fragility of organic creatures compared to our frames.”

Brainstorm shuffled awkwardly beneath the Preceptor's scrutinising gaze. His usually nimble processors faltered grasping a suitably cogent response, field radiating discomfort through scrambled modulations. How to explain such rash intrigues ebbing his usually steady rationale? "Ah...you raise entirely fair points, as always, Perceptor," he demurred, fidgeting with a gripper. "To be perfectly forthright - and at the risk of sounding like a sparkling with his first crush - there's simply something innately captivating about these diminutive humans! Their resilience, ingenuity, curiosity..." His plating flustered with static. 

"And I'll admit, it's not just my scholarly interest piqued. Even the most stoic among us seem charmed by our new small friends." He cycled stabilising ventilation. Wings fluttering weakly, Brainstorm inclined his helm. "Brainstorm pleas for the love of whatever deity you believe be it primus or else Do Not Frag the Ambassador!, they are one of our heads, they work closely with our captains and if you mess Slag up it will be your helm" Perceptor groans out as he pinches his nasal ridge.

Brainstorm's plating flared hotly at Preceptor's emphatic directive. "I - of course not, you must think me a complete naïve sparkling!" he sputtered, waving his gripper defensively. "Mere scholarly observation was my intent, nothing untoward, I assure you, yes I'm intrigued by Humanity and the liaison is rather charming I'm interested in the scientific study of humanity, to rewrite the small knowledge we have on them!"  

Venting sulkily, he leaned against the bench servos tapping into the metal. "Though I'll note, my interests seem far from singular. Last night's engex-fueled discussions had a few of us a little too invested in compatibility. All I'm saying is curiosity seems widespread! So while your cautions are well-founded..." His plating flustered again helplessly, wings fluttering as they would when he was interested in something. 

 "Brainstorm we are not doing this" Perceptor states as he turns away from his fellow scientists. "Wait just a klik, Percy - don't think I fail to spot tangled undercurrents in that rigid plating of yours," he pushed, emboldened by this newfound insight. Cycling closer, his field pulsed a teasing nudge against his colleague's. "For all your lofty speeches cautioning restraint... could it be you harbour doubts following your own advice?" He teases only to get a nasty glare from the other mech. but decides it's better to just ignore Brainstorm at that point. “you know Swerve has bets on you, says your a dark horse waiting for a chance to sweet the Ambassador off their Pedes” Brainstorm states trying to get a reaction out of Perceptor. It gets a wrench thrown at him. 

___________________

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[placeholder-mcd]

(Obligatory "I sound like I'm speaking objectively from authority but this is just my opinion and it's okay for you to like media I dislike for whatever reasons you may have")

Okay so like. while "the minecraft move trailer is so bad that it makes minecraft story mode look good in comparison" is both true and funny, can we please not start pretending that story mode is a well-crafted piece of media. as someone who has played through it multiple times (first when it originally came out and I was 12 and thought it was awesome, then later as an interactive Netflix experience with friends for so-bad-it's-good reasons) I feel pretty qualified to say it blows

Like, yes. There are so many things that MCSM got right that the movie apparently got wrong. But, like, they're all extremely common-sense things to get right -- like having the whole thing be animated, and maintaining a visual style that feels consistent with minecraft, and spending time with individual aspects of the minecraft experience that have their own communities (like redstone contraptions). that sense seems a little less common now that the movie trailer exists, but still, these are all bare minimum expectations of a piece of narrative-driven media set in Minecraft.

MCSM still completely fails, however, to have any compelling characters (RIP Reuben you were just as annoying as everyone else) or non-grating dialogue. The universe they depict isn't even well thought out! Like, okay, example:

Right off the bat, they make a big decision about how they're going to handle MCSM: they are not telling a story about people playing Minecraft the video game, but are instead depicting a universe where Minecraft is inhabited by a civilization of NPCs that have identical abilities to a player (aside from like, pausing the game or changing settings or what have you). This, in itself, is not a bad decision, but it puts the writers in a position where they need to conceptualize what is effectively a Minecraft AU. You're not playing survival mode or creative mode, you're playing Story mode. In this AU, humans exist in the minecraft world and have for a long time (centuries, at least?), they've built cities, they have language, etc. Imagine you're Jesse. Imagine you've grown up inside of Minecraft. Everyone is playing on hardcore, there is no respawning, and you live in a world filled with strange and dangerous creatures that seem hell-bent on killing you. Why the Fuck does anyone go out at night. Why isn't literally everyone combat-trained. Why is Jesse acting like he's never seen a Creeper before. Why is Petra the only member of the main party who knows how to craft a pickaxe.

At the build competition, the party is surprised that the reigning building team has a beacon. But nobody takes a second to actually investigate what that means. Did their team intentionally spawn and defeat a Wither? Doesn't that make them more badass and legendary than the order of the stone? Is there a black market for nether stars? (I think Petra is probably the one who gave them the beacon since she also trades Ivan a Wither skull. But like. Why isn't literally anyone else just going and doing what Petra does. Why aren't they impressed)

Ivan having access to a Command Block is also insane. Like, it has potential to be an extremely cool choice -- did Ivan find a way to break the fourth wall? Did he find an exploit in Minecrafts code that allowed him to obtain this? The command block has the power to just generate resources out of thin air. Ivan could actually use it to become a god and give himself creative mode. But okay, we can assume that the command block is just... Different, in the AU. Fine. It's a computing center / power core for the Wither Storm. Sure

But, like. I, even as an 11 year old, knew everything there was to know about minecraft when I played story mode (and, unlike the Movie, MCSM was actually attempting to appeal to the existing fanbase), so watching these characters who have lived for DECADES within the Minecraft universe just. Be helpless and completely clueless as to how the universe works? It makes me hate like all of them. I don't care about Jesse or Gabriel and if I actually had the freedom to perform the basic actions I could perform in Minecraft -- mining, building, and crafting -- I could use my game knowledge to pretty swiftly end the entire conflict at like any point in the story. And I'm not very good at video games. But I would expect a character who's been LIVING IN THE MINECRAFT WORLD TO BE ABLE TO DO THAT. BECAUSE THEY'D BE BETTER AT MINECRAFT THAN ANY OF US.

