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#had to go in game for the screencaps
bosbinnsusb · 2 years
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Autodoc his ass
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almondcroissantsandink · 11 months
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he has a certain “oh golly good gracious” air about him that is absent in the later installations of the franchise 
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thatsparrow · 1 year
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pasta-pardner · 11 months
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spotify | you're a good man, arthur morgan.
(primarily blues, roots, and folk.)
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mercymaker · 2 years
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“You might wear one of your mother’s dresses”
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snow-and-saltea · 2 months
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yesterday i spent 45 minutes of my life watching a video essay criticising the use of cheap shock values and crossing of taboos for a video game and i went from "he has a point even if he's explaining it in a really inflammatory way" to "oh umm... i can see how he thinks that way even if i don't agree" to "oh this guy's just straight up using people on tumblr as material for an audience to get mad at like other outdated people on the internet. nvm he's just an asshole"
#yuu rambles#it was about the coffin of andey and leyley btw - i agreed w him on the first half of the video about how it felt rather noncommittal to it#concepts and themes but i recognise its not really *trying* to be serious which means its not a reasonable#framework to judge the intention and execution of its work - an apple pie does use butter in it but just bc it does#doesnt mean you get to compare it to steak; a dish that also uses butter. this is intuitively easy to understand for me#but nonetheless it was like 3 am i had stuff to do so i just put it on my background to listen#he makes a diss at “people on tumblr” early on that i just raised my eyebrow at but shrugged it off bc its such an old joke#its lost its zinger; and im p sure its just confirmation bias from going into the tags of the thing you dont like lol if you use tumblr#normally you wouldn't come across things you dont like bc you'd have blocked them. But Anyways#then at the end he got sooo self righteous about how people on tumblr are insane and weird and showed screencaps about how twisted everyone#who likes the game are. there were some screenshots of people's post that were like “incest is bad and shouldn't be explored in media.#paragraph break‚ me who is an incest survivor and finds it helpful for working through my trauma: lol”#those types of post. but then lmfao he started going out of pocket and just mentioned the lists of other people he doesnt like which are#a screenie of a video essay about how kink is important at pride#and then some other stuff i dont remember anymore w the tumblr screenies#it was very mockingly written and said and at the end of it i felt sad i couldnt#block people on youtube lmao. like its not i dont want this guy to comment on my videos. i dont want to see his channel involuntarily#recommended to me ever again. just resorted to the most base sort of trolling behaviour he accused and judge other game devs for in his#video essay. good fucking god. the psychological projection is unreal#i dont have any strong feelings towards the game at the end of it even though i thought i would be like Eugh at first#but my bleh for any cheap gimmicks is overshadowed by my disdain for this guy's reliance on self righteous rhetoric#i discovered another new channel i really like tho after that vid!! bc i had to watch smth else to cleanse my palate lmao#they're jacob geller and freddydude! ive only seen one vid from freddydude about his essay on#detention‚ the horror game set in taiwan during the era of white terror under new cn leadership after ww2#im personally quite jumpy so his humour and the way he edits his videos to make it silly even though its Scary#made me like it a lot!! im going through jacob geller's other vids but ive watched three specific types of terror#and the one about pinocchio which made me go :00 wow his scripts are super good!#again everything at your own discretion esp w the whole james somerton shit‚ but i enjoyed what I've seen so far#i just wanted to end this in a somewhat positive note JSHDKSJDJD the ramblings Continue...#theres a pedantic error in one of ky tags but im gonna update it when im on comp bc mobile sucks smh my head
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kiealer · 1 year
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oh my darling sweet child if you only knew
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ageless-aislynn · 5 months
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Now, yesterday, I told you the epic tale of Noble Six and her struggle to get the par score on "The Package" level of Halo: Reach. I still can't make GIFs or capture video but it dawned on me... I can make screencaps from the Theater!
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Noble Six, running through the gloom, to get that darn par score!
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I always wanted to get those giant AA guns to blow up at the same time. I managed it on this run!
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Awwww yeahhhh, Six making her epic parkour sprint-bounce-jump off the statue, aiming for that window to the right. Will she make it???
