#lengthy post

[skulandcrossbones]

i love arm pt 2 (pt 1)

[angelinanguish]

Little drama update: Simblrhonesty is trying to cover their ass now.

Since they're deleting posts where they either: made false accusations, said something racist, implied someone had some kind of illness, or just really anything damning really.

Yooniesim did end up seeing what they posted before it was deleted, but I do ask that anyone viewing my posts not tag the original creators. I'm not saying this because I think they couldn't handle all these weak insults but because not everyone wants to see this kind of thing. Unless they're asking to know if they've been featured then let those simmers be.

Don't force anyone into addressing this person. By this point I'm just documenting and archiving things for later reference. I can't imagine anyone genuinely liking this content (because it's soo ass.....like really it's worse than anything they've called out) but I'm not going to spread any theories.

Just very suspicious how they have all these adoring fans you know....anywho.

Here's the slop I found:

Once again implying another creator is mentally ill for...having a thing for catboys?. See we didn't learn from yesterday but alright.

One of their examples of "right" black people (they seem to think all black people have to look like either celebrities or super models to be "good")

Oh and here's one that's totally not racially charged at all...

Sorry we don't all look like the two black celerity women you know. Anyway here's another where Simblrhonesty makes an attempt to seem woke or something?.....

and this only took me five seconds but check it out:

Literally one of the stock photos I've found, nothing about this is outlandishly whitewashed the way they claim. No concept of what a real black person would look like outside of the few celebrities they know.

Once again they display their ignorance regarding black women and style because all it takes is one search and...

Yeah. Pretty poplar style. Also all black women are Doja Cat I guess?.... anyway.

That's all my documenting for today. What have we learned from Simblrhonesty?:

All black men just either look like a professional model or Ice Cube

Lip liner and blonde hair is only for Doja Cat

The only reaction photo they have is of Billie Eilish

Having kinks is wrong and if you have one you should krill yourself if you have any

Being naked is gross and impure (didn't include that one because it was literally just tasteful nudity. Not worth breaking it down)

Oh and also I'm a bitch?:

No comment on the false pedo accusations it seems. But hey let me just delete my post with those claims in them and claim kinky accounts are run by sick criminals. Surely those are different right?

Look at me I'm progressive! but also your black sim's lips are too big and consensual sex is immoral. Girl.

That's all for today. You'd all be better off ignoring this clown.

(once again, please don't tag any of these creators. Simblrhonesty will stoop that low but I'm not going to. Regardless of your views on "wrong" and "right" simming this isn't cool. Don't encourage it.)

[ohmuqueen]

x

Part 2 here bc tumblr wouldn’t let me add anymore screenshots to this post

[tangerinethecat]

King and Rouxls NOT in a Relationship Masterpost

The spiritual successor to my King and Queen Divorce Masterpost. Similarly to that post, this will all probably be common knowledge to most of the fandom. But apparently, some people still exist out there who think King and Rouxls are a couple (or in some interpretations, that they used to be one, making them exes now), so I guess I gotta make this post to explain to you all why that is incorrect and they were never a thing together in the first place.

(Once again, apologies for the not-so-great screenshot quality. It's easier to grab it from YouTube videos rather than having to play the whole chapters over again for the dialogue, lol...)

Starting off with some shop dialogue from Chapter 1...

Rouxls is very insistent on not being related to Lancer. If he and King were romantically involved, that would make Lancer his stepson (or soon to be one), and therefore related. Then, the line "I placate you for your Father's sake!" refers to the fact that the King makes his subjects take care of Lancer. This makes Rouxls much more like a babysitter than anything, specifically one that Lancer latched onto as a secondary father figure because Spade King can't spend enough time with his son himself. In a way, you could see it as Lancer "adopting" Rouxls as a new dad, rather than the other way around!

And to clarify, the fact that King makes his subjects care for Lancer is established a bit earlier on, with this leaf-fanning Rudinn NPC.

Notice the use of the word "obligatory" here... The original definition of this word is "required by a legal, moral, or other rule; compulsory." So in other words, it seems that they are (quite literally) legally required to take care of the King's son, whether they want to or not.

And then, this last line from the Rudinn about Lancer is actually rather sad... But, looking at Rouxls Kaard's full dialogue about Lancer, we can see that he does genuinely care about the kid deep down. (The following screenshot is taken from the wiki.)

Perhaps this could be at least partially why Lancer latched onto Rouxls in particular over any other subjects.

Now, my next point... In-universe, Rouxls has some fans.

This specific Rudinn NPC, as well as Clover (or at least her friendly middle head), both appear to have crushes on Rouxls, referring to him as a "hunk". If Rouxls was already taken, I'd imagine that they would have mentioned this in their dialogue, since dating the King would probably be hard to keep a secret (especially when Rouxls seems like the type to brag about dating someone in power)... So, to me, this dialogue seems to imply that Rouxls is single.

Bonus fact: Clover's fondness of Rouxls is referenced in Chapter 2 as well, with "Rouxls" being one of the correct answers for choosing a thing she likes during her rematch challenge in the Party Dojo. (Screenshot taken from the wiki again, with Rouxls highlighted for clarity since, uh, there's a lot of options listed, hahaha)

And on the topic of Chapter 2, it also has its own evidence to share.

Throughout Chapter 2, Rouxls is shown to be very fixated on becoming Queen's minion. A post of mine compiling all of these moments can be found here. While it's not entirely confirmed yet to be with romantic intentions, it really seems to me like it is implied as such. Especially with Rouxls thrusting a flower vase bouquet onto Tasque Manager because he thought she was Queen. If this is the case, then it should be safe to say that he is not already in romantic relationship with anyone else canonically when he is going after someone else in this manner.

Now, time to address some potential counterarguments...

A small number of people seemed to have interpreted this line as King and Rouxls being exes as well, instead of just King and Queen. However, I believe Rouxls Kaard's choice of words here is only meant to be in reference to King and Queen's divorce, rather than implying that he had a past relationship with King himself (aside from simply working for him). Describing himself as Queen's "nyew (new) Man about Towne (town)" implies that King was her "old" one. And although Rouxls apparently never met Queen back when she was still a part of Card Castle (since he mistook Tasque Manager for Queen as mentioned before, and Queen certainly doesn't recognize Rouxls either), I imagine it wouldn't be difficult for him to figure out on his own that King and Queen are exes, assuming he was eavesdropping on their conversation before butting in during this scene.

