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#i dont think i have a purpose tbh
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devotion
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iratusmus · 1 year
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fiona fox is the love + light of my life . also no i am not taking any criticism on her questionable tshirt collection i can and will defend all of my choices.
also bonus artist commentary in the alt text
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clonehub · 1 year
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Intervention for Rex where a bunch of other clones who deserted surround him and keep asking him questions like "a lifetime of war doesn't sound awful to you? Who was it that told you that all you're good for is fighting wars for people whod spit on you and deny you your rights given half a chance? Why are you proud of only being made to die? Where is anyone arguing for your safety, fighting for your right to freedom from tyranny? What are you running from? What future exactly are you running toward? Is continuing to fight noble or tragic?"
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myloish · 5 months
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there's this thing with critical role (and RP shows in general but most of my experience is with CR,) where you are aware that you are watching both a narrative unfold in real-time, but that it is also being done through a group of people who are also having fun, and making jokes, and are really tuned in for the moment
and so because of this, sometimes things in-game happen because someone at the table was feeling a little sillay, and sometimes that has long-term ramifications (🦌🐟). and sometimes it's a spur of the moment thing that could be important, but there are a lot of important things going on, and so it gets pushed under the rug
it also doesn't help that sessions are at least a week apart, and it just seems difficult to carry too much negative energy between characters week-to-week. If this were all happening consecutively to a written character, they'd feel the frustrations pile up fast. but there's a lot of breathing room between all of the small things, and unless someone deliberately keeps note of those things and repeatedly brings them up (bard's lament), they do kind of just get dropped.
and so you end up with people who are just like. waiting for imogen to tear orym apart because he gave laudna a beat of approval for the bor'dor incident. you end up with people who spent the entirety of late CR2 waiting for the nein to reckon with how they mistreated, or at least underappreciated, caduceus. (🙋‍♀️)
and on the one hand it's like, yeah, these actions could have consequences. and it'd be really great if that did get explored in canon. but it's also funny going from scathing twitter threads about the weak, fractal connections of these characters that are sure to blow up in their face, and then the next episode imogen is giving orym a piggyback ride through the sky.
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waterghostype · 1 month
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i will be honest i like cole x vania. like should it ever be canon? never absolutely not. is it adorable to think about in the comfort of my head? yes yay woohoo!
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b4kuch1n · 1 year
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review of every type of meat that’s ever been subjected to me
disclaimers: this will include offals when I have personal experiences with that. score is subjected to personal taste and accessibility price- and prep-wise. YMMV, etc., etc. "meat" here includes non-mammal non-avian animals, as long as it comes directly from the body (which means eggs and such are not included). I tried to find the closest english word for some of these that I only know as local ingredients, but the taxonomical orders at least should be correct.
pork: 9/10. classic. a bit finicky to prep and cook, which is why it doesn't get full mark, but re-heats nicely. very versatile, though on the heavy side as is the case with most bigger animals. the amount of fat and gelatin that comes with a belly cut makes it ideal for new year aspic, which very few other types of meat can be used for. pig offals are of acceptable textures most of the times, though they've overall softened as time goes on, which may lead to one point docked as I don't like that texture.
chicken: 8/10. also very versatile and takes on spices very well, but experiences may vary much more due to the large difference in texture and taste between dark and light meat on a chicken. the big reason why I mark chicken one point lower than pork is that I find reheated chicken much less pleasant than reheated pork. phantom extra point for show of skill with eating bone-in chicken with chopsticks. remove phantom extra point for overrepresentation in every offering meal. offals are inoffensive, but overly soft for my taste. blood however is more tolerable than pig blood.
beef: 8/10. I love beef. beef is great to eat and great to cook, especially viet beef, since you're either sautéing it on high or stewing it until it falls apart anyway. but not only is beef expensive, quality also varies greatly with different price points. beef fat is also very hard to deal with and it makes me mad to throw away a whole puck of fat. as a casual source of protein it falls firmly into the "more troubles than it's worth" category. the one thing keeping its score in the high range is phở and beef jerky.
duck: 9/10. far superior to chicken in my sincere opinion, but a chore to eat in the summer. in no way an every day meal, but this only secure its place as a treat, which gets it graded on the treat ladder, and it scores high there. the only thing keeping it from perfection is the heavier musk that limits its versatility compared to its land-bound counterpart.
