#why was it So popular. it had no reason to be but yknow i cant help but look back at it fondly

[bonetrousledbones]

what ever happened to PTA sans. where did he go

[eirian]

just had a convo abt deviantart bases and i have sum thoughts

honestly. i dont see why using bases (at least for humans) isnt that popular. ppl complain about not being able to draw all the time, and then they turn around and blatantly ignore the Obvious Resources available to them and for what reason. pride??? idk. "its cheating" girl who cares if it is or isnt. its a resource, made specifically for you to create your own character with. why is that such a horrible thing

in the furry community bases are VERY popular for that reason, too. sure a lot of them are pay-to-use but thats still supporting an artist in a way thats probably way cheaper than buying a custom commission from them if u cant afford it

ya we used to make fun of bases but the reality to me is that theyre an actual legitimately good resource for beginner artists or ppl who just want a ref of their character without being able to pay a lot of money for one. idk. it seems silly that ppl are so against getting help and turn to ai or some shit instead. theres free bases out there too yknow. i think youre just lazy

[ooglywooglies]

FINE, LILY ORCHARD DUNGEON MESHI RESPONSE POST I GUESS

im just going through all the video points and making oppositions to them based on what i think, thats it.

laios useless in the red dragon fight: this is setting up the premise of the story where laios is spacing out because he cannot strategize on an empty stomach which is why the party loses.

there is no urgency to rescuing falin after everyone escapes the dungeon: thats to show that all the adventurers are so used to the dungeons immortality that theyve forgotten about the consequences of death (and also they are not thinking straight bc they are hungry)

dungeon meshi is not slice of life in the traditional low stakes way a slice of life set in the real world might be. the entire premise is about making a fantasy dungeon crawler and its heroes more grounded and showing things that aren't shown in video games, eating, sleeping, bathing, etc. a major theme is life and death, what is needed to sustain life and how death is a necessary part of it.

the tone of the show is not meant to be serious/silly/serious/silly, its not supposed to be wholesome, fun, and heartfelt, though it can be those things, its supposed to be weird and demystifying because its about real life (though a fantasy lense) and real life doesnt adhere to tone either.

resurrecting falin, having a bath and dinner, and then thistle coming to collect her happening in two episodes is not crazy thats almost an hour of runtime

MISGENDERING THISTLE

some of the problems with this video are just the anime format which i cant completely fault, i think the manga is better paced and the humor lands better ill probably ignore those points going forward. but i feel like if you dont watch anime very much you probably dont really know them the common genre tropes, like i certainly dont.

the reason marcille is "infinitely more popular than the rest" is a) lilys girl bias b) everyones girl bias and thats it, a lot of people like decently written generically good looking female characters. but thats not even true laios is probably equally as popular as marcille is and senshi is VERY close behind both of them.

laios is literally only generic in looks and if youre going to bring it up you might as well mention how marcille is therefore EXACTLY as generic as laios is, they are some very regular white people. in terms of looks.

laios only cares about monsters and is an asshole: this is an intentional mischaracterization the OTHER CHARACTERS IN THE STORY make about laios, which is a result of his real flaw which is struggling to connect with other people. this is a character flaw, which is intentional and something laios himself is aware of and tries to overcome, it is part of his character arc. laios is also heavily autistic coded, im not sure if ryoko kui is even aware of it or if she herself is autistic and just wrote a bit of her own struggles into laios's character but this reading is widely recognized by people who are autistic so. like its hard to argue with a mass of people who see their disability in a character. (me included)

comparing his deadpan affect to lloyd (i dont know him tbh)s intentional controlled one makes no sense bc i assume lloyd is yknow a super secret agent who IS a super secret agent because of his self control or whatever. laios is just a guy. literally just a dude, who is autistic.

marcille and laios react to falins resurrection differently because they are different characters, showing different ranges of emotion are part of their characterization. having a limited range of expressed emotion in serious situations where emotion is expected of you is also a commonly recognized autistic trait (see me not crying at the airport when my now husband had to go back to his side of the planet when we were dating)

falin is also autistic coded and shares a lot of traits with laios because its supposed to be funny that everyone thinks falin is so talented and brilliant and lovely when she yknow picks up a bug or something but they think its annoying when laios presents the same traits.

refer to point 10 again

they are literally moving through the dungeon as fast as they can. it gets brought up, laios feels guilty about it but hes not indulging in his special interest as opposed to rescuing his sister, the adventure is enabling it. whats he supposed to do brood the entire way? do you think anyone would be physically capable of doing that? see points 1-4 again if not.

just because a different character would do something different doesnt meant the story would be better, the point of THIS story is an exploration of THESE characters

this is retreading a point but "marcille is the only character who feels like a human being" .... girl the ableism - it can be argued that marcille is a bit ND herself but she is laios's neurotypical foil, the entire point of their dynamic is she is the normal person to compare him to, to act like shes the only character that matters because shes the only one thats normal has some nasty implications.

"you or i would-" thats making some assumptions

marcille is tormented the most by the show because the show is about exploring a dungeon, a major character trait of hers is her inexperience, shes squeamish shes young and naive because she has EXCLUSIVELY studied dungeons in books she has only seen the dungeon in person for like a year or two (i dont remember the time frame but we know how time works for marcille anyway). senshi by contrast has been surviving exclusively off the dungeons resources for like 60 years. you mention that marcille grows a lot by the end but its not just about eating food she learns survival skills, she learns ecology.

sorry i need to take a break to just rant, isnt this woman a writer? i feel like all she can only see characters through common media tropes and so dungeon meshi is just breaking her brain because all of these characters are written from a strong foundation they all have roots that inform all of their flaws. i feel like she isnt willing to see them that way because she assumes that because this is an anime the author didnt put any thought into the characters beyond their designs and gimmicks, thats just speculation obvs its just the impression im getting

but like i see the way people talk about kui on here how she feels like one of us because the dungeon meshi characters are her ocs. how theyre not just characters for a story. its like imagine someone talking this way about YOUR OCS, your babies, the characters you put your heart and soul into and especially for someone like kui who has created so much depth for her characters for someone [who also calls herself a writer] to brush it all off bc it got an anime adaptation and anime has tropes.

i really dont like people who approach media from "ive seen this before" and i mean im a little guilty of it but its kind of a useless thought isnt it, for the most part things get made because someone wanted to make it not because it needed to exist. i guess its a hard thing not to think when theres just SO MANY shows and stuff out there but idk, i dont think its a healthy perspective most of the time.

chilchucks a bitch you cant listen to what he says and be like "the narrative is bullying marcille" chilchuck is bullying marcille, chilchuck is a bully

(oh it seems the numbers have reset, oops)

shes talking about why anime sucks again, i havent seen spy x family and i dont care to it doesnt appeal to me

retreading points but i forgot which ones laios thinking falins dragon form is cool is another example of how laios's character essence is that he doesnt think like other people. and i have to imagine that if not for the mind control aspect falin wouldnt be horrified by her dragon form either. neither of them care about the "obvious" socially expected reaction of "horrified" theyre thinking about a) what they like to think about which tends to be ooh monsters are cool and then b) whatever is most practical at this moment - i think its not just lily that struggles with this i think its a lot of people who follow social scripts tend to follow what the main cast of dungeon meshi is thinking so theyre horrified/confused by whatever laios is doing but he just intuits what actually materially matters and what doesnt. him thinking falin getting to have a cool dragon form has NOTHING to do with his feelings about saving her.

"your experience with autism isnt universal" neither is yours???? isnt that kind of the thing about autism (this is from her comments not the video but thats kind of her point about this point in the video is that she doesnt relate to laios's autistic traits) - guys shes saying sheldon cooper gets called out on his shit and grows as a person but laios doesnt... guys i dont even know what i can specifically say to make someone stop believing that because i dont know why anyone could believe that in the first place.

i dont want to write this point bc i dont want anyone to think i dont have any concept of like pervasive preferential trends in media but i think she specifically hates laios because hes a white man with autistic traits. i think if laios was a woman those traits would be not as bad (which is kinda funny bc i was talking about that being a joke with falins autistic traits earlier)

laios is funny to me :) (in the manga mostly)

i think she shouldve read the manga instead of watching half the anime but i guess thats it. if you (anyone reading this) see this out in the wild please dont make assumptions about me based on this post, it doesnt really tell you anything about me or my wider opinions.

i guess you can assume im autistic i did say that part, go ahead and assume that i suppose.

i think i have some clarifications i was gonna make but i got tired so i cant remember where they go or what they are, this isnt really meant to be a discussion its just me writing down some thoughts indirectly bc i didnt want to comment on her video. but its in response to a video so its only fair i guess if anyone wants me to clarify i can try my best to do that

[ceasarslegion]

Yknow i cant get over the ambiguous ending of L.A. Noire. What deal did Peterson broker with the DA and the police chief? How did Jack go from the LAPD's most wanted man and Cole and Herschel tantamount to fugitives for aiding him to being able to walk freely into a church and attend a funeral with the police chief right there? Why is Roy Earle of all people shaking Peterson's hand? What was WITH that eulogy clumsily trying to clear Cole's name when it's already too late?

