#it’s basically a competition at this point

[plethoraworldatlas]

Critter Halloween Poll stats

@novalizinpeace ran some polls on their other account @smilingcritterarg to decide what costumes to do for their upcoming smiling critters Halloween YCH. Having nothing else to do (does in fact have things to do but is procrastinating) I decided to break down some of the data and results. Here are some completely unnecessary charts I made!

Charts are read as: Character name (total number of votes in their poll), The four poll options, the percentage of the vote they got, and what that number roughly is in terms of votes they received. I very roughly rounded a lot of numbers but it all basically works out.

Hilariously, Bubba took the longest because double checking his math somehow broke every calculator I used and gave him more total votes than he actually received. Still have no idea what went wrong there.

Here is a chart tracking the differences between first place and second place (how close the poll was) and first and last place:

Some fun facts from all this data:

The most voted in poll was Picky's with 311, and the least voted in poll was Kickin's with 204

Biggest winner percent wise is Rockstar Kickin, getting 50.5% of votes in their poll

Biggest winner in total number of votes is Picky with her head on a Plate with 138 votes

Biggest loss was Skeleton Hoppy in both % of the poll and individual votes at only 8.5% and about 19 votes. No shame because it was in a packed race with some very strong competition

Speaking of Hoppy and her poll, hers was the closest race by far, with the winner decided by just 8 votes (3.6%)!

The most conclusive victory was Rockstar Kickin, 28.9% and 59 votes ahead second place Slasher

The girls polls were more popular, averaging 250.5 votes to the boys average of 217.5

The girls polls were also closer and more contentious, first place being decided on average by just 9.15% compared to the boys average of ~14.5%

1,872 Votes were cast in these polls, averaging 234 a poll!

My personal votes won 6 times out of 8, or 75% of the time.

The two polls my voted option lost were Picky's, where my choice came in second (RIP Picky the Barbarian, you went out in a fight); and Bobby's, where my choice tied for last (Figured Cupid would win, but I voted for the novelty of Detective Bobby)

There isn't really a point to all this, I just wanted to look at the numbers. Excited for the Halloween YCHs! Check out @novalizinpeace for amazing Smiling Critters art and more!

[elainsgirl]

Valentines Day is the day where couples show each other love, often times this is through gift giving. However, as unfortunate as it sounds, many men do not put in effort for their gifts.

Hearts are associated with Love - therefore heart neckaces or jewellery are common gifts but the issue is - they are impersonal. Its just a heart pendent on a chain. It holds no significance or deep symbolic meaning for gf’s/partners. Its the most surface level gift you can give. A gift that shows there was minimal effort behind it. Upon receiving these “gifts”, ofc partners feel disappointment and show a lack of excitement for it.

Azriel’s necklace is not the same.

For starters, It was a rose pendant. We know papa archeron - who Elain loved - carved her a beautiful rose figurine so it isn’t out of the ordinary to assume Elain likes or is fond of roses. From a storytelling point - Roses represent Romance which is fitting for elriels’ future relationship. Roses are what you give to someone you love, or its a flower you give to show someone you are romantically interested in them.

yes it was a simple pendent until the light hits it - showing a beautiful array of colours: hues of white (bravery) pink (admiration) and red (romance) colours that suit Elain perfectly not to mention the rose necklace resembles Elain.

Elain who is deemed as simple and dainty by those around her as well as the fandom. Yet - just like the necklace, in certain situations we see different sides of Elain her true colours coming out.

Upon seeing the necklace, Elain didn’t sigh in disappointment. She didnt brush the gift aside instead she called it beautiful and wanted Azriel to put it on her immediately,

A stark contrast to Lucien’s gift which are all surface levels. The lad gave Elain, the gardener, gloves. That has to be the most basic, surface level gift. Its only competition the pearl earrings that Elain immediately set aside not casting them another look. THOSE gifts can easily be compared too the Valentines day heart necklaces. Gifts that represent minimal effort. Gifts that upon receiving where met with awkwardness amd disinterest.

Those that are hating on the Rose necklace are giving jealousy. Not Azriel’s fault, Lucien who apperantly knows Elain so well, sucks at giving her good gifts.