Then, King telling Queen that Rouxls is Lancer's "Lesser Father"... This implies that Lancer has referred to Rouxls as Lesser Dad in front of King. I can only imagine how awkward and embarrassing that must have been for King to hear his son let that nickname slip. And he certainly does not look happy about it here, most likely annoyed by the fact and by Rouxls Kaard's antics in general. So, why would he introduce Rouxls this way to Queen? Well, the answer is simple. If Lancer let the nickname slip in front of King, then it is very possible he could refer to Rouxls as Lesser Dad in front of Queen, too. Remember, Queen came here in the first place to tell Spade King that she is going to take care of his son from now on. So this explanation by King provides her with context in case Lancer starts talking about "Lesser Dad" to her.

Now, I'm almost done here, but I'd like to go over one more thing: Why King and Rouxls are simply not compatible with each other.

Starting with Rouxls, he is not a very loyal person. He constantly switches sides throughout the game so far. From King, to the player, to Queen, to the player again (when all the NPCs help you create the giant mech to fight Giga Queen), then back to Queen in Castle Town.

His shop dialogue is a great example of this. After completing the second K. Round fight, he starts sucking up to you, brags about always being on "the winning side" (gee, I wonder why /s), and even claims that he planned to overthrow the King all along. And even before the K. Round fight, Rouxls's dialogue about King isn't exactly respectful, calling King "cruel and terrifying" and noting how he only got to become the Duke of Puzzles because every other option was fired and/or imprisoned.

Now, moving onto Spade King... He has some pretty bad trust and abandonment issues, to say the least.

His entire reason for hating the Lightners in the first place is because they abandoned him and his kingdom, and when he is overthrown by his own subjects at the end of Chapter 1, he gets very upset and even starts shouting death threats at them.

Although King is much calmer in Chapter 2 (at least towards the Lightners, ironically enough, as he still loses his temper at Queen), he still isn't exactly fond of you. So it's safe to say that he would still not take kindly to traitors, either, even if he might not react as extremely as he did in Chapter 1's ending.

So, considering both characters' details here, I can only conclude that they would make a terrible match for each other. Rouxls is the exact type of person that King is known to despise, and trying to claim otherwise would require stripping away some very significant traits of both King and Rouxls in order to make this disaster pairing "work". It would either be an extremely unhealthy relationship, or an extremely out of character one. And in cases of the latter, at that point I think you should just make your own OCs instead. This ship is not canon, it never was canon, and it never will be canon.

Thanks for coming to my second TED Talk.

[ramblingguy54]

     There’s a lot to be said, regarding how Thanks To Them handled what it managed to do in under almost an hour quite well, but what I specifically want to focus on is the colossal amount of emotional weight it gave in-depth for Luz & Camila’s relationship because holy shit it was great, overall. In the past, I’ve seen posts here and there attempt to slam Camila as a parent calling her irresponsible or outright manipulative in the way she wanted to balance Luz’s creativity or that knee jerk reaction at Yesterday’s Lie concluding on a somber conversation between these two. Some were quick to peg Camila as being dismissing of her daughter choosing to stay on the Boiling Isles, when in reality she was merely concerned for Luz’s safety and not to mention questioning her abilities to be a competent parent in all of this, as well.

    Thanks To Them fully puts into perspective just how rough Camila has had it as a single parent. It wasn’t just losing her husband that was painful, but also the consistent berating Luz would get from onlookers passive aggressively judging her antics, which were heavily implied to have been inspired by Manny. He seems to have been apparently a very silly father figure that wanted to inspire his daughter about vibrant imagination, hence that Azura book being the last thing he gave her before passed away, due to unfortunate health issues of some kind. Honestly, I know I sound like a broken record here, but I can’t further reinforce my point enough on these impressive ways the Owl House crew managed to salvage all this insightful characterization around the Noceda family tree. It masterfully makes any moment from Luz’s creativity throughout this series run have such deeper meaning. She was trying to keep her father’s faith alive and that can be said for a lot what Luz has done through compassion.

     Went from simply loving Camila’s character to absolutely seeing myself in the way she struggles to stand up for Luz’s nature as a human being. Manny may be gone, but she doesn’t let that grief stop her from allowing Luz to live life the way her kid wants. The notion of parenthood comes in and out of my head often about how I would fair in the department of being a father. Would I make the right choices for my child? Could I prevent the same unfortunate stuff I went through not repeat for their new life? Camila was dealt an unfair hand by life and desires to give Luz a place she can call home. It’s why she sent Luz off in the first place to that camp at this story’s beginning. She never wanted Luz to do a 180 in personality, or stop having an imagination that makes her a vibrant child. Camilia’s main goal in all of this was to prevent Luz’s bullying at school from potentially increasing, the more she took her antics further.

     This in of itself portrays the issues of our education system with how it views other peoples’ learning capabilities. Attempting to put a label it all as grief for Luz’s acting out in their assignments, given Manny’s passing, is only a half truth severely exaggerated. Sure, losing her Dad had a huge profound change in Luz, but even when Manny was alive she has always done things differently. If anything, Manny’s sudden passing made Luz double down on the way she views things in general determined to stand up proudly for it, regardless of what anyone said. Luz was paying her respects to Manny, by living her life without regret. In this regard, it makes sense why Luz goes to such great lengths in trying to fix any mistake she feels accountability for whether it’s unintentionally helping Belos’ plans through time travel, regret for not coming home to Camila sooner, or Amity, Gus, and Willow being stranded from their respective reality.

    Luz’s compassionate nature is her strongest endearing trait and weakness all at once because while she is caring to others, it comes at the expense of her self-esteem. She blows any mistake big or small out of massive proportions. Part of me can’t help but think Manny’s passing plays a role in this, too. Luz is devoted to the memory her father so much that she weighs these mistakes on the grounds of, “What would my father think, if he knew about my own actions?”, and it is leading her down self-destructive tendencies. This was likely going through her mind, besides Camila’s advice about learning from mistakes.