The whole thing is a contrived and buggy mess that feels like it was written by a Hollywood CEO who watched someone play the game for 30 minutes, looked up some basic information like how to beat the game and whether there's any in-game lore, and then riffed on that until a script outline was finished. The programmers, visual artists, and composers clearly did a ton of work to make MCSM feel like minecraft. And they did a good job -- clearly, a much better job than the Movie is going to do. But that doesn't change the fact that the Story -- the focal element advertised in the title -- completely misses the fucking mark and centers around a group of characters who are largely incompetent and stupid in an unfunny and uninteresting way. MCSM was a shitty cashgrab by telltale games and I am not apologizing to it.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Finished the megan phelps roper autobio a few days ago. Left me with some thoughts.

The first thing to say is that it was very well written and interesting, especially earlier on pre-exodus, in its portrayal of the wbc. There was smth especially captivating about how she described what was essentially a soft coup within the church transforming it from a consensus-run collective to a formalised patriarchal gerontocracy—its worth reading if for no other reason than to get an insiders visceral feeling of what its like to live in that kind of an activist/religious community from birth

There is this tone the book adopts, tho, especially towards the end, which is obviously absolutely integral to its appeal but nevertheless offputting to me. Its a sort of contrite attitude, portraying her decision to leave and denounce the church as an act of penance for the vile crime against humanity of living a life of Hate. Again, clearly the book wouldnt sell without that line, its the essence of her entire personal brand as an author and speaker (the high market value of which—tho she ofc does not say this in print—must have featured at least somewhat in her decision to leave, if by no other means than relieving certain anxieties about her ability to sustain herself afterward). So its not surprising she would put it so front and centre.

But approaching this penitence objectively it just seems... kind of misplaced? Not that i have anything against public acts of apology and grovelling! But, frankly, its hard to read the account and not conclude she is much more of a victim than anyone she protested or besmirched into hurt feelings. Partly by her family in the form of the inevitable abuse attendant upon being raised in that kind of insular fortress community—tho she does a good job not lazily smearing them as some kind of sadistic cult, part of why i thought her description was so interesting and insightful. But also by counterprotesters and others riled up by her churchs activism: she describes their having faced sexual harassment, physical intimidation and violence, even arson in the face of what were clearly and pointedly constitutionally protected exercises of free speech. All of the former manifestly worse than the latter. Often with cops looking the other way! In a just world these targets of her "hate" would have a lot more apologising to do to her than the other way around

The book even caused me to reconsider the degree of my disgust with their most notorious practice: funeral picketing. Not having followed the pickets at the time super closely, i had interpreted them reflexively as incursions (perhaps constitutionally protected, but still unwarranted) on private family grief, turning what would be a personal act of mourning into a spectacle of vitriol and political grandstanding both ways. So i was surprised to hear the familys official statement on the matter:

So long as the families, military, media, veterans groups, and community-at-large, use funerals or memorial services of dead soldiers as platforms for political patriotic pep rallies, we will continue to picket those pep rallies. If they put the flags down and go home, we’ll go home. Not before then.

This seems basically entirely levelheaded, aside from my disagreement with the object level views they were voicing at these events. Privacy is a two-way street: if you are going to turn yr sons funeral into a patriotic circus, you cant fairly complain about ppl returning fire with a concurrent anti-patriotic circus. No heat, no kitchen. I suspect the actual operative principle in many ppls minds is that it doesnt alter the sacrosanct private character of the funeral to engage in socially normative politicising, but socially abnormal politicising crosses the line. Which is just clearly a grotesque and inherently conservative (derogatory) unprincipled distinction to draw

Speaking of which: its sort of tricky to place the church as conservative/rightwing or liberal/leftwing at all. Even setting aside fred phelps earlier and very laudable struggle against institutional racism. In some sense they were part of the rightwing backlash to gains in gay rights, but not in a way that dovetailed with any serious rightwing political projects on that front. They were the paradigmatic doomers: there was no point engaging in legal efforts to stem the marriage tide, say, bc the american experiment as a whole had incurred gods wrath and was living on borrowed time. To the extent they did have any significant legal impact, it was overwhelmingly positive: they were the ones that brought us snyder v phelps, a heroic win for freedom of speech. They remind me as much as anything of a certain kind of maoist sect, like revcom, not just in style but in content (fervent anti-americanism, racial equality, confidence that The End Is Nigh and the only serious question is how to respond to this imminent demise of the existing order, free speech fundsmentalism clearly for instrumental reasons joined with strict internal censorship, even a version of "no investigation, no right to speak!" inculcated from early childhood)

I think one of my first ever posts on my old blog was on this topic with a nascent, less informed version of the views im expressing here. Some forms of freezepeach contrarianism are just part of my unchanging core ig

[ganondoodle]

still thinking about how even just the decision to basically act like the shiekah tech never existed is just ... so baffling to me

bc again you could have done all the sonau tech does with shiekah instead, and they were perfect to be explored more in a sequel, why wouldnt you grasp that potential, the literal building blocks for more??

if you are that tired of shiekah tech .. dont make it a fuckign sequel to the game prominently featuring it???? totk doesnt take place generations after botw in which things could have changed drastically, its just a few years afterwards??

