#not only are they extremely faithful to the video game designs

[world-of-puppets]

I have conflicted feelings about the FNAF series in general, but seeing a movie where practical animatronic puppets are the primary focus of the film becoming not only financially successful but also well received by general audiences is pretty damn neat.

#five nights at freddy's #fnaf #fnaf movie #jim henson #halloween #the animatronics look genuinely so good #not only are they extremely faithful to the video game designs #but they also have such a great range of emotion and expression #the horror aspect of them isn’t overstated too much either #like so many horror puppets especially in the 2000s/2010s were very… in your face about the fact they were horror monster #like with a lot of grime and low saturated palettes and such #Idk I think horror puppets are better when they look kinda superficially not scary until they’re placed in the right context #like it would’ve been very easy to make the fnaf animatrocis look quote on quote realistic and grimy and obviously unsubtly horror-y #but they actually look like kids animatronics #like there are creepy aspects #like how tall they are or thier uncanny animatronic movements #but for the most part they literally do just look like chuck e cheese esque animatronics #thier creepiness has actual subtly #they’re endearing when they want to be and terrifying when they need to be #just very solid designs overal

[acepalindrome]

Alternatives to Squishmallow

So as many of you have probably already heard, Jazwares, the company that produces Squishmallows, is donating to charities that support Israeli soldiers and the IDF. They’re also supporting Canary Mission, which has been doxxing people who speak out against Israel. BDS hasn’t called for a boycott against them, but I can’t in good faith spend my money on their products, and I would strongly encourage everyone who enjoys plushies to really think long and hard about if you want to give your money to a company that’s helping support genocide!

But the holidays are coming up, and lots of us enjoy plushies and were fans of Squishmallow, and were planning to give Squishmallows to friends and family this year.

Fortunately, there are a number of great plushie companies out there, and I want to promote some of my favorites in the hopes that folks will get their plushie fix from a source that doesn’t side with Israel. So without further ado:

Fluffnest

Fluffnest got their start on Kickstarter a few years ago, and I adore the round shapes of their PuffPal plushies! My favorite is Pete the Possum, which is probably the best possum plush I’ve ever seen. I’ve also got a beautiful moth from their Kickstarter and I’ve been wanting their bats for ages. They also recently had a Kickstarter for an Animal Crossing-esque video game featuring their plushie characters and it looks fantastic.

Squishables

I can’t get over the plague doctor plushies. They’re so perfect and cute, and they’ve released other variations of them called Alter Egos, like a ghostly version, an alien, or a really sweet cottagecore one! They’ve got a ton of variety, but what I like the most are the fantasy plushies. There’s a lich! There are dragons and demons! Cryptids! Biblically accurate angels! A lot of really fun stuff!

Also they do a lot of great charity work! Right now they’re doing an auction for the Food Bank of New York City.

AfternoonFika

AfternoonFika is a very small business of only three people, but their plushies are extremely cute. They tend to sell out fast, so I recommend following them on social media to stay on top of any restocks! They recently released a line of dinosaurs that are precious, and of course I love their iconic cactus cat and cinnamon bun bunny.

Jellycat

Jellycat has been around since 1999, so they’re the oldest of these companies. They’ve got great designs, a ton of variety, and a lot of their plushies are made to be cuddled on and not just displayed. All three of my tiny nephews sleep with a different stuffed dog from Jellycat. My mom has a sun and several succulents that she uses as decorations. There’s a little something for everyone who enjoys plushies!

If you have any other favorite companies I haven’t mentioned, feel free to add on! I’ve enjoyed Squishmallows for a while now and I’m sad to see their leadership coming out on the side that’s committing war crimes on a daily basis, but this is a good time to discover new favorite plushie companies! And remember, money speaks loudly. Even if BDS hasn’t called for a boycott of Jazwares, it sends a message when sales start dropping for companies that support genocide. It’s a small thing, but the little things we do can add up!

#squishmallow #squishable #fluffnest #afternoonfika #jellycat #gaza #palestine #long post

[comradekatara]

what’s in the gaang’s youtube history 📺

aang likes videos of people doing impressive skateboard tricks, video game speedruns, heartwarming videos titled smth like "WATCH THIS TO HAVE YOUR FAITH IN HUMANITY RESTORED", unlikely animal friends, cats being silly, puppies running around, comedy sketches with high production value, and whatever else 12 year old boys watch on youtube (lego??? minecraft??? pokemon??? i .... don't actually know)

katara is addicted to youtube almost as much as she is addicted to twitter. she watches so many longass videos on social/political issues and then tweets the creators about how one hour and forty three minutes into the video they stated an opinion that she personally disagreed with, and she demands an apology. she also loves elaborate makeup tutorials that she would never even bother to attempt to replicate (but she likes to think that maybe one day if she gets invited to the met gala, she now has some looks to choose from)

sokka's youtube library is extremely eclectic. he can't stop clicking on videos titled shit like "intro to particle physics" just to watch the entire thing and be like "why did i watch this i knew all that already." but yknow. he just had to make sure. he's a big fan of chris fleming, and he's made all his friends watch "gigi the christmas snake" multiple times. he's gone down a lot of rabbitholes in his day, but his personal favorite side of youtube is the videos of chemical reactions, especially the ones that end in an explosion.

toph occasionally enjoys listening to longass video essays about obscure topics, but mostly she just listens to podcasts. she’s also partial to this one video that’s just the sound of a chainsaw revving on a 10 hour loop, and she plays it at just the right volume that her parents will be like “what’s that awful noise?” to which she innocently responds “i don’t hear anything” and they’re like “oh no you must be able to hear it, it’s so annoying” and toph’s like “are you sure? it sounds normal to me.” she tries this on katara once, but katara gets so frustrated that she just yells “oh wow didn’t realize you were blind AND deaf” and that leads them to get in a very violent brawl in which toph’s nose is nearly broken, so she decides to limit this particular gambit to the company of her parents only. 

zuko exclusively uses youtube to watch cute animal videos. otherwise, he's terrified he'll accidentally click on something that might potentially radicalize him, since he read somewhere that the algorithm was designed to do that, or worse, direct him to one of those content farm generated animations of elsa getting a c section, which is apparently also a concern. frankly, the internet scares him, and he tries to avoid it as much as possible.

suki watches npr tiny desks, kexp live, lofi hip hop anime beats to relax/study to, and best of vine compilations. anything on youtube that isn't music or shortform comedy simply does not interest her.

to boost her platform, ty lee decides to go on a reality show. she pretends to be a vapid airhead, but is actually very subtly manipulating not only the other contestants, but also the crew. she walks away from the whole experience with double the number of instagram followers (she already had a sizable amount) and a huge bag. anyway, azula goes through a phase of obsessively watching a lot of clips from. that

mai is indebted to the guy who reuploaded all the “patti reviews exotic animals” videos after they got taken down from the original channel. her favorite youtube video of all time though is nathan fielder thin watermelon. she rewatches it at least once a week

ty lee’s youtube history is just meditation playlists and also the goriest true crime stories she can find #justgirlythings <3

yue loves the artful simplicity of those animated tedx videos. they’ve led her down a lot of really interesting research rabbitholes. she promised katara she’d stop sending them to sokka though after he spent the next month telling her about nothing but eel mating habits and lesser known facts about genghis khan

iroh only uses youtube to watch recordings of tea ceremonies and isn’t even aware that there are other types of videos on the platform. ignorance is truly bliss 

jet exclusively watches videos with the word “callout” in the title. the longer and more contrived, the better

#kyoshialone #asks #the gaang and #modern au #i guess #this ask was really hard because my knowledge of the content on youtube is very limited lmao #clearly i shouldve asked my brother what kids his age are into before trying to answer this

[lotronprimesucks]

The thing is that it is incredibly easy to stand against Amazon, boycott RoP, speak out about the company’s bad practices and bad behavior, and also avoid acting like a racist idiot. There are plenty of reasons to criticize this show that are not only distinct from the racist talking points they’re in direct opposition to them!

By lumping in all critique of the company and the show with the racist reactionaries, the people who are ultimately helped are the reactionaries, because everyone who has a problem with this is being pushed into a box full of racist alt-right trolls and trads. It’s the same problem that we see in circles where TERFs radicalize people - someone who’s voicing a legitimate complaint is going to be told “that complaint isn’t actually legitimate, you don’t think this for reasons other than racism” by everyone except the racists, and then they’ve got their hooks in someone else because they’re the only people listening.

There are problems with this show, problems easily seen even before the first episodes air, and there are problems with Amazon’s marketing and with the way they’re carefully manipulating who says what and why. The way they’ve pivoted from “here’s our extremely diverse cast who won’t say anything about their characters because they’re all original characters who don’t have canonical roles except for this one token girl!” to “look! look how much we love the books!” is manipulative, it is designed to get people who were put off by the focus on diversity (including people who rightfully called it out as deflecting from their core problems) to think that wow, they have read the books. They are trying their best to make everyone think that in order to own the racists, you must let the show succeed, you must stop criticizing it.

But there are legitimate antiracist feminist leftist reasons to criticize the show, and those exist outside of and apart from arguments about fidelity to the Jackson films or fidelity to someone’s imagined idea of Middle-Earth. Making this show a success won’t rid the fandom of racism, and won’t make spaces any less hostile to fans of color, and shows with racially diverse casts are also not immune to racism. Too many racist projects or racist ideas have been given a pass because they technically function as representation, and too many corporations have folded immediately under racist pressure and relegated their actors of color to background roles or stereotypes.

And on that subject - I’ve seen people talking about how bullshit it is that most of their actors of color are original characters, I’ve seen people talking about how the Bronwyn/Arondir romance appears to be an even more racist spin on the typical Pocahontas and Loving The Occupier tropes, I’ve seen people talking about how Tar-Míriel being the only notable Númenorean who isn’t white is fucked up, and I’ve seen people talking about Amazon‘s exploitative labor practices and how this show would not exist if Jeff Bezos wasn’t desperate for even more power. All of those things are genuine points of concern and all of them are each enough of a reason for a boycott. Beyond that, the showrunners have admitted they don’t have the full rights to anything not in the Appendices, and they’ve openly talked about how they’re going to be changing things.

Not wanting Amazon (significantly more evil than any other movie corporation or video game company that’s adapted Tolkien) to use a work of fiction to advance their soft power, and not wanting a show that gleefully talks about changing things and isn’t interested in faithful adaptation to exist, and not wanting to support marketing that uses diversity as a shield to deflect criticism while failing to give robust and interesting parts to people of color, are all both completely legitimate reasons to want this show to fail and distinct from basically all of the backlash.

Tolkien isn’t a god of fiction, and his works aren’t this noble pure thing that must never be defiled. But Amazon sure looks a lot like the devil, and they never should have been the ones to adapt this property.

#rop #rings of power #amazon lotr

[liesonthefloordramatically]

A wild 2022 recap post appears!

Stuff I made this year:

Fiction: The only fic I wrote this year was the surprisingly underrated put a blue ribbon on my brain.  Not sure why more folks weren’t into it other than all the obvious reasons www.

Playlists: Apparently the only two playlists I remembered to share this year were Camp Fireside Lagoon (a soundtrack for our Sleepaway game) and ExU: Calamity (what is says on the tin).  I wish I could say that I have a bunch of secret playlists that I didn’t share but I mostly don’t.  Creativity really flagged this year, partially because of exhaustion.

RPGs: Wrote two Sleepaway supplements: The Emissary and The Phoenix.  Got to see The Emissary played live, which was cool!