     Luz wasn’t using fiction as a way to escape her father’s passing. It was all about keeping the memory of his own unique personality alive. To show others applying your different touch to learning about anything can pay off. It makes Luz Noceda such a compelling and endearing protagonist, in spite of how rough she has had everything in childhood to the Boiling Isles conflict currently. Luz wishes to do right by Camila & Manny’s beliefs that it consumes her with overwhelming grief. You could feel so much of it in her reluctant resolve to stay behind forever. At this point, Luz has felt like everything she has wanted ended in failure. Wanted do well in school with grades at the top of her class.

Didn’t want Camila to worry about her well being all the time.

Wanted so desperately to become of apart of the Boiling Isles and share this world with her mother acknowledging it.

Wants to live a life with no regrets, like her father wanted.

     All of this resolve has come crashing down on Luz’s determination. She can’t live a life without regret because Luz is consumed by so much of it. The only way Luz believed she could atone is by robbing herself of any true happiness. This way the karmic value of what she had blamed herself for would even out. It’s absolutely heartbreaking seeing such an optimistic kid become utterly broken by these circumstances. Luz may hate Belos, but she in turn despises herself because of being fooled by his scummy tactics to achieve his goal. Throwing everything into chaotic terror when the Collector was freed finally by King.

     Luz & Camila’s development was easily one of my favorite parts from the whole special. Thanks To Them is an all around great start to this three part series finale in general, but their emotional development was a serious stand out. This was the kind of stuff I wanted to see more of in DuckTales 2017 between Della & Louie with their chemistry and am so happy to see the concept thoroughly explored here. Loved what was shown off and can’t wait to see the last two specials in 2023. Welcome back Owl House. It’s good to see you again.

[actualaster]

Okay, I got curious about how the "lloyd shipping dynamics" pie chart got broken down since I knew there were more Lloyd ships than just those in that specific chart, so I decided to check it out for myself. Wondered if maybe they didn't have any fic on AO3, or if there was some other reason to exclude them (plenty of reasons for that depending on the type of data you wanna look at--like if you only look at pairs not trios, or if you only want to know about ships that have more that one fic and such)

I did try to do a pie chart but no matter what I did, some fics just... Never were displayed because it could only display so many entries (especially when they were tiny %) that the smallest slices just.. Got excluded. I tried.

I was also curious how it would break down if you took into account the fact that ship tags are not mutually exclusive and thus fics can have multiple ship tags on them. Why are there two sets of numbers here? The first is "the % calculated comparing the ships to the fics. The second is pure ships. Basically first being "this is what % of the fics are tagged with these ships" the second is "this is what % of the total ships each one makes up".

Anyway, the data and some extra details about what data was collected and how and such below the cut.

Basic takeaways: Colloyd, Zelloyd, and Kralloyd are the Top 3, but Lloyd gets shipped around a bit, with 10 different canonical character's he's shipped with (either via a single pairing or as part of a trio) and several OC ship fics. Popular guy!

First breakdown, what % of the surveyed fics are tagged with each ship?

Colette: 55.30%

Zelos: 33.06%

Kratos: 6.03%

Sheena: 2.08%

Genis: 1.66%

Colette/Lloyd/Zelos: 1.66%

Yuan: 0.83%

Kvar: 0.62%

OC: 0.62%

Colette/Lloyd/Genis: 0.42%

Lloyd/Sheena/Zelos: 0.42%

Genis/Lloyd/Mithos: 0.21%

Kratos/Lloyd/Yuan: 0.21%

Lilia: 0.21%

Lloyd/OC/Sheena: 0.21%

Lloyd/OC/Zelos: 0.21%

Presea: 0.21%

Second breakdown, what % of the total ships does each one represent?

Colette: 53.2%

Zelos: 31.8%

Kratos: 5.8%

Sheena: 2.0%

Genis: 1.6%

Colette/Lloyd/Zelos: 1.6%

Yuan: 0.8%

Kvar: 0.6%

OC: 0.62%

Colette/Lloyd/Genis: 0.4%

Lloyd/Sheena/Zelos: 0.4%

Genis/Lloyd/Mithos: 0.22%

Kratos/Lloyd/Yuan: 0.2%

Lilia: 0.2%

Lloyd/OC/Sheena: 0.2%

Lloyd/OC/Zelos: 0.2%

Presea: 0.2%

I'd be curios how this would change if I included data from sites like FFN, honestly. Or even if I could find some old archives with ToS fic, or maybe DA, or possibly even Wattpad? Mostly because I wonder how many ships I'd find that didn't make it to AO3 (there's at least one lloyd/mithos fic on FFN, for example). However the sheer amount of work that would be to compile the data across multiple sites and try to correct for cross-posting gives me a headache just thinking about so. Lol nope, not happening.

Moving on to info about the data collection, and such...

First up, some base info on the data gathered:

481 fics total, 500 tagged ships total.

All from AO3

Data taken as of March 10th, 2023. Uh... Let's say 7am, -6GMT.

Data was gathered manually by going through AO3's entire 1,461 and manually tallying things up. (Including repeated checks to make sure no new or updated fic posting messed with stuff)

By this I mean "I had a sheet of paper and color-coded the tally marks as I went so I could check every 10 pages that I was getting everything I wanted to include and my math was adding up

(...I still have the feeling I overlooked a few but at this point I've spent way too much time on this already for an informal survey so.)

Counting by hand ensured that I didn't overlook ships for not thinking about them (Kvar/Lloyd, a few of the trio combinations).

(Fun story: I discovered that the Lloyd/Lilia tag, if you click on it, points to the Lloyd/OC tag which is incorrect. For those who don't know, Lilia is a canonical minor character from Dawn of the New World, the sequel game. In DotNW it's revealed that Lloyd proposed to her. It makes some sense in context but yes it's still weird, and yes the fandom had an understandable fuss about it at the time. Also, yes people are still annoyed by it.)

ANYWAY. Moving on from that... For a fic to be included, it needed to meet the following two criteria

Ship must be tagged in the relationships field. So adding a ship in the additional tags field would not get it counted.