[scuderia-hamilton]

I’m not even a Daniel fan, but when you look at the head to heads with teammates, he’s been performing, it’s just that it’s easier to believe he’s washed, when the data proves otherwise and I say this as a checo fan

red bull also has such impossible expectations for its drivers. like they’ve been stringing Liam along for ages, they promised Daniel the rb seat, replacing Checo, turns out Checo’s staying after all, so Daniel’s not going to rb and they basically ignore Yuki no matter how well he performs. they literally don’t care about any of their drivers outside of Max and then they have the audacity to replace them, when they don’t perform well under the tremendous pressure and toxic environment they created for them. i don’t really know what they’re trying to achieve with this, but from a publicity standpoint fucking over multiple well liked drivers doesn’t seem good.

and as you said it’s not like Daniel has been so shit, that he’s been crashing left and right, but again it all comes down to rbr’s super high and unrealistic expectations. and also the VCARB is a midfield car, i’m sure both Yuki and Daniel extracted the very best from it, but they cannot fight for bigger points, if the car isn’t fit for that. i don’t care how competitive a sport is, humanity and treating someone with respect and dignity should always be a top priority for everyone included.

[theyluvkarolina]

what’s her opinion on the older champs? (lewis, fernando, mark, seb, nico r, kimi r)

i feel like she’d definitely be a fan of nando and kimi loll

Loooooveeeessss lewis. close in competition with logan. But Logan is still the light of her f1 life. Lewis got bonus points for bringing Roscoe for the British GP and they got introduced. Lewis is always so gentle with her but let’s her have fun at the same time.

Fernando is basically a grandpa for her LMAO he’s the fun grandpa that teases you all the time (speaking from experience 😭) she has likes it when he stops by to say hello or… or does those dumb tik toks for aston martin 😭 SHES BEEN FEATURED A COUPLE TIMES AND MCLAREN TOLD THEM TO STOP STEALING THEIR MASCOT 😞😞

Sadie sees mark so often she’s not even fazed by him anymore 💀 Oscar tells her when she wakes up from a nap that Mark is here and she legit groans and heads back to her room teddy bear in hand. But in all seriousness, she likes Mark. Dad #2 for her

IDK WHY BUT I FEEL LIKE SHE WAS SCARED OF SEB FOR SOME REASON FOR A BIT??? No one even knows why she’s so hesitant about him. (It was the long haired photos she saw anytime someone mention him or try to show her him 😞) BUT ONCE SHE SAW HIM IRL AT IMOLA SHE LOVED HIM 😭 helped her get over her fear of bees fr

Nico nico nico… she has so much fun playing with his girls so it’s a major A+ in her books! He’s always nice to her (certified girl dad) and posted a photo of her with him for a race captioned “wish my adopted daughter at ___! 🥰 Who do you think will win? I’ll say Oscar Piastri since his biggest fan is here!” Oscar’s response? “Why has my daughter been adopted without my agreement??”

Oscar is just Kimi 2.0 . She has no problems just rambling about random things. Showed her the path her took after the race in Monaco he retired from to his yacht. The yacht is still there today.

[calware]

thinking about doing a month-long event for the homestuck tumblr community to encourage people to make + post fanworks as well as reblog other people's fanworks.... where people can opt-in by being randomly assigned one of two teams (probably red and blue) so that each team has roughly the same amount of members. teams get points for making fanworks and having their posts reblogged, which encourages people to make posts and also reblog the posts made by their team members. and the top 3 people in each team to get the most points get some kind of reward... hmmmm

[tomwambsgans]

It's just, I only just got here again, and I'm--

I'm starving, too, like...

[mantisgodsdomain]

Finally, we get the opportunity to put our Spy Cards worldbuilding in a work. Though there are many questions about such things as "regulation" "how these cards are printed" "who approves a single spy card", and so on, we are here to present a bold new take: this game is based like 60% on obscure roach memory-reading tech that got turned into a card game with absolutely No card-game-related intentions included in the original tech and most of the card vetting is just from the fact that there aren't too many card printers out there and most of them make cards that need to be translated from Roach.

Strictly speaking, as a card game, it is not a terribly good or well-balanced one. It's popular primarily because of a mix of the difficulty involved in getting the data for high-level cards, the fun of seeing the variety of monsters that can be brought to the table, and the incredible amounts of ham and drama that goes into specifically the professional scene.