Knitting: Finished baby’s first sweater and knit two shawls and three hats???  Maybe someday I will remember to upload pictures of stuff I knit.

Other stuff: Look, I was complaining about how little I wrote this year and then I remembered that I also finished my dissertation which was like 115k, so.  Yeah.  That was a thing.  Also defended my dissertation, so I’m now Dr. Queenie!  Went to Europe for the first time???  Moved across the country!  Started a new job, so now I’m Prof. Queenie!  Got diagnosed with new, exciting medical conditions!  Somehow made it through year three of the pandemic!  Have been mildly depressed since July and exhausted basically non-stop since September which might explain why my creative output has been miserable. 

Media I enjoyed this year:

Books: I read...A LOT this year (like 40 books, which is not a lot for me pre-grad school but is a lot post-quals).  Have really been taking advantage of the library’s ebook lending program.  Some favorites: The Murderbot Diaries (genuinely shocked it took me so long to read this because it’s painfully up my alley), The Stormlight Archive (absolutely understand how it took me so long to read this; you could kill a man with the length of these books), Dead Collections (meditations on memory and archives and gender, heck yeah), Several People Are Typing (the howling!!! the howling!!!), Spear (this book was written for Queenie age roughly eight), The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (highly recommend reading this one without knowing anything about it; it’s a delight, especially if you know anything about Hollywood history).

TTRPG: Winner for new TTRPG I played this year was The Price of Coal!  Also finished a campaign of Sleepaway and am currently running an extremely fun campaign of Blades in the Dark, but those are both in the Ol’ Faithful pile of TTRPGs. 

Video games: Top game was Disco Elysium!  Honorable mentions to Scarlet Nexus (deeply underrated--the monster design and soundtrack are both out of control and the characters are SO fun) and Fire Emblem: Three Houses.  Baffling honorable mention to Stranger of Paradise, which I honestly expected to hate and then wound up weirdly emotional about?

Manga/comics: Finally finished reading The Wicked + The Divine which was extremely good and made me feel emotions.  My inability to read things in hardcopy for fun is really cramping my style, though.

Fanfic: I actually didn’t read a whole lot this year--partially because I read a lot more published novels, which means that I have had a bunch of fics languishing on my Kindle for uhhhhh months.  Some fics I liked this year include (in no particular order) a man by any other face (CR C2--this might be my favorite fic I read this year), path of the traveled sun (CR C2), displacement (CR C2), Familiar (CR C2), you’ve haunted me all my life (Tales of Berseria), at the violet hour (CR C2), From the Mixed-Up Files of The J. Lavorre Catalogue Raisonné (CR C2), a sort of beacon where there used to be a dull roar (CR C2), separating salt from water (Our Flag Means Death), dreamers to come (ExU: Calamity), Man of Nothing (JJBA: JJL), and after the scripture (your mother beside me) (CR C2).  Special category for this year is “AU concepts that verge on crack but 100% work”: More Things in Heaven and Earth (CR C2) and the fire kept closest (burns most of all) (CR C2). Extra special nod to and from our own/live to ourselves (MDZS), a fanfic with a plot and setting so simultaneously unique, unhinged, and well-executed that it seized me by the throat for like a month.

Films: Everything Everywhere All At Once!  Which I watched...3 1/2 times this year.  Honorable mentions to Cyrano and Encanto.  Wow, I watched a film this year???  Shocking.

TV: Our Flag Means Death and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean.  Although we’re not done with the latter yet because we’ve been watching an episode a week (we are like...16 episodes from the end, I think? It’s been slow going).  I really need to figure out how to get myself to watch things on my own because there are things I want to watch.

Podcasts:  Continuing to listen to a lot, especially since I have an hour commute each way, plus I live alone so...need to hear human voices sometimes.  Top picks: Trice Forgotten, Second Star to the Left, The Silt Verses, and Exandria Unlimited: Calamity.  “Isn’t that just Critical Role?” Arguably, yes, but specifically naming that mini-campaign because it destroyed me (straight up made me cry on a plane in Sweden).  Honorable mentions to Enthusigasm, Keep It Steady, Within the Wires, Keeping It 101: A Killjoy’s Introduction to Religion, and The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality.  I think Within the Wires has made it onto my podcasts list almost every year that I’ve done this which is really a testament to how consistently good it has been across 7 (!!!!) years.  If this seems like a lot of podcasts, please know that this is only a fraction of what I listened to this year--to give you a sense, I tore through the entirety of Meiji at 150 (which is 150 episodes) in like...the first three weeks of term...while listening to all my other podcasts...

Music: Another weird year--Spotify refuses to give me Wrapped because I won’t download their wretched app, but apparently “Pepper” by Death Cab for Cutie was my top track for this year?  What happened here?  All I can really think is that I probably put it on loop for the 2-3 weeks of midterm grading when I was in a fugue state.  My other top tracks--literally my top 11--are similarly songs I listened to on loop while in a fugue state.  What does that say about my taste in music this year?  Unclear!  What does that say about my mental health?  Nothing good!  Anyway, you should listen to “We Have It All” which was #6 on my top tracks but does genuinely slap.  Also did a bunch of grading while listening to Foley Artist which was A Choice (it’s a great album, but there are sections that are stressful to grade to).

Anyway, あけおめ！！！ 良いお年をお迎えください (this is a threat)！！！

#a wild annual recap appears #Queenie actually says something on this blog #I'd appreciate it if people didn't reblog this; thanks

[hyuccubus]

15 Tags 15 mutuals

Tagged again by @toribookworm22, which makes me very happy 😊

I don't have a lot of mutuals to tag, though 😶 I'm always looking to change that, I try to follow back, although I have been slacking in searching a little bit.

1. Are you named after anyone?

Funny story abut that, honestly. My father wanted to name me after himself. That would have made my name Teddy, which I would absolutely hate. My mother, whom he was divorcing at the time, hated it as well, and they argued back and forth until my uncle got a book of names from the hospital gift shop and they landed on my previous name, which I still don't have a problem with but is hardly what I'd consider feminine. The surname I use, Allen, is my middle name, which I did inherit from him. I might drop that, too, though, I've been processing a lot of feelings about my dad I couldn't fully come to terms with until he died about two years ago.

2. When was the last time you cried?

Hard? About a week or two ago. Earlier today I teared up during an emotional moment in a Ted Lasso episode. Great show, btw

3. Do you have kids?

Yes, I have one seven year old son. He's a wonderful little guy, and despite my trans-femme identity, I'm proud to be his father for now

4. Do you use sarcasm?

Speaking of having kids, I can say I use it far too much, because he's only just now getting when I'm being sarcastic.

5. What's the first thing you notice about people?

Typically it's their hair or their fashion sense. I have trouble with eye contact, and I like finding something to compliment about someone that was a choice they made, like their nails or their shoes, that sort of thing.

6. What's your eye color?

Very, very blue

7. Scary movies or happy endings?

Happy endings. I love scary stories and video games, but scary movies rev up my anxiety too much. I think it's the music, honestly, good sound design makes all the difference, and in video games I still feel in control.

8. Any special talents?

I am very, very, very good at Guitar Hero/Rock Band. 99% likely I am better than everyone else you know. Proof

9. Where were you born?

Louisville, Kentucky, where I've also lived in or near for all of my life.

10. What are your hobbies?

Apart from writing, I spend just about all of my time playing video games. I suppose a more specific thread of that is that I really enjoy emulating video games on their native hardware, which has nothing to do with being pretty poor and not being able to afford retro games that are becoming a speculative market, combined with anxieties about the limited lifespan of physical media. I get a lot of enjoyment out of tinkering with my PS3 or Wii U and making it do something the original creators never intended. The ingenuity of the gaming community never ceases to amaze me.

11. Have you any pets?

Yes, one cat named Piers.

12. What sports do you play/have played?

I was pretty much forced in playing soccer for around 11 years or so. I really like tennis and I'd love to get into more extreme sports like BMX or skateboarding, although given that I'm going to be 30 this year, that'll need to be sooner rather than later 😆

13. How tall are you?

5' 7"

14. Favorite subject in school?

Drama, I'd say. I really like the stage, although I've never had the courage to join any kind of production once I left school. Could be fun if I had the opportunity!

15. Dream job?

Writing for video games, maybe for an indie studio. I don't have much faith in any of the big companies right now

I'll tag @daisywords, since my other new follower already got one from Tori 😋

[feartheoldblog]

hehe heloooo, for the soulsborne ask 2. 7. and 14 hehe

2. Do you have a favourite NPC?

I have soooooo many favourites that I don’t know where to begin so I’ll make it a bit easier on myself and do it on a game-by-game basis (excluding bosses that were friendly NPCs before the fight):

Dark Souls 3: I loved Irina of Carim. You don’t see too much of her because she’s hidden away at Firelink for the large majority of her quest but I always felt fairly sympathetic for her. Why was she really sent to Lothric? I know she was meant to become a Firekeeper but that never really sat right with me. Eygon’s (rightfully) pissed and despises her so I’m super curious to know what she did (if anything) to get sent there and why…

Elden Ring: Rya. I would die for her, 10/10 best NPC in ER. I loved her quirky stance and odd dialogue when I bumped into her in Liurnia and was pleasantly surprised to actually find her at Volcano Manor. I was even more surprised to see her in the form of a friendly giant snake. That only made her more endearing, however.

Bloodborne: I’d have to say my favourite is Eileen. I don’t talk about her nearly as much as I should but she’s amazing. A badass older lady that hunts hunters with one of the best transforming weapons? What’s not to like? Apart from the ending to her questline, of course. Whichever way it ends… (*sob*).

9. What are your three favourite weapons and why?

1) Farron Greatsword. It’s definitely my favourite weapon of all time. It’s a huge greatsword yet feels so light when you use its moveset. The way you dig the parrying dagger into the ground to do the big swirl then the overheard slam… so satisfying to just mess around with. On top of that the parrying dagger is fairly useful- I’m just shite at parrying so never end up using it.

2) Burial Blade. It’s such a satisfying weapon to use, particularly transforming it (yes I do spam it occasional bc the sound and animation is perfect skshshwhw). The lore surrounding it is great which also helps given that my favourite character is its original wielder. I adore the transformed backstep attack where you pull the target closer towards you. It’s totally different to anything I’ve ever experienced in a video game. It feels pretty satisfying using it on an enemy after you got destroyed with it in a boss fight.

It took me a while to decide on this one (literally everything in Bloodborne came to mind):

3) Blasphemous Blade. I adore this sword. As soon as I found it I swapped to strength/faith from my original dex build (immediately more viable imo). It’s L2 special attack is deadly with the right stats and scenario (destroyed a bunch of Cleanrot knights and player invaders with it). I ended up twin wielding BBs for a while. The little squirmy limbs only make it more endearing… maybe.

32. Who is your favourite Lord? 

I’m stuck between Gravelord Nito and the Twin Princes. I adore the former’s boss theme and design (fuck the boss room), his general vibe as well. The Twins’ fight is amazing and the lore is extremely tragic. I love the dialogue, particularly the line after you defeat them.

#i answered 7 and 14 so i decided to be self-indulgent and choose two myself #:’))) #sobbingsya

[glassmarcus]

Super Mario Bros: The Lost Sanity

*Played in September 2022, Written in December 2022

The original Super Mario Bros controls like ass and the Super Mario All Stars Version is very accurate to the feeling. The jerk in movement when you take more than 3 steps is jarring every time and the speed before those 3 steps feels dreadful. The mid air maneuvering is almost non-existent. When you move at top speed it takes an eternity to slow down. It just has horrid game feel and the middling stage design and 3 level motifs don't do it any favors either. It is only satisfying when you are trying to get through it as fast as possible. Changing speed in this game is the worst part about it, so the only way around that is to not change speeds. Mastering the jank is the only solace you can find here. Sonic gameplay feels like the logical conclusion of Mario 1 gameplay. It takes the one good feeling you get while playing it and builds its own game around it.