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Six: *believing in herself SO HARD right now*
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Score! And also was immediately shot by that blue bolt coming at me from a camouflaged Elite. 😑 But I lived to run on through, avoiding that darn General Elite with the concussion rifle who will be running down that ramp at the back annnnny minute now, only to realize I outsmarted him!
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HOLY MOLY, HE DOUBLED BACK THROUGH THAT DOOR AFTER ME! 😱 Seriously, I knew he was shooting at me but I was running for that green button to trigger the cutscene and get me the heck out of there, so I didn't look back. I had no idea he was THAT CLOSE. I don't honestly know how he missed me with that concussion rifle. If he would've lobbed a plasma grenade at me, it would've been Bye Bye Noble Six. 👀 Whew.
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And we're now flying the friendly skies with Noble Six and her jetpack, on the way to hijack that Banshee. 😇
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Six: Hello, sir, would you like to have your Wraith hijacked today?"
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Six: Of course you would! Heh.
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Wow, Six is even better than I thought she was, she's looking at a blank wall while she's driving AND shooting the mortar bombs!
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SIX IS TOTALLY NOT PANICKING RIGHT NOW, about to jump out of the Wraith and try to get past that Elite who's in between her and the sweet, sweet button of Ending This Level! It's a little hard to see but there's a line going diagonally from left to right across the Elite. I could hear somebody providing cover from the lab but didn't know who it was...
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...until now when I could use the Theater camera to look. It was Carter, my beloved!
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I'm contractually obligated to use this picture every time I say "Carter, my beloved." Sorry, I don't make the rules. 🤷‍♀️😇😉
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In a dramatic ending, Six leaps from the Wraith as the counter is ticking down, failure is imminent if she can't get to the button by the door. So she activates her sprint and... wait, she's wearing the jetpack. Oops.
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This is called "Panicked Jetpacking" and was done Entirely On Purpose™
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Six must go, her people need her...
Also, note the enemy Wraith mortar bomb coming at the lab. 😱
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Six remembers she has to go UNDER that opening to get to the button. It's not on the frickin' roof. 😑 Also note the Elite continuing to shoot at me. 😑😑😑
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It's hard to see but that's Carter waiting for me next to those sandbags! I'm doing the most awful, awkward jetpack spluttering hops up this ramp because I continued to forget I don't have sprint. IT WAS AN EMOTIONAL TIME, OKAY? 😭😂
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YESSSS, the button that only I, Noble Six, can push! The level ends and I achieved the par score at last!
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Achievement accomplished! Noble Six can put her jetpack down and get a good night's rest, now that she has Pushed The Button No One Else Can.
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Annnnd yes, you might notice that I have over 1,200 hours on the MCC, now! 😎👍🤷‍♀️😉
And there you have it! 💖💖💖
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sirgloria · 2 years
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if teach has a million fans, i am one of them. if teach has one fan that is me. If teach has no fans then i am dead, etc etc. i am #1 teach stan.
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stardestroyer81 · 2 years
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Followers of my blog may know that I've been known to take a particular interest in secondary characters, or write pages of lore for obscure and little known characters to make up what little presence they may have online. Similarly, followers of my self-ship blog know that I also have a tendency to see certain characters— be them popular or obscure— as anything from a lover to family.
So, what happens when I develop a familial attachment to a secondary character that has no online presence (I checked!) and only appears a handful of times in her fairly popular source material? Now, I understand the obvious answer to that question may be to 'devote a post to the such', maybe even throw in an incorrect quote in there somewhere...
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And you'd be right!
(Check under the cut for a very in-depth look at one of Night in the Woods' most underrated secondary characters, as well as what role she plays in my AU, Autumn Angels!)
Now, before we go into any detail about the above art piece itself, I feel like it's necessary to provide readers with a bit of context as to who this character is and her role in Night of the Woods, so let's dive right in!
Throughout Night in the Woods, you'll more than likely encounter a specific quartet of people congregating someplace in town on certain days. This group works for Possum Springs' chamber of commerce, and their responsibility is to govern the affairs of the crumbling town all the while finding ways to attract new businesses.