Ship was a romantic and/or sexual pairing.

Some additional notes on that:

Ship was marked as implied, mentioned, or any other indication it was not a major focus but was still tagged in the relationship field: included

Ship was indicated as one-sided: included

Ship included a ship event (e.g. a ship week) but did not include a ship tag in the relationship field: excluded

Additional tags made it ambiguous if the author intended for a fic to be considered romantic, sexual, familial, and/or platonic: excluded

Furthermore, no fic was excluded due to content--so you have the fluff-fests and the fucked up darkfic all included in the above data.

Honestly if I were to do something like this again I did learn several things that would make it go smoother, but at this point I have spent over 30 hours over the last... IDK, 2.5 days or so? on what started as idle curiosity because my brain got locked into an obsession spiral and refused to let me drop it so I'm not going to go through and try to do this again anytime soon. At least not unless it's for a fandom with a hell of a lot less fic lol.

Anyway, based on my own data stuff I assume that OP of the pie chart actually used ships for their sample size, not fics because that was the only way I was able to get close to reproducing their results when looking at those ships only? Not something that matters much in this case, however--they did their math based on ships and it all checked out so.

[phantomoftheorpheum]

ONE GIF FOR EVERY FILM I WATCHED IN 2022

“I saw my life, without you. I wish you could have seen it. It was beautiful.”

[bigscaryblueberry]

(This may be a rare and surprising topic from me. But, I've been thinking a bit about Queen and how in a couple previous asks I specifically avoided confirming whether or not she has parents. Because, truthfully, I don't know what to headcanon for her.)

(I feel like there is potential both ways. On one hand, her having parents would be funny, and they could be old desktop-style computers like I referenced in the family tree silhouettes, instead of a modern laptop like herself. Maybe she wouldn't like to talk about them because she finds them embarrassing in some way? Idk. I'm sure plenty of us find out parents embarrassing sometimes, and maybe the fact that they are such "outdated" technology is the reason why for Queen. Basically, computer equivalent of old boomer parents, lmao.)

(But on the other hand, I've considered her being a "first generation" Darkner as another alternative, where she doesn't have parents because she was just created in a factory or something. Her full name is a serial number, after all... Like, I believe Darkners can be born from parents via magic, and their object equivalent will mysteriously spawn into the Light World this way, but I also think that there are some who are just "born" from their objects being created in the Light World in the first place, whether it be handmade or factory-made. So Queen could be one of those cases. And it would be "classified information" as she wouldn't want to disclose the location of her "birthplace" I guess, lol.)

(Idk which headcanon fits better. But either way, whether she has parents or not, she could still have siblings at least, as other computers built in a factory could be considered such, lol. And maybe she could have relatives who are somewhat different technology items, like calculators. An unused version of the computer lab has a blue calculator in place of the laptop, suggesting that was what Queen was once planned to be, so a calculator family member could be a fun nod to that.)

(But yeah, idk. I'm just throwing my thoughts out here again. I may not be as interested in the cyber Darkners as I am with the card Darkners, but I do still think about them occasionally and try to figure out how they work. Feel free to let me know if you prefer one idea over the other.)

[cherry-pop-soda]

bad movie reviews: barbie of swan lake

i’m a fan of the old barbie animated movies, and i’ve already seen a pretty decent handful of them, so I decided to make this review more entertaining by throwing some common tropes i’ve seen in barbie movies into this mini bingo card. I will keep track of this throughout this review, and at the end we can see how many spaces this film covers. let’s play barbie movie bingo !!

before I even begin the film I can already mark off “based off a famous ballet/fairy tale” because I already know swan lake is a ballet, so there’s one space down! one caveat though, I haven’t actually seen the ballet of swan lake before, so I went into this film not knowing the story at all. for this review I did a little research on the original story of swan lake so I can point out the differences in the barbie version.

the movie starts with barbie telling kelly a story about a girl named Odette, and a magic spell that turned her into a swan (mark off a space for kelly on the bingo!). this is also the first big difference I noticed between this film and the original swan lake. apparently in the original swan lake, odette is a princess, and her companions are also all humans, and they all turn into swans at daybreak. in the barbie version, Odette is a village girl, and only she turns into a swan. her companions are elves, each cursed to turn into a different animal. (we’ll get back to them later).

shortly after this the love interest is introduced in the form of a guy called Prince Daniel (hes the middle picture). I immediately noticed that he looks like a direct copy of both Julian from Barbie Princess and the Pauper (righthand side) and Stefan from Barbie Rapunzel (lefthand side). He literally has the exact same face model as Julian and the exact same hair as Stefan. mark copied models off the bingo!

in the ballet, original Daniel is actually called Siegfried, but I will call him original Daniel just to make it less confusing. Apparently in the ballet, original Daniel is a bit immature, not ready to give up being a bachelor and get married, which his mother is pressuring him to do (which she also does in the barbie movie, so I can mark that off the bingo too!). basically it seems like original Daniel would rather party than settle down and get married. I can’t really say how similar barbie Daniel is, because although it’s definitely implied that he is reluctant to choose a wife and would rather travel the world, he really doesn’t have much of a personality beyond the.. uhhh… literally two scenes maximum where he’s shown to have an interest in traveling and exploring?? so I think we can also mark off the bingo space for male love interest not being given much of a personality.

now let’s talk about the animal sidekicks, because no barbie movie doesn’t have animal sidekicks, and don’t worry, they’re just as uncomfortably horny/weirdly romantic as always, as we can see in this scene where this porcupine reacts. like that?? to skunk spray?? (mark off horny animals on the bingo!)

the thing that makes this more uncomfortable to me is the way these characters are animated in their true forms. Because of the villain Rothbart’s spells (i’ll get to him soon too, oh god), they are cursed to be animals the same way Odette is cursed to be a swan. But for whatever reason, whoever animated this movie didn’t create designs for the elves that actually look like elves?? instead they made the questionable decision to just use the same models they use for animating children. so the elves carlita (the skunk) and ivan (the porcupine) from above, who are sort of in love with each other throughout the film, look like this:

(also also, ivan and carlita both have sort of odd accents, kind of in the same vein as the infamous horny weasel from barbie rapunzel, so mark that off the bingo too)

also, side note for bad animal anatomy on the bingo, why tf did they give this unicorn a dumptruck??? what is going on here??