Did Peterson bow to the corruption and give in to spare his own career? Did he do it to spare the lives of his investigator and the two arson detectives who got him this close to his goal? Was all that song and dance genuine, or a consolation prize tied up in a neat little bow and thrown to Peterson in exchange for his silence? Or, when all was said and done, did Peterson genuinely choose the same path of corruption he had spent so long trying to topple? And finally, was he really going after the Vice squad and the DA for their corruption because it was the right thing to do, or because it was the popular thing to do that would get him good press in an era beginning to skew more progressive in the wake of the world wars?

The dramatic irony of it all is that it doesn't really matter, does it? Cole is still dead, and he still made his own mistakes at the end of the day. The dark underbelly of police corruption in the LAPD goes on, no matter what the deal Peterson struck was or his reasons for doing it. It goes on no matter how many good cops you met throughout the game who genuinely want to help people, because when the system is that corrupt, no amount of good eggs can change the associations and connotations with the uniforms they wear.

And like a classic crime film in the era of the Hayes code, anybody who questions the authority of institutions like the police have to die at the end. Except back then, it was because Hayes believed that anybody who was anti-police was a criminal deserving of death, and in L.A. Noire, it's because when someone gets in too deep to the extent that Cole did, you either dismantle the system or the system kills you and parades your body around town as an example to others getting the same ideas as him.

[canidaezy]

p1- "not much to say" YEAH theres fucking nothing to say about his character because there barely is any. we get the smallest glimpse into his mind and personality and it is entirely warped by the psychosis he is currently experiencing to the point where you cannot accurately extrapolate what he must be like outside of this specific point in time.

cannot stand the majority of p1-lovers for this reason. they love the IDEA of him in their head rather than the character that actually exists!!!

for what he is, hes a great and fascinating element of the game but 11/10? the CHARACTER? his character is *just* the story. he cannot stand alone because of that. you are referring to the story and atmosphere of the game. which is great! its a beautiful work of art! i love it! but youre wrong.

p2- 4.5 out of 10 for p2 fuck off honestly. the only reason given here is "got tired of seeing his design everywhere" uhhh he is from the most popular game in this franchise. he is THE character in the most popular game in the franchise, the only one with any personality, and he is popular because of that. i entirely understand disliking him, but god dislike him because hes a disgusting fucking freak or annoying or whatever like someone i respect would. "4.5/10" he has thousands of times the amount of character as p1. there is so much more you can do with him. because he is an entire character. whereas p1 *is* the story, p2 *is* the gameplay. and you play as him!!

p3- i genuinely cannot comprehend liking p3 more than p2. is it because hes more conventionally attractive? is it because hes more normal? whatever. this rating would stand whatever on its own honestly but paired with the others it drives me insane.

bd- "concept art version was way better" you mean the version from before he had a fucking personality?????!!!!!! man i bought the art book ive seen the concept art he looks exactly the fucking same. he still had the gown. do you mean the only piece of art where he didnt have the gown? the one singular image in which he didnt have the gown, the very same gown which was present throughout the rest of the design process? fuck of

"who gave him that gown? who let him walk outside like that" 1. its a DREAM its a DREAM did you play the game this was revealed in the first minute! even if you just looked at the art it *looks* like a dream because it is one! also the gown is based on the blanket hes sleeping under in the real world and its cute as fuck and such a good detail imo.

hes supposed to look silly sillyness is fucking awesome. this gane franchise is silly. p3 is silly. what do you even want....

and on that note personality-wise he is literally just a cross between p2 and p3.

genuinely convinced this person has NOT played or even looked at the game, and the lack of a rating for alt dude only supports this point.

again! it is perfectly fine to dislike him! but god! have a REASON for it, yknow? one that makes sense. like "hes insufferable and annoying and disgusting and the worst" or "hes just lame and boring honestly" or "i dont like his design/the game, because it doesnt appeal to my taste in art"

redux dude- HE IS NEARLY IDENTICAL TO P1 i cannot IMAGINE having this strong of a difference in opinion between them the changes between them are so subtle.

unless! its as i hypothesized and you only like the made up fanonized versions of these characters

movie dude- fuck you he is so whimsical and cute youre nuts not to find zack wards acting charming and silly....

p4- lower than p3 i fcuking cant. why. the shade to bd is what really kills me. i dont think youve played any of these games honestly. i dont think you know anything about them.

shtopor- i hate this so much "innocent trans icon angel" "bbg" im having trouble talking about how bad this take is on its own because of how violently disturbing it is to me.

c*rkscrew rules is such a garbage game with a shitty translation i refuse to belive this is your second favorite dude with that description honest to god. characterwise hes fucking whatever. hes fine. i love him so much. but 10/10? with that description? im fucking scared more than anything. i imagine it must be a joke but im so revolted i struggle to parse the purpose of it.

[neutrallyobsessed]

EPISODE 7!!!!!!!!!! I SAW THE PREVIEW IMAGES

NOW I KNOW WHO MARY IS Y EL ALMA ME VUELVE AL CUERPO!!

sehh el sindrome de abstinencia de topher bus viene con español de mas, asi que deberia ser tobi col, que se yo puta madre DONDE ESTASSSSSSSSSS

but lets see how this revelation comes to them~~

hmm so theres this kinda lack of feelingggg, like now Joan and Abe are literally each other's girl and boy next door,,,, they're doing this taylor swift thing were they speak from the windows....hmm i need more jealousy fits from each other about each other yknowww

BUENO COJAN YAAA A VERRR POR DIOSSSSSS

wait, so if Abe is gonna be like JFK, and JFK is gonna be like Abe.. then wHO'S DRIVING THE VAN???????

oh man, i love that type of joke! in the fic im writting i put it several times like actually lolol

((((~~save me oh, save me topher of the intro~~))))

ohhhhh new clones??? or maybe not, it does sound like a lot of work lmaoo yeahhhhh

without raisins lol

oh damn that epic yo but like, did you fuck harriet at least?

TOPHER!

aghhhughhohgoihjbnjdwieouwhaoaogsghhh hhhhh ok,,, okkk ok we all know that i wanted him back and HE IS BACK FUCK YEAH but i cant really decided if that was a good way or a bad way but lets just say that my ice cold water bottle has completely evaporated!! and imma- imma get a new one...... brb yeah :)

but like- yeah that's 3 (THREE) unfunny yet popular hcs disproven by canon all at once: he DOES shower, he DOES have hair and he DID fuck at least once.......... tbh the balding virgin is kinda funny but i have my reasons~ and come on people! who doesnt love a good cold shower cuaNDO TE ESTAS CAGANDO DE CALOR VIEJA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA NO WAIT 4(FOUR) HCS! He doesn't dye his hair either! but like, that's not bad or unfunny is just- Do you know why el Dibu Martinez is nicknamed like that?

NO YEAH VAN GOGH I BELIEVE YOU 100% LIKE ACTUALLY SJKSJSKJSKSKS and can we get a hell yeah for Ivan? hell yeah!!

EL PRIMAS!!! EL JOTA EFE KA ES EL PRIMAS!!!!!! tho i expected that more of topher yaknow? like! like he had the sleepover with abe como no vas a traer a tus primas???

ooooooooooh Erica Rivinojaaaa you wouldnt fuck abe? thats actually super cool and a breath of fresh air. like a lot of writers and producers self insert in their shows to fuck their characters but here Rivinoja is like "nope im not gonna fuck the characters!" and thats actually hella based, we love to see it!!! leaving that to the fans eh ;)

yeah you know all bout cementary film screenings dont you joan? lol

ok i know she means she doesnt like having her picture taken without consent but still, you did sent a titpic to abe soooooo

UUUUGHHHHH FUCKING FINALLY i thought they all knew tho, like especially Cleo? who dated Abe?? eh whatev lol

OMG THATS FUCKING HILARIOUS THOSE FUCKING BLINDERS AMIRITE PEOPLE!!!

YEAHHHH JEALOUSY FIT, THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING~~♥!