muscovy duck: 7/10. taste-wise deeper than duck, but texture-wise much chewier, which makes eating it even more of a task. cooking options have been pretty much limited to roast and poach. it being bigger than a duck makes prepping and portioning it just slightly off as well, so most often you go out to eat it, which docks point for convenience.
squab: 6/10. the problem here is maybe lack of dedication to the craft. or maybe it's that it's very little, not very exciting meat for too much effort. putting a tentative question mark here for this score because I believe there is a squab experience out there that doesn't feel gimmicky but will blow the doors wide open to new horizons for me. I see potential in this, and I'm not yet sick of disappointment.
silk worm: 8/10. the reason why it's not getting a higher score is because there's one single dish I like with it as an ingredient, which is roasted dried silk worm with fish sauce, but the reason why the score's still an eight is because that dish slaps mad shit. it tentatively falls on the treat scale because it's not very easy to acquire, but once you get a bag of it you're pretty much set for several months, so I would still consider it casual-meal-worthy. may be an acquired taste, but I fully recommend acquiring that taste.
snail: 5/10. abhorrent texture, mild taste. better as ingredients for more complex dishes than as a standalone protein. my mom likes it though so it gets passing grade.
oyster: 3/10. worse texture than snail, even worse taste. doesn't get better when you season it, only makes the seasoning itself worse. not getting a zero only because it's good for blood and I'm open to a chance of redemption down the road.
shrimp/crab: 6/10. get the same mark because I eat them at the same frequency and the amount of paperwork required to eat them is equally excessive. take on spices fairly well, but it's not enough. if I could hold a crab like a hamburger and take a big bite this score would change. saved from the mid grade by their seasoning quality for delectable summer broths.
eel: 4/10. the only good way I've found to eat eel is to deep fry it until it denatures and turns into basically seaweed chips. this is good for sour soup rice noodle, but for that same palate a number of different fishes do the job better with more personality. it's okay with a heap of sauce japanese style, but the price discourages exploration.
tuna: 7/10, and mostly for canned tuna salad. eaten raw I find it mid and unexciting. a nice tuna salad sandwich is fun and childlike in its appreciation of the simple things though, so I wholely respect it.
salmon: 9/10. about as versatile as a seafood can get, and is fun to experience in any form. only one point docked for price and lack of excitement - I also, like with squab and oyster, await a life-changing salmon experience that makes this protein perfect once and for all.
clam worm: 8/10. like with silk worm, I only find it edible in one single form, which is minced clam worm patty fried up, but it excels at that one single thing. also stays in the high grade for fun factor of being a seasonal treat.
frog: 6/10. I really like frog legs. it has the tenderness of white fish with the ease of access of a chicken wing, and the taste is delicate in a delightful way. but I really dislike most of the rest of the frog to put in my mouth. this makes it kinda wasteful as a meat option. overall just kinda better enjoyed alive than cooked for like a third of its body.
dog/cat: 3/10. grouped up once again because they're equally unpleasant texture-wise and limited in prep options. I find meat from mammals of this size downward soft in a really off, is-it-going-bad-or-is-it-just-like-this way. the musk borders on off-putting, which is why prep options are limited to heavy seasoning and stew or roast. overall just way too little bangs for their bucks.
rabbit: 5/10. texturally worse than dog and cat, but the musk is much lighter and takes on seasoning much better. not really something you can find casually in the wet market, so exploration of the possibilities here isn't of convenience. this score may be subjected to change in the future.
deer: 6/10. interesting taste, but tough texture and a bit hard to figure out how to season. very hard to get one's hand on in the city, and honestly from my exposure to it I wouldn't go out of my way to acquire a cut. firmly in the "sure, if I come across it" category.
water buffalo: 6/10. beef but chewier. makes for good drinking food, but I barely drink, so mostly not my thing. also limited in ways to prep - most commonly sautéd with garlic or made into jerky. I feel like there's a depth to this protein I cannot access, which makes me mad, but also earns it respect.
field mouse: 4/10. texturally even worse than rabbit, taste-wise extremely inoffensive. verges on the low end because it just raises the question of why. why is this a local specialty. it's mouse, dude. you can not be gentrifying that. they failed to make it a big deal btw so I'm correct on this one.