ANYWAYS. continuing on. the villain of the story is a guy named Rothbart, who is… portrayed in a very. Questionable way?? I’ve heard people talk about this before and I don’t know enough about the issue to say anything definitively, but he does seem… jewish coded, in a way that kind of feels really antisemetic. and it’s also weird because his cousin, the queen of the fantasy world where swan lake is located, doesn’t share any of the same facial features…

(ignore the random chinese subtitles, i watched and got most of my screencaps of the film from a version of it posted in 3-4 minute chunks on youtube with english and chinese subtitles underneath, it’s fine)

also, the “magic crystal”. Barbie Odette finds it in a tree and pulls it out, not knowing that this makes her special in some way because I guess nobody has been able to do it before?? sort of like a king arthur sword in stone type of deal? But in the original ballet, as far as I saw, there is no magic crystal. anyways, after she finds it, barbie odette tries to go back home because she doesn’t think she’s brave enough to go on a big quest to save the creatures of swan lake, but she gets turned into a swan by Rothbart, so she can’t leave.

Odette finds out there’s a special book that has the answers to how to break the curse turning her into a swan, in a library guarded by a troll named Erasmus, who seems to have pretty intense mood swings, and also, randomly has a british accent (mark that off the bingo!).

at some point during this, prince Daniel adventures into the forest, looking for animals to hunt. He sees Odette as a swan? being chased through the air by Rothbart (who has a scary looking bird form) and almost shoots her with an arrow, but decides not to. then he sees her transform into human form (this confused me because I thought they could only transform into humans from sunset till sunrise, but in the scenes leading up to this it seems to be daytime??? idk.)

this is also different from the original ballet, because apparently original Odette doesn’t trust or really care for original Daniel all that much when she first meets him, but barbie Odette and barbie Daniel get along well from the beginning. they even have dinner together under the moonlight and dance in the forest directly after first meeting each other, and prince Daniel invites Odette to the royal ball the following evening (mark “royal ball invitation” off the bingo!)

according to the special book from erasmus’ library, the one way to break the swan curse on Odette is for someone to declare their love for her and her ONLY. so, because this is a barbie movie, the elves decide she must go to the ball and dance with Daniel so he’ll declare his love for her, even though they literally met.. I don’t know, like eight hours ago, tops??? (mark “immediately falling in love” off the bingo!)

unfortunately for all of them, Rothbart hears/finds out about all of this, and hatches a plan. He enchants a necklace worn by his daughter Odile so it will make her look exactly like Odette in the eyes of Daniel, so he’ll be tricked, and accidentally declare his love for her instead of the real Odette. it’s not really clear to me if everyone else at the ball sees Odile for who she really is, or if everyone is tricked into seeing her as Odette. (i think it’s the first one personally). either way, Rothbart’s plan works. Daniel accidentally proposes to Odile instead of Odette, realizes his mistake, and tries to fight Rothbart to undo it, to no avail.

side note again- the thing I don’t get about this is how he didn’t recognize Rothbart in the ballroom?? I don’t think Rothbart’s disguise is very good, I honestly didn’t even realize he HAD a disguise the first time I watched that scene.

anyways, this is where the movie drastically differs from the original ballet. In the ballet, Odette is cursed to be a swan forever, and original Daniel throws himself into the lake after her, sacrificing himself and breaking the spell as they both die.

it’s not surprising that the barbie version didn’t do this, since it’s meant for kids, but i’m not really quite sure what was happening in the barbie version either. I think, in the final showdown in the forest between Rothbart and Daniel and Odette, Rothbart blasts both of them with his evil magic as they both try and fail to shield each other. They both pass out for a while, or maybe they’re briefly dead?? either way, while they’re unconscious, the curse breaks, I guess because their sacrificing themselves for each other means true love???

then they wake up, Daniel proposes to Odette, and they get married and that’s the end of the film!! Hooray!!

now let’s check back in on our bingo card:

four bingos, and the only two spaces not marked off I really only left off on technicalities. thanks for joining me for this very long winded round of barbie movie bingo!

(if you enjoyed this and want me to review more films, you can suggest them to me here!)

[lancerious]

Deltarune Chapter 2 Replay Review

In the past I've talked about Deltarune Chapter 2 in little pieces, but never gave a full in-depth review on it. After recently revisiting the chapter for the first time in months--or even years--I think it's time I actually put out a more comprehensive, thought-out post regarding my feelings on the chapter as a whole.

If you know me at all, you'll be aware that I greatly prefer Chapter 1 over Chapter 2. I always praise Chapter 1 whenever I can and sometimes might bash Chapter 2 as being the lesser of the two. And today we will see if my opinion on it has improved, stayed the same, or gotten worse.

I'll be going over the bad things first to get the negativity out of the way, move on to the good stuff, and finally end with the points I don't have strong opinions on. Please keep in mind that this is all my own opinion, and you are free to have a different one. Without further ado, here we go!

Part 1: The Bad

Queen. I've admittedly never been a major fan of Queen and never understood the hype around her. And unfortunately, a couple of the problems I always had with her have only become more accentuated and pronounced in my recent playthrough. I still find her voice annoying as always, arguably even more so. And she still does appear a bit too often for my taste. However, these are the only major issues I have with Queen as a character. I find nothing else about her inherently negative or frustrating, and I'll get into the good aspects of Queen later.

Noelle. This is going to make some of you upset I'm sure, but I still don't really like Noelle. I never did, and it's unlikely I ever will. She shares the same issue Queen does: she appears too often in the chapter. I understand that as more chapters are released, more characters will be introduced and take center stage, and there is nothing wrong with that. However, Noelle being one of those characters was, and still is, not my cup of tea. There are some things I do like about Noelle too, and I'll also get into that later.