The names of these four individuals are Gary, Colleen, Andrew and Cathleen, and are always in a heated debate over a state of affairs whenever Mae comes across them. Each of the four known members of the city council are well-intentioned, though their varying opinions on certain matters will often result in hilarious conversations to walk in on.
However, due to their limited appearances throughout each of the four acts, there's a chance that you may only see them a couple of times in a given playthrough, and as a result the members of Possum Springs city council are often overshadowed by other secondary characters. More so, you never really get an idea on each member's true personality (Unless you happen to find them on every day they appear) so they come off more as background characters.
Which is a shame, because I really like Colleen in particular.
I'd always liked her character quite a lot (Of what little of it I saw in my first playthough), and this admiration for her very quickly spurned into seeing her as a parental F/O, perhaps my most underrated one at that! Because of this, I wanted to both give her the appreciation she deserves by drawing art of her as well as making this post the one-stop shop for a general overview of Colleen's character!
But because there isn't a specific place online citing Colleen's overall personality, I took it upon myself to do the unthinkable... using the NiTW wiki to find out when and where the city council appear, I found and wrote Colleen's lines into a document— every last one of them— and made observations on her character for each one to form a definitive personality.
Naturally, I didn't have to go this hard in researching Colleen, but I care about her too much that I couldn't resist... and it was a pretty fun exercise!
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Here's an example of what my research looked like! Every line has a small write-up underneath it observing her dialogue and citing important aspects of her personality. She only has about thirty spoken lines total, and surprisingly, that was more than enough to get an idea as to what kind of a person Colleen is! With that said, here are my findings...
⦁ Colleen is a good-natured fox who is deeply compassionate about her position in Possum Springs' chamber of commerce, looking to do whatever she can to preserve its history and resolve any issues the town may have. She also is known to be particularly cynical, particularly when disagreeing with one of her coworkers. This level of sarcasm can range from a flat retort to a fiery retaliation.
⦁ She genuinely cares about its residents— specifically the children and elderly— and has been shown on a number of occasions putting their needs and safety above all else. Unlike a couple of her other cohorts, Colleen will often times take charge should a discussion go awry, and is the city council quartet's natural mediator. In spite of this, however, she herself has had her moments of outrage, especially evident by her very first line.
⦁ Colleen, believing that she knows what is best for Possum Springs, will often stand by her opinions on how to improve upon it without backing down, refusing to accept defeat or wrongness as she finds her ideas to benefit a cause more than, say, Cathleen's… however, Colleen has been shown to still respect a person even if they both share different beliefs on something.
⦁ On the topic of Cathleen, Colleen's relationship with her coworkers seems to be a bit of a mixed bag. She appears to get along with Gary the most (Regardless of their disagreements) and the two of them will more often than not team up with each other on resolving an issue. She doesn't seem to think much of Andrew's few contributions and especially does not like Cathleen.
And that's pretty much everything! I quite enjoyed going through all of a character's spoken dialogue and observing each line for a better grasp of their personality, and my efforts for Colleen will certainly benefit her role in Autumn Angels! Speaking of which...
It's a new Autumn season in Possum Springs, and since the previous season, the town has seen a good few quality of life improvements, though the chamber of commerce is still diligently working to alleviate any state of affairs to keep the city they govern the best it can be...
... especially Colleen (Who's full name I've headcanoned to be Colleen Chappell), who perhaps has been working the hardest out of her peers, and it's beginning to show. Harfest, Possum Springs' annual Autumn event, is just around the corner, and she is stressed beyond belief that— despite her best efforts— that she can't find a group of volunteers to help dress the town up nicely in time for the big occasion, fearing that she'll have to rely on her cohorts like last year.
One morning, she finds herself sitting against the wall of the Video Outpost "Too" building, overwhelmed that she isn't going to have enough time to decorate all of Possum Springs. Not long thereafter, she happens upon Micah Huxley, who works at the very store Colleen rests against. Micah senses Colleen's anxiety and offers to sit with her for a bit to find out what's wrong.
Upon hearing Colleen's explanation, Micah offers to be of any assistance that she can be whenever she isn't working, even suggesting to create a few decorations herself, and this delights Colleen to no end. She may not have a team of volunteers, but any help she could get is more than appreciated. This interaction acquaints the two and, over the course of the season, their bond grows strong, as the two go out of their way to see each other every so often.