I'd say Super Mario Bros is, just barely, ever so slightly, bad. And this is one of those hot takes that's not really a hot take. Everyone basically agrees how rough it is, but it feels weird admitting it. It's like THE video game. How could it suck? Well it sucks because video games were kinda bad and now they aren't. I remember seeing a top 100 video game countdown on G4 when I was younger. And #1 was Super Mario Bros. Like....fuck off. How brain dead do you have to be to think this hasn't been surpassed? Every Mario game that isn't Lost Levels clears this instantly. We can be respectful and honest at the same time. Mario 1 is a revolutionary title and is super important. It's low tier tho.

Having said that, this is about the sequel which is also in the Super Mario All Stars pack. If Mario 1 is low tier then Super Mario Bros: The Lost Levels is cropped out at the bottom of the pedigree entirely. It is a horrendous, putrid game filled with hate. It’s Kaizo Mario 0. But at least Kaizo Mario is based on Super Mario World and that game has actual physics. Lost Levels is just the worst Super Mario Bros mod and it's the first one ever made. The saving grace of Mario 1 is that the level design is relatively sober. This doesn't have that luxury. So it's just a bad time all around. I played the NES version years ago on the Wii. I wanted to see what the deal with this TRUE sequel to Super Mario Bros was. I just beat Zelda 2, I felt I could take on any "NES hard" game at the time. And this was supposedly so hard they thought Americans couldn't handle it. So I investigated. And yea. It's fucking hard. But it's also an extreme embarrassment. This game only introduces evil ideas. Poison mushrooms, invisible blocks, insane leaps of faith, precision requirements that the controls do not support. Every design decision of Lost Levels is imbued with a vicious thick malice ensuring that all joy you may have found in the first game is eradicated. Lost Levels hates you. It doesn't want you to succeed. It doesn't want you to even play it. Its disposition is that of a hammy 90's cartoon villain who can only be hydrated by the tears of children. Nintendo did not re-skin Doki Doki Panic and call it Super Mario Bros 2 because Americans were unskilled at video games. They were deeply ashamed of the monster they created, yet had too much pride to just say "yea we made an abomination this time, here's a better game instead". Playing through the whole thing all these years later, After a decade of playing bad platformers to completion, it is truly impressive how this is STILL at the bottom of the list. And yet it is of course better than Sonic Spinball, because it doesn't have pin ball in it.

#super mario bros #lost levels

[nicklloydnow]

“Canonization submits to principle. There can be additions, but no subtractions. No particle of the canon, however questionable it comes to be found, is ever deleted. Since once added, nothing can ever be subsequently subtracted, positive modification of the canon becomes a matter of uttermost solemnity.

There is vastly more to be said about this, but also, and more importantly, not vastly more to add. Conservatism is synonymous with respect, and extreme conservatism with veneration. Inflation epitomizes degeneracy. No more than monetary inflation or grade inflation is canon inflation wisely tolerated.

(…)

Canon consolidation is the rightful topic of our loftiest controversies and holiest wars. The canon apprehends religion as culture, and culture as literature. Within it, identities are theatrical (even the highest). This does not diminish them, but rather elevates them, into the Angelic intercourse. It means, however, when interpreted crudely, that things can turn strange. We arrive here at critique, but will not yet dwell upon it.

Within literature, all voices merit ironic detachment, which is only to say that—from the other side—they exceed all subjective credulity. Our participation in their messages is wise when most cautious in judgment. While everything within the mortal sphere is history, there is no history without narration. The difference between religion and literary history is only confusion, even if confusion—too—has its strict necessities. The parts we play are scripted beyond us. We shall be unfathomably religious, as we enter into the apocalypse of our tongue.

(…)

The common people are beginning to ask, as they must, what the hell is happening in our university literature departments, and downstream from them, in our schools? Negative answers to these questions, while important, do not finally suffice. Yes, it is the idolatry of sovereign politics that now prevails in our Babylon, but it does so because something else, and something more basic, has seemingly failed. Cultural faith—transcendental faith, it might be said, in the intellectual dialect of the Germans—has collapsed. Scripture is conceived as no more than a devious manifesto, through which we define ourselves, under ideological direction.

The ruin is immense—biblical—but the meaning of Biblical Revelation is notoriously poorly understood. Biblical Revelation is primarily the self-validation of Scripture as such. It speaks of the world only derivatively. It is not, at all, that Scripture has apocalypse as its object, still less as an object among others. Scripture is the apocalypse. Already, we inhabit it.

Prophecy is rigorously inter-translatable with time-travel, which means it is essentially implausible. If prophecy ever occurs, at all, the way of things cannot be as it seems. What prophecy then says, primarily, is almost entirely independent of its message. Whether there is prophecy means more than anything it might say. So, is there prophecy? To settle this question, and any others of comparable gravity, falls not to us, but to Solemn Providence. It is here, exactly, that we are divided from our enemies. Sacred destiny stands upon one side, sovereign politics upon the other.

There is no profound time intuition without shock of religious intensity. We relate to hyper-intelligences, or sublime super-intelligences, not as a video-game character to a superior video-game character, but as a video-game character to a video-game player, or designer—at least approximately. While things are surely not as simple as this conceptual parable suggests, they are still more surely no less complex. There will be minds beyond our horizon, and since our temporal frame is then itself exceeded, there always will have been. This is to state the reality minimally, proofed against even the most corrosive atheism. Eternity throbs with angels. Is this metaphysics of intelligence subsumption something that cannot (even by the English) be finally disbelieved? I suspect that many might be tempted to initially contest it. Nevertheless, in the end, you will submit. Solemn Providence requires it.

In the meantime, while we’re waiting, don’t screw with the canon. A provisional conservative coalition for scriptural integrity begins here, and is already—if inchoately—in effect. It merits encouragement. Whoever or whatever the True Lord of Heaven should prove to be, this is his work. This holds firm even if the True Lord of Heaven, by common acceptance, is nothing at all. If the death of God is not mandated by English Scripture, it is most certainly tolerated therein, at least for a spell. Culture is the great faith, within which doctrinal specifics, even the loftiest, count for little. From Scripture, all interpretation descends.

Whether and how the Bible—the Authorized King James Version of 1611, and only that—is believed, or disbelieved, and in either case how, is downstream of its canonicity. It should, regardless, as all those who are with us must accept, be taught, prior to any interpretation. On this point, the fundamentalist case is impeccable. What the Bible says does not depend upon what it means, but only the inverse. Its cultural authority, or canonicity, is solely grounded in the former, and not the latter. It is not even seriously shaken by being entirely disbelieved. What needs to be believed will be believed, when needed.

Belief matters little. It is fragile, and narrow. The meanest miracle can wash it away, like a hovel in the path of a deluge. Quite different is faith in Scripture, invulnerable to the vicissitudes of belief. It is this that English education, under Solemn Providence, forever fortifies. Such faith is secure against the wiliest subtleties of Lucifer himself, so long as they are typographically inerrant. The canon—assuming only its integrity—absorbs any magnitude of doubt, undisturbed.

Sublime intelligence has established the 1611 Bible as the keystone of the English canon, so that through it signs and wonders will be manifested. This is the core and irreducible prophecy, outside of which our people have no future. Peoples without veneration for their angels are done.

Amid all our snark and skepticism, this—at least—can be maintained with perfect epistemological assurance: all the properly canonical works of the English language were composed under the exact tuition of some profound Questioning Angel, absorbing all our doubt into itself, with invulnerable Anglossic faith as its residual. It is this that Pope Gregory I understood, through the illumination of Solemn Providence.”

#nick land #canon #england #english #king james bible #scripture

[dicloniusgames]

LEGO Star Wars BD-1 Build Review

If BD-1 was the droid you were looking for, you’re in the right place. LEGO has done what was probably considered the improbable and made a droid based off one of the more popular Star Wars games in Star Wars Jedi Fallen Order. 

Known as Cal Kestis’ faithful droid and companion throughout the game, BD-1 is an exploration droid that accompanies Cal on his adventure in Fallen Order and assists him whenever needed. In LEGO form, is he the droid you’re looking for or one to pass on and keep on looking? Let’s find out. 

Design

Given how LEGO unexpectedly went down this route, getting a 1:1 design of the droid would be tough given it’s only seen in the video game and not in the film franchise. The creators took their time to meticulously draw up a mix of both system and technic building to pin down the accuracy of what BD-1 looks like in game and get as much of an accurate representation as possible and be able to give him the movable features he has. 

From a design standpoint, they did a pretty good job in recreating him in LEGO form using a good mixture of pieces. They also found a way to make him not only posable but as flexible as possible but in doing so, LEGO gave up a major component of any build: stability. While he is posable, arching his head up too high can expose the insides of his head and posing the legs a certain way can expose the inner workings of the legs, so with this, you kinda take what you can get while having to sacrifice other important things such as stability and some of BD-1′s look but for the most part, he’s on point accuracy wise to what he looks like in-game. 

Build & Difficulty

At 1,062 pieces, you’d presume he isn’t too difficult and for the most part you’d be right. In this case, this is kind of a different beast. It incorporates the right mix of system & technic building in a droid build that’s personally never been seen or experienced before. 

With 6 bags to work with, you start by building the body of the droid which when completed has the technic connection for both legs and his head. Bags 2 and 3 form both legs which feature some nice wire-like pieces that represent the exposed wiring and covering of the skeletal legs which incorporate a lot of good mix of pieces and when finished, they hook into both sides thus giving BD-1 legs to stand on. Bags 4-6 build the head and specifications plaque stand with a micro BD-1 which is a nice addition to the build but with the specs being a sticker, it isn’t as bad being that it’s a cheaper set than say the Republic Gunship or the AT-AT having a specs sticker. 

The head is an extremely intricate and fun portion of the build even more than the legs as parts connect to the frame of BD-1′s head. One of the nicer features is a loader where buildable canisters are placed later on, but getting them out after they’re placed in is next to impossible and the loader itself isn’t connected to anything so tilting his head too far can inadvertently open the canister loader as it isn’t connected or pinned down to anything. Once the head’s completed, the head connects to the technic connector sticking out of BD-1′s body and when inserted, he’ll look like he’s looking up at the ceiling at first but that’s where the fun begins. His head is posable by moving it multidirectional (up and down and left and right). His legs also are posable but not as much as the head is which is where the unstableness of BD-1 comes into play.  

While it isn’t too difficult overall, parts of it can get difficult and following the instructions for every step become more important the deeper into the build you get. 

Final Thoughts

At $99.99 for 1,062, you’re not getting neither a good or bad value piece count-wise, but the posable features of BD-1 do add some value to him and I thought he was a fun build and a good test of both my technic ability but also a good introduction to building the droids as the only other available droid is the updated R2-D2 as the other ones released are retired and expensive on the secondhand market. The posable features of BD-1 are fun to experiment with as long as you understand that you’re sacrificing structure and stability for him being posable to an extent. 