lobster: 6/10. gets this score for lobster freaks who spent decades studying how to make this big shrimp taste better and furiously honed their craft with cheese and butter and garlic. 80% of lobster experiences happen at the hands of those people, so the median score averages out at pretty ok. I am, however, lactose intolerant, and thus unwelcomed by these lobster zealots. this, combined with lobster being a luxury food, lowers the score to slightly above passing grade.
snake: 5/10. literally the only impression it left me with was that it was snake meat ooh how rare and cool. texturally more pleasant than eel and more versatile, but that ends up landing it squarely in the “utterly unremarkable” zone. at least now I’m pretty confident I would bite a chunk off a snake if I’m ever lost in a jungle with no way out. passing grade for the worth of information.
horse: 7/10. has the taste depth of deer, but with the texture of beef when simmered for a long time. literally had this first time today so my experience with it is extremely limited, but I can't really imagine it being easy to chew if roasted. two outstanding features are that the fat is really nice to eat even in larger pieces, and the blood cooks into a texturally acceptable jelly, which is not the case with any other animal blood for me. score may be up to change in the future as well.
mantis shrimp: 8/10. lobster wishes it has the playful zeal and easy-going nature of mantis shrimp. the amount of paperwork required to enjoy mantis shrimp is half of shrimp's or crab's, and texture-wise it's just better. literally crack this one in half like a flip phone and put some salt and lime on it, that's a treat. so far the gold standard for shelled seafood. only gets an eight because I don't really think about eating it every day, but I have hope this can be turned around in a shocking and life-changing event as well.
anchovy: this one doesn't get a score due to its ritualistic importance. really is included here because I ritually cleaned and cooked way too many of these so a job I was gunning for could go through successfully. it worked btw. still don't know if I recommend it
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hexados-on-a-string · 11 months
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mylene is so interesting to me bc like. she just chucks elico out as soon as she gets a mechanical replacement with macubass. and i think she's the only villain so callous about their guardian bakugan???
most villains still care about their bakugan and usually actually share the same goals and are on the same wavelength, birds of a feather and all that. like even characters like kazarina, cruel as she is, still are fond of their guardian bakugan. and theres characters like spectra and barodius who's plans center around their guardian bakugan, and are actively encouraged by those bakugan.
even characters who's guardian bakugan dont necessarily get along with them all the time, like avior and mason's constant bickering, are still friends. meanwhile mylene just. throws elico out. and also takes brontes from volt and throws him out as well. i think whats also interesting, since the show likes to bring up spectra and mylene parallels, is how spectra uses machines to upgrade and evolve helios, while mylene outright replaces elico with a machine.
but it's not like she's shown to be like. completely heartless either. she calls volt her friend even though she threw out brontes beforehand. she stands up for hydron when zenoheld takes his anger out on him. she has some weird friendship with shadow prove.
i think she was the vehicle to show the general vestal opinion on bakugan, since mylene only sees her bakugan as weapons and when she loses she blames the loss on them. (meanwhile i think volt is supposed to show that not all vestals are THAT bad, even if they are part of the king's entourage of fucked up teenage celebrity theatre kids). and i think she's very interesting bc of that. anyways i love mylene.
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soldier-poet-king · 11 months
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Just had to rescue a baby bird hatchling (not a fledgling!) that my Nonna's neighbour DELIBERATELY MOVED THE NEST OF??? and like if this bird dies it's MY FAULT for not knowing what to do and I'm going to CRY and everything is SO MUCH all the TIME I want to go HOME
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waywardsalt · 11 months
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my grievances with botw
Breath of the Wild is... undeniably a fantastic game, but it is very genuinely not the kind of game I like, and since I started playing it I’ve been enjoying it less and less so... I have a pair of problems with it that I’d figure I’d go into, as well as some stuff that, while weak in botw, were executed better in past loz games.
(small shoutout to @zeldanamikaze for encouraging this and having some points that i agree with and had some examples that i hadn’t thought about much initially)
Again, Breath of the Wild is an objectively impressive game, and I’m not trying to sit here and convince you that it’s a bad game. I’m just trying to point out things that detracted from my enjoyment of it, especially compared to my enjoyment of other Zelda games.
