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I'm so gooped Contrapoints basically said "yeah I feel bad for Palestinians but it can't be helped, also most Jews are Zionists so consider their needs" like she has not been a reoccurring guest of Matt Bernstein's, a pro-Palestine Jew??? So does she not even consume his content or... 🙃

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It's wild to me Vivinos fans can make the most obtuse "analysis" about her works by literally just paraphrasing the story ("Notice how this story starts off really innocent before the girl is revealed to be a stalker" YEAH, I NOTICED) yet when it comes to the comic about how Till was traumatized by Ivan's non-consensual kiss, y'all suddenly can't understand straight-forward plot lines.

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Baby Sojo should've used NCT's Haechan as reference and Romance Sojo should've used Seventeen's Jeonghan as reference

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Asgore and Toriel are sus

Deltarune spoilers below

Noelle is currently the only character to verbally recognize Kris isn't their "usual self". Understandably, Susie is probably a new kid and only got to know Kris when we already possessed them. The other kids and town folks don't know Kris as intimately as Noelle does. It's possible Monster Kid was Kris' closest friend but even that doesn't seem to be all that close.

But what about Toriel and Asgore?? They literally raised Kris but there's still no signs or allusions to them noticing Kris' change in behavior. Arguably, not all parents actually know their kids as intimately as their kid's friends but it's still weird not to catch on at all, especially when the game seems to emphasize that the Dreemurs used to be a close-knit family. So where is this obliviousness/indifference coming from?

Asgore

Asgore seems to have stolen a black shard from Carol. He knows what it is and it's clearly important for him to right a wrong.

But does he know about Kris' predicament? There's this interaction where even though Asgore does offer the flood platter to both Susie and Kris, Susie devours it whole herself in front of him yet Asgore stops acknowledging her. Is this just Asgore being a dad, was he just not paying attention, or is there more to it?

This seems inconspicuous but Asgore is acting too chill when Kris was maneuvering Susie like a lawnmower plowing through the food platter. Like yeah it's a silly joke but characters still acknowledge absurdities in-game. The fact Asgore didn't react at all is weird and to only acknowledge Kris is weirder.

Carol and Kris are working together, which means Carol must at least partly know about Kris' current circumstances to rely on them/use them. If Carol knows, then how would Asgore not? He knew Carol had the shard after all so whatever shady past he has, Carol and Kris were a part of it.

Toriel

Toriel presumably doesn't know about the Dark World. All she knows is that something bad happened under Asgore's care. Even though Toriel has had a pure image in Undertale that we naturally project onto her in Deltarune, there are signs of slight negligence towards Kris...

This is apparent in the way Susie looks out for Kris in ways their parents should've. The bloodstain on Kris' floor was never cleaned up until Susie saw it and helped clean it for them. Kris' side of the room was barren until Susie gave them their own award. There's also when Susie notices that Kris is taking a long time in the bathroom, Toriel dismisses it as typical behavior from them.

Even if it's common for Kris, is it not still concerning? What does Toriel assume Kris is doing when they stay in the washroom for a long time that doesn't require her to check in on them??

By no means is Toriel a bad parent but she may not be as attentive as we first assumed. Yet, is she negligent to the point of not noticing that Kris' behavior changes?

In no way am I trying to assert the idea that Toriel and Asgore don't care about Kris. We see moments of them being loving parents, but at the same time, both have their own shortcomings. Maybe I'm reaching but Kris wearing plastic horns as a kid, Kris' side of the room being plain and neglected despite them clearly having interests and talents, and Kris' own behavioral problems might be indicative of a transracial kid who doesn't get the necessary level of attention and affection from their parents that don't see themselves in them. It's possible that in the same way Noelle would spend time with Kris to get away from her family, Kris also finds Noelle's home as their escape.

Especially after the divorce and whatever incident that led to it, Asgore and Toriel are even more careless about how they act around Kris. It must be hard to watch Asgore futilely jump Toriel with flowers and advances. Asgore doesn't notice Kris watching or just doesn't think much of it, he gives them the rejected bouquets or has Kris deliver his flowers to Toriel for him. Toriel is now getting swept up with a new love affair and failed to check in on Kris who didn't get home until late at night. Instead of seeing how Kris is doing and ending her time with Sans, she's too drunk or enjoying herself too much to put any of that into consideration. So far, it seems that Kris' parents are really just too distracted to notice what they're going through. But I wonder how differently they will treat Asriel once he's meant to appear and if it reveals that Kris' neglect was always a problem even before the divorce.

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Me to nobody about something that doesn't matter: I never liked Astrid's design, I wish she was big boned and actually looked physically strong. She's only skinny so she can be "pretty".

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I need people to stop responding to others addressing the colonialist rebranding of Lilo and Stitch with "and they got rid of Gantu!" Like the problem is bigger than just ruining your childhood movie, it's fully anti-indigenous propaganda.