you want to reuse the map and get rid of shiekah tech? ok fine take LINK into the past then and the focus is for you to find a way to return; do some neat twist where its revealed that link was the one who sealed gan bc he couldnt defeat him without zelda or something if you dare (they wouldnt)

want less work than that and still reuse the map and get rid of shiekah tech AND reuse characters? ok then make it some alternate universe thingy like majoras mask in which everythign is the same but also isnt, its weird and creepy how characters you thoguht you knew suddendly dont act like themselves, shiekah tech doesnt exist, malice is now miasma, etc, it would give reason to why you feel so much like something about this world is familiar yet also very wrong

as far as im aware every "sequel" we have had so far were either generations apart from the first one, some alternate universe or a different location altogether- in all of which its plausible that things are different, things seem weirdly familiar but also wrong, or that another continent just works different from hyrule

but totk does none of that, its supposedly just a few years after the first game, same world same character, but its BUILT like some strange jumbled mess of stuff from botw and new stuff out of nowhere that just .. doesnt fit, but feeling a strange sense of otherness, a déja vu of something you know but it acts off, like an imposter, thats NOT intentional and it shows, its a mess of botw stuff, from stuff that people missed from the old games and entirely new stuff; i dont doubt it CAN work but the way it turned out is like a mix of 3 different puzzles forced together and being told 'see it fits!' even tho you can clearly see the pieces dont look right in these places

again it feels like a sequel that desperately wants you to forget the first game happened, that anythign from it mattered at all

and that isnt really ... the sense of a sequel? why insist on it being one when it only creates problems? is it marketing?? just like it was marketing to call age of calamity a telling of what happened before botw but then it wasnt that at all and that is still the sole reason why i dislike it? bc i was lied to? totk is like 10000 times worse than that, its a main title and doesnt even have the excuse of yeah its basically an excuse to play all your fav characters in fun ways and the game beign well aware that being its main appeal; what is totk appeal? a toybox with botw aestethic and none of the flavor?

(on a sidenote; the sonau tech doesnt even .. matter? in botw at least calamity ganon was made of shiekah tech parts and him overtaking other tech is a big point, the sonau tech doesnt serve anything but .. idk minerus useless mech? gan doesnt even aknowledge it, he doesnt care, all it is is toys for the player, not link, but the player. the monsters mining the tech materials? what for? gan doesnt give a damn and they dont work for the yiga either??)

i said it before but it gives me the feeling that the way botw invited you to theorize, to look beneath the surface, the way it intrigued you and laid the groundwork for so many interesting things without denying anything.. was accidental? or perhaps put in the game without the directors noticing? i cant stop thinking about them saying sth like "after botw zelda wondered if the kingdom of hyrule needed to keep existing the way it had been before the calamity, but then totk happens" bc it just feels like they realized too late that botw naturally led into questioning the status quo and they scrambled to fit it back into a flat and boring road we have seen so many times before (or even worse really) with totk

zeldas character naturally leads into her questioning and reexamine their history and set of rules? we gotta teach her a lesson of why she is importante god given monarchy girl that has to keep it bc what if evil brown man shows up again for no reason

maybe im grasping at straws here but looking at it this way the sonau .. make more "sense"; the shiekah were a group that was under the rule of the royal family, and misstreated before (oh no look soemthing interesting) so they dont lend themselves well to be used for teaching zelda that lesson- the sonau however are tailored really to be just that; they are a supposedly godly race from the literal sky that founded this version of hyrule, that had tech even more advanced and better than the shiekah, she gets put in the past to meet the perfect god king of goodness personally, also his very fridgy wifey that zelda later replaces in a way, shes put there and treated like family and then gets to see just how evil that evil big man from the desert is, sonia is falcon-punched to death solely so zelda can feel obligated to take over her role, have her new, better 'family' hurt by gan; similarly so raurus sacrifice, look what a noble and good king he is, he payed the ultimate price to lock that evil man away, now zelda you cannot let their sacrifice go to waste, rebuild that divinely good kingdom like it was!!

and even though they go so much out of their way to put the cart back onto the rails of black and white-good and evil in an even flatter way than the old games, it still doesnt feel right, at least to me, it still feels like zelda shouldnt have gone along with all of that, it feels like even her character from botw was walked back entirely, except for the intro, it made her feel like a stranger to me-

because this is a sequel, i know this zelda, she wouldnt act like that after all that shes been through, this feels ... off

and it all just insulting to anyone who cared about botw more than surface level, or the zelda lore in general, i dont even care much about the timeline, but theres alot of lore and themes beyond it that felt ignored, especially so given that .. its a damn sequel, non AU, not generations apart, directly part 2-

but its not.

it even feels very "corporate", put zelda in a dress again, people liked that, put crazy abilities in the game to flashbang people with how insane it is even if its not the best for the gameplay or the story, put a new asthetic into it out of nowhere bc its 'new' and act like its been there the whole time, put gan in there bc people miss him and find him sexy even if his role is just as flat as that of an evil cloud monster-

*sigh*

you know, i saw a post that said aoc was like a bad fanfic (affectionate) and totk was like a bad fanfic (derogatory) and tbh thats like one of the best comparisons/summaries i have seen ..

[paigegonerogue]

Now that this has become a topic of discussion (again) there’s something I gotta say…

Honestly? I have some problems with Ellie’s part 2 design. Not because it’s a bad design, but because of a completely different reason:

Ellie in TLOU part 2 is nineteen years old. After the time-skip she’s 21-22.

Ellie in Part 2 is a Hollywood teenager. Plain and simple. And I know people are going to hate on this because they love Ellie’s character design, and it’s not that I think it’s bad, I just think it’s important to acknowledge that it isn’t realistic.

I’ve seen so many ways people have tried to justify it, saying things like “well stress and lack-of-food make people look older”. Yeah, they do. What they don’t do is turn people into models. Stress doesn’t give them perfect cheek-bones and plush lips—it gives them wrinkles. A couple scars doesn’t make someone look realistic—especially when they’re precisely placed as to keep the sex-appeal at a maximum. Ellie in TLOU part 2 was absolutely designed to be attractive and appealing to people. The design wasn’t made to be realistic, the design was made to be marketable.

It’s absolutely fine to love the character design, what’s not fine is to expect people to look like it and be mad that they don’t.

Bella Ramsey looks like a real nineteen-year-old. Bella Ramsey looks like a human. Bella Ramsey didn’t have their appearance designed pixel-by-pixel and shown to focus groups and adjusted so they could look good to as large a range of people as possible.

People look like people. Get over it.

[tessarionbestgirl]

Harry pretty face does wonders for his character lmfao.