Before I get into the big stuff, I’ll just shoot off some quick little things that I think could’ve been improved:
- The dungeons generally felt like glorified shrines, and while they had cool mechanics and ways to access them, they were short and more or less pretty simple and all have similar visual and musical identities.
- Side quests and their rewards didn’t feel worth doing half of the time. I barely remember any notable ones off the top of my head and the longer ones just gave mostly generic rewards, which I suppose makes sense considering the limited amount of truly unique items in botw.
- Seeing the same enemies over and over again made the combat feel more like a chore than something to really engage with, not to mention that there is hardly any difficulty scaling beyond just making the enemies more durable.
- The story is fine, but in my experience, even seeing people go into more detail about the meanings of events, I never really cared for the events or the characters presented, since you don’t actually have to directly interact with any of that to play the game. Hell, you don’t even need to interact with the story at all to beat it, so the focus certainly doesn’t feel like it’s on the story.
- It would be a lie to call the soundtrack bad, but it’s sparse usage makes it hard to truly appreciate and the fact that most of it is meant to be more atmospheric generally makes them a bit less interesting to listen to on their own, though I will admit there are some fantastic tracks in botw, usually being some of the boss themes.
- While the Sheikah slate runes are cool, they feel very bland after a while, especially compared to the varied items seen in previous games. They’re good tools for an open world, but not much fun otherwise (the bombs were good though, since they had a variety of uses).
And that’s the quick stuff- again, mostly courtesy of @zeldanamikaze, since these are the examples I’ve seen her mention.
I have two big points that kind of encapsulate why I dislike this game and still adore the older games, that being: the minigames and the items and their relationships to dungeons.
Breath of the Wild is a very different game than what came past it, and I am very aware that it is a vast departure from those other games for a reason. However, this leads me to view it not only simply as a game not up my alley, but also as kind of inferior in some aspect to those previous Zelda games. Breath of the World is first and foremost an open world game, seemingly putting a focus on gameplay enjoyment above all else (not to imply that the ‘else’ is bad because of this, but I do think that the ‘else’ suffers in comparison to other Zelda titles.)
It may also be worth mentioning that the other Zelda games I have played is the following: LoZ NES, Link’s Awakening (Original and Remake), Ocarina of Time, Majora’s Mask, Phantom Hourlgass, Skyward Sword, A Link Between Worlds, and Triforce Heroes. I have also played both hyrule warriors games as well as loz 2, wind waker, and minish cap, none of the latter 3 i have finished or currently have access to.
1: The Minigames
Minigames are common in Zelda games, so of course botw has a few scattered around it’s world. Botw’s minigames are very different than the minigames seen in past Zelda games, mostly due in part to the limited array of items and unique gameplay gimmicks available in botw. Botw’s minigames usually focus on different forms of archery, gliding, or rune usage: all things integral to normal gameplay. At best you get rupees or cosmetic items from most minigames.
Botw’s minigames are just slightly altered situations of normal gameplay. The bowling is just using stasis except this time the game has a special little arena for it. Pretty much all of the archery games are either just counting how many deer you can kill or if you can just hit some targets on horseback. There’s one race I can think of and one gliding activity I can think of.
This makes sense, considering that there are a handful of other non-minigame activities to engage in, but these minigames feel... hollow. None of the minigames feature gameplay exclusive to those minigames or feature gameplay only used in certain parts of the game. They all make use of readily available mechanics in botw, so they’re like tests of skill- but otherwise not really any worth giving a second-thought unless you want to see how good of a glider or archer you are or grab some extra rupees.
But they aren’t very... worth it or generally fun within the context of botw. It’s just another way to do something that is available to you pretty much all game. They don’t feel unique, they just feel like a task.
Previous Zelda games (obviously) have archery minigames and allow you to use archery when you get the bow and from that point onward. And yet the archery minigames are made unique from the rest of the archery in the game; ocarina of time’s archery minigame is simply just shooting at targets, but the possible rewards and the simple fact that not often are you going to be continuously shooting arrows at enemies make it a bit of a novel experience within oot. The minigames in past zelda games take advantage of the items and area-specific mechanics: they usually include item-exclusive mechanics like bombchu games, or take advantage of more specific mechanics, like the minecarts in skyward sword, the masks in majora’s mask, or being able to control gongoron in phantom hourglass.