[13eyond13]

I think the moment Light's crush on L first smacked him in the manga (like when it finally rooted and started blooming in his guts) was when L was like "you're my first ever friend" whilst smirking into his teacup. And not because Light fully believed he was being sincere about being friends, but because he KNEW L was slyly teasing him and speaking to him on more than one level at once. Nothing more unexpected funny flattering and intriguing than that for him right then

[colorisbyshe]

going to the store without headphones or even just a single earbud is so hellish like i salute every single retail worker in the world for surviving those playlists

i think tonight i heard songs that could easily transition into tools of psychological torture

[hamofjustice]

I don't want to just painstakingly copypaste my triple-layered self-QRT thread about it on Twitter and any other ones floating around but

I am very emotionally invested in seeing Penny, Arven, and (personally) especially Nemona again in the Scarlet/Violet DLC, after GF followed up the best 3 hours of Pokemon game story ever by having to abruptly cut it off the second these lonely kids finish opening up to you and say you can hang out with them anytime. Which you never do. It was some pretty painful whiplash, and I was sure the main point of the DLC was to relieve that, especially when their arcs don't seem quite complete yet. Very clever, evil marketing! But uh... well... about that...

It is very worrying that aside from a little "the story so far" montage, they have not been seen or mentioned in promotional material/footage whatsoever. Y'know, DLC for the game that's about how the real treasure was the friends you found along the way (literally, in Nemona's case), and even if your family and support systems fail you, you still have each other? Written from the heart by someone who said Arven's story is inspired by their own life? With the sappy Ed Sheeran song about reaching out for connection with others, that also seems to be named after Team Star? The game where one of the features the devs seemed most proud of was going on adventures and into boss fights with 3 of your friends? The game that ended with a fully functional and quite immersive bonding adventure with these characters you'd gotten to know and care about, that basically everyone thought was the best part of the game by a mile, and were left wishing the whole game was like that?

Yeah, I (and everyone else) have been driving around alone in that game for 8 months ever since finishing that story. 8 months of minor updates with a ton of the beloved characters functionally or literally gone, while we go around doing online stuff with nothing else to do in the world, with a single player postgame more barren than we had on Game Boy Color (thank god for mints and bottle caps though). I'm left just... wanting to go back to the way things were before I beat the game. Not to be overly dramatic, but this world I supposedly saved feels like one I failed to save. And I'm getting really frustrated. (The framerate hasn't gotten any better, either, but this isn't about that.)

It's like Game Freak (or whoever forced this thing out a year early, or both) never expected you to boot the game up again once you got bored of the Ace Academy Tournament, which the game acts like is the entire total of what you could want from being friends and "rivals for life" with your squad (I mean I'm the sicko that loves Tera Raids, so I'm not that bored, but still). It makes a bunch of implications that your adventure is just beginning, and then it totally just... isn't. Why is the E4 building closed? Why do you only rematch the gyms once? And most of all, for me personally: Why did we get access to our friends' rooms if there's nothing to do or talk about there? (Besides look for character study clues, which they have lots of)

All they could come up with when asked to write a newsletter email about what you can still do in S/V and why you should still be playing it was Raids. That was it. Remember when you had an endless challenge in the Tower/Maison that you could optionally take on with a bunch of story characters as your partners instead of alone, that motivated you to keep getting stronger bit by bit? Remember rematching gym leaders multiple times and watching their teams grow and evolve each time? Yeah, there's none of that here, because that would take more than a week to implement. If you want friends and you want battles, you'll have to do it yourself online now. They're not allocating any budget for that.

Your rival for life, who's so excited you're on her level now, who seems to have the passion and skill to be the your Battle Tower gameplay loop by herself if she wanted to, who battles you for hours offscreen with multiple teams, whose whole character arc is that she finally has someone she can do this with... is fully static, with one kinda mediocre team that never grows or changes. She can't keep up with you and doesn't know what items or EVs are. You have to get lucky to even see her at all. She is no more your rival than your Home Ec teacher is (no offense Saguaro, you're cool too). I think it's really, really sad.

I'm left nostalgic and pining to go back, having to cope through fanfic because my character can't spend the day with - or even so much as take a new trainer card photo with - the girl who said they might be her greatest treasure, without resetting my save, because she and the others are standing somewhere that the camera and internet features are both disabled.

Like, legitimately, I want to keep being friends with these kids the way we were before, and have the ability to do post-game stuff with them, like being able to go out and adventure together whenever in some basic, non-story capacity, or just, I don't know, maybe give them more than one line of dialogue in their rooms? I don't want a new region or new characters. Not yet, anyway.