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My thoughts on race and voice acting, and the homogenization of Asians.

Off the bat, I'm Vietnamese but born in Canada. My take is purely my own and I don't want it to be misconstrued by people who dismiss the importance of representation and people that only think of representation as what we see on screen and not what goes on behind the scenes. However, as much as I appreciate the need to cast more marginalized people to represent themselves, I find this trend to be misguided and insincere...

This was inspired by learning of the new voice cast for Avatar The Last Airbender film that changed the majority of the cast for authentic racial representation. I'll get back to ATLA later but first, I'm going to go through some other examples that made me feel some kind of way...

Alison Brie, a White actress, voiced regret for voicing Diane Nguyen in Bojack Horseman. This came out in 2020 when the BLM movement was fervent. We went from rallying against the police murder of Black citizens to the voices of cartoon characters. It's not like this subject isn't worth discussing--obviously it's what I'm doing now--but that this felt so redundant and even distracting from a far bigger and more violent issue. Yet this was the industry way of "doing better". It was hardly about calling for reform and more about coaxing a radicalizing audience not to leave them. When I saw the headline, I thought "Can we worry about this later?" It just felt like we were losing our priorities as the discussion around anti-Blackness would dissolve into lesser (although still important) topics that made celebrities and studios take up media headlines yet again. The effects of this movement have remained when it comes to voice casting yet cops still run rampant and are more powerful than ever in America. This makes this current treatment of voice casting to feel ultimately performative and confused in its own purpose.

Racial bias exists everywhere, even in voice acting. Momentarily circling back to ATLA, the majority of the voice cast was White despite the series being made up of Asian and Inuit coded characters.

Although I don't think the casting was necessarily inappropriate (besides Greg Baldwin doing Uncle Iroh with the fake accent), it is indicative of a larger issue in which casting directors tend to favour White people. Although a voice doesn't have a race, it can be off putting when race and culture play a significant role yet are performed by White actors. Even if we argue this was colour blind casting, that the preferences were for the voice performance over "how Asian/indigenous they are", White voices are still favoured for their "neutrality".

Black actors have been refused non-Black roles for being Black or "too Black" yet simultaneously, are asked to play up or use AAVE to make their characters "sound more Black" when the character resembles their race.

The same goes for Asian actors where many of them even include their ability to "do an Asian accent" on their cover letters and resumes when looking for work. Putting on an accent is degrading when it isn't natural, especially because the explicit need for one tends to be for mockery rather than for genuine representation of immigrants who can't speak English fluently.

People of colour have already been pigeon holed into playing caricatures of their own race for the entertainment of typically White audiences. We aren't expected to think about the race of characters with White or "neutral" voices but their race defines them when they have a distinct accent/vernacular that feels foreign to even those of us it's representing. Now with this shift in casting "authentic voices", we are getting people of colour to play themselves beyond racist stereotypes. However if we exclusively cast poc to their own designated races then how diverse does casting become when majority characters are still White?

Raya And The Last Dragon is disappointing on so many levels, but most egregiously for its massive botch on Asian representation. Beyond homogenizing southeast Asia into a singular culture, not even representing any of our cultures anyways and instead the culture of a western Orientalist fantasy world, but also poorly playing into the "authentic casting" brownie points despite the majority of the cast being East Asian, not Southeast Asian! Yes there's a difference!! To not even distinguish an East Asian from a Southeast Asian is actually hella racist and the fact the majority were East Asians exposes the strange xenophobic and colourist hierarchy of Asian racism. In the west, people immediately default to East Asians when drumming up an image of Asians. I wouldn't be surprised if the casting director for Raya cast based on what the actors looked like and assumed they fit the ethnicity because according to Raya, it's all pretty much the same anyways. What was meant to be a back-patting moment of representation turned out to just be racism within racism. If we were just casting Asians indiscriminately, then why not also include south Asians and middle eastern Asians?

Finally, returning to the new cast of ATLA...

Firstly, Eric Nam supports Israel so... Already not a fan of this casting. Secondly, I've been incredibly frustrated by how Asians are seen as interchangeable, that as long as the person is (East) Asian than any Asian will do. Eric Nam being the voice of Aang feels incredibly lazy, I know there are more qualified VA's who are Asian who would suit Aang much better if they bothered looking beyond celebrities.