In this time, Micah secretly begins to develop a sense of found family in Colleen, seeing her as a mother figure. She does well in hiding it, but when she accidentally refers to Colleen as 'mom' in a conversation, feels more regret than she ever has before in her entire life and wishes to stop existing.
But Colleen doesn't mind in the slightest. In fact, she embraces the role, and tells Micah that she's like 'the daughter she never had', and as a result of this, both parties now share a found family bond with one another, and Colleen is never shy in working Micah into a conversation.
And with her role in Autumn Angels as an actual secondary character out of the way, now that's pretty much everything! I definitely intend on broadening her role and relationship with Micah later on down the line, though I find that what I've written for this post is certainly more than enough for now! Hopefully you've enjoyed reading the fruits of my research to uncover Colleen's true character because this was the most fun I've had writing a post in a while!
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corruptimles · 8 months
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MikuAllWeeku Day 7: Minecraft
And that's my last one! If I had time, I would've actually made a Miku with blocks. I did go into a game to take screencaps for the backgrounds tho. I hope everyone enjoyed the Mikus!
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sensitivesiren · 6 months
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(if someone has these screencaps please add them to this post - i'm technologically challenged)
I simply cannot get over the look that passes between Aziraphale and Crowley in s2ep2 when they restore Job's children and all of the angels turn to Aziraphale and ask if they're his new children, and we can see him squirm a little and dodge the question with "they certainly seem to be!" and then a few lines later the angels turn to him with an "Aziraphale, who are they?" an inescapable question, time is limited, he can't hesitate, but he LOCKS eyes with Crowley who is leaning against a post with his eyebrows raised in a whose side are you on stare.
And then it pans back to Aziraphale who hesitates, "They . . . are . . ."
and then he has this LOOK on his face, of acceptance, of resignation, and he makes eye contact with Crowley again, and says "They are . . . his new children."
He was ready to risk it all. Fully believing that he would fall for this. That look is a surrender. And he was ready to do it too.
He holds eye contact with Gabriel, blinking a lot, but not looking away. His smile doesn't reach his eyes. There's a brief moment of relief on his face when Gabriel claps him on the shoulder and believes his lie, but he knows that God will know what he's done. He fully believes he's going to fall for this.
And he looks to Crowley again, who applauds him. Aziraphale looks like he's going to be sick.
He's had several earth-shattering revelations in the last 24-ish hours.
Crowley (the demon) is good, and he believes it with his full chest.
God plays games for fun at the expense of others, and it's wrong.
Gluttony (he ate that entire ox)
Aziraphale believes that Crowley believes that blurring the lines between Good and Evil by questioning God and thwarting the will of heaven are exactly what caused Crowley's fall. (see you in hell)
Crowley and Aziraphale are on the same side, if temporarily, holding onto each other like a rock in a storm, with Aziraphale constantly looking to Crowley for reassurance, trusting him to have his back.
he's going to fall
I just feel like its overlooked that this was the FIRST TIME EVER that they teamed up (as angel and demon) and Aziraphale was fully ready to accept the consequences of that. He found something more important than choosing sides.
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pansear-doodles · 2 months
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Let me get things out of the way first: I've seen a lot of misinformation being passed around, on twitter especially where a lot of folks jump into conclusions more so they can find a reason to be angry. This thread will clear things up.
Yes. Ludeo is very much a company with zi*nist views. This is a screencap of a post made AFTER Is*ael made an attack on Palestine. For those who think initially: "they're just run by folks from Is*ael" then here's proof that they're actively agreeing with genocide.
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Videocult and Akupara DID NOT KNOW Ludeo had zi*nist views at the time they started collaborating, which dates from last year. It's only NOW that it's brought to attention by the RW community. They are working on arrangements in private as we speak.
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The collab has caused a lot of complications, as it is pretty much one of the reasons why the game's price is upped. Our voices have already reached them- they're very well aware that we are NOT happy with this.