I thought I was preordering the continuation of their story and rewarding the company for making me care about Pokemon so much again.

But, uh... I'm really worried that the people who own these characters do not care. And as I said on the trailer's comments before they turned them off (lol), I'll be pissed enough to not buy any more games if I'm right, and we're forced to abandon these poor kids. At the very least, it's some pretty garbage marketing to leave the possibility of that up in the air. If nothing else, that is a frustration that I'm going to keep talking about for a while, even if it ends up being fine.

I thought it was impossible, and I was being silly. Why not have our friends in cute new outfits as promo art when the DLC was first announced, and all they had was promo art? Seems like an easy slam dunk. Oh, they didn't yet? Well, I'm sure it'll happen eventually.

And then they weren't in the trailer either, months later. Are they trying to sell us on it or not?

The whole reason I want the DLCs. Still not a single word acknowledging them, just that little opening montage. Still no hints of how the DLCs have anything to do with Area Zero's ongoing story, either. How is a sea turtle linked with a landlocked crater?

So like... At this point I have to assume both DLCs start with you making your friends cry as they're left alone again, arbitrarily excluded from events they're more than qualified to be invited to, to make room for some new dweebs we don't need, who won't be given nearly enough time to be as compelling as Nemona, Arven, and Penny were, because that makes the trailer look more like a new game, and that's the only way they know how to advertise. More. New. Buy. Consume. Throw away. Buy. Consume. Throw away. I should assume this so that whatever we get can't be worse.

But they're probably not (self-aware enough / allowed / both) to write that. Your lonely / orphaned / anime-binging friends might just cheer you on for getting to go do something cool like being forced to train a new legendary because the story said so, then go back to being statues with as much relevance to your life as an NPC in a third story apartment that tells you what a hold item is.

Can't I just live in Paldea with my friends, in the version of the game we would have gotten if it was finished, instead of being pulled into these adventures for the sake of looking good in a trailer? (which it doesn't btw lol) It's not an unrealistic thing to want when that's what it briefly was, and I was so excited that it would keep being that I've been thinking about it this entire time.

...

I hope I'm wrong about all this, and next year I can look back on this post, happy that the DLC did actually allow us to continue to take care of these characters, conclude Area Zero's mysteries in a satisfying way, fix up some technical issues, let us relive some things that are currently once-only (including letting us see that photo album our character made but we had to screenshot ourselves), and make it fun to keep playing for years afterward, and let that be the model for games going forward, but uh...

They really are not showing me anything I care about in the game I desperately want to care about, that I saw - and wanted to defend - the heart in, despite the circumstances it was produced under, and that really worries and frustrates me. The surprisingly many great things about this game got my hopes up for an awesome postgame full of warm fuzzy feelings and cool things to do 8 months ago that just didn't deliver, and now, I'm not sure if they'll even let me pay for one, at this rate, because they're not advertising one.

Just throw us a scrap. If whoever's in charge here stops caring about this story, I won't care about the next one.

Anyone else feeling this?

[batsplat]

maybe it's from the particularly acute disappointment of marc injuring himself at the sachsenring but this weekend (so far) has made me feel incredibly nervous for marc's future. like no guarantees of course but if marc was going to win anywhere this year (when the gap between the gp23 and gp24 is increasingly obvious, as you mentioned) it was going to be here. and i'm definitely overreacting because i'm emotional about it but it feels like him hurting himself here feels like a bad sign not just for this year but for the future at large. because it's a reminder that his body can't handle the riding style that used to take him so far. scary!

taking these two together ahahaa. this is truly the life of a sports fan huh

honestly with marc I've now swung so often and so far between 'it's so over' and 'we've never been more back' that I've gotten to an exciting point of. well. I suppose we'll have to see. I mean look, back in that jerez to catalunya stretch it did look like he might be able to be a serious title contender this season. at risk of making myself look like an idiot, I think we can pretty safely conclude that's not happening this year. but y'know, broadly what he needs to do is to figure his shit out for the rest of the year... like he kinda needs to just understand what this version of him can do under what circumstances. the thing about winning is that it's also a habit, it's something that becomes essentially muscle memory, you need to kinda have that reflexive understanding of how you've done it in the past - both in the context of races and titles. and it's still in there for him!! but he's just got to... take the rest of the season to chip away at the gap. currently, pecco and jorge don't just have the edge on him in pace, they have the edge on him in process. that's not just the bike, though it is also affected by marc being less familiar with the ducati. but pecco and jorge have just kind of gotten to the point where they know how to approach most weekends in a way where, more often or not, they will kinda maximise what was on offer for them that weekend. sometimes they chuck it down the road! but in terms of pure pace potential, right now they're getting to the point where they're there. marc is just a series of 'what ifs'. they're not all his fault, he's gotten unlucky, he's in a tough situation, he's still getting used to the new tracks on a ducati etc etc etc... but that's what this year is for. figure out the process, figure out how you actually go about getting wins in the current era - keeping your physical condition in mind - and take it from there