That’s it! They can come up with as many convoluted excuses as they want but this is literally what it comes down to!

Team Green has:

Fabien Frankel: the no.1 Flyn Rider fancast, haters on twitter were literally complaining that it’s not fair they cast him as Criston because he’s too handsome 😝

Ewan Mitchell: the elvish king of every girl’s sexual fantasy

Tom Glynn-Carney: male version of Olivia Cooke, enough said

Freddie Fox: he’s a fox alright 😘

Rhys Ifans: can someone say daddy?

Who does Team Black have?

Matt Smith: he’s charismatic and a fantastic actor but he is not good looking, not as good looking as Team Green’s cast anyway. The blonde wig makes it 100x worse, he isn’t handsome that’s just a fact 🤷🏽‍♀️

Ryan Corr: the only attractive man in Team Black had 5 minutes of screen time

Steve Toussaint: I feel they intentionally made him less appealing on the show

Clinton Liberty: Addam isn’t relevant enough to Team Black for them to be invested in him

So yes, all Team Black has is pretty boy Harry Collett and despite their airs of feminism this is deep down all they care about.

"Rhys Ifans: can someone say daddy?"

I usually don't care that much for face cards. I think a character can be attractive even if not beautiful in a conventional way . It all depends when certain energy you bring to the screen. And while I did have a huge crush on Matt on my team years because of Doctor Who.

I have to agree. 🤷

It all team feminism for them until their favourite war criminal does something horrible, and then, all is forgiven because they have a crush on them, even if is femicide.

Also, I think TG actors does have something about them that over shines TB actors. And more than looking good or not, they have chemistry and that you can't fake out. When I watched the interviews. Tb actors I get a huge energy of "we are coworkers and we are doing pr" meanwhile TG actors do have chemistry with each other and looks like they bonded in the bts and that is why I think hbo truly used them a lot to marketing this season. Is the same reason you always will find Gwendoline and Nikolaj back in the day doing interviews together.

And that show on screen too. What is not necessarily true. It was here. There is way more a sense of familiarity in tg even if disfuncional as hell, then Tb. Like, when you see Jace and Baela interacting do you believe you see two people that have grown up together and are in love with each other for years?

[gacha-incels]

TBH

Looking at the CN gacha space right now, Situation may get even worse with current “有男不玩” ("If there is men, [I] don't play") movement in CN. They basically want devs to kneel to their demand to get rid of female MCs (only male MCs are allowed for self-insert) and all playable males, so "stinky female dogs" (as they refer to female players) stay away from their games. Also they emphasize, that they are "Number One" paying costumers and don't want their money to be wasted on creating content for female playerbase.

And we kinda see that happening ... I guess? correct me if I'm wrong

My friend told me if this goes on : in the next 1 to 2 years, all gacha will be all female cast aka the female players will flock away while incels stay.

Which for me : I doubt it's permanently but i won't be surprised?

Also Why when it comes to gacha incel I see it's always CN and KR? I tought JP had incels? or they're just the least vocal insufferable?

Edit- here’s some more info thx to @megafreelyfuzzystudentthing-blog ! “mixed toilets” is crazy. this type of misogynist gamer male is everywhere they just freak out about different things, while I think their level of hatred and vitriol towards women remains the same.

in regards to if we are seeing that right now, the majority of these games have been created with a male target market in mind for years and I don’t think there’s been an overwhelming change in the market with regards to that. I think even one game like Genshin being very successful and having multiple male banners in a row and male character designs that the men playing hate while being mixed sex is enough for these guys to think they’re “losing” this no girls allowed gacha playground, so they bug out and act like every gacha now has a feminist mandated fanservice male character they release every other patch for women. but because of the overwhelming success of GI, this shows the greater market it’s worth it to invest in getting female fans, and this is what these men are afraid of. this is also why they specifically use Genshin as the “Genshinification” of gacha, meaning adding male characters that appeal to women and making a mixed sex gacha. So in order to deter this from happening any further, they have to cause a big enough ruckus so that studios think “it’s not worth it to have to deal with all of this,” the end goal being gacha remains a separated boy’s club. this is just a basic read of the situation for anyone who is unfamiliar. It’s disgusting the way they talk about women but I think this is also the reason they emphasize how much more money they have and spend. But the way you write about it, do you see them ramping up tactics significantly? I’m interested.

edit lol I just saw this 💀 I would think things like bot spamming and AI use are going to become much more frequent. the second post talks about this so I added it. It’s kind of just gossipy but it talks about botting and the attitudes there. the hate they have specifically for this character is fucking unbelievable. I looked up this story since these guys were fucking losing their minds and everything seemed so benign. but the thing is he’s still used as a main character in stories and events so this type of freakout doesn’t do shit…and it seems like they’re able to remove the bot comments and mass one star reviews after a while anyway? maybe if the company was smaller. when I check the revenue it still seems to be making a huge amount of money

In the next 1-2 years in terms of tech it looks like the trend will be new 3D gachas and more 2D gacha studios transitioning to 3D. for the companies making the switch to 3D I think it could go fine or it will be like what happened to some actors with the transition from silent films to talkies. designs will depend on how much money has been invested and predicted to be made. From what I’ve seen it kind of looks like more of the same, either all female or all female with a couple male characters. this is typical. jiggle physics when a woman breathes like wuthering waves, “feet quality increase update” like snowbreak or another Arknights game you can say is just different than other gachas (jk). none of this looks like a huge shift in either direction but idk i could be totally wrong and something crazy could happen. let me know if I’m missing anything but this is the kind of thing I’ve been seeing.

in terms of this blog, right now it primarily focuses on the South Korean gacha incel phenomenon, I only started looking into this Chinese incel movement wrt gacha because I was able to find a little more information in English and I was curious but it isn’t a focus or mainstay. I haven’t put much here from Japan because I typically don’t check out their social media that much and like China it isn’t a focus, but off the top of my head I remember the FGO fans going after artists on twitter if they didn’t like the way a character was drawn, like sending congratulations to an artist that his father had died and that he deserved it??? After this he deleted his social media I believe, it was the artist for Parvati. Stuff like that. They have that otaku idol culture and I’m not sure if that bleeds into the gacha scene but I would think that would be the type of crossroads where you would find this gacha incel behavior. I hope this was a helpful answer and not just me rambling lol I’m always worried about this

[kimberlyannharts]

Ultraman: Rising!