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The feedback has of course reached the RW official server mods as well, and guess what: They didn't know until they were told. This is the first time they heard of this and they are very much making is very obvious that they do not agree with zi*nist views.
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Unfortunately a lot of people thought them shutting down the server and any discussions of this whole event is "silencing" Let's be real here. NOBODY in the community wanted this, and it is very stressful to deal with all of this. Mods are 1% of the server population and-
-they are human too. People have called them spineless which is pretty pathetic. They have to babysit 50K+ MEMBERS everyday and they don't need to deal with anymore upsets. And sending your concerns to them is pointless- give your feedback to videocult and akupara instead!
As someone with modding experience elsewhere, I cannot imagine handling a server as big as that. People were sent FUCKING DEATH THREATS and they think this will solve anything??? At this point, it's just people trying to find the closest proximities to be mad at.
It is pointless and I am so tired of mods being called weak when they're just doing their job and hate Ludeo as much as everyone else. I doubt these people don't know what its like to be a mod. Creating a strike in a server where its supposed to be chill isn't the way.
The mods even directed the people more useful and more impactful ways to send the feedback across. This isn't silencing. People are just too angry to think straight and just wanted chaos as the option- when in reality its going to do more damage than good.
The server is a getaway place- it is not a server about politics- it is about a fucking video game. It is not the way to get the feedback in the way that actually matters. The staff openly announced the situation and showed their views so they're not trying to hide it.
Anyway, if it isn't clear. I hate zi*nists too. I hate colonialism. I hate using religion as an excuse to hurt and belittle people. I want people of Palestine to be free and I am hopeful that their freedom will come.
Yet people are ripping out those who are on the same team as them, spreading vitriol and misinformation. Please, twitter, think and cite your sources. To think only in anger will fog your senses and do more harm than good.
The mods are passionate folks and they do their job for free, just to make a safe environment. You may disagree with them sometimes, but I think it is stupid to outright call them ignorant or zi*nists themselves.
It *is* unfortunate that the devs and publishers didn't do enough background check, but at least they took our feedback into incredible consideration. We are not stopping our disagreement of integrating Ludeo, until something is done about it. Let's wait for more updates.
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necronatural · 9 months
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Context on Project Moon discourse
I did some digging and watched some internet slapfights between Korean users, and collected as much context as humanly possible, trying to avoid hearsay where I can:
Misogynistic dudes start complaining about how sexless and non-waifu-female-heavy the game is, feeling the skimpy Sinclair outfit with the thotty little collar VS the fully covered Ishmael outfit is pointed feminist jeering (a law Hawkeye Initiative). Korean anti-feminists are really sensitive to pointed feminist jeering. More on that in a bit
Upon learning the identity artist is male, they trawl the rest of the staff to prove their stupid-ass theory.
They latch onto the lead CG artist, who has tweeted about feminism before.
Project Moon receives countless threats and people marching on their office IRL demanding to speak to the CEO.
The resulting hate campaign leads to Project Moon firing the lead artist for violation of contract; it was specifically requested by the company that all users delete political statements and controversial topics before joining, and the tweets the incels are using seem to prove that the worst case scenario for not adhering to the request has come to pass.
The thing is, she did delete the tweets.
This user has screencapped incels scrambling to justify their belief the game is for man-haters, including a statement that he had dug up deleted tweets. These are old records.
These are the retweets, all made before joining the company (but again, the policy was that the tweets like this should be scrubbed). Most of them are just being catty. The most extreme statements are a scathing satire even a child could understand, and some general feminist sentiments which are not incendiary in any way. It seems they were screencapped to cement a pattern of passionate feelings on feminism.
In Korea, feminism is considered a wedge issue, which means basic activism becomes extremely politically charged. Think of it like how trans issues are being treated in America at the moment, or how "Critical Race Theory" was a wedge issue like 2 years ago. Nevertheless, the most hateful statements in these tweets are not "feminist", but rather annoyance at misogyny, and pretty obviously jokes.