the physical stuff is the... yeah. the thing is, I do think he is capable of winning without all this crashing to figure out the limit. honestly, this approach of his made me deeply uneasy well well before what happened at jerez 2020. that injury and aborted comeback didn't feel like a fluke, it didn't feel like bad luck - in an awful way, it did feel like it had been a long time coming. that being said... well, y'know, marc was the only one who could win titles on the late 2010s honda, and part of the reason for that was that he figured out how to get a capricious bike just to the limit during races. you do not need to chuck the bike down the road fifty times per season to win the title on the ducati. pecco and jorge have very much shown that. sometimes it will just be dumb luck who gets injured or not! the sachsenring crash yesterday you can't really put down to marc being stupid or being irresponsible. he was hardly the only one who fell, weather conditions were tricky, shit does happen (not ideal that he tried to save the crash specifically because he knew his other bike had problems, plus the thing where he went out again before going to the medical centre, mind you). sometimes you fall a lot and you're fine, like marc for most of his prime. sometimes you crash at the start of the race and fall in front of the pack and your survival is up to fate. which is of course what happened last year to pecco, still one of the scariest crashes I've ever seen live in terms of crashes where you really do think you just got very very close to watching someone be killed in real time. this is the thing, right... at the end of the day, you can hope that marc finds an approach that relatively minimises the risk to his body - but also, you can only control so much. especially with where his body is at right now, there's only so many bad knocks you can take. you never know, you can only hope

overall, I have been thinking for a while that it's almost a bit... odd? how the physical stuff hasn't really featured at all in 2025-26 hot takes? I reckon people don't really want to think about it playing a big role, and also I suppose 'well one of them could get injured' is treated as just an underlying assumption of following motorcycle racing... but like we saw with catalunya last year, it's not just stuff that takes you out for ten races that can have big title race repercussions. especially given how marc traditionally went about winning titles, how big a part of that process it was for him. we've had such an incredible lucky streak from the start of the season until mugello that being afraid of injuries has almost... receded a little bit? in everyone's minds? after last year, in particular, where it just felt like you were always worrying about someone, it was just so relentless... and now injury worries have just come back with a vengeance these last few weeks and it is a little scary. a lot of this is scary. no real escaping it I'm afraid

but yes! anon! I agree with you! we'll get back to the smile and we'll get back to the optimism too.. at the end of the day, you can only do what you can do. we'll see what happens. if we're all massively underestimating just how much that sweet red bull cash can do and ktm comes out with a rocket ship next year and pedro wins the next ten titles, so be it. you never know

[skitskatdacat63]

Please save me, I'm reading a reddit thread about Seb vs Max(bcs Tost said he thought Seb would win out), and none of these people know how good Seb was in his prime

[thetimelordbatgirl]

Ngl youtube videos suddenly got me slowly turning into a Justin Russo hater.

[dravidious]

Rares aren't exciting because they're super strong they're exciting because they're a place to write the most wacky bullshit off-the-wall lines of rules text possible

What the fuck kind of text is "Other creatures are Food artifacts" that's so fucking stupid I love it so much. Is it strong? That could not possibly be further from the point. The point is that you see this and say "What the FUCK that's ABSURD!!" and then you try your absolute hardest to make some dumb bullshit combo with it. Whether you succeed or fail is far less important than how many silly interactions you discover during the process

Fucking "Ward - Sacrifice a Food", that's hilarious, this card is amazing

[crimeronan]

i think amity and hunter should kill people together. i have absolutely no context or reasoning for this except that every relationship is improved by the involved parties killing people together. this has never resulted in issues consequences or ethical questions for anybody. why go to therapy when you could simply-

[s-guacamolearts]

So I just got hit with the danganronpa hyperfixation which led me to wonder about the togami family siblings

And here are some of the results (with a REALLY LARGE amount of rambling in the tags)