OH SHIT J- CL- BUT NOW WITH M- IS BACK!!!!!!!!

my fav gags making their appearances once again!

ohohoh they gonna find out~~ NO SHE DIDNT GO BACK~~!!! OOOO- yeah explain that Cleo wasn't invited there.... that she was barely in the show last season.......... LIKE- YKNOW

Ahahaha funny you say that cause before that you were like tHiS SO laMe and now you do want to get invited aaaa

This scene is so aesthetically pleasing.... and ok if it is Bloody Mary, it's ok for an overuse of blood, but still, it could have a lot more impact if y'all DIDN'T overuse blood all those times before!!

people die all the time, yeah ok lmaooo

HI! JSKSJSKSJKSJSKSJKSJJSKSJS

Aww the boys care for her- NOOO UN PINCHE FURRRO AAAAAA

oh what is this? scott pilgrim?

Hmmm didn't understand that reference...

And that's why we all need to stay hydrated and have a nice cold bottle of water near by~!

Hahahah~~! HAHAHAHHHHH!!!! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO GIRL! you having sex with EVERYONE who DONT MATTER what the fuck

there is SO MUCH jealousy and regret in this screenshot, i love it!!

Rating: Abe still a virgin/10!

Topher Bus has appeared on screen for 8 seconds.

[sege-h]

Alright I need to talk about this because its been on and off pissing me off for months since I first saw it, and I've seen it crop up here and there more since.

Some recent events have made me think about it again.

And the recent realizations of people like me that had never heard of a certain queer video essayist thief and how much what he's spewed has been parroted by young queers on here has made me think about it AGAIN.

Though hes not the source of this particular take. I don't know who is.

This take being "twink gets used in the porn industry, so if you use twink to refer to a character whos a minor, youre a bad person that's sexualizing that character"

I've mostly seen this take in the Sonic fandom, but then again its the fandom i orbit around the most often so I don't doubt it's made it's way to other fandoms.

I don't know where it's come from. But the fact that seeing people yell about it reminds me so much of how people in fandoms would yell 'you cant call that character ace/bi/pan! It implies theyve had sexual experiences, youre sexualizing minors!' circa 2015 isnt a good sign

That it kinda reminds me of the whole still ongoing "queer is a slur" bullshit isn't good either

And that there's now a dumb take like this that tries to go after a word gay men use specifically, after it rose in popularity, is both very concerning to me, and it pisses me off

"Twink gets used in the porn industry!"

So has literally every queer word we have.

So have plenty of words that are descriptors, because thats what twink is! A descriptor! Or are we gonna start claiming fat is a sexual term too(which some people have but yknow lmao)? Or skinny? White? Black? Blonde? Brunette??

Twink, by it's definition, means a skinny gay boy. That's it. It doesn't say anything sexual about them.

And the reason im getting pissed is that once again young queer folks are spreading views that are evangelical sounding af, but theyre not seeing that. Because they saw someone on the internet say 'actually this word is bad and if you call a character whos a minor it youre sexualizing them' and have decided to parrot it without an ounce of critical thinking

If you're wondering what the fuck im on about, ask yourself this;

Why do you find yourself outraged and ready to accuse someone of sexualizing a minor if they say "Sonic is a twink" but not if they say "Sonic is a skinny straight boy"?

(Yes yes 'actually im outraged someone would call Sonic straight' there I made the joke for you)

If youre about to go "well because twink is a porn term!" I refer you back to the fact that all queer words have been used in porn, as have many other words that are descriptors

Twink means 'skinny gay boy'. 'Skinny' and 'gay' have also been used in porn. So has 'straight'.

So again, I'll ask why a character being called a twink/skinny gay boy outrages and disgusts you, but not calling them 'skinny straight boy'?

And will you still be outraged or are you realizing you sound a bit too close to a bigot that says gays holding hands or kissing in childrens media is too sexual, while straight characters doing the same is fine?

[aroacesigma]

By all means ignore this if you'd rather not talk ab the show, but what exactly makes the loki series bad? Genq bc I'm kinda on the fence about it

dont worry i am ALWAYS happy to talk about why the show sucks . sorry this will be very long

basically it boils down to two things: straight up transphobia towards gfluid people , and character assasination . andddd the rest under the cut cause i tend to ramble ab this .

so, for a while now its been canon in marvel comics that loki is genderfluid. fans obviously were calling for this to be acknowledged for a while, actor seemed on board (still seemed on board . gonna be real w u hes the only member i dont blame he didnt seem particularly pleased about a lot of choices), blah blah . so obviously the producer gets asked and the dick michael waldron says yep ! yessir we have rep .

the rep in question was splitting the character into a male and female version, giving no indication towards any genderfluidity whatsoever (having all the 'male' variants be shocked that theres a female one like wtf), and then pulling some good old selfcest between the two at the end to really seal the deal . the bi representation that was also promised was a one off easily missable line but thats a whole other can of worms . it got worse after the show, whenever prompted about it people involved would say very weird shit. kate herron tried to pull the cis queer card a few times if im recalling correctly. dont even get me started on sophia di martino .

second problem, characterisation. at that point in the timeline we have loki straight out of avengers . which means you either have evil and a bit crazy loki or you have an opportunity to confirm the popular fan theory of mind control . neither happened , instead i think they were trying to speedrun his ragnarok/infinity war character development, fucked it up spectacularly and rather than making him a more morally grey but still a little bit yknow, loki, made him like...really wimpy for some reason? a lot of his actions were extremely out of character . theres a lot of focus on him being full of himself (hence the selfcest), which is kinda fundementally misunderstanding him as a character . the self obsession is a front which is obvious to anyone who watched even half of thor 1 . yknow, the very first movie hes in . side note michael waldron said he didnt watch thor 1 ? i cant tell if he was joking or not but on god it did not seem like he was from the show.

also more related to comics synergy, just sylvie as a character . they mashed up loki while fem presenting (why.), amora, and sylvie lushton when they couldve just had amora for a romance plot ??? sylvie lushton also fucking sucked like the comics community generally has a low opinion of her . her ass is homophobic and annoying and an amora knockoff . you could really see the inspiration shine through .

honestly the agent of asgard run is a very good example of how the variant concept can be handled well, and without blatant transphobia . honestly they shouldve gotten al ewing to write the whole thing hes the only person i trust to write loki .

so yeah sorry for the very long paragraph 😭😭😭 this show just drives me up the wall SO BAD

[scalproie]

I'm not really like. Upset at the pure fact of Kuai being scorpion, more just that Hanzo might be gone. He really is a tragedy, and it was fun seeing his arc in both timelines. Mostly, besides when Raiden called him Q-C's slave and present Hanzo death. I liked that he became the face of mk but wasn't a chosen one or a altruistic hero or something like that, hell he wasn't even supposed to be popular, just a fun lil thing for the og cast cause his rivalry with Subz.

He just became the popular one cause hes just really fucking cool. He Is good, but unrelenting about what he wants, he's not above killing yet shows restraint for the special forces and Kuai in X. Everything he does is for a reason, maybe not a good one but one you can see the reasoning behind. He's not the most complex character to exist but he's a really fun character.

Plus, I miss the old man yaoi, more on the Old part. Everyone looks so young in 1. My wrinkly old farts are gone ✊️😔

yeah no hanzo being completely MIA so far is a valid concern. but I would like to trust that nrs are not completely clueless over why their characters are beloved in the first place and know that half the appeal of scorpion was hanzo's story and not just his general aesthetic, so I dare hold onto the hope that he's gonna make an appearance in the story, or at the very least, I would settle for a solid justification in-game over why he's missing.

Hard agree on your take on scorpion too, in the great mk universe he is at his core Just A Guy with a storyline thats compelling and could be standalone. Like for exemple, you cant take liu kang, raiden and shang stung (and goro) out of mortal kombat because they ARE mortal kombat, you could technically take sonya (and jax) and kano out of mk but in my personal opinion it wouldnt make for a super interesting story cause its like, standard military mumbo jumbo. Johnny is an outlier and should not be counted, his whole appeal is that he is an actor, adaptable, and is more than he seems. But I genuinely think the ninja storyline with scorpion AND sub zero could be divorced from mortal kombat and still be extremely compelling, even if it does lose a significant amount of meat bc of it.

Also yeah he wasnt meant to be the mascot but im glad he is (alongside subz kinda but he really takes the forefront since mkx) bc like i said before character favoritism is okay if i like said character. Which i do. Also since he really wasnt meant to be mk's face, its funny to imagine if another character got the spot, like imagine reptile on cover bc he was a secret boss back in the day and people (and ed boon) loved him so much he blew up in popularity, while sub zero was relegated to a jobber, and scorpion was dlc like ermac is nowadays (🥹👍)

(Anyway the lesson here is when two characters are so intricately linked in their storyline like scorpy and subz are, they lift each other to the top.)