Sure we all know the Power Rangers reboot has been passed on at Netflix but instead we have this hot new piece of toku instead: Ultraman: Rising! And I finally got the chance to check it out last night.

I know Ultraman is one of the big toku/kaiju genre staples but it's never really been on my radar of things to watch. I'm not sure why! I guess Super Sentai/Power Rangers just has more of the it factor that appeals to me. So because of that I really have no context to the story besides it's a guy who can turn into a giant silver superhero that beats up kaiju.........or maybe it's an alien who looks like a human and the silver superhero is his true form? or maybe the human and the silver superhero are two separate beings that share the same body? idk. It's probably all three of those things depending on the series. But this film was marketed as a standalone that new fans could enjoy AND....the big one.....it's ANIMATED, so I felt more inclined to check it out.

And it was really really good!! I enjoyed it a lot!

Spoiler-ish thoughts on the film below:

= Let's get this out of the way: the biggest draw to this was the animation and art direction, and yeah, it slaps. The textures and stylization (always love 2D painted effect animation on explosions and things) and lighting were a full-course meal and the scenes where they focused on Ultraman's shining eyes staring through a window or computer screen were just SO striking. To the point where I feel that if I got around to watching the actual live-action Ultraman, it might feel a little underwhelming in comparison. Oops

= It does kind of fall in the cliches of the "selfish guy learns maturity by having to be a father" plot (with bonus "son is estranged from his dad and mom is missing but they work to improve their relationship" sprinkled in) which makes me appreciate The Return even more (sorry, I'm still Returnpilled) but it's still charming and I can hope if we get more movies they give a little more focus to Ami and Emiko (speaking of which, I know they weren't doing a romance this movie, but Ami having a daughter and the movie being about Ken raising a daughter? oh you know it's happening and I'm here for this because they're both so hot)

= I think Ken is also a better example of the "showboating egotistical hero who learns to mature" than most because the movie isn't afraid to show him vulnerable even before his character development. I was genuinely surprised at that scene where he starts crying out of the stress of balancing his baseball career and figuring out Emi

= Apparently there was some discussion that the movie didn't bring up Ultraman's origins which, as someone who knows next to nothing about Ultraman, that didn't really bother me? Obviously I can still give more benefit of the doubt than people who don't know much about the tokusatsu/kaiju genre to begin with, but even so, I was still pretty down with the concept of "this guy has the ability to turn into a giant silver superpowered man and passed the ability down to his son" - and I think in the age of superhero blockbusters in general the idea isn't that farfetched that it requires more explanation. In any case it's a bit of a moot point since future movies are clearly going to talk about Ultras and their origins more, based on the stinger.

= Is Emi a clear kid-appeal character meant to be shown off in marketing and merchandising because of how squishy and cute she is? Yes. Is she just so fucking squishy and cute and my newest baby child? YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES. I am not immune to monster baby. I think it helps that I always found the old monster screeches cute and applying them to a baby babbling was kinda genius in its execution. And I'm glad they kind of got the obligatory "haha babies poop and are smelly and gross" jokes out of the way early (yeah they had the whole "acid reflux" thing in the second act but I've seen way worse in other media)

= The subtitles calling Sato's Ultra form "Ultradad" and his Ultra mustache were both really funny

= Obviously I knew Ken wasn't going to die when he threw himself on Dr. Onda's mech (btw the mech was sexy) but I definitely expected a little more than just a busted arm with how they were building up how the blast would have "destroyed them all" kdjkfdj maybe they cut to after he had recovered a bit. Though in general I'm not quite sure of how durable Ultraman is

= Kind of a milf. reblog

[accio-victuuri]

This will be a short discussion of what I originally planned regarding yibo endorsing national / homegrown brands recently and what it all means when talking about the bigger picture. and by that I mean, the connection between celebrities in CHN & nationalism as well as the increasing tension between CHN and other countries. As much as we all wanna live in a bubble of fandom where it’s all pretty boys & happiness, real life isn’t going that way.

I think Yibo knows that too and it’s influencing his choices. He had a personal experience with this — the whole NIKE fiasco in 2020 definitely was a lesson to him and his team. The risk of endorsing big international brands as a Chinese celebrity is real. It happened before and it may ( or will ) happen again. You never know what issue is going to pop up and suddenly, it’s all gone. We have seen time and again how the CCP can quickly direct these celebrities to sing and dance in whatever tune they like.

Let’s start with the biggest one he signed on to right after the whole nike fiasco. ANTA. It’s on record that as soon as WYB dropped Nike, there was a bidding of sorts on who is the domestic brand that will get him. ANTA wasn’t the highest offer, but he chose them because they are a national brand.

Then the list just goes on. A couple of these are due for renewal this year but just to illustrate which brands he is working with since 2021:

(In no particular order)

Redmi, Lenovo, Youku, Pechoin, Chunzhen, Super X, Bananain, Master Kong Iced Tea, Kelly One, Linsy, Bottled Joy, IKIDE, Helen Keller Glasses, SKG, Stride, Tokit, Chando, Unicharm, Rotai

I could be missing 1 or 2 but it’s a lot. for someone who averages 25-30 brands in a year all holding his name as endorser, the number of domestic ones is a lot.

This trend became more evident when looking at his new endorsements this year (2023):

5 out of the 6 brands are domestic.

It’s the reason why I had the urge to make this post, especially with him being announced as YAYA’s chief spokesperson. Personally, the last domestic brand surge I remember was 2021 and there were a couple of articles written about that. This year, the domestic brands are at it again and tapping celebrities to get more attention. It says a lot that these brands picked Yibo to represent this growth. It’s easy to sign on to a well known brand with a string of high profile endorsers before you, so this is again, a testament to Yibo’s character. He is not afraid to lend his name and reputation to the Nameless/Unknown ( i had to reference it i’m sorry lol ). He takes into consideration not just his growth but also his people, these Chinese companies who are fighting with brand titans.