The tweet that the incels are latching onto here states "if being a feminist makes me Megalia, I am Megalia. If being against patriarchy makes me anti-social, I am anti-social". Megalia was a scumbag leftist radfem group originating from Korea's 4chan (anonymous messageboards). It was bad enough that banning gay slurs created a splinter group. Megalia was well-known for mirroring misogynistic behaviours back onto men. They were reviled. An actress lost her job for wearing a T-shirt this group sold, even though the funds were going to supporting women seeking legal actions. Association with Megalia was reputation poison.
Notice I refer to them in the past tense, because Megalia shut down in 2017. The tweet was in 2018. You could not get any more obvious that the statement being made was "you can insult me by calling me Megalia, but I still believe in feminism". There is no association with this incendiary group.
Incels "supported" their argument with an image of Yi Sang holding a vial in basically one of the only 2 ways you can hold a vial, calling it a reference to 🤏, an emoji used as the Megalia logo interpreted to mean "men have small penises". This insane interpretation is being used to cement the whole company as misandrist.
Therefore: Project Moon fired their lead artist even though she didn't violate her contract because insane incels did a "how dare you say we piss on the poor" bad faith misinterpretation of deleted tweets in order to justify their belief that Project Moon is a man-hating company, and as a man-hating company deserves to be annihilated, leading to threats to staff.
The artist for Leviathan later stated that Project Moon pushed the comic forward with no buffer, and when the schedule became unbearable, they just cancelled it. They were told there was an issue with production (supported by the fact the company dropped the translation in favour of focusing on the game), but this news has made the artist pessimistic about the company's treatment of their art team. (Update: deleted, with a statement they feel they felt attached to their debut work, and struggle with feeling like they ran away.)
Here's the artist Vellmori's twitter if you would like to support them through this period.
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thankskenpenders · 10 months
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As I'm sure many of you are already aware, Did You Know Gaming (who have been doing some really great investigative work lately) recently put out a video on canceled Sonic games. The whole thing's worth a watch, but I have to bring it up here specifically because they talk about the plans for Sonic Chronicles 2 with a LOT of new info directly from the lead designer.
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The section on how the story of Sonic Chronicles 2 would have went starts at 9:45. It's very interesting! He outlines the whole plot, including the fact that they were going to end with ANOTHER obvious plot hook for a sequel in the hopes that they or some other studio could keep the Sonic Chronicles series going indefinitely. Sonic Team even claimed they were interested in using Chronicles characters like Shade in other games. It's crazy to imagine a timeline where this might have become a pillar of the franchise.
I refuse to mourn the loss of the sequel, though, because y'all saw me stream the original. It was miserable. And with the original game selling and reviewing decently well, they would have had little reason to go back to the drawing board and overhaul that game's bizarrely hateful design.
Of course, DYKG also had to talk about the reason why the game was canceled. I was dreading this because of how often people tend to get the basic facts of the Penders cases wrong or downplay the obvious Archie Knuckles inspiration in Chronicles. But no, they did their homework! And they got the details right in part because, well... they asked Penders for comment directly. And he sent them back a MASSIVE wall of text about the whole ordeal, including some fascinating details that I don't believe I've heard before!
You can go to 15:19 in the video and scrub through to read the many, MANY screencaps of their emails from Ken, but here are the most interesting and/or hilarious tidbits to me:
#1: Perjury!
As we already knew, Ken claimed that the incomplete, photocopied contract Archie presented in court was a forgery, and that he had never signed a work for hire contract.
The judge obviously knew that one side had to be lying here, and thus was more than willing to present the case to a jury to let them decide the truth... and send whoever was deemed the liar to jail for perjury. (The judge apparently looked Ken directly in the eye when he said this, which... well, make of that what you will.)
Archie's lawyers knew that they didn't have a completely airtight case and obviously did not want to go to jail. So they decided to settle instead of going to trial in front of a jury.
(I will reiterate that Archie's arguments not working out is overall a GOOD thing, because we really do not want to set a legal precedent where corporations can "lose" a contract for a creator, make up a story about what was on the contract, and then have that hold up in court. They gotta get that shit in writing. And they didn't. They fucked up!)
#2: Sega was threatening to revoke the Sonic license!