Anyway back on scorpion, I really enjoyed his arc in the second timeline as well bc yeah, he isnt as shackled in his morality as other characters and I really love that they let him fuck up massively, like killing bi-han ib mk9 when he swore not to, and when he killed quan chi in mkx, its very accidentaly "scorpion and the frog" of him and I like that "he couldnt change his nature" :) he's a really really enjoyable character to watch partly bc hes been through a lot but also bc he genuinely is conceptually so cool. Also I will not be the first to say that his relationship with kuai liang/sub zero in the second timeline was the best written arc they did, that spawned over three whole games too.

SPEAKING OF Im gonna miss the old man yaoi sooo much too, its was about the "finding love again/for the first time in your forties" yknow? Esp with someone u had a complicated history with. Man.

And finally. Technically I understand every character going back to their 20s with the new timeline thingie, I even could understand our resident old man raiden not being old anymore with the whole divinity switch with liu kang but LIU KANG ISNT OLD TO COUNTERBALANCE. HE DOESNT EVEN HAVE HIS WHITE GOD HAIR ANYMORE. and take of depending temperature but Ive always enjoyed shang stung as an old evil man so much more than him young and him not even being old anymore is such a loss to me. So yeah Im mourning my fucking dilfs and senior citizens man😔

[masculinepotatoes]

so im like. vaguely aware of the existence of happy tree friends. like i know it exists and i get its that 'looks like its for kids but isn't something most adults can handle' thing. but i didn't get it get it cuz i can handle most horror but idk what gets me so much about this show.

warning for graphic gore desc., swearing

so for context, i was kinda just scrolling vaguely through youtube shorts, y'know past all the yaoi and bullshit on there, and i had gotten there from a demon slayer edit on pinterest, so i guess the shit algorithm was like 'omg you like popular songs and kinda edgy stuff!'

so this vid comes up, and i recognize it as happy tree friends cuz ive seen tumblr posts on it, and it was the 'dumb dumb' audio thats been floating through tiktok nonstop

and already i know what the fuck is gonna go down cuz the little bear thing ( i think it was a bear ive kinda blocked the memory out ) motherfucker is on a step stool that's really wobbly, trying to change a lightbulb.

so this dumbass, this fucking buffoon, when the stepladder thing tips, bites down onto the lightbulb, crushing it in his mouth and falling from the stepladder simultaneously.

keep in mind, a really peppy song is playing in the background whilst i am being fucking scarred.

and it shows this frame of this animated bear lying on the ground, screaming, with glass shards all in its fucking teeth

so i scroll, then just kinda sit. yknow digest the shit ive just witnessed.

i can normally handle really bad horror, but for some reason this fucked with me???? and i cant fucking figure out why.

like i rly like movies like midsommar, or books like i have no mouth and i must scream, but nooooo, its the animated bear that fucks with me the most

[transgenderer]

Please share more of your thoughts on Midsommar, I am curious

hmm, im not REALLY sure how many more thoughts i have

usually when i finish a piece of fiction i try to find some interesting discussion/analysis, unfortunately most things are either so popular that the big guys have moved in and filled the results with garbage or its so unpopular that theres just...nothing. so midsommar is mostly in the former group, and while there are some insightful analyses out there, i feel like everybody focused on the like, indoctrination aspect, which is generally the least interesting to me? getting someone recently traumatized to join a cult isnt *difficult*, yknow? its not some machiavellian brain magic, cult-joining is a well-established failure state of human reasoning. so anyway i guess the stuff im more interested is like *sigh* the "lore"? like, the culture of the hargas is intriguing to me. i think theres more details in the script and the directors cut? maybe ill read them. seems like a pain. hmm. watched this deleted scene, i dont really like how this changes the films.

also, if its not on indoctrination, i feel like analysis often focuses on the relationship with her boyfriend, which really doesnt feel like the core of the movie to me? idk, its not a realtionships thats bad in an interesting way. the cult is interesting, its specificities, its internal logic. i mean, i think its pretty intentionally far-fetched, the whole gathering thing where they send recruiters out to pretend to be normal, its all very...exaggerated. which is interesting! like, how does pelle's psychology works, why isnt he more affected by the outside world, how much does he think of himself as being deceptive.

oh! also, christian sucks, but i think its interesting to consider his perspective at the beginning, like, say you wanna break up with your girlfriend, you have for a long time, and then her whole fucking family dies. what the fuck! what the fuck do you do! you cant break up with her now! how long do you have to wait? like. obv dani's situation is worse but thats a very bad situation! what a nightmare!

oh! im not sure if i saw anyone point out that dani killing (indirectly) christian is a cool bit of classic indoctrination, like, you get somebody to kill for you and then they have the guilt associated with it, so it requires believing theyre good or youre bad, etc, its a whole thing! like with child soldiers, or in sparta, etc. good detail. what a carefully constructed film!

oh, i like how christian and his friends are definitely kind of shitty (why didnt josh tell them about attestupa! what the fuck!) but theyre not like, THAT bad, theyre a reasonable human level of bad. i feel like it would have been really easy for it to get out of control, all silly and exaggerated, but its not! even the harga are *mostly* grounded, theyre not THAT absurd. i mean theyre absurd. but just grounded enough you could sort of believe it, especially because cults really can get crazy.

oh, having the characters be on drugs half the time is a good way to make their passivity and stuff more plausible, like, theyre intentionally kept off kilter, which lets the harga get away with being more bizarre and terrible while them not leaving is still sort of plausible. also it lets you be more surreal and intense with your visual in a diegetic (and so less danger of feelign silly) way, etc

i really like the running detail where they verbally mimic when other people experience intense emotion. idk if this is the intended reading but to me it felt like an intentional blurring of the boundary between the self and the other, like, intense emotion when other people are feeling normal makes you aware that youre yknow, your own separate person, while the people around you screaming along with you makes it seem like youre sort of...mentally connected, it breaks boundaries between people. its good!

okay i had a lot more thoughts than i thought

[shoezuki]

Hiii hi could u explain in Words why pdp is bad please?? I know hes bad but my friend watches him (he doesnt have any socials or rlly look at news so he doesnt get at of the stuff) and I dont know how to explain to him that pdp is a whole dick agh

OK sorry i dont have much like. Energy to dig myself atm BUT. i have looked thru for articles n other such things detailing pdp's history with antisemitism, racism, nazi symbols and imagery, alt-right rhetoric, etc.

AND heres a tumblr post saying such things w more links on it as well

I had my Own words on it but tumblr deleted like half of it. But while i wait for my muffins to cool heres My Words too thats kinda a summary

TW for antisemitism, nazi imagery and rhetoric, racism, mass shootings, far-right dogwhistles and rhetoric, etc.

Pdp has Always been so ingrained w all this shit for as long as I can remember, especially antisemitism. His own videos have contained nazi jokes, hitler comparisons (i believr to himself at times), him performing nazi salutes. One of the most memorable instances imo is in i think 2017 or so, he paid two indian dudes on fiverr to dance around with a sign saying 'kill all jews', reacted to it and posted it in a video. The people's fiverr account got suspended i believe, and they said they didnt understand the meaning of the words as they didnt understand english well at the time.

As for far-right rhetoric and dogwhistles, hes kinda been 'accepted' by far-right communities, to the point the 'subscribe to pewdiepie' meme was almost like a dogwhistle. It was literally said by a man before he shot up two mosques. Although thats OTHER people, considering his use of nazi symbols n such. Its not without reason imo. Like he had a shirt with a swastika on it that he showed up to a filming event for i think that 'scare pewdiepie' thing years ago, altho he denied that but theres photos of him w friends wearing matching swastika shirts (havent been able to find them but i recall him saying it was a 'dark joke'). Within 2018 or 19 he reccomended a youtube channel to his fans saying he enjoyed the anime analysis video. But the account was literally interladden with right-wing dogwhistles, the concept of 'redpilling' the viewers. It took media like steven universe and inputted right wing ideology into it under the guise of 'analysis', used racist imagery such as editing black people into caricatures on thumbnails, and used homophobic slurs n slurs of all kinds really. After he reccomended the channel it got like 36k subs or more

Also was his instance of calling someone the n word in a video game. Also he compared the gorrilla harambe to the african american actress leslie jones, by i believe using her image in replacement of a gorillas.

Biggest aspect is like. His addresses of this n 'apologies' had been shit. It was always a lot of 'its absurdist humour'. The kind of says sorry once then goes on bout how media overinflated it, how it wasnt that serious, how sure he was Sorry or whatever about his jokes. At some point i think he spoke of the fiverr incident as him trying to 'show' how people will do absurd and ridiculous things and how 'funny' it was. But that falls entirely flat in my mind considering they didnt understand the words, how he edited and posted a video of himself paying for the words 'kill all jews'. Thats not 'wow look how people do ridiculous things!' Yknow?