He is also the go-to choice because his good reputation and appeal to the younger generation.

I think Wang Yibo’s age is more in line with this social group. He is a very positive young man. Recently, Wang Yibo is in the process of transforming from an idol to a powerful actor. He is more in line with the youthfulness of our future brand. (quote from tailing’s president )

I have taken this screenshot from an article by jingdaily that is worth a read. another factor is the general population’s preference as well. whether this is something that yibo & his team is taking into consideration, we don’t know but with the choices they are making i guess the answer is obvious.

This year too, I have noticed a shift in c-ent with celebrities being courted by international brands who thinks it’s safe (for) now to be visible in the CHN market again. I have no beef with these celebrities, you gotta do what you gotta do. International brand deals are hella lucrative and some luxury ones are considered an honor to be a part of. I mean even Yibo is very visible in promoting Chanel.

I get the lure of big brand endorsements but that doesn’t take away the reality of what could happen and that planning ahead is important. Yibo is more capable than people give him credit for. I think a lot of people underestimate his ability to look at a situation and make decisions that will benefit his career in the long run. To put it simply, if and when things go south in the political side of things he is prepared and there won’t be much of a loss in the endorsement side of things. It’s a very smart business move and you can add patriotic points too so that makes it perfect.

Yibo is really the one who walks the talk. This saying really applies to him more than anyone cause that is his essence as a person — you will see the truth in him with what he does. His actions speaks volumes. He will take a stand on what he believes in even if everyone else is going the opposite direction. 🤍

DISCLAIMER: This post is very much about Yibo if you couldn’t already tell, and my observation as a fan. It’s not meant to compare him to other CHN celebrities cause I don’t have the time and interest in making a comparison study of who has the most domestic brand endorsements. If another stan finds this and is somehow offended in behalf of their fave, it’s not my fault. Feel free to make your own post talking about how great your fave is. Thank you!

[anemicjellyfish]

This isn't meta or analysis. This is just a giant ramble on how I think it's really interesting how Mammon was written

Like, the sin of Greed. We all know that one. It's easy to find both real people and fictional characters that display their greed. Their desire for more, and more, and more. And it's never enough; even when they're totally on top, they want, they NEED more.

Mammon is all of that. But what's so interesting is how Helluva Boss goes about it.

We see early on that he's a massive player in the entertainment industry; Fizz and Blitzø spend their life savings as teens just to go see Mammon be on stage. The show ends up being a pitch for someone to work as a brand baby for Mammon. The rest of this performance was, according to Blitzø, just Mammon ranting about taxes and passing out after vomiting on everyone.

Mammon gets Fizz as his new object to market, and rakes in the money. Imps are handing over sacks of cash just to be in the same room as Fizz. Everyone is buying up every available piece of merchandise, including the Dishwasher Safe toys. And Mammon gets a huge cut of these sales, if not all of it.

His manipulation tactics are top tier, though. Even lines like "I can't wait to see all the new talent I can exploit- umm I mean..." and "I'll be like the step-dad who loves you when it's convenient" don't deter contestants. Especially not Fizz.

Mammon makes it seem like he genuinely cares. Lines like "fix your posture" and "lose a few, you're looking 'chungo'" are disguised as advice: to keep Fizz appealing to the public so that they continue to love him.

He also tells Fizz: "a smile is what others like to see from you."

Fizz idolized Mammon from the start; Mammon likely saw that and knew Fizz would do just about anything to stay in his favor. And being in Mammon's favor means being the best brand baby he can be.

When Fizz doesn't want to interact with his fans, Mammon reminds him that they're dying to meet him, and that they'll want a piece of Fizz. As in, they'll buy merchandise, especially the fuckable merchandise. And when Fizz says he doesn't really want that, Mammon grabs him and says that it's what he (Mammon) wants. Fizz caves immediately.

When Mammon gets his way, he rewards Fizz with assurance, calling him a "bloody legend!" Ending the interaction in a positive, encouraging note.

Because keeping Fizz smiling and happy will keep his brand alive. It'll keep that cash coming in from all over Hell.

So when that creepy stalker guy shows up and really gets under his skin, Fizz panics. Mammon appears and checks Fizz all over, checking to see if his cash cow has been damaged.

As we can see, Fizz's fear of that stalker is nothing compared to his fear of disappointing Mammon.

Mammon once again plays the good guy, telling Fizz he'll give him time to get his shit together. But this time, it was different.

We see the Sin of Greed distort his face and remind Fizz much more forcefully that he is a bloody legend. But he still wraps this up by repeating the same line in a much lighter tone. He knows that he can control his money-making imp through this emotional manipulation.

The happier Fizz thinks he is, the more likely he'll keep himself under Mammon's instruction and brand.

Sorry, I was going to continue this post, but I have a screen-time headache. So I'll wrap it up by saying I'm glad for Fizz breaking away from his asshole boss. Mammon likely knew all along that Fizz was an incredibly talented performer; he probably was also aware that he was holding him back from his true potential in order to capitalize on what would sell better.

Good for Fizzy for telling your boss "fuck you" (we all wanna do that irl, buddy)

[bumblebeehug]

I've watched season 1-3 of winx in less than 4 days, and I'm so glad I grew up on that instead of cocomelon. Even when the script seemed cringe and not as fleshed out as it could be, they never made the people watching the show seem stupid (they made Bloom seem stupid instead, lol (half-joke)). The dialogue could be simplefied and sometimes a bit naive, but at the same time they never made it feel very simple? Maybe I'm just blinded bc I'm a sucker for illustrated animations, but the fact that they could make a complicated storyline with a lot of character arcs, while keeping the dialogue simple enough for kids to follow, is just amazing. And as if that wasn't amazing enough, the show had good balance in the art - it was colourful, the characters were dynamic and unique with different siluettes (something i rarely see in kids shows today), while also appealing to the preteen audience: the winx girls are strong, stylish, girly girls, who can seek out love from men without needing them to save them. They show that you can be unique in your friend group, and you can still be loved and appreciated (thinking about Musa, Techna and later on Aisha/Layla, who all aren't the stereotypical sweet/soft/stylish girls, but who still find friends who love them for who they are). (More analysis beneath the read more thing - mainly a discussion on how family is represented in the show and how important it is for children to be able to look up to female figures that can represent them. + some other stuff.)