As we knew, Sega wanted nothing to do with the comic copyright lawsuit. To them, it was Archie's job as licensee to deal with their freelancers. (Y'all watch Succession? You know how Logan loves lackeys who will eat shit for him without him having to even hear about the problem? Yeah.) And, in fact, according to Ken, Sega gave Archie an ultimatum: if they wanted their license to make Sonic comics renewed, they were gonna have to deal with Ken on their own, and cover all the costs.
Yeah, uh, this kinda makes me think that Sega being pissed about the ongoing Scott Fulop copyright case in 2016 may have been a bigger factor in Archie Sonic's cancellation than I previously thought. There was a lot going on at the time that could have contributed, but, y'know.
Anyway, Archie sued Ken for "damaging their business" largely because Sega was threatening to take away the Sonic IP. But because Archie couldn't ask Sega for help and they couldn't produce an original contract, they had to settle.
There's another detail I find funny here, though. Ken WANTED Sega to get involved in the comic copyright case, thinking that Sega would strongarm Archie into paying him the millions of dollars he wanted for "using his work without permission" so that they could be done with it. I mean, sure. I guess Sega wouldn't have cared about Archie's finances, but still. I'm not so sure that would've worked out for him.
#3: Shade!
Yes, Penders still claims he legally owns Shade, and under advice from his lawyer still intends to put out an NFT of her to put his claim to the test. Yes, it's incredible that he still hasn't put out the damn NFT. It only needs to be one image, which he already drew! The market has collapsed!
Anyway, building an argument off the legal concept of estoppel, he says that if Sega continues to not do anything about his claims that he owns Shade then, in the eyes of the court, they'll be forfeiting their claims to Shade altogether. But they aren't going to do anything because they never wanted any part in the copyright battles in the first place, and to them Chronicles is a long dead asset not worth fighting over. Why bother trying to use Shade again and giving Ken a reason to take them back to court when they can just move on? It's not like this franchise is short on characters. And so Ken can say that Shade and Julie-Su are literally the same character, and if he owns Julie-Su then therefore he also owns Shade.
Our copyright system is, indeed, a nightmare. Chronicles should have been halfway to the public domain by now.
#4: Sega's oversight on the Archie comics!
Ken says that in his first year on the series Sega only requested some dialogue changes here and there through the editor. They never requested huge script changes, and also never spoke to Ken directly. After that first year, they stopped asking for dialogue changes altogether, and Ken "had a free hand to do pretty much whatever he wanted." Yeah, no surprise there.
He does, however, say that Archie's original deal with Sega stated that they weren't allowed to create ANY new Sonic characters without informing Sega. They would've needed to make a contract every single time to get Sega's approval and make it absolutely crystal clear that Sega owned the whole cast. And then Archie just... didn't do that! And didn't tell any of the freelance creatives not to come up with new characters! Had Archie followed this rule, the trajectory of the comics would have been completely different, but there also never would've been a copyright battle in the first place.
What a shitshow. Truly.
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duhragonball · 2 months
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Akira Toriyama (1955-2024)
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I wouldn't say I'm feeling better today, but I'm feeling less bad than yesterday. So let's see if I can put some words together.
In case anyone still hasn't heard, Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama passed away on March 1, 2024. This news was made public on March 7 or 8. I woke up early on Friday morning and found out while I was checking Twitter. I had a long, busy day at work, and I kept getting on my phone to scroll through fan reactions and tributes.
I think that, more than anything, is what's gotten me so worked up about his death. My Twitter timeline and my tumblr dashboard were just chock full of touching message and images about how Akira Toriyama's work has changed their lives. I wanted to write my own tribute, but I'm not sure what else I can say that hasn't already been expressed by Archie Comics, professional wrestling trio The New Day, and the Republic of El Salvador.
There's this immense, global community of fans, and it's easy to lose sight of just how big it is. It's easy to get bogged down in the infighting and petty squabbles. I saw one tweet responding to the criticism of Dragon Ball not being like this "entry level" franchise compared to other, more high brow anime and manga. It's popular with so many people, that critics will assume it's designed to appeal to the lowest-common-denominator. But the opposite is true! Dragon Ball is accessible, which is how so many people from so many different places and walks of life can get into it. The guy telling the story was such a master storyteller that he could grab an audience's attention and make it look easy. So easy that the haters would start to think that it was a trick, and he must be overrated.