So like. Theres all that. A lot of what i mention here is within all those links, plus more. Altho one thing i wanna say

I often feel like a hypocrite, because ofc i believe people can change, and past actions arent entirely indicative of people Now. But with pewdiepie n the things hes done, its so extreme, with so much piled together over time, to the original 'jokes' and his shit 'apologies', that i cant imagine hes changed much. And even if so, this shit is so intense and genuinely messed up that it will follow him everywhere, and i can never support someone like this. This is an exception, an example of 'it doesnt matter how long ago it was' becausr pdp didnt just tweet jokes that may have been read in poor tastes, or aged bad, or were deleted but dug up. These are so bad and genuinely disgusting in comparison

[theunconcernedembalmer]

Toko! I was thinking of creating an ask the character blog for IDV or Genshin Impact and wanted a few tips on how to start off. Anything you can share?

ey yo my dude!! thank you so much for this question, now im lowkey tempted (again) to make a genshin ask blog sjadhlkshgkahshglsaj anyway my 1.5 cents is under the cut, yall know how much i talk here HAHAHAHAH

uhhhhhh so i guess we start with picking a character u really Vibe with tm? I KNOW THIS SOUNDS LIKE COMMON SENSE BUT LIKE ive been considering making a genshin ask blog for a while now but i never really got to it cos i couldnt really decide on a character (plus the fact that their outfits are. so intricate. is also a hmm since i try to follow details to a t) (at first i wanted to do zhongli, but i feel like to be able to muse him well u need to know the lore super super well, which i dont n im too lazy to research on that aha. n u know how much i respect characterizations, especially for such a complex character like him. i also considered xiangling for a period of time mostly for guoba but also like i have 2+1 blogs here n having one more might not be a very good idea aha) (as for aesop he was my Hyperfixation Character tm also cos i looked at his kit n went Yep i could work with this. probably)

so assuming ur not a dumbass like me n u kinda know who u wanna pick, id actually say to snoop around here for other ask blogs n kinda get a feel of the... scene? is that the word? or like u know, other blogs that u can potentially vibe with. ive run a couple of ask blogs before this current one (both that have died for different reasons) n from my experience interacting with other blogs (if theyre okay with it, i think most should be) is pretty fun. it also kinda helps get ur blog around to other ppl on other blogs so they can go Oh whats this cool shit n check u out, n its also a reason why we kinda reblog promo posts for other blogs (also cos we’re always excited when someone new comes on, its really the more the merrier. we see all :eyes:). interacting with other blogs is also an option when ur inbox is looking real roomy too

another reason why i havent exactly done a genshin blog is that idk i cant actually seem to find genshin ask blogs around (i have seen rp blogs, or those that answer asks with mostly text instead of art, but thats. not my thing since i hate my own writing aha) (i did find one aether blog some time ago, but for some reason i hardly see them around anymore??? idk man i might be wrong). its not like im trying super hard to find them ask blogs, so im sure they exist out there (hopefully?? im not sure but im being optimistic). i mean theres nothing wrong with just starting an ask blog without others around, but for me i do find a difference when i interact with other ask blogs n when i dont, n i prefer when theres others to have fun with (unfortunately i couldnt find any ask blogs to interact with in my previous fandom. i tried, but the blogs i approached seemed to go inactive shortly afterwards...) plus u get to meet friends that way too :D (i made a lot of friends via idv askblogs n its really been a joy vibing with others)

as for the idv scene. gestures around me. unfortunately there are a lot of ask blogs that arent that active anymore, but theres still some of us who are alive n kicking empty inboxes, n im sure everyone would love to see a new face around. winks at u. also there seems to be a lot more blogs popping up lately, which is really heartening to see.

then u kinda just. make ur blog? n a starting introduction post so ppl can reblog it n spread the word XD n yay u have a blog i guess??? XD

i gotta say tho. dont expect ur blog to take off immediately (especially for smaller fandoms like idv, tvbh i didnt think my blog would even get half this far when i started cos of how non existent idv tumblr seemed to be) n ur inbox will probably be looking pretty empty a lot of the time (or at least filled with some that u havent quite thought of how to reply to yet aha) (but also like empty inboxes happen pretty often, im sure most of us here have experienced this problem)

in the case of the first ask blog i ever started, it never really took off at all. ngl it was kind of demoralizing n depressing but to be fair i had picked one of the more obscure characters in the series, so obscure that many ppl in the fandom would have never heard of this character before. if u wanted to know, i took a character that only appeared in the 2nd musical of the series, who also made a very brief cameo in the manga to acknowledge his existence within that universe. thats how obscure my character was, but i went with him purely because he was my favourite character. i will say though i did enjoy it while it lasted n i learnt a lot from the experience, n i think thats whats important really.

i guess this kinda leads on (not really but let me digress) to the whole uhhhh thing where if u choose a more popular character, u get more attention. which is fine i guess? if u really vibe with the character, i mean theyre popular for a reason. n choosing a more popular fandom (like genshin) would objectively also get u more viewers n numbers. but like honestly i believe that ask blogs are meant for u to have fun with, n like trying to get popular gets tiring pretty fast (this shouldnt be like a main goal, but u know sometimes u subconsciously also want that gucci follower count n bomb ass notes or something. i used to be guilty of this until i realized it isnt worth it) especially if ur not enjoying yourself in the process. (case in point: my previous fandom was considerably larger n my blog got about 700 followers within a year or so, but it got very tiring n stressful to maintain after my interest in it died, n no one was really interacting with the blog even though i tried which kinda made it even more depressing despite the so called success n popularity of the blog)

anyway on a less serious note, theres a lot of fun stuff u can do with the ask blog, like some ask blogs have really fancy tags that i really like n try to do but also like not really HAHAHAHA. i kinda just channel what i want to see in an ask blog into my own ask blogs (good art is one, i try very hard for it to be good :,DD another is characterization, n others is just extra miscellaneous arts n stuffs like au ideas or memes. these are also somethings u could work on during ask box downtimes perhaps)

uhhh another side thing is like a posting schedule i guess? like ppl would be more likely to interact (i think) if ur blog is relatively active, n this is usually determined by the last post u made (i think XD). but like generally for blog maintenence id say try to kinda find a frequency that ur comfortable with?? cos i know my once a day posting is kinda insane if i wasnt so hyperfixated on all of this n fight the urge to dump all ur replies when u finish them XD (though ive seen some blogs do that n they do it pretty frequently so its pretty nice to know once u see their post u can spend some time going through the latest batch of posts XD) the queue function is pretty useful here even though i truthfully have never really used it, i kinda just post from my drafts really but it also helps to space out ur content to seem somewhat active especially when u dont have the time to be working on replies sometimes. i hope u know what im trying to say here aha

ANYWAY that was like my 1.5 cents cos i dont even think its worth 2 cents HAHAHAHAH these are just my thoughts from running all my blogs up till now, some that are still running n the others that have just died a natural death. i wouldnt actually delete them (theyre still around actually XD) cos theyre kinda like archives n i can look back at what i did last time. cos ngl i made some high quality stuff back then, n i dont even know how i managed to do that aldhflhdsgk. also ppl do look at archive blogs every now n then for the content thats there yknow

BUT YES anyway if u do decide to join the idv ask blogs hmu, ill be sure to give u a lil shoutout here. winks

[nobody-knose--archive]

i’ve been aching to commentate spirit phone’s commentary for ages. glad i finally got around to it, this was an ejoyable experience. liveblog below the cut

-i'm like half certain i've heard this commentary before. maybe not the whole way through & it was probably actual years ago

-nice hearing stuff like this. in-depth personal view of the album-making process. makes it seem like more of a real thing i could do myself someday

-neil cicierega real person momence

-i could probably go real in depth about neil cicierega/tally hall parallels specifically concerning like. the arc of their musical careers. but i won't, here

-wild how i legitimately don't care much about micheal jackson

-didnt we get a bunch of spirit phone stems from the needlejuice release/his patreon? we could probably hear the funny track he speaks of here in that

-i love hearing musical artists, especially neil cicierega, talking about the meanings of their songs. like, not only has this song been claimed to hell & back by the tumblr gays, but with later ones i just can't see where he gets these ideas from. also, claiming there's any one meaning or plot to a song just seems silly to me

-shoutout to neil reusing a midi from like, 1998, that he made at 12 years old, whose entire melody was reused for the main verses of everybody loves raymond. loved finding that out on my own 2 years ago. now it's common trivia in this fandom. not bad times

-it'd be neat if neil did individual trans tracks here like he did with view monstel, those things are half of why i consider it my favorite album

-it's a lot easier to ignore the creator's intended meaning behind a song when he can't even remember it. thanks neil

-seesaw effect

-and there's my joke all but 1 of my followers wont get. moving on

-what kinds of movie theater lobbies has neil been to where there are arcade machines. i mean im not one to talk but that does sound rather strange

-why do songs' titles even need to be taken from the lyrics. ive never seen that as any sort of requisite. it's like titling any form of prose you can just give it whatever name ya like

-"this part sounds pretty cool right"

-is neil's vocal range only mildly better than mine? with training i could change that

-oh i haven't processed any of the last 25 seconds hold on

-god. a shit ton of vocal modification in this song. it's like neil returned to his roots but with quality this time

-i, as an ace/aro, have never related more to an allohet guy in my life. what is the point of eyes!