Winx also casts light on a lot of different family dynamics - something i've only really seen Bluey do well recently. Stella's parents are divorced, Bloom is adopted, Musa's relationship with her dad is strained ever since her mom died, Aisha/Layla is an only child who struggled with lonliness despite having both of her parents together (they were absent bc of their royal duties), Techna doesnt seem to have any mayor issues, nor does Flora. And the thing is - these struggles are shown in such natural ways in the show. All of these dynamics turn out to be part of their journeys - Bloom struggles as a fairy because of her unknown past, so she must resolve it and find out more to be able to become a fully fledged fairy. Stella has dealt with her divorced parents most of her life, but in season 3 the entire Valtor thing strains her relationship with her father, and she has to overcome it so she can save him from Cassandra or whatever that duchess was called (girlie practically gets banned from her home planet, don't you forget). Faragonda brings Musa's dad to her first concert, which once again strains their relationship, but then strengthens it when he sees how capable she is, both as a musician and as a fairy. Aisha/Layla displays how it is to have more traditional parents - as a child she had lots of expectations to be a proper princess, which she for a long time still had trauma from, plus that her parents wanted to pick her future husband for her (they were all lucky that the two of them matched well lol). And then we have Flora who showed off sisterhood in an amazing way - worrying over and scolding her little sister, but never doubting for a second that she'd risk her life to save her. To the point though - everyone faces difficulties that can be reflected in most people's lives, and the show makes these journeys meaningful and important. I personally never had a need to see myself represented in my family situation, but my friend had divorced parents, and she told me that Stella's viewpoint made it easier for little her to deal with it. If Stella could overcome it (reminder that she still allowed herself to feel sad about it) then so could my friend.

Now, while I'm at it, I might as well continue ranting:

Maybe I'm just not updated in modern shows, but isn't there an entire market of preteens who are missing these types of shows today? We're always talking about how clothing trends and social media is forcing younger people to grow up eariler, but let's not forget that these kids have nothing if they don't decide to grow up immediately. There's no shows, no "toys" (i'm mostly talking about merch that caters to young people - "H2O just add water" pillowcases and diaries etc) and no older teens in these shows setting appropriate clothing trends. Shows aren't cool enough nowadays for preteens to see the appeal of being young. Too many shows are changing their target audience to younger and younger children - and not only shows! Just look at the Nesquik bunny! He went from 100% drip and style, to 100% millenial.

Ik this isn't anyone in particulars fault, but this is just my way of saying: go back to unique styles and outfits! Shows aren't cool anymore, and removing the illustrated style and exaggeration is absolutely part of that.

I also saw someone on TikTok critique the pace of the earlier seasons - they said everything was too slow-paced and boring, and honestly? I couldn't disagree more. Now, I don't have any difficulties concentrating, so maybe it's a bigger problem for people with ADHD or similar diagnosis, but the slower pace gave more time for me to immerse myself in the winx world. They added amazing vocals and soundtrack, that could either showcase heartbreak or joy, and these details made the show reach much higher quality, despite looking like it was made in the cheapest animation program ever.

I went off on a tangent, but I'm getting back to winx now - what I mean is that kids nowadays have no authentic way of finding shows like winx, mainly because there aren't any! Most shows are made for kids under the age of 8 or over the age of 13, and there's almost no inbetween. Shows don't do it like winx did anymore - they don't make the art appealing enough (bc the shows are never illustrated - fair enough i'll add, bc illustrated animation is too expensive to be profitable nowadays, but not even the animation is appealing anymore, they're all rapunzel-lookalikes/wannabes), they don't trust that the watchers have brains and critical thinking, so they make the stories too dumb, they don't have the guts to make scary storylines, and they try so hard to be inclusive without actually succeeding at it (making all the fairies even paler than what they were in the beginning of the show).

I'm sure everything I've said here has been said before a trillion times, but I wanted to get it off my chest. I won't blame anyone if they decide that they ain't reading allat bc i really ran with this. If u did read this though, thanks! And sorry if i spelled things wrong, I'm writing this on a Swedish computer that insists that every single word is spelled incorrectly, lol.

[skippygiraffee]

Leon Pokemon Analysis

These are probably things that have been said already/a post that's been done before, but that's never stopped me from both thinking about it nor posting it online. Certainly not the way it's been floating around in my head recently. Regardless, I've been thinking quite a bit about the Pokemon Leon uses, why, and what it says about him. Namely that his staple team is:

· Aegislash

· Dragapult

· Haxorus

· Charizard

All of which I feel like say something unique about his character, preferences, and add to the symbolism of his character as a whole. Leon himself is cloaked in knight imagery (as well as Prince locked in a tower energy, but for this especially I'm going knight), and I think it's telling one of his Pokemon is a literal sword and shield, and two are Dragon Types, while Charizard is always seen as a dragon. This image of a knight with a team of dragons (when he should be slaying them, and is narratively set up to do so and fails) is one of the more interesting subersions of Leon's character in my opinion. Dragon tamer vs dragon slayer, I guess.