Let me talk about this panel for a minute.
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Last night I started going through the original manga, looking for panels to screencap. I wasn't sure what I wanted to do, but I thought maybe a selection of panels that really stood out for me might be worth posting. I'll probably still do that one of these days, but I got to this one, where Gohan tells Chi-Chi about Goku's death, and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
This was a powerful scene in the anime, of course, but in the comic it's even more profound. It's just one panel, no dialogue, because the reader already knows what's happening here. We know Gohan is telling his mother that Goku died in the Cell Games, and that he refuses to be wished back, because he thinks his presence on Earth will attract new enemies. It was hard enough to hear when Goku said it to Gohan and the others, and now Gohan has to relay that message to Goku's wife. All she can do is lie prostate on the floor and weep.
And look at the composition. She's surrounded by all that negative space. Gohan's there for her, but she still feels so alone, surrounded by her husband's absence. Pots of flour for food he'll never eat. An empty chair he might have sat in. Their son, who will have to grow up without him.
I saw this, as though for the first time, and it was so gut-wrenching that I had to post it by itself. I felt like it summed up my feelings better than any words could. We're all Chi-Chi in this panel, reacting to Akira Toriyama's death. And we're all Gohan too, each of us consoling one another with our own thoughts and tributes.
So what did Akira Toriyama mean to us all? Lots of people have answered this in a lot of different ways. Obviously his art, storytelling and cultural impact speak for themselves. I've seen people compare him to other luminaries like Jack Kirby and Osamu Tezuka. I'll try to add my own two cents with this:
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I wrote a post about "Dragon Ball Daima" back when it was first announced, and I led off with this image of a note from Akira Toriyama. I guess this was from some big fancy presentation about Daima at a convention. I forget which one. In particular, I was skeptical that the Daima rumors were even true, and if they were, the whole idea seemed half-baked to me. Turning Goku into a kid had been done before, and it wasn't exactly successful the first time.
But this note from Toriyama was very reassuring to me. More than the trailer clips and character designs, this was what got me interested in the show. That's because he took the time to not only hype up the show, but also to explain what's going on behind the premise. He took the time to tell everyone that he's working on this show, and what "Daima" means, and why all the characters get turned into kids. It's "due to a conspiracy", and the good guys will have to "fix things". In short, he established a plot, conflict, and resolution to the story. He didn't just slap this together to sell new merch. I'm sure that was part of the motivation to make Daima, but there's more to it than that.
I think that's the loss I feel with Toriyama's passing. It's not that there won't be new Dragon Ball stories in the future. I'm sure others will continue telling their own versions long after I'm gone. I'm not that worried about the fate of Daima. I'm sure they'll figure something out, whether it's delayed, rewritten, or canceled. But we'll never see another message from Toriyama to promote a new project, and that's what I'll miss. From here on, his credit will just be an acknowledgement of his past contributions.
There's this great credibility with Akira Toriyama's name. Fans will argue about how involved he was in a project as a way of establishing how good or bad it was. Dragon Ball GT has his name on the credits, and he provided some designs and artwork early on, and for some fans that proves the series has his endorsement. For others, the sole problem with the show is that he wasn't directly writing the script. There's similar debates over Dragon Ball Super, where he was involved, but only writing those mysterious "notes". So if a fan doesn't like something in DBS, who do they blame? Did Toriyama lose his touch, or did his co-creators fumble the ball? Dragon Ball Evolution basically ignored all of Toriyama's advice and bombed, while Battle of Gods, Resurrection F, Broly, and Super Hero all put Toriyama's writing credits up at the very beginning, and each film made plenty of money. I read his comments on the Daima confirmation, and immediately thought "Okay, this should be pretty good. Akira Toriyama knows what's up."
That's gone now. I mean, there's still a lot of talent out there, but we'll never again have the little gas mask-wearing robot telling us that this story will be good because he worked on making it good. I don't think I really appreciated how much I trusted that guy until now. I still can't believe he's really gone.
I'll probably have more to say about this in the coming days, but I'll stop here for now. Thanks for letting me ramble a bit on this.
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