-professional humming/whistling takes skill. it's different from the recreational or casual stuff. i'd know

-there's a name for the way sound (especially music) gets distorted when moving past you and i can't remember it but it's probably what neil's referring to here in the way he recorded the intro

(- update: it's the doppler effect no need to tell me cas already did)

-as someone who hasnt seen the rugrats or take me there by blackstreet i'll just say it sounded like a bouncy music box melody. nice to hear a song that messes with the typical scales though. lydian & diatonic.

-that's a rather specific thing to be glad about, but given what he talked about in his last full audio commentary about the jew harp i suppose i'm not surprised

-i know that tmbg song now. listened to it & saw the music video too. yep they're different alright

-where the hell does neil get all these instrumence from anyway

-huh. hadnt heard this part of the commentary before making my oc concerning this song but i like to hear neil's approval concerning part of my interpretation

-i love how ive heard a billion different tellings of this mellified man story from lem dem fans talking about this song and neil's is by far the wildest

-good god that does only make it worse neil

-i love making liveblogs of lemon demon albums. with the fullerenes or tally hall i cant name a specific dude to take out my woes on generally but with lemon demon i can just say neil all the time. i like being on a casual first name basis with this dude ive never interacted with once ever

-is sweet bod the one other than cabinet man with a demo in the bonus tracks? i forget

-holy shit the boston molasses disaster someone call up soapy if it doesnt already know, it'd love this

-two thousand nine. god i miss the fiddle solo. the ver with it is truly the best one

-he pronounces it jeff? i've always read it as gef with a hard g. that's what i get for knowing words that are never spoken aloud

-that's a fun meta interpretation of this ghost story that's over a century old. i like that

-i've noticed neil generally does the same synths across a whole album. it's especially more clear in the earlier ones, and does mean i occasionally mix up songs between clown circus & live from the haunted candle shop

-ah! ancient aliens! my least favorite track on this album. i cant even claim to have the least interest in a popular one i've just generally not liked this one much from the beginning. so im curious to see what neil's got to say, i think ive been in ~new commentary zone for a while now

-anyway. newest update on the loolin not realizing a song's funky time signature front: i think this one's in 6/4. or at least switches a lot between time signatures. granted i dont listen to it very often for the reasons stated above

-see the way neil describes it. eldritch horror upon being visited by the unknown at a time when humanity'd hadn't even yet had a chance to imagine such a thing occurring. should be right up my alley. but the sound itself & many of the lyrics simply turn me away.

-must i specify i don't dislike it? spirit phone is neil's best album it not being my favorite doesn't mean i think it's bad yadda yadda nobody should be surprised by this it's not like anyone in these fandoms reads my liveblogs <3

-granted i think this is. the first bit of spirit phone content i've made on my blog ever. so who knows things can change <3

-the transitions in spirit phone are much less view-monster transition tracks & more extended outros. view-monster's were a bit more intro than outro sure but they also seemed directed upon making a 2-way rather than 1-way bridge between tracks. or something like that

-.............soft fuzzy man is an incredible nickname for a cat. i'd steal that if i werent afraid of introducing my relatives to lemon demon

-jirls

-an underlying metaphor is good enough. the literal side of the lyrics are fun. nothing but agreement here neil my good man

-the transition into as your father i expressly forbid it from soft fuzzy man is the best one in this album

-buddy you ask if a musical idea has been used before odds are the answer is yes in this day & age the question is has it been used in the way you're using it. like sure this soul jazz record from the 60s that was sold out in kansas stores for a week used this bassline that youve found yourself copying. but seeing as youre using it in some angsty garage rock ballad type tune does anybody actually care

-doesn't everybody like to say things in an unhinged manner from time to time

-imagine having a guitar dad, i say, with my dad being a folk accordion/fiddle dad, which is infinitely worse in every way

-i think he was in an actual folk band at some point. idk the 90s were weird

-iron my life?

-m-more intimate? there are a lot of ways i'd describe this song but intimate isn't one of them. granted as your father is negatively intimate so from there i guess you've got nowhere to go but up

-...still glad to see his interpretation kinda supports my oc at least

-the way he says characters in songs shouldn't worry about death really strongly makes me think this is some sort of. thematic continuation of stuck from dinosaurchestra, even if there's no real death in there. interesting. would also mean that the dad from these past 2 songs is named carlos betty (no last name)

-i literally never assumed this was a flute solo. piccolo at best. it's pretty clearly a recorder

-my mom plays the recorder. i wonder if she can play recorder better than neil cicierega

-we can throw a party in honor of the crushing weight of responsibility! i simply won't be the one throwing it because i have enough on my plate already <3

-what the hell does "a sense of intent" mean

-i've never heard rush before however i disagree with neil's understanding of 6/4. 6/4 is meant to have emphasis (onbeat or another term i can't remember) on the 1st & 4th beat of every measure, which is greatly different from a measure of 4/4 then a measure of 2/4. it's why his 5/4 always sounds weird, because while it's recognizable in sequences of 10/4, it's more 2 measures of 4/4 with one of 2/4 tacked on the end. that's also how it's different from 3/4. i don't know much music theory but what i do understand i will fight to the death about

-"canonized" that's. a very interesting term to use when referring to a former president

-from now on i will interpret every love song directed at some unseen "you" to be inviting me to marry them for tax purposes. thanks neil for being an aromantic icon

-ah hell yes hell yes man-made object is my favorite goddam song on this album

-short & sweet & good damn vibes. neil's thoughts on it all are only making it better

-wild how he uses very few vocal effects for a song that he clearly is straining his vocal range for. go off neil

-the qualifier of man-made is a wonderful thing. oldest or biggest thing? oldest or biggest man-made thing? what a incredibly important specification. a world of possibilities lie between the two. oh i love it

-just gets me thinking yknow! what we consider weird/impressive in another species, in our own species- what kind of equivalent to that would there be from an outsider looking in? are there alien versions of the significances we place upon things, that we could never imagine? the limits of the human imagination mean we could never conceive of something else in the world that isn't, in some way great or small, just like us- and are we wrong for thinking that? such a juicy topic i wish there were a name for it because it's kinda hard to explain concisely

-spiral of ants. my second favorite song from this album, in fact. a good one to experience

-the vocals are just another instrument. they really truly are. i wasn't going into this commentary expecting to feel solidarity for neil cicierega in this chili's tonight on more than one occasion but here i am.

-like, his whole stance on interpreting songs is something i agree with almost entirely. you can take it at face value, you can dig to their very depths, you can listen to songs without caring what the lyrics mean whatsoever, and those are all fun. & yeah while any of these people can be annoying as one of the types who enjoys gliding on the surface more than anything i find those who dedicate themselves to figuring out the whole meaning of a song over anything else to be both slightly scary & slightly annoying <3 keep up the good work

-i want to make songs for my siblings the way neil makes songs for his sibling(s)

-spinch

-neil really shouldn't be allowed to be this funny like this whole album youre thinking golly! he's just a normal man this neil cicierega! and then he starts listing the cat hacks jokes & you remember he's had ridiculously consistent viral success with all his humorous endeavors and holy shit it's neil cicierega in action talking about his music. god bless you neil

-you're welcome, no problem, my pleasure. good eveternoon, radio audience!

[lunatic-fandom-space]

Comparing RWBY and YGO DM: The Handling and Evolution of Themes

Hey! Its been a hot minute since I last posted anything RWBY-related but Im laying in my bed right now and Im sick and bored so I guess we're doing this. Today I will do my best to analyze what I percieve to be the main themes and messages of both of these shows, or more specifically, how theyre handled narratively. Im mostly focusing on that part because, while these series do have similar themes and messaging, they are still a few things in which they are wildly different. And with that, lets start with this essay-post-thing!

1. Theres something we need to adress first

Okay so, before we can really talk about this, theres something I feel the need to clarify here: Neither of these stories was "planned from the beginning".

Now, I dont think a story being planned from the beginning or not nesscessarily makes the story any better or worse by default, however, it is still important to acknowledge because the way the story is planned is going to affect every facet of it. Things are not going to be foreshadowed properly, things are gonna be set up only for nothing to come of it, the story might drastically change directions, characters might act differently, etc, etc.