They also gave genuine rewards- empty bottles, quest items, ship parts, new masks, heart containers or pieces, kinds of stuff that are hard to get and very valuable. They’re worth doing for reasons outside of just a little activity. The minigames in other Zelda games do really enhance the experience by taking advantage of situational mechanics or giving a unique usage for some items.
You can probably get every item in botw without playing all of the minigames. They have little actual purpose. But in other zelda games, they have a purpose in the greater game and provide novel experiences within the game.
2: Items and their relationships with the dungeons
Obviously, compared to past games, botw’s ‘dungeons’ kind of sucked. They’re fine in a vacuum, with interesting gimmicks and the like, but they’re really little more than glorified shrines with four different-but-similar bosses at the end.
In my opinion, one of reasons why the divine beasts just... fell flat compared to other zelda dungeons is the lack of unique items in general. The runes in botw are cool and useful but you get them at the start of the game and never get anything new. You are give every tool you need to beat all of the dungeons the moment you finish the tutorial.
Older zelda games’ dungeons being tied to their respective items is a big part- to me- of what makes those dungeons so good.
Obviously, the theming, musical themes, and larger layouts and more varied puzzles make them objectively better experiences, but the way they interact with item acquisition makes the whole thing even better. 
Even in a link between worlds, where you can get every item whenever you want from Ravio, each dungeon is still tied to one of those items, and one of those items is needed to successfully complete that dungeon.
The dungeons in past Zelda games are practically complex tutorials on how you can use your new items. They are where those items shine and they are designed so that those items are used to their fullest potential within. And then you must then use that item to defeat that dungeon’s boss, and you usually have no chance of beating that boss if you don’t make use of the dungeon’s associated item. It’s like a final test for the item, seeing if you know how it works enough to complete the dungeon and use it against a boss’s weaknesses.
The most recent example, and probably one of the best, is needing to use the whip to tear off koloktos’ arms in the ancient cistern, but the classic scenario of the bombs for king dodongo works well enough, and the bosses of majora’s mask requiring you to understand how the transformation masks work. There are definitely some bosses that require no use of dungeon items (moldorm in the tower of hera, either ghirahim fights), but the item’s usage is still showcased prominently in their dungeons.
Outside of the dungeons, too, the progressive acquisition of items makes more areas and secrets available to you, giving a much more palpable sense of progression through those games’ worlds.
In botw, you get every tool the moment you are released into the rest of hyrule, so while figuring out what to do with those tools can be fun, the sense of progression is dampened by having every item from the start and nothing you gain beyond that being needed for anything aside from a nice little ability to make things easier.
I’m not really too sure exactly why I never found botw fun the way everyone else does, but I think lackluster minigames and the general lack of items that aid a sense of progression are parts of it.
#loz#legend of zelda#botw#salty talks#i feel like im swinging at a hornets nest by suggesting that this game isn't perfect#cuz everywhere you look this game is praised incessantly while its like. i think its fine at best tbh#because it's really not to my tastes#i highly prefer the experience that the other loz games provide and botw dropped off for me while i still enjoy those games#like. open world games arent really my thing and a game packed to the gills with just as much shit as possible is a major turn off for me#this was going to have three points but playing totk exhausted me mentally and i dont really care any more. i dont find these games fun#the tutorial islands felt tedious after a bit and like. idk. good game but i have yet to find myself actually having fun with it#it kinda feels like its fun in concept but the fact that it doesnt necessarily feel got to play to me and progress is slow and based on#like. slow exploration? its fine but its not something i actually enjoy. its not teh difficulty bc i like elden ring and hades n stuff#like. i have more fun with ph than totk. idk. playing totk was like. entertaining? but it kinda ust felt hollow to me#granted i just like. unlocked the first tower and did some shrines but like. idk. good game. i don't think i actually like it too much#i really think these two points kind of maybe explain why these games just fail to click with me#things in older zelda games have specific purposes and can be more situational than pretty much anything in botw/totk so far#it feels. better. to find an item that fits a specific purpose in older loz games. they're more gimmicky.#i feel that open world games (similar to botw/totk) are dragged down by the sheer freedom they allow to me at least#there's too much to do and you're allowed to do whatever so it all feels kind of. standard theres not much purpose to it#the tedium of botw/totk is much more grating than the tedium i experience in skyward sword's lanayru desert#because you HAVE to go through and figure out lanayru desert to continue the story get new items find new dungeons#botw/totk you kinda just get some items and maybe a lackluster quest or some fucking environment thing#long post#idk. im not too far into totk while writing this but rn in a weird way it and botw feel empty to me in a way i cant express#i enjoyed botw at first but after beating it and all it just felt kinda boring and unsatisfying to replay