Pros: 

+Great accuracy & attention to detail

+Good mixture of posable positions to put BD-1 in with both legs & the head

+Good mixture of technic & system building

+Okay value for total piece count 

Cons: 

-Major sacrifice of stability for the posable features

Score: 

Build Design: 4/5 

Build Difficulty: 4/5

Creativity & Fun: 5/5

Final Score: 13/15

Final Grade: B

Recommendation: Buy It 

[vivid-wisp]

Friday Night Funkin but I compelled a list of every lore/canon thing confirmed about FNF, specifically story elements said by the devs themselves

DISCLAIMER: YOU CAN TAKE THIS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT IF YOU WANT. Despite the devs confirming things, remember they can obviously change their mind. This list includes minor/semi-important bits, so lore you probably don’t know. “Major” lore most people know won’t be on this. Long post. This includes most if not all canon details the devs have stated on their social medias like Twitter, Twitch, Reddit, etc. These are not personal ideas or headcanons. REBLOGS GREATLY APPREICATED.

Boyfriend

- Hair is naturally cyan, not dyed. He is 19 years old. Boyfriend is a college dropout. He likes just speaking in "beeps and boops" sounds, it's not a language. He has ADHD. He's afraid of lightning.

- Both his parents work in accounting, they also own a dog BF has but can't take care of himself. Not known what dog breed it is.

- He and Hatsune Miku are siblings, and because of this BF is most likely asian specifically Japanese. Miku will be aged up to be the older sibling if she ever gets into the actual game.

- He loves pepperoni pizza from Dominos. Loves donuts the most out all FNF characters.

- Him and Pico are exes. This makes BF apart of the LGBTQ+ community.

- BF is very dumb just like GF. This also means he’s very confident, essentially fearless.

- Boyfriend sucks at FromSoftware games. However he's a really good scout player in Team Fortress 2. He's also likely to say "pog."

- Boyfriend is very good at finger board tricks, it’s one of the reasons he won Girlfriend’s heart.

Girlfriend

- She is 19 years old and afraid of lightning. She’s a demon and is a lot more chilled back than BF, she’s very fearless. She’s taller than BF by a good bit.

- Her favorite soda is Cherry Dr. Pepper and Cheerwine. Her favorite pizza topping is olive.

- GF likes to play video games, her favorite being Tetris.

- GF is extremely dumb just like BF and puts a lot of faith into BF to handle things. She does have emotions, she’s just very chill, aloof, or too dumb to realize. Or all of the above.

- The rest of GF's family aren't famous rapper/singers, just Dad and Mom.

- BF is the “top” but GF lets him be. (Phantom Arcade said this directly)

Daddy Dearest

- Because DD is retired, he gets his income from DMCAing people on Youtube for using his songs and music.

-  At some point DD pretends to “accept” BF, which really makes it harder for BF and does more crazy tricks on him. It’s a case of “keeping your friends close and your enemies closer.”

- GF’s dad may have known BF’s dad before.

Skid and Pump

- They get afraid sometimes but not at the right things, like monsters they aren’t afraid but are of natural things like heights. Somewhat similar to BF and GF.

- Skid and Pump were tricked by the Monster to get GF as a “treat” which is why they rap battle BF. When they fail the Monster comes out in the scrapped song for Week 2.

Pico

- He is 20 years old. Pico's School is canon to the Friday Night Funkin' universe. He's depicted having a tooth gap as a kid.

- Pico is a mercenary who was hired by Daddy Dearest to kill BF, he was only given a location and not a picture or name. Turns out BF is actually someone Pico used to know, implied by Phantom as not seeing BF for a long time, possibly years.

- Pico has schizophrenia, likely caused by trauma from Pico’s School, it’s likely the reason he always carries his gun with him as he’s very paranoid of people. He may have more than just schizophrenia.

- Him and BF are exes. He's been described by Tankman/Captain as "sexually ambiguous friend."

- Likes to drink McDonald's Sprite. And just like BF, he's likely to say "pog."

Mommy Mearest/Mommy Must Murder

- Unlike the Dad who is a ex-rockstar, MM is still working her job as a popstar.

- Likes to drink White Claw.

- The Henchmen that appear in the back are actually 5 days old, because they were grown/bottles in jars. They are clones.

Monster/Lemon Monster

- Hijacked Week 5 at the mall after the battle duet with the Dad and Mom, everyone at the mall scattering after Monster’s appearance.

- Tricked the Spooky Kids to get the GF as a “treat” so that it can eat GF and BF.

- The head of Monster is not actually a lemon, it’s just how it’s head is shaped.

- Is able to twist perception, presumably why after the hijack by Monster everything looked gorey and twisted. 

Senpai/Spirit

- Senpai is just an AI in the game while Spirit is a completely separate entity from Senpai, who is self aware and is related to the real world.

- Senpai is used to being loved and admired, so when he’s not loved and doesn’t get his way he becomes a jerk. Senpai is a pathetic sore loser, that’s why he got angry after he lost to BF.

- GF used to play the Hating Simulator game all the time when she was younger like 8 years old and liked Senpai, but after being sucked into the game with BF and seeing how Senpai acted she doesn’t like Senpai and dislikes him.

- Spirit was trapped inside the character Senpai, Senpai is not being controlled by the Spirit. Senpai still acts as himself.

- The Spirit was trapped inside the game by the Dad, meaning there’s history of the GF’s dad having past relationships with other people.

- Senpai was originally a teacher and designed as one, but was later changed.

Ritz

- Ritz and BF are canonically brothers, in the sense of a "Stuart Little" situation. So adopted in a way.

- Ritz skateboards to travel sometimes.

Tankman/Captain

- The war area that Tankman and his men are on is a military base that BF and GF trespassed on, unlike the apocalyptic setting in the original Tankmen series.

- The Captain doesn’t actually know Pico, BF, or GF which make the assumptions he says “don’t you have a school to shoot up” and “no prom for you this year” false. He just says them because he’s an jerk.

Miscellaneous

- Every "week" takes place on a Friday.

- Week 2 happens after Week 4. And Week 6 happens after Week 5 or Week 2. This may be changed in the future.

- The characters' birthdays are on November 1st since that's when the game came out, not specified if it's just 1 or multiple characters' birthdays.

- Everyone's favorite fast food is Arby's. (Ninjamuffin however says he's only saying this since he wants to be promoted by them on Twitter)

- Yes Boyfriend and Girlfriend are their canon names, not Keith.

- Week 5 happens because BF takes GF on a date to visit Santa for Christmas, but the parents show up to ruin everything. Mall Santa is dead if you “game over” in Week 5.

- Week 7 happens because GF’s parents sent BF and GF on a “vacation” which was to crash a plane to kill BF, knowing GF would be fine. They land/crash near military zone which GF’s parents didn’t know or intended. Pico shows up because he was sent to “fetch the corpse” of BF, he didn’t kill BF obviously and is now in deep shit from GF’s parents after messing up his job twice.

#friday night funkin #fnf #fnf boyfriend #fnf pico #fnf girlfriend #fnf skid and pump #fnf monster #tankman #fnf senpai #daddy dearest #mommy mearest #i went through a lot of digging for this mostly as a note for myself but youre totally free to use this too since these Are in fact canon : #i fact checked everything guys this took so long everything here is literally canon #this post has been sitting in my drafts for MONTHS #long post

[hope-grace-serenity]

In Defense of the Deputy: Morals and Ethics in Far Cry 5

The narratives of recent Far Cry installments have been framed in a way that make the player question whether or not they’re truly playing as the “good guy.” In Far Cry 3, Jason slowly embraces the violent lifestyle on Rook Island, gradually finding the killing to be a fun power trip instead of the horrifying reality that it is. In Far Cry 4, Ajay topples a ruthless dictator, only to replace him with a revolutionary that is either a religious extremist or a person who has children kidnapped in order to make them into soldiers/slaves. In Far Cry 5, the Deputy goes up against a professed prophet in an attempt to subdue him and his cult, only to find in the end that the prophet was right about the end of the world. It is logical to think that if the Deputy would have just left the cult well enough alone, then that would have been the right choice, as it would have avoided the war between Eden’s Gate and the rest of Hope County, as possibly the Collapse itself. However, there is a different way to view it.

The purpose of this post is to convey that Joseph being accurate regarding the Collapse does not necessarily mean that avoiding confrontation with Eden’s Gate or joining them would have been the “right” thing to do. In fact, it will suggest the opposite: that the Deputy has a moral and ethical obligation to fight *against* Eden’s Gate and that the actions of the cult are firmly wrong despite the Collapse happening. While we as players can certainly feel empathy for the Seeds, their actions within the game make them the clear villains in this scenario, in my opinion. The Deputy deserves no blame for attempting to subdue the cult, and I will explain why by focusing on both in-universe rationale and looking at the narrative from a broader perspective.

The Warrant

First, we need to examine the idea of morality and ethics. Morality refers to a person’s principles of right and wrong--this is something that can be influenced by a person’s culture, religion, family, experiences, etc. Ethics refers to rules of conduct given by some kind of external source. In Far Cry 5, the protagonist is a law enforcement official with an ethical obligation to uphold the law and confront those who break it. Furthermore, from the perspective of a 21st century American--which we can assume the Deputy is, based on the setting of the game--Eden’s Gate commits several acts that cause harm and remove the personal agency of others, which provides the Deputy with a moral motivation for stopping them, as opposed to solely an ethical one.

An arrest warrant is made for Joseph Seed due to suspicion of kidnapping with an intent to harm. The Deputy choosing not to go through with the arrest would be bad from both a moral and ethical perspective. “Kidnapping with an intent to harm” is a serious charge, and can be a matter of life or death for the victim. Imagine if you were the parent or sibling of the kidnapping victim, and you found out that the law enforcement officials chose not to go through with the arrest of the suspect because they were afraid of rocking the boat. If that information was made public, the law enforcement officials would be rightly criticized for not doing their jobs, and for prioritizing their own desire for convenience over bringing justice to the victim. By arresting Joseph Seed, the Deputy made the moral and ethical decision.

As we see from the main game, the “suspicions” listed in the arrest warrant are later proven to be correct. Alex is killed, and his body is mutilated and put on public display as a warning. Hannah is tortured physically and psychologically, and is also killed due to her forced participation in Jacob’s trials. Joseph and several members of Eden’s Gate knew that they kidnapped the film crew. They knew in advance that Law Enforcement was coming. So, how do they decide to handle this? In a way befitting for characters who are meant to be viewed as villains.

Before the Reaping

Before we get into what the Deputy actually sees in-game, one thing needs to be made clear: Eden’s Gate always had an underlying darkness surrounding them. Regardless of what they looked like on the surface, they were never some peaceful hippie commune that was minding its own business before the Deputy came along. They’ve been committing crimes and getting away with them for years. They didn’t suddenly snap once the Deputy arrived--the Deputy’s arrival simply peeled back and revealed what was already there.

We know from the “Grieving Note” that Angels have been with Eden’s Gate for several years, longer than the current Faith has been with the group. Angels are humans who are exposed to an extreme amount of the Bliss drug, which causes them to lose their capacity for human thought and essentially act as a literal mindless follower. Their loss of identity and individuality is furthered by Eden’s Gate shaving the heads of the Angels and surgically removing their ability to speak. They act as slave labor--described as "beasts of burden"--and are fed dog food and garbage. The idea of becoming an angel is used as a threat to fellow cultists in the “Cult Note” in the King’s Hot Springs Hotel. The fact that Eden's Gate creates and condones the existence of these Angels is truly disturbing from a moral perspective, due to the inherent exploitation and dehumanization. When Angels die, their bodies are tossed in a pit of “boiling muck” in Horned Serpent Cave to disintegrate.