Ultimately, what matters to me more is someone who captures the essence of their characters, not exactly if they fit the physical descriptions of their character. That's not to say it doesn't matter at all but for this in particular, it felt like we did compensate the integrity of the character for a poor attempt at "authentic representation". Eric does not resemble Aang besides being Asian and he's not even the right Asian. It's not even like you can't have both, you just have to put in more effort! If we are gonna genuinely enforce a new principle that people of colour should strictly be played by their respective races, then we also should make sure we're not generalizing people's cultures to just racial appearances. Otherwise, I struggle to really believe this about authenticity and respect and not just avoiding White-washing allegations. Allegations that I don't think would exist if you also cast poc to play other poc characters! Throughout all this, we have overlooked the concept that White people get to play any race while poc have only gotten to play their own. The solution is to seemingly stifle every voice actor to play their own race rather than giving everyone the same amount of fluidity that was given to White people. It should only ever be a problem if the character's given a distinct racialized voice which in many cases, is a weird choice anyhow! A voice actor can change their voice to fit their character but that should not need to come with an accent (I'm looking at you Awkwafina). I'm all for representation and opportunities for poc, I just feel like the industry goes about it in a regressive and shallow way that wounds up leading to annoying centrists blaming poc for caring about representation and still limiting poc voice actors that are capable of more.

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Bob is telling queens not to go on Vs The World or Global All Stars from an American perspective, let's not immediately assume she doesn't support the publicity it gives international queens when in the same video, she mentioned how gaggy it was when Blu Hydrangea eliminated Pangina on UK vs The World.

Let's be honest, American queens can do better because they receive better. Bob isn't wrong to say these seasons are bad for [American] queens because they're smaller and more controversial platforms. Let's also talk about how international queens shouldn't need to speak English, appear on English platforms, and appeal to Western culture to be visible to English speaking audiences when y'all can just read subtitles. This idea that western publicity is so valuable to foreign drag artists is deeply american-centric and Eurocentric when y'all are only willing to consume Americanized versions of them. And that may even play a role in why international seasons have yet to get their own All Stars...

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Love Death + Robots is made by centrists at best, republicans at worse, and you can tell.

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Why is Kpop giving girls trash lyrics like we'd connect to it!? Like wtf is "Tesla gnarly, girls capitalism, body body body, Santa in the hood"

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Watching Anne Shirley and I'm sure (and hope) Gilbert and Anne's relationship gets cuter overtime, but y'all can't expect me to ship a girl with a boy who pulled her hair and called her a name when Diana is such a loving and loyal friend. I get the 1900's worked differently but it feels so much like Anne sincerely loved Diana in a time period where same sex affection wasn't immediately frowned on as long as you "outgrew it".

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I'm not surprised that racism and anti-blackness is still pervasive in Kpop (the beauty standards should be telling enough) but I'm gagged at how frank idols and companies can still be about it when they're trying to appeal to the global market nowadays.

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Does Legends ZA feel dystopian to anyone else so far? A single company urbanizing an entire city, the way wild Pokemon feel segregated to not disturb trainers but trainers can enter wild areas and disturb them, the night time battle royale... The whole infrastructure and attitude of the city is giving gentrification and industrialism vibes and I'm wondering if the game will be a commentary on that or if it's just what they think will make an interesting city to play in.

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Shoujo but the heroine is butch

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Rouge the Bat and Catwoman, that is all

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Bullying Shrek 5 isn't the answer y'all

Ok I complained about the new look for Shrek being too Disney but honestly, it's not actually all that offensive. I can tolerate it and it's definitely not as "ugly" as the internet acts like it is. It's just not as charming.

Y'all can still criticize and make fun of Shrek 5 but seeing people say we should bully the animators like we apparently did with Sonic?? You guys bullied the animators??!!!

Most of the production staff on Shrek had no creative input on it, a lot of them are on new projects and maybe not even working for Dreamworks anymore. Bullying the staff will literally do nothing but be needlessly mean! The original Sonic was actually atrocious, it was wayyy off model. When I see vids online of people fixing Shrek, the changes are so subtle that i don't even think it's worth it. You guys have to learn to just put up with change and if it's that intolerable to you, don't watch it. Bullying and throwing a tantrum about it to get things your way or just to make people who worked on it feel bad is actually so stupid.

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The Disneyfication of Shrek

I saw it coming on Puss in Boots. Those designs were so cartoony and Disney-esque (it's most noticeable with the humans) and the environment was so bright. As pretty as the movie is, it missed the point of Shrek's more homely and plain designs. It's a SATIRICAL WORLD!

Everyone looks airbrushed and polished. Fiona's and Felicia's hair looks too shiny and slick considering they're supposed to bathe in mud. The skin is too clear, the clothes are too tidy. Even Pinocchio looks more like fresh plastic than wood.

Felicia's design especially bothers me. Her eyes are so big, her nose bridge is too narrow, and her chin is pointed?? She looks the most like a Disney character even though she would've been so cute with small eyes and a fatter face!

And I'm sorry to any Zendaya stans but it really annoyed me how the trailer built up announcing Zendaya being a voice actor (I quote "and... Zendaya? Oh ho ho, damn!")

My friend said she was gonna see the movie "just for Zendaya" so I guess it works but that annoys me more. Celebrity voice acting is overrated and I hate how it's used in marketing.