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you ever see someone reply to u with such a long take that reads everything u said in bad faith and also puts words in ur mouth and ??? im so confused
#i asked a blog i used to follow not to tag the aro posts they rb as aroace cuz the post wasnt just about aroacesit only said aromantics#right#like this is an issue in aro spaces guys like it'll be an aro post that mentions sexuality or lack thereof nowhere in it#and it'll still be rb'ed and tagged with aroace#bc the blogger had like. rb'ed aroallo specific posts and tagged them as aroallo so i didnt get why they were rb'ing??? aro posts as#aroace when the post i was talking abt did not. mention anything other than aromanticism#like if theyre just doing it for aro organization purposes they should have tagged the one they rb'ed w aroace as aroallo too right?#but they didnt so thats why i brought it up and i mentioned that they didnt tag it as aroallo#again: the post i was talking to them abt did not mention asexuality or allosexuality at all#and they??? got back to me by??? talking abt how aroaces are still aromantic???#i n. i never said they werent? i said. not to tag aro posts with aroace if. it only mentions arospecs and not!!! sexuality anywhere#like i didnt. i never say not to tag it with just aro. i would have preferred it be just aro tbh as thats all that post was about#and then they said??? that me being like 'i'm not trying to be mean or anything' is. admitting that i'm being mean#???????????#and. yknow how i said if they're tagging aroace for aro organization purposes they should be tagging aroallo too if theyre#just tagging any posts that mention aromantics with aroace#i think they were claiming that they did and my suggesting they do that was ?? an admission of acephobia?? or something#but they blocked me now so i cant even ask for clarification on anything so whatever i guess#anyway. dont assume aros are ace just bc theyre aro. same goes for aro posts~
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bardengarde · 2 months
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Every now and again I'd like to post my takes on the Trapper vs BJ debate, but I won't because I value my sanity and because I love both characters for different reasons- why do they have to fight???
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ajarofpickledtears · 1 year
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uhhh ok, spoiler for M3gan warning I suppose
I still cannot get over the moment where she started singing Titanium, like, at least half of the people in the room laughed
like yeah please sing me to sleep with a random part of a Sia song that also refers to the fact that you literally partly are made from titanium
or the fact that Katie's parent went on vacation to go skiing but didn't have snow/tire chains like??? you were aware there was gonna be snow, right??? and only stopping once they really couldn't see anymore, in the middle of the road
bruh
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floralovebot · 3 months
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Hope you don’t mind me asking but…What do you think Riven is supposed to be in terms of coded Race or ethnicity?
When it comes to winx club and what race each character is supposed to be (or at least be coded as), its genrrally not very hard to guess. Like the winx are obvious because they’re directly modeled after real celebrities, but the specialists are a little less obvious, though still fairly easy to guess. Sky and Timmy are generally assumed to be white, it’s fairly certain amongst fans that Helia is supposed to be Asian, Nabu is South Asian, and Brandon…well he’s a little on the ambiguous side but I’ve seen a good amount of people headcanon him as Latino….and y’know what…as a latina, I’ll take it along with the canon rep that Flora (and MAYBE Stella??? I say that cause Cameron Diaz is of Cuban descent on one side, so it’s possible Stella could be read as a white passing/half Hispanic/Latina) gives us.
However with all that, Riven is really unclear to me. I see headcanons vary from him being asian, latino, white, or a mix of at least two of those…and Idk what to think tbh.
LOVE THIS
And honestly, this might be a disappointing answer, but the truth is that his race is fully ambiguous in every way possible. Sometimes fans say "ambiguous", but what they really mean is "definitely true, but not explicitly canon". For example, Nabu is South Asian in that kind of ambiguous way, where it is very, very clear, but not explicitly stated. (And let's be honest, the only reason some fans consider Nabu ambiguous is because he's dating Aisha, a black woman, and they can't imagine a non-black dark-skinned man dating a black woman, but I digress...)
Riven's race, however, is actually ambiguous in its true definition.