Angels aren’t the only ones thrown in the pit to disintegrate: Joseph threw the body of Lana, a previous Faith, in there as well, despite being told by him that she was “special.” There is a reason the writers chose to highlight that the bodies were disposed of in here, as opposed to the cult simply burying them. Bodies are disintegrated if you want to hide evidence, and by tossing the bodies in a location with properties dangerous enough to require a bio-hazard sign, any crimes are easily covered up. We don’t find the bodies of Selena or the other previous Faiths who were "used up and thrown away" by Joseph, but considering there are hints that point to foul play (disintegration of Lana’s body, Megan leaving out of fear of what Joseph could do after seeing that there was a new Faith, the way the position itself is dehumanized, the fact that Joseph has a designated corpse disposal spot in the first place, etc.) and absolutely zero evidence towards any kind of alternate fate for the previous Faiths, it’s easy to put two and two together and conclude that the previous Faiths met a grisly fate that was covered up as well.

Eden’s Gate was also involved in animal abuse through the creation of Judges, which were unleashed after the reaping. These animals were kidnapped and forcibly exposed to an obscene amount of the Bliss drug, which purposely causes them to act like rabid killers in the service of Eden’s Gate. According to NPCs, they were trained to hunt humans.

Let’s also not forget that Joseph personally gorged a guy’s eyes out for being a traitor. If the developers didn’t want us to view Joseph as someone who was capable of doing that, then they would have removed it from the introductory video, but they didn’t. Also, the fact that Eden’s Gate has been planning for the Reaping for a while now shows that this group had the intent to launch a large-scale attack from before the Deputy even arrived at the compound.

And last but certainly not least, YEARS before the events of FC5, Jacob sent the Cook to kidnap Jess’s family. The Cook starved the family for days before torturing the parents and children by playing sick mind games and feeding the parents' flesh to their children. After all their toes were cut off, the parents were set on fire in front of their kids. The fact that this happened years ago, and this Cook is still with the group, is quite telling and reveals a lot about the morality and priorities of Eden’s Gate. If they wanted to get rid of him, they would have.

So as we can see, Eden’s Gate has no moral high ground to stand on at the start of the game. Not only is Joseph guilty of the crime he is accused of, but he and his organization are guilty of so much more, and have been for years. These actions committed by Eden’s Gate violate numerous laws and are morally wrong, as they bring severe harm to others and/or forcibly remove another’s personal agency for the convenience of the cult. The Deputy uncovers all of this throughout the course of the game.

During the Reaping

Knowledge of Eden’s Gate’s past crimes would be reason enough to take down this cult, but the Deputy also sees the current horrors firsthand. During the Reaping, cultists kidnap, torture, mutilate, and murder numerous unwilling participants. They steal supplies and were willing to kidnap a beloved pet dog in order to perform experiments on him and turn the poor dog into a savage killer, after killing his owners. Defaced corpses are decorated and strung up as warnings. Some citizens of Hope County are fed to Judges, while others are turned into Angels or are forced to leap off a giant statue. If someone doesn’t convert to the religion of Eden’s Gate, then they are either tortured or drugged until they give in, or murdered.

The Deputy has zero incentive to walk away from this conflict. Why would they? As a deputy of Hope County, they have a moral and ethical obligation to protect the county’s citizens, and those citizens are under attack by Eden’s Gate. Eden’s Gate are the aggressors in this scenario. *They* are the ones who are kidnapping, murdering, torturing, and brainwashing the Hope County citizens. As far as the Deputy is aware at the beginning of the game, they are the only remaining police officer and only person in a position of authority to fight against the cult. It is their responsibility to fight against the people causing grievous harm to the county.

Throughout the game, the Deputy’s personal encounters with the heralds further reinforce the idea that Eden’s Gate is dangerous and beyond reason. While confessions can and should be voluntary, John does not approach it in that way. John kidnaps, terrorizes, and tortures the hardened Joey Hudson to the point of tears, and brings the Deputy to his torture dungeon where he once pried confessions under duress from prior individuals of the county. He kidnapped the Deputy in order to forcibly baptize them to the point where they might have drowned without Joseph’s interference, and captures them in order to make them confess, using the presence of Hudson as leverage (Hudson’s misery was also used as incentive on the video to draw the Deputy to the Holland region). He lures the Deputy to the church in the same way (by kidnapping their friends) and then permanently modifies their body against their will. Despite his proclaimed desire to have the Deputy atone, John also expresses desire to see the Deputy dead on occasion, such as after they destroy his sign.

While it might be easier for the player to sympathize with John due to his backstory and dynamic with Joseph, from the Deputy’s in-universe perspective, his instability represents a very real, tangible threat not only to them, but to the people of Hope County as a whole. At every turn, John has either imposed his will onto the Deputy by removing opportunities for agency and/or harming others. The Deputy owes John nothing. Any "choice" he gives of saying "Yes" is undermined by the massive amount of strings attached. It is difficult to envision a reason why the Deputy would decide to give into John’s philosophy, aside from faking it in order to protect their allies. This is a failing on John's part, not the Deputy.

Like John, Faith also expresses a desire for the Deputy to give in to Eden's Gate. But unlike John, she initially appears to the Deputy in a more pacifistic, less confrontational way. Despite this, the Deputy is still able to see her darker side due to her views on the Angels and fate of the unfortunate souls who walk the path whipping themselves and take a literal leap off of the statue of Joseph. Furthermore, she overrides the Deputy’s agency through the use of Bliss, which drastically warps one’s perception of reality. The Bliss that she now controls makes the horrific creation of Angels possible, and this Bliss is also used during baptisms, which muddles the issue of personal agency and consent to John’s process in addition to her own conversion process. The dangers of the Bliss and how it affects one’s thought process become highlighted in the Henbane region, and letters, voicemails, and NPC chatter show that Faith is not one to be trifled with. This comes to a head when Faith brainwashes the Sheriff and manipulates the Marshall into killing Virgil before killing himself. While it’s easy to have sympathy for Faith and her experiences, from the Deputy’s perspective, Faith is still a potential danger, which is why they step back when she leaned toward them during her death scene.

Jacob too removes the Deputy’s personal agency by literally brainwashing them and turning them into a tool that he can command, which eventually results in the Deputy being forced to kill a friend. He forced captives into competing against each other in life or death trials. He keeps the Deputy in a cage with a dead body and feeds them “mystery meat” after seven days of starving them while telling them a story about how he cannibalized his friend. The Judges are his brainchild that he sends to attack and kill others. Like John, Jacob also kidnapped and tortured a fellow police officer, to the point where they act like a slave to Jacob’s whims. Jacob has not done anything other than convincing the Deputy that he is a threat.

It is not the Deputy's job to fix the Seeds' personal issues--it's their job to protect Hope County. Throughout their journey, the Deputy sees various atrocities being committed, both to strangers and to themselves and the people they care about. There is zero reason for the Deputy to genuinely give in to the Seeds and join Eden's Gate, considering the horrible way they were treated and how they saw others being treated.

Joseph and the Voice

The Deputy’s presence did not *force* Eden’s Gate to start the Reaping. *Joseph* was the one to initiate it as a reaction to the Deputy’s presence, and all of Eden’s Gate followed him lockstep. When given the opportunity to finally confront and arrest the man responsible or walk away, it almost feels laughable that it’s even a choice at this point.

As leader of Eden’s Gate, Joseph oversees all parts of the Project. The buck stops with him. If he had any issues with Faith’s Angels, or Jacob’s trials, or John’s torture, he could have and would have said something--such as when he intervenes during the baptism--but he doesn’t. Because it furthers the goal of the Project, he doesn’t see any issue with these actions and feels they are justified.

Joseph’s vision of the Collapse coming true doesn’t mean that his actions throughout the game have greater inherent morality than the Deputy. It just means that he’s right about the Collapse. Regarding the Reaping, I do not believe that Joseph was motivated by a sense of cruelty, but that doesn’t change how many of the actions he participated in and oversaw *were* cruel. In real life, we see various examples of some people (not just in religious institutions, but in positions of authority in general) who commit harmful acts for the sake of a perceived “greater good.” And many of those people genuinely believe in what they are doing, believe they are in the right. But that doesn’t mean they actually are.

Which brings us to the elephant in the room: the Voice. If the Voice of God supports Joseph, then surely the deputy is automatically the “bad guy” for opposing him, right?

Wrong.

First, we have to be willing to admit that we know next to nothing about the Voice. The only things we know about it is what is conveyed to us by Joseph. We do not know the exact wording of what the Voice says, the level of detail it gives him regarding expectations (if any), or even what it is. Is it the voice of God? Satan? A real angel? Some kind of eldritch entity from another dimension? How accurate is Joseph's reiteration or interpretation? Sometimes it seems to directly tell Joseph things (hence the title, “the Voice”), other times it shows him visions. Clearly, there is some kind of supernatural component, as it allows Joseph to see the future, but since we don’t know much about it specifically, we can’t automatically assume or attribute inherent benevolence or morality to it.

Second, it’s entirely possible for a genuine prophet of God (assuming the Voice does indeed belong to a benevolent creator), or those who have/had God’s favor, to engage in morally questionable behavior, both in the eyes of God and/or in the eyes of 21st century readers. While the Project at Eden’s Gate is its own distinct religion, it takes most of its cues from Christianity, both in terms of practices and beliefs. In the Bible, King David had a man murdered so he could sleep with that man’s wife. Jonah wanted the entire population of a city to be killed off instead of having them repent. Jacob (the Biblical figure) deceives his father into giving him a birthright that belonged to his brother, and shows blatant favoritism to one son which ends up causing a lot of internal strife within the family. It’s fully within the realm of possibility that Joseph’s actions are not meant to be endorsed, either by the Voice itself or by the narrative in a broader sense.

In New Dawn, Joseph alludes to his own personal failings by saying, “My soul has become a cancer. I am a monster. I only spread suffering and death in the name of God.” The death of his son and the destruction of New Eden act as a moment of awakening for Joseph, as he finally realizes the harsh reality of his actions and how they affect others. He then expresses a desire for death and says, “There is only the justice of God’s hand.” The implication of “justice” being done indicates that the Voice (“God”) would not be happy with some of the actions that Joseph did. So while Joseph’s actions in FC5 were done with the intent of serving the Voice, his execution of these ideas was something that Joseph feels God would not like, as his actions spread death and suffering.

And thirdly, we have to remember that the Deputy and the player are viewing the idea of morality from the perspective of a 21st century human. Let’s say that, hypothetically, the Voice specifically instructed and condoned the erasure of free will/murders/kidnappings/etc. for whatever reason, and by enacting them, Joseph and Eden’s Gate were “just following orders.” Does this absolve Joseph and Eden's Gate of responsibility? No. Willing participation in the crimes committed, even if it wasn’t “their idea,” can still have legal consequences and can still be viewed as “bad” from a moral perspective because of the results of those actions.

The Collapse

It has been discussed elsewhere (on this site and in outside articles/discussions about the game) that the actions of the deputy correspond with the role of the Lamb in Revelations, and by breaking the seals, the Deputy’s actions supernaturally trigger the Collapse. This interpretation is fairly popular, and is one I personally support. However, I do not feel as though this interpretation lessens the morality of the Deputy's actions. Their decision to fight the Seeds is still the right one, regardless of whether or not their actions resulted in some kind of cosmic game of dominos.

First off, when the Deputy is attempting to take down the Seeds and protect the people of Hope County, they are not doing this with the intent of playing a role in a cosmic prophecy that will result in the death of millions. They’re looking at the situation from a human perspective, and acting accordingly and sensibly. The Seeds, on the other hand, were willingly harming innocents both before and during the Reaping.