And, this is bit off-topic but, it's much better to just admit that the story was not planned than trying to pretend that it was. Like, there are a lot of reasons why I tend to be so forgiving towards YGO even though its not very good, but one of them is definitely the fact that, as far as Im aware atleast, the guy who wrote it isnt pretending to have had this big master plan all along and neither is the fandom. With RWBY on the other hand... yeaaaah, its kinda the opposite. From what Ive seen of RWBYs fandom, there seems to be this pretty popular narrative that everything was planned even though it clearly wasnt. Thats pretty bad and honestly lowers my opinion of the writers so much more than if they would just admit to not having a proper plan.

Like, I initially consumed YGO like this: Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh (aka Season 0), like, a quarter of the Yu-Gi-Oh manga (I still havent finished it)

In all three of these we have the character of Yami Yuugi, or just Yami. Broadly speaking, he is an ancient egyptian gamer spirit who lives in a magical puzzle that has not been solved for 3000 years until this highschooler named Yuugi Mutou comes along and solves it, thus setting him free and allowing him to possess Yuugi and have access to the vague magical powers of the puzzle.

In Duel Monsters he's perfectly fine most of time, morally speaking. There is an instance of him almost murdering a guy and its a bit unclear what exactly happens to those he mindcrushes but overall he's very much a pretty good guy. In Season 0 most of what he does is set up these games for bad people, where they will go insane no matter what they do. From how I understand this whole Shadow Game, Penalty Game stuff, if you lose a Shadow Game, you get violent and intense hallucinations and you will always cuz yknow, gamer spirit. But if you try to cheat, which most of the bad people do in this show, you get violent and intense hallucinations as a punishment.

Since the two anime are generally considered two different continuities, its perfectly fine that Yamis characterization is wildly different in both of them. But in the manga both of these characterizations appear, basically one after the other with no real arc or consequences, for that matter. Why is that? Simply put, someone thought it was a good idea to try to turn an episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror manga into a more traditional, more plot-driven battle shounen. From what Ive heard, it was apparently largely because of network interference or something, but the point is, it changed directions incredibly drastically with little planning and everyone knows this and I can understand that for the most part.

In RWBY we have the character of Blake Belladonna, who, in the first 3 volumes/seasons atleast, was this aloof, more toned down loner-type character with a pretty strong sense of justice. She's an in-universe marginilized racial minority and she clearly cares about racial injustice. The way its initially framed makes it seem like she had a very hard life and no stable support system, which is what eventually pushed her to join a Civil Rights group/Terrorist organization (good god, the Faunus subplot is so awful, I could write a whole essay about it but Im already de-railing rn so I'll just save that for later).

Then, in volumes 4-5 it turns out her father is actually like, the mayor or chief of this island-place called Menagerie and she grew up in this big mansion with multiple guards/servants. Oh and also, apparently "space is a commodity" on there, so theres that. She still retains large parts of her personality but she's kinda like, worse somehow I think. I cant really describe it in a meaningful way but I hope you get what Im saying anyway. Then in Volume 6 she confronted her emotional abuser Adam (sorry for not mentioning him sooner but yeah, he was like, her abusive boyfriend, which is something that a lot of people disagree with but I wont really say anything about it either way because I dont really feel any specific way) with her friend, Yang, and ended up killing him.

After all that, she pretty much lost the rest of her personality, as well as her arc about all the Faunus stuff. She just kinda became the meek, generically nice, recovering abuse victim. Why? Well, the actual reason is that they didnt plan out shit and are just kinda flying by the seat of their oversized clown-pants and if they and the fandom just admitted it, I would have less of an issue. I still wouldnt be as forgiving towards RWBY as I am towards YGO because the crux of the issue, for me, is just that I dont particulary like RWBY but also like. Do you really expect me to take MKEK seriously as writers after admitting to not have a timeline because iT wOuLd CaUsE pLoThOlEs?

However, since they want us to believe that everything was planned out from the beginning, the explaination would be.... Idk, they deliberately butchered one of their main characters?? Because.. they hate her?? Maybe????

So yeah, that was quite a detour however, I would like you to keep this mind going forward.

2. Themes of the Early Series'

First, what do mean by 'Early Series' for both of these shows respectively? Well, for YGO that would have to be Season 0 or if youre reading the manga, everything pre-Duelist Kingdom. Basically, the part of the series thats a episodic, very slice of life-y light-horror series.

For RWBY that would be the first three Volumes, also known as the Poser-Era. Back then it was just kinda an action series that took place at Anime Warrior Academy (also known as Beacon) with some pretty bare minimum worldbuilding, character-driven plots and developments but now its more of an epic high-fantasy story with more of an emphasis on plot as opposed to just action.

The themes and messages in Early YGO are kinda vague, very confusing to me and if you were to follow any of it literally that would be pretty bad. For now Im just gonna say the main themes are Friendship and Identity and mostly focus on the Identity aspect.

Now, it took me a little while to figure out RWBYs deal but I think the main themes for Volumes 1-3 are also Friendship and Heroism. Once again, I'll mostly focus on Heroism and touch on Friendship more briefly later.

I dont have much more to add to YGOs themes right now, so I'll briefly go over Heroism in RWBY.

In RWBYs setting there are these man-eating monsters called Grimm that have basically infected the planet. In order to deal with that, they have people called huntsmen and huntresses that kill them and protect people. Theyre trained at special academies like Beacon and go on missions there and stuff like that. Our four main characters, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and Yang, are training to become huntresses and one day they go on this mission to clean up a grimm infested city block with one of their teachers. Obviously, that takes a long time so they have to camp out in one of the empty houses. Weiss, Blake and Yang cant sleep because theyve been thinking about this question that their teacher asked them when they were fighting grimm: "Why do you want to become a huntress?"

They have a heart to heart and we find out about their motivations; Weiss wants to bring honour back to her family, Blake want to distance herself from the White Fang (that terrorist organization I mentioned earlier) and as an extension from Adam, Yang wants to have a life of adventure. They also talk about why Ruby wants to be a huntress and it turns out that she judt wants to help people. Unlike the others, she has no motivation besides that. We're meant to listen to that and look at her as a sort-of personification of Heroism: kind, but not naive, strong and most of all, selfless. The others on her team are not portayed as bad for not being like Ruby by any means but we are clearly meant to admire her the most out of all of them.

Okay, now comes the part Ive been looking forward to the most:

3. How did these themes evolve in the Modern Series'?

Alright, before we can really delve into the way they evolved in YGO I'll have to give you a brief summary of the character progression. At the start of DM, during the Duelist Kingdom arc, Yami Yuugi is just that; A darker Yuugi. Hes more confident, bolder, his voice is deeper, hes somehow taller, more ruthless, all that good stuff. Notably, he doesnt actually seem more skilled than Yuugi even at the start of this story, but he's still dependent on Yami. Yami on the other hand, has no identity of his own or even hints at one at this point. He's just The Other Yuugi.

Then during the Battle City arc, they find out that Yami was actually a pharao prior to being sealed in the puzzle, he just didnt know because of amnesia, I guess. So now they need to find out his real name and then send him to the afterlife because hes meant to be dead, but not before saving the world from being swallowed by darkness, which is also a thing they have to do now.

Then we finally get to the Memory World arc, where Yami, Yuugi and the rest of the gang astralproject to ancient egypt via puzzle magic. Yami is trying to figure out what the hell is going on and who all these familiar people are, while Yuugi & Co are trying their best to help him. Then some weird shit happens and it turns out that all of that is not just Yamis sealed away memories, but also a giant D&D Shadow Game that will destroy the world if Yami loses. So now theres Pharao!Yami who is still clueless on the metaphorical and literal playing field and Player!Yami, who is kinda controlling himself now? I guess?? Yamis opponent, The Spirit of The Ring, has something similar to that going on where hes both controlling and properly participating in the game. So Player!Yami is now fighting against Player!TSoTR, Pharao!Yami is now fighting against Thief King Bakura (who is like, the human, ancient egyptian version of the Ring Spirit) and Yuugi is now fighting against Yami Bakura (who is like, the human, modern japanese version of the Ring Spirit). Yuugi gets Yamis real name, he and the gang go over to Pharao!Yami and tell him his name, meanwhile Player!Yami is also somehow helping as well and they defeat the Ring Spirit, thus saving the world. Then they travel to modern Egypt, the Ceremonial Duel happens and Yuugi wins, sending Yami to the Afterlife where he can finally rest and that was the series!

I originally wanted to recount the stuff that was going on with the Ring Spirit and his host as well because they parallel eachother, but this summary is already far too long and I think youll get the point without me needing to explain any more.