The general tone of the chapter. One thing I really liked in Chapter 1 was how it felt a lot more serious in its tone. Yes, there were silly moments--need I bring up Lancer?--but there was always this sense of unease I felt. Of something threatening awaiting me. Chapter 1 knew what it wanted to accomplish in its tone from the get-go and did an excellent job at building suspense little by little. But with Chapter 2, I never really felt that. Everything felt silly all the way through, and the actual villain wasn't threatening until the very end. That moment when Queen controlled Berdly came out of nowhere and nothing built up to her battle. Everything just felt messier, like the chapter itself didn't know what it was doing. Yes, there was a plot, but the tone was having an identity crisis.

Part 2: The Good

Queen, again. There are some aspects I do like about Queen. As messy as it felt, her controlling Berdly was a decent surprise and had me thinking things were finally going to get intense. I also like Queen's bond with Noelle and how she genuinely wants to protect her, even if Noelle doesn't see it that way. It gives Queen some depth, and that's always nice to see.

Noelle, again. There are also a few things I like about Noelle. I think her overall personality is pretty good, and her background and history with other characters is very intriguing to me. I also appreciate how she befriends Susie by the end. It's always nice seeing Susie connect with more people.

Berdly. In the past I've mentioned how I always appreciated Berdly for who he was as a character, but never paid much mind to him. But after playing Chapter 2 for the first time in forever, I am pleased to announce that I like him a lot more now! Berdly was a major saving grace in the chapter for me. Berdly felt a lot like the Lancer of Chapter 2 in terms of comedy and general charm, and I found myself laughing at his lines quite a lot. His personality, while definitely needing a bit of personal improvement, is very unique and helps create some hilarious scenes. His design is very nice too, and I think he's a great addition to the game and its continual story.

Spamton. For a long time, I felt the same opinion with Spamton as I did with some other characters: too many people like him, therefore he must be overrated. As time went on, my opinion on Spamton slowly started to change and improve. And after my playthrough, I absolutely understand the hype. Spamton is honestly one of the most unique characters Toby Fox has ever created. Everything about him is great, from both his regular and NEO designs to his voice/dialogue to his backstory and everything in between. You genuinely feel bad for him, but know he needs to be stopped. Everything just fits so well, and I'm very glad I gave Spamton a second chance. I'll probably always like Jevil more--speaking of which, Jevil and Spamton lore must be given at somepoint--but I'll always have a soft spot for good ol' Spamton.

Chapter 1 characters. Even though Chapter 2 is primarily consisted of new characters, Darkners from Chapter 1 still show up at the beginning. I will admit I was very bummed out when both Lancer and Rouxls Kaard turned into stone, but I was able to find other things to enjoy about the chapter. As more chapters release, it'll be more difficult for Toby Fox to fit in characters from all chapters, though knowing him, I'm sure he'll be able to find a decent balance.

Part 3: The Indifferent

The theme. I've always been a fan of sci-fi and futuristic themes, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Chapter 2 was this exact theme. It felt strange, considering this genre/theme isn't something Toby Fox is known for, but I still think it was decent. However, I don't think it's great. I personally believe Chapter 1 had better world-building and overall design. This isn't to say Chapter 2 is worse by any means. It just doesn't resonate as strongly for me as Chapter 1's fantastical, card-centric theme did.

The length. I know this is going to sound odd, but I think Chapter 2 is a bit too long. I always thought longer was better, but after playing Chapter 2 again, I realize that's not always the case. Yes, we get more world-building and character dynamics, but the plot suffers. Take Chapter 1 as an example. Yes, it's shorter than Chapter 2, but character dynamics, world-building, and a cohesive, appropriately-lengthened plot were all given in the perfect amount. With Chapter 2, so much time is spent wandering around and solving puzzles while not moving anywhere plot-wise. I was initially going to put this point in the negatives section, but decided against it as there are some positives to a longer chapter. I just think it could have been handled better.

Queen, yet again. There is one aspect of Queen I wanted to put here, and that is her status as a villain. For a long time I always condemned Queen for being a weak villain, and I still feel that way to a degree. However, I do realize that villains can come in multiple forms. You have your seemingly purely villainous foe in the form of Spade King, though I personally believe he'll become an understandable villain by the end and get a redemption arc. But not all villains necessarily need to be one-dimensional. I think adding different types of villains is good, even if it's not something I personally enjoy. Because of this, I think Queen's status as a villain is all right. Not too great, and also not something I care for too much, but certainly has its own place and charm for some.

Well, that's it! These are all the major things I wanted to go over and cover in my review. I'm sure there are more minor things I could add, but I really wanted to focus on the stronger, more important things. I'm sure some of this is relatively controversial, but I'm used to that by now :P. Now, for the reveal on whether or not I like Chapter 2 more, less, or if my opinion has stayed the same. Drumroll, please...

YES! I do like Chapter 2 more than I used to. It's not by a major amount--I still think Chapter 1 is superior in multiple ways--but Chapter 2 is NOT as bad as I initially thought. Congratulations Chapter 2, you earn a medal :).

[ljfoxie]

So who caved first, Truss or the lettuce?

The only political thing I will ever say on this blog is this:

For a short time in the early 1980′s, Liz Truss went to a Primary School in Paisley, Scotland and one Halloween she went dressed as Margaret Thatcher. Now this would have been during the time of the miners strikes and the Falklands war. What I’m getting at here is that she’s lucky to be alive after showing up to a school in Paisley as the devil incarnate, Thatcher was not well liked all over the UK as a whole but she was absolutely despised in Scotland. She shut down the shipbuilding industry here making our country practically a ghost town and we were her guinea pigs for the poll tax when it was first introduced. She hated us just as much as we grew to hate her. Also Scotland hasn’t voted Tory since 1955 and the rest of the world, including England (sorry but it’s true), wonder why Scotland wants independence? 