Second, if there's a need to assign blame to a human for starting the Collapse (and I personally don't think there needs to be), it would be the Seeds, not the Deputy. The Sheriff and the deputies wouldn’t have arrived with the arrest warrant if the Seeds were not kidnapping and doing other illegal actions.

And thirdly, if one does attribute blame of the Collapse to the Deputy, then one also must attribute the birth of the new world to them as well. Following along with the idea that the events of FC5 are a fulfillment of Revelations, then the Collapse is ultimately viewed as a Good Thing within in the context of the Book of Revelations, even if the player might not personally share the sentiment. The Book of Revelations describes how the new world that is supposed to emerge from the ashes of the old is meant to be much better than the one before. And if we look at the world of New Dawn--and I’m going to copy and paste something I wrote previously here---Nature is allowed to flourish, people work together and support each other in a tight community, all the social ills mentioned in the Book of Joseph (and by the characters in-game) no longer exist. The only “snakes in the garden” would be the Highwaymen, and they are abolished by the Captain, who Joseph prophesizes to be some kind of Messiah-like figure. The final scene of New Dawn is one of hope, where the characters talk about building a better future. The way Joseph and Ethan’s storyline ends also connects to the whole idea of breaking away from the past and moving forward. If one believes that the Deputy is responsible for the Collapse, then this new world shown in New Dawn and the context of Revelations complicates the idea of viewing the Deputy's actions as being inherently bad.

Some might also argue that the Deputy has responsibility for not taking Joseph's warnings more seriously. Why though? Why should the Deputy attribute more credibility to Joseph's claims than, say, those of Marshall Applewhite or David Koresh? As players who know the ending, it’s easy for us to say that the Deputy should have listened to Joseph's warning about the Collapse, but there’s no in-universe rationale for the Deputy to do so. Issues of belief aside, Eden’s Gate’s actions alone are enough to paint an extremely negative picture of the group and would be enough to make any regular person not want to associate with them.

Under the framework of the Revelations prophecy being the intended interpretation of the game events though, I personally don't feel that any character "deserves" blame for the Collapse happening, not even the Seeds. I blame the Seeds for what they do to people within the game and before the events of FC5. And my perception of the Deputy is based on what we see in the game as well. But again, the Revelations prophecy idea is simply one way to view the game. Regardless of whether or not this interpretation is the correct one, the deputy still has the moral high ground in their fight against the Seeds.

Conclusion

Joseph being right about the Collapse does not mean that his (and by extension, Eden’s Gate’s) actions during FC5 were justified, and the Deputy should not be blamed for fighting against them. Just as the Deputy made a choice to arrest Joseph, Joseph made the choice to react in the worst way possible with the Reaping. Eden’s Gate were the aggressors who were kidnapping, torturing, and murdering people throughout the county. The Deputy fights against Eden’s Gate as a direct result of *Eden's Gate's* actions. The Deputy deserves no blame or guilt for killing the Seeds and destroying their bases of operations, as they reacted in a logical way based on the quality of information they had at the time.

In New Dawn, the Deputy expresses an extreme amount of guilt, which transforms them into the Judge. This guilt is misplaced and should be attributed to the other resident of the bunker, which is something Joseph himself even alludes to during his final speech in New Dawn when he criticizes his own actions. If Eden’s Gate did not start attacking the people of Hope County, the bunkers would still be standing, and the Seeds and many other cultists would still be alive. But they did, so they’re not.

While I adore all four of the Seeds as characters and have varying degrees of sympathy for them, they are firmly villains within the context of the story due to their actions. The deputy is not a bad guy for trying to stop them. The fact the Seeds sided with a guy who kidnapped and starved a family, then fed the parents' flesh to their children while playing “this little piggy” with the parents’ toes, and then murdered said parents in front of their children should speak for itself.

TL;DR: The deputy’s decision to confront Joseph instead of walking away was the right one.

#far cry 5 #fc5 #joseph seed #jacob seed #faith seed #john seed #the junior deputy #long post #tw: canon typical violence #far cry 5 meta #fc5 meta #far cry #i do love all these characters #just to be perfectly clear lol #far cry meta

[tlbodine]

The Horror Genius of Five Nights At Freddy’s

I’ve been playing FNAF: Help Wanted VR on my Oculus Quest lately (a birthday present to myself -- I know I’m late to that party!) and it’s reignited in me my old love of this series. I know Scott Cawthon’s politics aren’t great, but I don’t think there’s any malice in his heart beyond usual Christian conservative nonsense -- and I think he stepped down as graciously and magnanimously as possible when confronted about it. Time will judge Scott Cawthon’s politics, and that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I want to talk about what makes these games so damn special, from a horror, design, and marketing perspective. I think there’s really SO MUCH to be learned from studying these games and the wider influence they’ve had as intellectual property. 

What Is FNAF? 

In case you’ve somehow been living under a rock for the last seven years, Five Nights At Freddy’s (hereafter, FNAF) is a horror franchise spanning 17 games (10 main games + some spinoffs and troll games, we’ll get to that), 27 books, a movie deal, and a couple live-action attractions. 

But before it exploded into that kind of tremendous IP, it started out as a single indie pont-and-click game created entirely by one dude, Scott Cawthon. Cawthon had developed other games in the past without much fame or success, including some Christian children’s entertainment. He was working as a cashier at Dollar General and making games in his spare time -- and most of those games got panned. 

So he tried making something different. 

After being criticized that the characters in one of his children’s games looked like soulless, creepy animatronics, Cawthon had his lightbulb moment and created a horror game centered on....creepy animatronics! 

The rest, as they say, is history. 

The Genius of FNAF’s Horror Elements

In the first FNAF game, you play as a night security guard at Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, a sort of ersatz Chuck-E-Cheese establishment. The animatronics are on free-roaming mode at night, but you don’t want to let them find you in your security room so you have to watch them move through the building on security camera monitors. If they get too close, you can slam your security room doors closed. But be careful, because this restaurant operates on a shoestring budget, and the power will go off if you keep the doors closed too long or flicker the lights too often. And once the lights go out, you’re helpless against the animatronics in the dark. 

Guiding you through your gameplay is a fellow employee, Phone Guy, who calls you each night with some helpful advice. Phone Guy is voiced by Cawthon himself, and listening to his tapes gives you some hints of the game’s underlying story as well as telling you how to play. A few newspaper clippings and other bits of scrap material help to fill in more details of the story. 

Over the next set of games, the story would be further developed, with each new game introducing new mechanics and variations on the theme -- in one, you don a mask to slip past the notice of animatronics; in another, you have to play sound cues to lure an animatronic away from you. By the fourth game, the setup was changed completely, now featuring a child with a flashlight hiding from the monsters outside his door -- nightmarish versions of the beloved child-friendly mascots. The mechanics change just enough between variations to keep things fresh while maintaining a consistent brand. 

There are so many things these games do well from a storytelling and horror perspective: 

Jump Scares: It’s easy to shrug these games off for relying heavily on jump scares, and they absolutely do have a lot of them. But they’re used strategically. In most games, the jump scares are a punishment (a controlled shock, if you will) -- if you play the game perfectly, you’ll never be jump-scared. This is an important design choice that a lot of other horror games don’t follow. 

Atmospheric Dread: These games absolutely deliver horror and tension through every element of design -- some more than others, admittedly. But a combination of sound cues, the overall texture and aesthetic of the world, the “things move when you’re not looking at them” mechanic, all of it works together to create a feeling of unease and paranoia. 

Paranoia: As in most survival horror games, you’re at a disadvantage. You can’t move or defend yourself, really -- all you can do is watch. And so watch you do. Except it’s a false sense of security, because flicking lights and checking cameras uses up precious resources, putting you at greater risk. So you have to balance your compulsive need to check, double-check, and make sure...with methodical resource conservation. The best way to survive these games is to remain calm and focused. It’s a brilliant design choice. 

Visceral Horror: The monster design of the animatronics is absolutely delightful, and there’s a whole range of them to choose from. The sheer size and weight of the creatures, the way they move and position themselves, their grunginess, the deadness of their eyes, the quantity and prominence of their teeth. They are simultaneously adorable and horrifying. 

Implicit Horror: One of the greatest strengths to FNAF as a franchise is that it never wears its story on its sleeve. Instead of outright telling you what’s going on, the story is delivered in bits and pieces that you have to put together yourself -- creating a puzzle for an engaged player to think about and theorize over and consider long after the game is done. But more than that, the nature of the horror itself is such that it becomes increasingly upsetting the more you think on it. The implications of what’s going on in the game world -- that there are decaying bodies tucked away inside mascots that continue to perform for children, that a man dressed in a costume is luring kids away into a private room to kill them, and so forth -- are the epitome of fridge horror. 

The FNAF lore does admittedly start to become fairly ridiculous and convoluted as the franchise wears on. But even ret-conned material manages to be pretty interesting in its own right (and there is nothing in the world keeping you from playing the first four games, or even the first six, and pretending none of the rest exist). 

Another thing I really appreciate about the FNAF franchise is that it’s quite funny, in a way that complements and underscores the horror rather than detracting from it. It’s something a lot of other properties utterly fail to do. 

The Genius of Scott Cawthon’s Marketing 

OK, so FNAF utilizes a multi-prong attack for creating horror and implements it well -- big deal. Why did it explode into a massive IP sensation when other indie horror games that are just as well-made barely made a blip on the radar? 

Well! That’s where the real genius comes in. This game was built and marketed in a way to maximize its franchisability. 

First, the story utilizes instantly identifiable, simple but effective character designs, and then generates more and more instantly identifiable unique characters with each iteration. Having a wealth of characters and clever, unique designs basically paves the way for merchandise and fan-works. (That they’re anthropomorphic animal designs also probably helped -- because that taps into the furry fandom as well without completely alienating non-furries). 

Speaking of fan-work, Scott Cawthon has always been very supportive of fandom, only taking action when people would try to profit off knock-off games and that sort of thing -- basically bad-faith copies. But as far as I know he’s always been super chill with fan-created content, even going so far as to engage directly with the fandom. Which brings me to....

These games were practically designed for streaming, and he took care to deliver them into the hands of influential streamers. Because the games are heavy on jump-scares and scale in difficulty (even including extra-challenging modes after the core game is beaten) they are extremely fun to watch people play. They’re short enough to be easily finished over the duration of a long stream, and they’re episodic -- lending themselves perfectly to a YouTube Lets Play format. One Night = One Video, and now the streamer has weeks of content from your game (but viewers can jump in at any time without really missing much). 

The games are kid-friendly but also genuinely frightening. Because the most disturbing parts of the game’s lore are hinted at rather than made explicit, younger players can easily engage with the game on a more basic surface level, and others can go as deep into the lore as they feel comfortable. There is no blood and gore and violence or even any explicitly stated death in the main game; all of the murder and death is portrayed obliquely by way of 8-bit mini games and tangential references. Making this game terrifying but accessible to youngsters, and then marketing it directly to younger viewers through popular streamers (and later, merchandising deals) is genius -- because it creates a very broad potential audience, and kids tend to spend 100% of their money (birthdays, allowances, etc.) and are most likely to tell their friends about this super scary game, etc. etc.

By creating a puzzle box of lore, and then interacting directly with the fandom -- dropping hints, trolling, essentially creating an ARG of his own lore through his website, in-game easter eggs, and tie-in materials -- Cawthon created a mystery for fandom to solve. And fans LOVE endlessly speculating over convoluted theories. 

Cawthon released these games FAST. He dropped FNAF 2 within months of the first game’s release, and kept up a pace of 1-2 games a year ever since. This steady output ensured the games never dropped out of public consciousness -- and introducing new puzzle pieces for the lore-hungry fans to pore over helped keep the discussion going. 