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We don't know what planet Riven is from. It's never stated or even implied. We don't know where his family is from. It's never stated or implied. We don't know anything about his culture, how he was raised (outside of likely poor and single-parented), where he lived, if he had any friends, etcetc. Compared to other characters, we really don't know much about Riven's background other than his mom left him.
Sometimes people try to figure it out. Some people use his eye shape as evidence for him being Asian, despite the fact that other canonically non-Asian characters also have more narrow eyes (Flora being the best example). Some people use his hair color as evidence that he's from Zenith, but that really means nothing when it comes to his race, and Tecna being white isn't a good defense for that. Some people use his eye color being purple and Musa's eye color being purple as evidence that he is Asian, but considering Helia's eye color is blue and there are most definitely non-Asian characters with purple eyes too, that also means nothing. He never wears culturally significant or identifiable clothing. And no, I don't think his British flag shirt is anything more than Rainbow trying to make them look fashionable and trendy.
Riven's race is truly ambiguous. His racial identity can actually be read in more than one way. And honestly, I think this lends itself to a very impactful reading on his character as a whole. We know that Riven didn't have the best childhood. We know that he doesn't have a relationship with his mother, and he never brings up his father or anyone else in his family. It's very heavily implied that Riven's relationship with his family is rocky at best and nonexistent at worst.
Now obviously, in real life, someone having a bad relationship with their family doesn't just erase their genetics. That's true even in winx club - Musa has a fraught relationship with her father for the better part of season 1, but we can still tell she's East Asian. That being said, winx club is a fictional, animated show with drawn and intentionally designed characters. Just like Flora is designed to look sweet and girly, Riven is designed to look mysterious and angsty.
I truly believe that as an audience, we're not supposed to know much about his past, and in winx club, that includes his family, his planet, and subsequently, his race and ethnicity. Riven can be seen as Asian, White, mixed, Latino, Hispanic, mostly whatever you want, and that's on purpose. Whether or not that decision is Good is debatable, but I truly do think that was Rainbow's intention with him. He's meant to be seen as mysterious in season 1, and for Rainbow, that typically translates to knowing as little about a character's true self as possible.
Personally, I do prefer asian!Riven, but that is fully just a headcanon, and any "implication" I could find in canon is going to be dubious and easy to interpret differently. To bring back a previous point, I could say his eye shape is proof that he's Asian, and many people have, but that would mean that Flora, Palladium a la glow up design, Lucy, and Thoren are all also Asian. I could try to say that him having purple eyes is proof that he's Asian, but that would mean that Roxy is also Asian (which I would actually love but considering both of her parents are canonically white, she isn't). And tbh, these are the only solid, consistent things about his character that could be seen as proof of him being Asian coded, and that's not great in comparison to characters like Musa, Nabu, or Helia. Like,, there's a reason people make entire essays on Nabu's hair, clothing, parents, class, magic, etc, and not just one-off posts about the shape of his eyes. There's a lot to work with and a lot about him that actually correlates to being South Asian. Only being able to cite Riven's eye shape is pretty shoddy when you compare him to all the other "ambiguous" characters who have a lot more evidence supporting their coded race.
Trying to make any I'm Right statement about his race or ethnicity is always going to fail, at least regarding the first three seasons, because he doesn't have any significant or consistent racial coding. Even his characterization doesn't mean much when most, if not all, of the tropes he fits into are not race-specific, and any racial stereotype he could have can all be written off as him filling the angsty/minor antagonist/redeemed character tropes.
Anyway, again I realize this probably isn't the answer you wanted. I would love to do a full meta explaining the intricacies of his racial/ethnic coding, but he really just,,, doesn't have that. And again, we could totally have a discussion on whether or not this is even Okay; if Rainbow making his race ambiguous so he seems more mysterious is Wrong or Offensive in some way. But the truth is that Riven's race is ambiguous, and that's on purpose.
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actvdepart · 4 months
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pokemon legends arceus ending/post game spoilers!!!!
whenever someome calls volos evil outfit ugly an angel loses its wings
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potatobugz · 1 year
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WE DID IT GUY!!! WOOHOO
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remapped-soul · 2 years
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do you ever think about how in 2022 we lost Sebastian Vettel, we might lose Daniel Ricciardo and in the next few years, we might lose Lewis Hamilton too?
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