And also, two of his main Pokemon are Ghost Types. To me, I always think of Ghost Types and Ghost trainers holding onto this enternal youth in a way, because they are stuck in time (as a generalization of those trainers, since there are outliers of notoriety). For Leon, as it's often talked about, he was sort of forced to be stuck in time as Champion, both growing up and also made too retain his youthful visage to be marketable and appealing on a larger scale (in my opinion anyway). Aegislash and Dragapult are also two of the three he takes into the Galarian Stars tournament, and that's post game, post Eternatus, and I think too it sort of leans into that feeling that he's haunted by the events of the Darkest Day and his own loss there. Though, I have a lot of thoughts on Leon and his Ghost Type affinity that I'll save from derailing this post

Charizard is always the one that gets me, because I really do think it embodies the vision of "small kid becoming a big hero," both within Pokemon and in the real world. Charizard just is that Pokemon. Leon is that kid picking a starter and becoming Champion, and what better Pokemon to represent that? But I think having it be this stereotypically overhyped and overused Pokemon works well for him, how Leon is built up in the story to be undefeated/unbeatable, and there's Charizard right there. In a way, to a player outside of the in game universe, it's a true motivator to come and get him. Inside the game's story, I just think Charizard is this Pokemon that looks bigger and badder than he actually is, and that's how Leon is too. They're both just bigger and more grown up versions of their smaller selves, where are changed, more mature, but still carry remnants of who they once were.

This is likely more a rambling post than anything, but I really do have Leon on the brain and enjoy posting about him akfjsksksl. So I offer the analysis of his team that's been floating around in my brain

[cinnamonest]

So happy your asks are open, absolutely love your work, it’s gets my heart racing so much!!

I keep thinking about your post where darling gets isekaid into the MMAU and couldn’t help but wonder, who would want to (idk how to word this) obtain isekaid darling. Like since they confirmed she’s from another world and all that, who would be most curious/driven to obtain her?

Thank you so much for always feeding us!!! <3

Ahhhhh I like this thought ty anon

//kind of fetishism for "foreignness" (of course this is fictional places we're talking about but just in case)

Top contenders for such a thing: Xingqiu would be the most likely, followed by Albedo and Dottore, and while not necessarily driven by a desire to obtain, there's also a likeliness to end up with Kazuha.

Often times, girls are imported to a different land than the one they initially came from. This is because there will always be those guys who perk up at the idea of something "foreign" to them, it has a certain appeal to them, in the same way art or media often catches attention when imported to a different location, as it stands out. Consequently, this transporting girls, while it costs money to do so, is ultimately profitable, as they can then market it as such. A lot -- a LOT -- of men have either general fetishism for foreignness, or sometimes specific fetishes for certain accents or regional facial and bodily features. Frankly, most girls find it just as cringey and annoying as they would in any universe, but hey, at least no matter where you're from, there's plenty of rich guys in a far away land somewhere who're willing to pay a fortune for you.

Finding something from an entirely different world is a whole new matter. And more importantly, laying eyes on you, to traders, is like looking at walking cash. Rich people will pay a lot of money for that... if they can get them to believe the story, which may prove challenging, but they usually find ways by getting you to demonstrate things you know, the clothes and devices you had on you when you arrived, and so on.

Such appeal is a status thing for the wealthy, but more mature guys tend to see past such marketing tactics and have enough impulse control to know they shouldn't just buy the first thing that catches their eye. Instead, they tend to look for personality qualities they know they want in the long-term. Younger, more immature men, however, are suckers for that sort of thing, and are already known for impulsive decisions.

Thus, it's heavily marketed to young rich boy types... and for all his efforts to give off a more mature, sophisticated aura, as much as he tries to seem like he wouldn't be one to do so, at the end of the day Xingqiu is not immune to those impulsive tendencies and easily caught attention. In fact, he's read fantasy novels with plots much like this! Ideally, you'll be just like those characters written into those (nauseating, to anyone outside the target audience) male fantasy fulfillment pieces, some sort of alien species that looks just like humans but are these hyper-submissive creatures that are breeding-crazed... but, okay, even if that's not the case, you'll still be a cool possession to show off.

However, such an individual also has great appeal to those with an innate sense of curiosity and inquiry, which is where Dottore and Albedo come in. Both aren't going to go out of their way to buy a girl normally (not out of ethical concerns or anything like that, it's just sort of embarrassing), but when you take into account the fact that it's coming from presumably another universe entirely... that piques the interest, and could prove an incredibly beneficial resource in the study of pursuit to each's goals. Granted, you're infinitely better off with the latter than the former, based on the idea of researching you being asking you questions and taking vitals and giving you mild concoctions to drink versus cutting you open to prod around at and take chunks of your internal organs, but you know, every scholar has his unique methods. Still, for both, seeing you would be intriguing enough to go through with the purchase.

That all being said, there's not exactly a guarantee you're going to find yourself initially in a populated area. Teyvat has some rather large expanses of wilderness, and there's good chance you'll find yourself out in the middle of nowhere, wandering until you find a road and picking one direction to travel at random, just hoping someone comes along... and, of course, when the one who finally does come along happens to be a soft-voiced, sweet-looking young man, you would think you've gotten very lucky to not end up with a bad person... even if he does seem very wide-eyed and shocked by your presence and seems to be way too overdramatic when he swears he'll protect you if you stay by him (he's just escorting you through the wilderness, right?), he surely wouldn't do anything bad to you. Not until you settle down for the night, at least.

[justlarkin]

I'm so happy LW gets awesome artists for the males and females. Like, I'm gay but these woman are all awesome. Like you said, they're better than some female oriented straight games.

Oh yeah, definitely. I was focusing on the fems because I geniunely can't think of a flop among them, but LWs has some peak characters overall when it comes to the gacha game market.

Understanding the demographic they're going for (horny) and hiring popular artists that already appeal to said demographic (horny) is one thing, but those artists turning out to be able to come up with some of the most thoughtful and visually delightful designs is just !!! And the way they can come up with appealing fem designs that make their players bark to no end without needing to blatantly lewd them is crazy. (Like, of course the same can't be said to most of the guys, but the male characters I simp for aren't even lewded!! they're just that hot and well designed!!)

Both games have some wonderful designs, but honestly I can just stare at Housamo designs forever. It's just because their characters are based or inspired on someone/something. I just love looking at all the fun little details from the source material the artists slip in and thinking about what would've inspired the artists to make the decisions they do.

LWs is truly the bain of my existence.