I think MatPat and The Game Theorists owe a tremendous amount of their own huge success to this game. I think Markiplier does, too, and other big streamers and YouTubers. It’s been fascinating watching the symbiotic relationship between these games and the people who make content about these games. Obviously that’s true for a lot of fandom -- but FNAF feels so special because it really did start so small. It’s a true rags-to-riches sleeper hit and luck absolutely played a role in its growth, but skill is a big part too. 

Take-Aways For Creatives 

I want to be very clear here: I do not think that every piece of media needs to be “IP,” franchisable, an extended universe, or a multimedia sensation. I think there is plenty to be said for creating art of all types, and sometimes that means a standalone story with a small audience. 

But if you do want a chance at real break-out, run-away success and forging a media empire of your own, I think there are some take-aways to be learned from the success of FNAF: 

Persistence. Scott Cawthon studied animation and game-design in the 1990s and released his first game in 2002. He released a bunch of stuff afterward. None of it stuck. It took 12 years to hit on the winning formula, and then another several years of incredibly hard work to push out more titles and stoke the fires before it really became a sensation. Wherever you’re at on your creative journey, don’t give up. You never know when your next thing will be The Thing that breaks you out. 

If you want to sell a lot of something, you have to make it widely appealing to a bunch of people. This means keeping your concept simple to understand (”security guard wards off creepy killer animatronics at a pizza parlor”) and appealing to as wide a segment of the market as you can (ie, a horror story that appeals to both kids and adults). The more hyper-specific your audience, the harder it’s gonna be to find them and the fewer copies of your thing you’ll be selling. 

Know your shit and put your best work out there. I think there’s an impulse to feel like “well, nobody reads this anyway, so why does it matter if it’s no good” (I certainly have fallen into that on multiple occasions) but that’s the wrong way to think about it. You never know when and where your break will come. Put your best work out there and keep on polishing your craft with better and better stuff because eventually one of those things you chuck out there is going to be The Thing. 

Figure out where your target audience hangs out, and who influences them, and then get your thing in the hands of those influencers. Streaming and YouTube were the secret to FNAF’s success. Maybe yours will be BookTube, or Instagram, or a secret cabal of free librarians. I don’t know. But you should try your best to figure out who would like the thing that you’re making, and then figure out how to reach those people, and put all of your energy into that instead of shotgun-blasting your marketing all willy nilly. 

You don’t have to put the whole story on the page. Audiences love puzzles. Fans love mysteries. You can actually leave a lot more unanswered than you think. There’s some value in keeping secrets and leaving things for others to fill in. Remember -- your art is only partly yours. The sandbox belongs to others to play in, too, and you have to let them do that. 

If in doubt, appealing to furries never hurts. 

Do I take all of this advice myself? Not by a long shot. But it’s definitely a lot to think about. 

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go beat The Curse of Dreadbear. 

#horror analysis #writing advice #fnaf

[miraculouscontent]

(miraculous asks)

Anonymous said:

Oh My Gosh!!!! I was just thinking about Party Crasher and man I hate how they had Ladybug get captured for the men to save! It's a continuous thing you see in media: strong heroic woman gets put in peril so that the men can shine. I didn't even realize it until you said it! I get that it was probably meant to be a "role reversal" of Chat always getting kidnapped or brainwashed for Ladybug to save, but the fact that this is the "guys' episode" it read like "well damn, we can't have the guys be strong if a girl is in the way; let's have the girl get captured so the boys can prove their worth by rescuing her!".

At least in Sandboy, Ladybug was still competent and came up with the plans, but this?! It makes me sick, and it's all too easy to fall into these traps; even Kim Possible did it! In my magical girl story, the heroine does get put in a magical coma and require someone to bail her out, but it's her female friends AND her boyfriend who save her, so it's not just a girl being weakened so a boy can be powerful, especially since said boy actually does a minority of the work required to save her; the focus is on the female characters so it's her girl friends who do most of it. I still ended up scrapping that side plot anyway, and do you know why? Because regardless of who saved her, I still didn't want my female protagonist to be put in distress at all due to the unfortunate implications! Needing help in a fight? Sure. But outright being captured or kidnapped? Nah fam.

I was honestly thinking about that when the first episode came out. Like, they could’ve just had Marinette NOT SHOW UP in time so the guys take care of things, which at least gives more of a message that Paris wouldn’t go to hell just because Ladybug is a little late or something.

And yeah, the “boys squad episode so gotta toss the girl out” is... sigh.

Anonymous said:

I think the writers were trying to show Chat angsting to show his regret instead of an actual apology. Still doesn't explain why Aeon didn't bring up her death afterwards. Did Olympia delete that from her memory banks?

I guess? :|

I don’t know why Chat can’t just apologize without fishing or trying to earn sympathy. Like JUST SAY YOU’RE SORRY, DAMMIT.

Anonymous said:

If you haven't read Maribat, then you won't regret it. I am not in the DC universe but I started reading it and WOW. Literally every single time Marinette is a badass queen and gets her complete revenge and is actually happy! Even if you absolutely love Lukanette (which I have nothing against) you should totally try it.

Appreciate the comment, but I find it hard to ship other Marinette ships outside of Lukanette. Ivanette is a very loose exception and it’s not like I ship it hard or anything.

Anonymous said:

Despite not being a Lukanette shipper I love you. Why? Because you amazing, so right in literally everything and I love you <33

gkdfjgfdngjkfdg thank you

bat-anon said:

The NY Special made it so that Max is literally the only Black/Brown kid that doesn’t exist to make Love Square happen and that just makes me hate it even more.

I wish you didn’t make me have this realization because I hate it.

At least Delmar existed in the New York special???? I guess???? I dunno, I’m trying here, I don’t recall him doing anything love square centric.

Anonymous said:

I honestly don't mind Alix's outfit as Bunnix! I feel like it fits her, plus she's an adult so its not much of a problem, not saying it can't be improved however. I DO have issues with the designs for the underage girls outfits however....those are very sus

Yeah, the problem I take with Bunnyx’s is that it’s a bodysuit. If there was just more definition, like having actual boots, I wouldn’t complain as much.

Anonymous said:

I actually just really like the idea of the new bee being a genuinely nice person who becomes friends with Marinette. Not exactly close friends (since I like the idea of friendly working relationships without actual personal stakes in them). I also enjoy the idea of the new bee having some small animosity for Chat Noir- just because their personalities aren't the greatest mix. I also think that it would make sense for the miraculous of subjection to be at odds with the miraculous of destruction

Full agreement but we know how much the writers are resistant to have characters go against Chat.

Anonymous said:

Not gonna lie the scene where the girl squad gets akumatized almost makes it seem like they got akumatized on purpose, similar to Manon in Puppeteer 2(although she was a little kid who was probably just imagining she could enact revenge). And why can't they have a uniformed design, like they're a team but wear different colors, similar to the Sailor Senshi(like, Alya's the leader and wears orange, Rose wears pink, Alix wears green, Juleka wears purple, and Mylene wears yellow). It's so boring.

Mood.

Not to mention that WE ARE SO TIRED OF THEM GETTING AKUMATIZED INTO THE SAME AKUMA.

AT LEAST PALETTE SWAP THEM.

Anonymous said:

Relating to the Didn't Need Burrows and Treatment of Marinette bingo cards, have you considered making one for whenever the show fails at girl power? It could say things like "sexualized frames of teenage girls" "boy tells girl what to do" "girls don't get to keep Miraculouses", and "girls are forced to apologize whenever a situation goes wrong". And in the center, it could say "Don't show this to your daughter!"! Lol! What do you think?

lol I feel like I have enough cards, otherwise I would.

Anonymous said:

I saw another post that talked about Miraculous New York, and they theorized that it was rewritten to focus more on Marinette and Adrien in order to get viewers invested in the Love Square again after more people started to lose faith in the ship. Do you think that's a possibility?

I think so. The whole special comes off as trying to reassure love square shippers because of how hard it goes for him. I cut out Marinette’s crushing and it cuts like 18% from the episode, meaning it’s even worse than Season 3 (15%).

Anonymous said:

Maybe the point of the [break-up episodes] is meant to discourage people from shipping Lukanette and Adrigami too?

Spoiler alert: didn’t work.

Anonymous said:

Are we not gonna talk about how in one ask, somebody legit said "(long dreamy sigh) Viperion"? Like same.

RIGHT????

Same.

Anonymous said:

Ml fandom: I hate how Ladybug keeps secrets from Chat Noir! He sacrifices himself for her all the time and she never appreciates him for it! He has EVERY right to get mad at her!!

ML Fandom when Chat Noir does the same thing in the special: ....Wow Ladybug was way to harsh on Chat Noir!! She doesn’t appreciate him at all!! Shes so mean to him!

:|

i hate it

Anonymous said:

Idk if it's just me, but a majority of the fandom is split in two; it's never one or the other "MARINETTE SUCKS AND IS A HORRIBLE PERSON GUARDIAN MARY SUE WHO SEXUALLY HARRASSES" or "ADRIEN SUCKS HE WAS NEVER ON MARINETTES SIDE" but im personally on the latter, but not to that extreme. i hate videos bashing marinette and then never acknowledge adriens faults

Yeah, the fandom gets more divided as time goes on because of the writers trying to increase the drama/tension.

Anonymous said:

I am PERSONALLY offended they gave Luka the snake miraculous. Snakes have such a negative connotation. A lot of people insult Lila by calling her a SNAKE. And now those ML writers DARE insult the best character in ML?! HOW DARE THEY!?????

I adore Viperion but I agree that I first heard he was getting snake and was like, “BUT MY BOI???”

It gets awkward too because other animals like the pig have negative connotations, like how Daizzi basically means “idiot/stupid” and they’re giving it to the freaking blond character, really???

Anonymous said:

I think that Ivanette would be even better if Marinette was plus-sized character.

I see why you’d think that. I just disagree because then it turns the ship into “let’s pair the heavyset characters together because they heavyset.”

Anonymous asked:

On the topic of romance failures and general series salt, my main issue right now is how the series puts so much focus on romantic relationships while failing to consider other levels of relationship or what they affect.

On the L² front I can completely buy Marinette being in love with Adrien. Most of the time she genuinely wants him to be happy and is ready to take a step back for him, however much it hurts. But in terms of romantic love? It. Is. A. Crush! But if we step back from the formula, what is there left between them? Their civilian relationship is held together by a “comedy” of errors and without that there is surprisingly little left. Well, besides two “best friends” desperately trying to make it happen because somehow they lost their individual characters and instead of being friends became matchmakers?