You may say, but you had a referendum in 2014, you voted no. Most of the people who voted no did so under false pretences, they were lied to like Boris lied about the hundreds of millions that would go into the NHS on his blunder bus during Brexit. Others, like the elderly, thanks to a lot of scaremongering, feared for their pensions. We were told that if we voted yes we would be forced out of the European Union and the only way to remain was to vote no. In 2016 62% of Scots voted remain in the Brexit referendum, we wanted to stay but because we are “part of the UK” our votes counted for nothing and we were forced out of the EU. You may also say, but the independence referendum was a once in a lifetime thing, you had your chance and you said no, well it was but wouldn’t you say all bets are off when we are not given what we were promised? When we vote for one thing and get another? Plus our then Scottish First Minister was the one who signed a document stating that he would never call for another referendum should we vote no, hence once in a lifetime, so he resigned. Our current First Minister, who is calling for a second referendum, signed no such thing. She was elected to power by the Scottish people under this promise: “The SNP Government was elected in an explicit manifesto pledge that the Scottish Parliament should have the right to consider an independence referendum if Scotland is faced with the threat of being dragged out of the EU against its will.” Now the Westminster government are telling her no, that now is not the time. They’ve been telling her this since Theresa May was Prime Minister. Now the current shambles of a Prime Minister says the only way to deal with our First Minister is to ignore her. Ignore a leader that was elected into the position she has today by the people of her country, unlike Liz Truss who was chosen as the lesser of two evils by Tory party members!

So to those now grown up kids who were in Thick Lizzie’s class, I say this: Well done on your strong will powers, it might have taken forty years but you may just have freed your country with that one act of self reserve! We’re about to have a third Prime Minister in one year, she’s gone and fucking resigned! Is it any wonder that Scotland wants out?

I will also say this, Scotland is not anti English, this is not an attack on England and it never was. Scotland is anti Westminster, a government that we never voted for telling us what we can and cannot do. Sneering and laughing at us and treating us like something on the bottom of their shoe. Anyone who watches what goes on in the Commons can see how our SNP MPs are treated with contempt every time they stand up and open their mouths, the Tories don’t even bother to hide it, we’re nobodies...but they sure do love draining us dry of the plentiful resources we provide, but that is another story. Because of my stance on this subject I’ve been constantly shouted at, unionists cannot have a calm conversation with you, all they can do is shout and be aggressive, I’ve had the words nationalist scum spat in my face many times, and my best friend has literally been physically spat on when she was in England during the indy ref and someone heard her Scottish accent, that was her crime, her accent. She was passing that person in the street talking on her phone and he just gobbed on her out of nowhere! I leave you with the wise words of the amazing Scottish actor, Peter Mullan, who sums up the feelings of the majority. Sorry for this rant, but I’m sure a lot of people don’t know much of this, they just see us as English hating scrounging jocks which we are not! We gave you the television, the telephone, penicillin and many other wonderful things. A man in Skelmorlie on the west coast of Scotland invented the Vanish line with soap! We’re not stupid, we’re not English hating yobs, we’re just tired and we want fairness! Something we will never get under Westminster rule!

Neighbours not Masters! Sounds fair no?

[skulandcrossbones]

All you have is me, and all I have is you. And that don’t sound so bad. So, what do you say? Should we give it a go? You mean...like a family? 

The Sea Beast (2022)

[suspiciouscriossantaaa]

Hey sorry if this is weird but what’s your favourite thing about Lobocorp bc I’ve been thinking about buying it when I get a PC to play it on and honestly nothing sells me on stuff better than hearing somone just ramble about how and why they like a thing, y’know? So… please sell me on it? Because it looks really cute and horrifying and I think I’ll like it but my brain needs that extra push! I hear there’s a magical girl?

Oh i will absolutely infodump the heck outta this game !!!! Warning this will be . A loooong infodump

Theres a LOT to say about lobotomy corporation. From the multi layered narrative, the game mechanics, the player’s personal narrative, and how it all ties the game together. Lobotomy Corporation is, on the surface, a monster management simulator, similar to what you would read on the SCP wiki. You are the manager, and with the help of an Ai named Angela, you help oversee the management of the corporation. The goal is to gather energy fulled by these surreal, otherworldly creatures known as Abnormalities.

The abnormalities are similar to SCPs in the way that you (and your employees you manage) study creatures that are beyond normal human comphrension. You will have to learn how to properly manage, care for, and prevent escape and mass death caused by these abnormalities.

Huge emphasis on mass death and escape.

These creature are all dangerous. Every last one has the potential to cause damage and chaos to your facility(albeit, some waaay less and some significantly more than others). Your employees will need to train their prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance in this unforgiving place. You will have to face intense, challenging decisions in certain situations. An example is as follows:

Your employees are doing buisness as usual, when suddenly…An event occurs that forces your employees to hide in the hallways occur. You’ve dealt with this before. This isn’t anything new. However…you notice something too late. One of the creatures from the event is near the containment unit containing an Aleph(an abnormality in which can be considered stronger than a god. When these escape, even with perfect preparation, its likely that most of your facility will fall). You panic and send your strongest employee to stop it. However, he’s one minute too late. The door opens.

You have released a god which was never meant to be comphrehended by humanity.

In that situation you pause. Do you restart the day? Losing all your progress for that day, but saving the facility? Or do you press forward, risking the life of your favorite employee, and perhaps the whole facility? Even if you do proceed, are the consequences worth it? You could get more energy from this. After all, Lobotomy Corporation is an energy corporation. Do you save the employee, or do as your job tells you? Are the benefits the others gained (like massive stat gains that would, without a doubt, save the lives of the singular employee and the facility as a whole) worth more than the ones who would die from this mistake?

Those are questions that you, and the game itself asks you. And such situation is very, very common for most players. Do you sacrifice one for the benefit of others? Do you save one person at the loss of progress?

And as you continue, you arent the only person whose being asked these questions. Throughout the whole game, these types of things are asked by and to the Sephirah(robots, much like Angela, that help run certain places within the facility). And as you continue forth, more and more pieces unravel in this story. More and more challenges beyond your comphrension emerge and you to ask yourself questions about every single thing that happens within Lobotomy Corporation as you trudge on, hoping for your employees’ safety within this strange place.

And the abnormalities themselves…woo boy theres way too much to say but a lot of it would be spoilers and by god you dont want spoilers (unless you get stuck on some abnormalities i guess AHAJWJWH). The magical girl is in fact an abnormality (part of a trio). Shes a WAW class: the class right below Aleph aka WAWs are extremely dangerous and you must be very, very careful and watchful. Each abnormality has a completely different story, even if some are vauge and so difficult to deal with you want to break your computer in half (LOOKING AT YOU, ALRIUNE). But it all comes together beautifully in words I can’t describe.