My point here is, that the story went from being vaguely about Identity, maybe? to being very clearly about Self-Discovery and Learning to Be Independent. I think this is a very good way to evolve the messaging of your story. How does RWBY track on that?

Well, uh... its not great. I will acknowledge that they have tried to introduce new themes and ideas since, even though I wont really be talking about them in this post. But yeah, the whole Heroism thing really regressed.

Like, I didnt explicitly say it when I was explaining grimm earlier, but theyre not going away. The grimm have always been there and people who sign up to become huntsmen and huntresses are effectively signing up for a job that will never truly be done, no matter what they do. Characters like Ruby and even more minor ones like Phyrrah have shown us that that doesnt matter when youre a hero. No life isnt worth saving, no grimm isnt worth killing, no criminal isnt worth arresting. Then, in volume 6 they find out about Salem. Salem is the Big Bad of the show, shes immortal, controls the grimm and is supposed to be very powerful.

What do our heroes do? They give up. Sike! They were just mindcontrolled by monsters or some shit, of course they didnt give up their mission (which is to bring an Important Macguffin to a city called Atlas, sorry I didnt mention it)!

But then they arrive in Atlas (which is llike, a city thats floating over another city called Mantle) and yknow, they do some plot stuff thats not really important right now until the city gets invaded by Salem and this big grimm army she has.

What do our heroes do? Well, Ruby, Weiss, Blake and some side characters are chilling, drinking tea in a mansion and Yang and the B Team were actually trying to do something, but even those efforts seem incredibly minimal.

Oh wait, I also forgot to mention that Ironwood (a fairly minor, vaguely antagonistic character up until now) wanted to lift Atlas even higher to save Atleasian civilians from danger while leaving Mantle vulnerable to Salems invasion.

What would be the most heroic thing to do?

A) Let Ironwood lift Atlas, get as much support as they can down to Mantle and save as many Mantle civilians as they can from the invasion

B) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas but then split up in order to protect both Atlas and Mantle civilians

C) Prevent Ironwood from lifting Atlas and then dont do anything else

Congrats! If you choose C, you think exactly like the writers!

And I just

This is so mindboggling to me, I feel like I shouldnt even have explain how this is bad. And like, it wouldve been so easy to actually make them seem herokc through their actions, to make it seem like they did try but no.

I have never seen a central theme be this botched, how in the world did they do that? Why did they think it was a good idea for Ruby "The Embodiment of Heroism" Rose to sit in a mansion doing nothing, no planning, no organizing just ..... God, how are they this bad? Like, this doesnt even have anything to do with it being planned in any way, this is just straight up incompetence

4. Very briefly touching on friendship

The friendship is awful and its not solely because they all have the same opinions. They barely interact with eachother outside their designated pairs which leads to it all feeling incredibly hollow. Theyre also practically indistingushable from one another now, which is a shame because it wasnt always like that. Like, I dont think the characters were that well-developed in earlier volumes but they were very well-characterized. But now we've gotten to a point where you can literally copy and paste one characters dialogue onto another and literally nothing changes, it really sucks.

5. Some closing words

Damn, this took way longer than I thought it would and now Im pretty exhausted. I have no idea how yall always write these but props to you! I feel like this ended up a bit rambly but overall, Im pretty proud.

Please let me know what you think of the points I brought up! Id also really appreciate some tips on how to get better at these longer posts because I am planning on writing more in the future (not the near future, probably but yknow).

Thats all I have to say for now, thanks for reading!

[recordmcqueen]

👉👈 Every ship ask for the boboiboy fandom? please? thank you //sad cape whoosh

aha now we’re talkin

1. What was your first OTP? boifang- my sister had only about a thousand screenshots of them before she finally managed to drag me in so its not like i had a choice--

2. What is your current OTP? answered this already

3. Do you have any OT3/OT+ ships? What are your favorites? hmm the only ones i have rn are goboifang and manramen x kaizo x pirate soldier guy. oh but like lowkey ayu yu x kiki ta x ejo jo dont question me okay-

4. What is/are your favorite trope(s)? idk if its a trope but like i want some brotp in my otp yknow and monsta does that right i just hhh bless. but also like the whole yin-yang thing going on with fang and bbb is just ahhh im weak

5. What is/are your least favorite trope(s)? hmmm in the fandom its mostly the hetshipping like i have no hate on any ships but a lot of times it does feel like theyre shipping for the sake of straight than dynamic which is really. unfortunate.

6. Do you have a certain kind of ship you’re more attracted to? bros being homies okay im so weak for the idiot memelords who all share one singular braincell its wonderful.

7. Are most of your ships “pure” or “problematic”? uhh i think as far as this fandom goes none of my ships are actively being bashed on and theyve all got pretty wholesome dynamics sooo nah? but then like i go and angst them all up so idk if that makes them problematic lol--

8. Who is the most shippable person you can think of? ...fang. probably because i think about him the most and also cause he got one of the best character development arcs and that just gives him a really solid dynamic with other characters //now im just making excuses hes my favorite okay

9. Are there any fandoms you don’t have any ships for? kind of? im kinda neutral on ships like i dont Need them (esp not in canon i actually prefer canon to be shipless bLESS MONSTA) and i don’t bash on any for the most part i can See all ships. but i dont necessarily actively Ship ships all the time yknow? so ig the answer is no...

10. Do characters have to have canon interactions for you to ship them? lmao nope (see kiki ta x ayu yu and probs a dozen other ships that dont come to mind at the moment)

11. What makes a great ship in your own opinion? uhhh dynamic??

12. What drives you away from a ship? lack of dynamic-- shipping for aesthetic is nice but i just appreciate the good art without really connecting to the ship itself yknow

13. Is there anything you ship but refuse to interact with the community for? mm yes. idk i feel like the fanbase is polarized between “soft pure bean with no or few ships” and “thirsty simps 18+ only” and both categories scare me too much to chat ships with lol

14. Has a fanbase ever made you ship or not ship something? Why? yES but not the bbb fanbase thankfully cantsaythesameforthelastfandomuhm

15. Do you like/participate in ship wars? Why or why not? already answered this one

16. Are there any ships you just can’t/don’t understand? What are they? boya. also saifang, come to think of it (the latter is significantly less popular). in both cases i consider them as a familial bond and cant really see them any other way? like i see bbb and yaya as mlm wlw solidarity and sai as an older brother to fang more than anything else so yknow hshsh

17. Are there any popular ships that you just don’t like? What are they? i mean the collective fandom otp is boicest so yknow. not my jam uwu

18. What is your favorite unpopular ship? bruh my otp is unpopular ToT

19. Do you prefer fluff, angst, or smut for your ships? angstangstangst *cough* ill take a nice order of fluff please and thank you kindly uwu

20. Do you prefer bigger fanbases or smaller ones? big fanbase have more content and its easier to find ppl to talk about rarepairs with. small fandom already have so few people its near impossible to find anyone to talk about your toiny ship with and even harder to find fellow fans irl. big fandoms have more potential toxicity tho--

21. Have you ever received hate for a ship you liked? lmao yeah but not for this fandom //probs cause i rarely talk about bbb ships in public anyway lol

22. Do you have any ships that you ship, but would never want to see as canon? all of them. i praise monsta every day for making their content 100% gen and i would never want it any other way bLESS

23. Have you ever had a ship become canon, but you didn’t like how it was portrayed? not in bbb for obvious reasons lol but in another fandom i Guess? idk how canon is “canon”

24. What is your favorite canon ship? *sweats intensely* captain kaizo’s dragonfly ship looks badass wish they kept it instead of the new round thingy he has that looks like it could impale someone- okay but papa zola and mama zila are heckin wholesome i love them and im so glad pipi has good loving parents

25. What are your favorite ships from a dead fandom? i dont think any of my current fandoms are Dead per se..

26. What are your favorite shipping scenes? “the captain praised me, what of it?” “open the door to my heart!” but also mONSTA WHY WOULD YOU DELETE BBB INVITING FANG TO STAY OVER AT HIS HOUSE FROM BBBM2 OTL //at least it meant we got it released internationally early so i could enjoy that much from canada

27. What are your views on reader x canon ships? already answered

28. What is your best shipping advice? whats with all the ship hatin ToT even if yall heathens cant understand multishipping, surely “mind your own damn business” and “live and let live” are easy enough pills to swallow??

29. Do you like OCs (Original Characters)? already answered

30. What are some of your favorite shipping blogs? are there bbb shipping blogs? i know theres the ramenzo one.. i dont think boifang has any active ones and my other ships are too rare to be considered lol yeah im pretty sure the only fandom shipping blogs (if any) would be boicest rip