Its also an extremely difficult game to the point where if you read how it ends (OBVS SPOILERS) it sounds . well youll see.

Anyways play lobotomy corporation—

[tangerinethecat]

I’m almost certain this has been done before, but I decided to make some pride flag edits color-picked from Bugsnax characters! (The images I color-picked from are also provided.)

Journalist nonbinary flag:

Floofty nonbinary flag:

Snorpy rainbow gay flag:

Chandlo bisexual flag:

Wiggle pansexual flag:

Eggabell lesbian flag:

Lizbert lesbian flag:

Maybe I’ll make more edits in the future for other fandoms, it’s fun to play around with color palettes so I see the appeal of making these. Bugsnax is an easy one to start off with since it has lots of canon LGBT+ characters, and multiple of them share color palettes with their flags already, lol.

[ghitathepanda]

If I become a game review youtuber, I'll have to put disclaimers at the start of the video for Sonic games that I like that it will be a positive review.

Sonic Forces would have to be specifically titled to give it away I unironically like the game because I dare sabotage my own youtube game review career. If I make a big enough name for myself, it'll probably because someone on twitter will screenshot the thumbnail and title and Sonic twitter will bully me for being part of the "say the bad game is underrated" and make me an example of "fans like these who eats up mediocrity is why we can never get good Sonic games from Sega ever again".

This kinda makes me think of discourse on all sorts of media and how certain fans of something that has made enough bad products justify clowning on people who don't know better on "why this thing is bad actually", although certain fandom discourses like Marvel and DC Comics usually are on a different level beyond what I want to actually discuss. Like sure, you want that franchise to actually improve and it makes sense that you consider positive opinions on what you consider to be bad to just be bad for the sake of that franchise making a proper improvement because you don't want creators to have wrong assumptions on what people want, but the reality is that some people will have considered all those negative points made but still like it anyway because the good points that are present have enough merit to those people to save it from being as bad as people make it out to be in their opinion. But the internet has made it so easy for cynicism to settle in and allow people to mock others for having any optimism. Again, for understandable reasons, but discouraging people for enjoying something "because it can lead to the franchise not recovering from its dark era" in a mocking way does feel like a bit much.

Sorry for this long ass non-rant because I just have things to say that I've been thinking about for a long while now about the conflict of opinions and how much they matter. Opinions do affect how any given franchise, Sonic in this case, either improve or worsens but some people just have that spirit to be able to find the good in things that can frustrate some depending on how bad you really think it is.

Doesn't change the fact that I find myself with the screwed priority of wanting "good Sonic games" for the sake of being able to enjoy something in peace instead of just thinking "that last game is bad" because I can't help liking those "bad games". I never got to play Sonic 06 btw because I don't have the hardware to play it but I want to play just to test my limits on if I am capable of liking it. The only Sonic game I come close to hating is Shadow the Hedgehog, though that's more to me not being in the mood to get all the endings because some missions can get annoying to do, which proves that I can certainly hate on things if I want but I don't exactly hate that game. I guess it's on the lower end on the "bad scale" and only barely entered the "bad" zone (higher = worse) for that game design choice on how to unlock the true ending.

Also feeling tired of being negative and angry at games and other media these days so that's probably the source of this whole thing

[actualaster]

The Saga Of The Soup Trial (master difficulty):

Decide to make soup for dinner, because it is Fuckoff Cold Outside and also dental work so soft foods are Good

Go to the grocery store to get whatever is on the list

Notice Key Ingredient for making soup base is on list, but think “Hm, I have some at home so I don’t have to get that, it would be good but not vital”

Completely forget about picking up some to replace what would be used in the soup

Get home, pop open the stuff to use!

CONTAMINATION.  Not sure 100% what it was, but looked/tasted/felt sort of like plastic bits???  Might have actually just been something fine but not taking any chances

Heave deep sigh and go to grab the backup option which I hate using but is viable in a pinch

Container is Bulging, which is never a good sign.  Pop it open out of curiosity anyway, despite being dry goods fucking REEKS what the hell ew gross

Realize that Everything Else is here but There Is No Key Fucking Ingredient

Have a minor crisis because Brain has run out of mental spoons needed to process and act on changing dinner plans

Give up and go BACK to the store in the Fuckoff Cold Outside weather with the Wind That Bites Through Bones at It’s Goddamn Dark Outside And My Night Vision Is Shit o’clock because that’s somehow LESS mental spoons than trying to make a frozen pizza or some shit

STORE DOES NOT FUCKING HAVE ANY.  All store has is either liquid versions of brands I’ve never heard of or a New Brand I’ve Never Had.  Brain does not have the spoons to handle “what if Taste is Different” and also not in the mood to discover a food allergy or something if I try a different brand that has a different ingredient.  Liquid also sometimes lasts much less time once opened.  (New Brand of the dry stuff was also like at least $2 more expensive)

Go across the street to a different store and pray, already planning out a possible route if I have to drive all over town or even the next town over to try and find some

FUCKING SUCCESS.  STORE HAS IT.  Get the Name Brand instead of the usual Store Brand because the Name Brand is good shit, and I don’t know how this store’s Store Brand will be--see above about “What if Taste is Different”

Get several despite cost because Not Doing This Shit Again (and also it’s Soup Season so they will all get used over the next month or three)

Get in car, panic about “What if THESE Are bad???”

Examine through clear packaging for visible contamination and open each to make sure Freshness Seal is not bulging and straining

SUCCESS AT LAST

Finally fucking get home and begin Crafting Soup

Go carefully, in case there’s some sort of issue and need to start over--do NOT want to waste the carrots hand-picked for the soup or, worse, the meat

“This Tastes Like Too Much Flavor But Also Water At The Same Time What The Fuck” (too much basil, not enough anything else probably)

Add More Spices

FUCKING FINALLY

Add Carrots Painstakingly Sliced Nice And Tiny

GOOD SHIT!!!

Add The Fucking Meat

soup is now ready to cook for the next four (4) hours and will be ready around midnight THE FUCKING END AT LAST