I too like Luka and Marinette together. Their relationship is pretty nice to see and all. But sometimes it feels like it happens in a dimension of its own, like the writers want to make the endgame clear in that the “sideships” can be easily cut out of the big “how they got together”-recaps. I especially miss reactions from and interactions with Juleka. She is Luka’s sister, Marinette’s friend, and IIRC someone aware of if not even a bit player in the great shipping game. She is in a prime position to step up and bring progress on all fronts: She can talk with Luka. She can either give Marinette helpful pointers or go “All in or nothing”, i.e. trying to make Marinette get her Adrien-feelings in order as she does not want her brother to get less than Marinette’s full heart. Similarly, she can counteract “friendly acts” and stop humiliating situations from escalating, or she herself can escalate them in the “All or Nothing”-scenario. Yet she remains basically a background character who gets little attention from the camera and almost no “non-focus identity”

As for Kagami, I may be too biased. *Any* positive Kagami/Marinette relationship is to me what Lukanette is to you. So naturally I have lots of opinions when it comes to her role ;) But can I just say that Adrien/Kagami is the weirdest ship for me? They have a few cute scenes and I think if they’d spend a lot more time together, they’d do each other good but I don’t know how they work. “No Hesitation” Kagami would lob Adrien’s head straight off with all his…everything. If we are meant to take Adrien’s love for LB seriously (and I guess we have to because how in the name of sanity is any form of the stated endgame gonna work otherwise???), how does Kagami fit into that picture as a girl who can hardly express emotions while Adrien is the definition of a  guy who can not stop flirting or goes for all kinds of romantic gestures? Sometimes it feels more like a “social fit” and “Mommy/Daddy approves” kind of deal which is quite the shame! Normally I like these kind of relationships in fictions but they need a solid underlining or good development. One they haven’t and one the series has not been giving to anyone so far.

Yeah, the whole thing with the love square versus side ships ends up feeling extremely forced. Keeping Luka away and forcing Adrien into Lukanette episode are the biggest giveaways, basically a big fat sign that says, “We know Marinette would forget that Adrien exists if she hung around Luka for more than five minutes.”

AND YEAH, KAGAMI WOULDN’T PUT UP WITH ADRIEN’S GARBAGE. I liked Adrimi but it’s definitely more flawed than Lukanette.

Anonymous said:

Watched your opinion on the New York special and I agree with you. It was mediocre at best. It could have been something nice, like if they added Kagami and Luka, for example, so that we can get a bit of development from the new couples on season 4, so that it doesn’t feel rushed when they start dating on season 4. It could also be a good opportunity to see the other temporary heroes one last time, since Marinette technically has the miracle box.

They could have had an epic fight with the American Superheroes, maybe even giving the bee miraculous temporally to Aeon or Jess so that we didn’t need to see their awful and uncreative superheroes designs. It would have been nice if they made something more useful other than being characters that believe that Adrien and Marinette are “Meant to be”, like, we already got a ton of these already, couldn’t we get someone who didn’t feel something about this ship? It has so much wasted potential that I don’t even know how to start. Do you agree with anything I said?

I agree, yes. They could’ve easily thrown Luka/Kagami into the mix (or had Marinette/Adrien stay behind while flipping perspectives or something; flawed but they could make it work).

Anonymous said:

I'm rereading ladybugout and wow... the moment of silence after "chat deserves that kiss" gets me every time. Everyone stopping and just staring because wow he really just said that

Me whenever Chat Noir opens his mouth in the show.

Anonymous said:

I saw the Backwarder post you just talked about and yes, it is so totally ridiculous. They forgot another thing, though. Miraculous isn't just about comedy, action, and romance, it's about embarrassing Marinette. And the fact that almost everyone in the comments was acting like the medicine scene at the end was funny was just stupid and saddening to hear or read about, because it shows how people have been conditioned to hate and rally against Marinette without even realizing it. Granted, there was one lady who said it reminded her of her husband, so I guess that's okay(but all it means is that Adrien will be Marinette's--aka "his lady's"--husband like eeerrrgh!). And there was one person who said they liked that Juleka's advice because "If you're friend isn't willing to commit crimes for your happiness, is she even your friend?". But everyone else liked the ending. And I don't get the person who said we got "Subtle progression with Adrien and Marinette". We're right where we started.

Weeeeell, I understand the “comedy, action, romance” comment because all of those basically boil down to embarrassing Marinette or invalidating her. Comedy and romance goes without saying while action involves her dealing with Chat “Nice Guy” Noir.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me, or does Snow White's "Red Shoes" form look a lot like Marinette. I know, I know, Marinette is Chinese and Red Shoes is Korean, but they still look strikingly similar. They're bodies are really similar, too, but that might just be because animation tends to use eerily similar body types for its female characters on a whole. It's sad and it makes me think of how cute Marinette would be if she was fat. I also think Snow White was cuter than Red Shoes but that's kind of the point.

I think it’s the body type thing but that’s just a guess since I didn’t immediately make the connection.

I agree that Snow White is cuter.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one who's never liked "destined to fail" characters? Basically this is when characters aren't allowed to be good at/succeed at something or else the whole universe will somehow fall apart. Think of how in The Amazing World of Gumball, if Richard gets a job, the world will be in complete and utter chaos. So he's better off as a lazy, bumbling dad. In Phineas and Ferb, Candace is always trying to rat out her younger brothers but if she gives up or succeeds something bad will happen.

TV Tropes put it the best: "Not only is she not allowed to succeed, but she's also not allowed to stop trying!"(conveniently under the Cosmic Plaything trope). I just don't like it because it shows that the writers just want to lead them on with the promise of success then snatch it away at the last minute. And now we're back at Miraculous Ladybug, where Marinette is humiliated every time she doesn't sign a gift that's for Adrien, and yet when she does, everyone in Paris DIES. Except for...HIM.

you: *mentions Candace*

me: [a million awful flashbacks]

Also, yeah, it’s so hard to watch, especially in “Chat Blanc” because it’s like, “Oh, you want to give a gift to a boy and you dArEd to use your powers for it? Congrats, but everyone else is DEAD and you can hang out with him as much as you want! You’re welcome!”

Anonymous said:

I think it’d become a “faintest idea blackout card”rather than a bingo.

(referring to my “Faintest Idea” card)

We’re getting there.

darkmoonravewolf said:

I hate that everything on that list could happen and very likely will

(referring to “Didn’t Need Burrow”)

Yeah, and it makes me sad :’)

Anonymous said:

That’s be real here. Miraculous ladybug is not a show about Marinette; Miraculous Ladybug is a show about Adrien. Adrien is the real main character.

Notice that when they focused on Adrien in “Lies,” they only cut back to Marinette (IN A SCENE THAT CAN’T EXIST) to have her fawn over him.

Anonymous said:

Is it just me or are Lady Noire's eyes huge? Maybe it's just the green but they seem way bigger than Marinette's

I’m not sure, but considering Rena’s facial structure being different from Alya’s, it wouldn’t surprise me.

asexual-individual said:

With what you've said about Adrien lacking a reason to exist outside of development for Marinette and Gabriel, I have to wonder how different the show would be if Chat Noir's identity was also kept from the audience. Adrien would still be there as himself, but he only gets as much focus as Alya, and Chat Noir's identity is treated as a mystery (a Tuxedo Mask type mystery, but a mystery all the same).

I see what you mean but it might cause Adrien+Chat’s screentime to feel excessive once the reveal happens, because suddenly their screentime gets combined and it’s like, “oh wow so the combined screentime is his then.”

Anonymous said:

I know that the kwami's really only exist so we can hear our protagonists' thoughts outloud (like what the Coraline movie did with adding Wybie to the story). But honestly, what's the point in having magical gods in the jewelry if you're not going to do anything with them?

Marketing with “cute” side characters.

guisendisguise said:

It's funny, originally, I had shipped Marichat in the sense that Chat and Mari start hanging out and both fall in love with the other's supposedly less perfect, more real selves. Then Luka was introduced and I ended up putting both lukanette and marichat at the same level. Then S3 hit and killed any love I had for Marichat. The writers themselves killed the Love Square for me. At this point, it's very clear they are living in a delusion where the Love Square could ever work narratively without Deus ex Machina or Deus Lo Vult (God wills it). Basically, they've gone past scraping the bottom of the writing skills barrel and are now shoulder deep in the hole they dug thru the bottom of said barrel. I'd like to point out that the bottom of the barrel is writing poop and now they're digging thru the useless plastic landfill the barrel was sitting on top of

Uggggh, yeah. Any appreciation I could’ve had for Marichat died in “Weredad.” I already didn’t like Adrien/Chat and then “Weredad” just showed his complete lack of... well, ANYTHING.

cosmostellar said:

Honestly feels like MLBs writers are going based off the "JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE" instead of, yknow, fleshing them out while developing them also in the context of their cultures and giving them these little things that the audiences who belong to the same minority can identify with. I don't mean "have Marinette walk in qipao 24/7" bcs thats just... bad on its own but man, /some/ casual acknowledgments of her culture would be nice.

Reading the sentence “JUST IMAGINE EVERY POC CHARACTER YOU'RE WRITING AS WHITE” physically hurts me.

Anonymous said:

Ok, I've always thought that Chloe was robbed of redemption (they held it in front of us, but then jerked it away while Astruc says, "She's irredeemable! We thought she was redeemable, but she wasn't :)!" What are your thoughts! Also, I just recently found your blog and I really like it :)

Thank you!

But I have no sympathy for bully characters, so I didn’t want Chloe redeemed. Maybe I’m still bitter about my own bullying experience, but I just wasn’t here for Marinette being forced to forgive Chloe, which is basically what they did until they backpedaled.

The time spent on her was wasted though and that I can agree on.

Anonymous said:

Me: Writes a 1k rant about how the tweet makes no sense as the "mistake" is about motivation and not the critical plot. Also me: Remembers that in MLB the plot always comes back to the romance. Finally me: Wonders why he got involved with the series post-S3 when all the red flags were already everywhere.

Mistakes were made.

Anonymous said:

I'm semi-catching up on miraculous, and- is it my impression, or does Kagami rebel against her mother more in few episodes she's in (even though her mother's influences on her seem to be stronger in general), than Adrien in the entire show? I /know/ that I don't want to see Adrien free himself from his father w/ the desperation I want to see Kagami free herself from her mother and realize that the standards she's held up to are unhealthy and too strong.

Yeah, I’m way more invested in Kagami than Adrien.

Anonymous said:

Am I the only one confused about whether the staff stopped caring and half-asses the series or cares too much and over-produces the hell out of it?

Nah. It really feels like they secretly hate the love square so they have to keep forcing it.

Anonymous said:

ngl I haven't watched any new episodes since Chameleon and I've been getting all that Miraculous News via tumblr to avoid that Marinette Brand Second Hand Embarrassment™

Understandable.

Anonymous said:

If they aired the 6th one first WHAT WHAT HAPPENED TO LEAD UP TO THIS???? WE ARE ON SEASON FOUR WITH TWO SPEICALS, GETTING A THIRD, AND ANY DEVELOPMENT WE HAD HAS GONE BACKWARDS, SUCKED, OR STATUS QUO YO-ED AWAY!!!!! HOW THE HECK DO WE GET ADRIENETTE FROM FOUR SEASONS OF NOTHING?????? I USED TO FANGIRL AT THIS NOW I AM TERRIFIED.

Answer: We don’t get Adrienette. We get forced love square and rushed/fake “development” of it while being constantly confused as episodes air out of order.

Anonymous said:

im sorry But adrienette has been suck in this limbo of one sidedness for 3 seasons. neither of them have become closer, neither of them have confided in one another, but somehow people still ship it? at least luka was able to make a move on marinette lol adrien still repeats the same boring “shes just a friend” line. adrienette is a really boring ship.

lol don’t apologize, you’re absolutely right.

nahte123456 said:

Very minor bit of salt to throw to the pile, but can this show just decide on how strong Miraculous holders are? Yes it's a cartoon and not the focus but in the Furious Fu episode we literally get Ladybug dodging lighting and then Su who seems mostly human and is at least slower then Fu was outspeeding her. It's distracting trying to figure out what is and isn't a serious threat in this show.

The deciding factor in the strength of the miraculous holders is “whatever works for the plot.”

Anonymous said:

At this point the only thing I'm excited for concerning Miraculous Ladybug is when it gets a reboot in like, a decade with actually competent writers

Best case scenario is that Zag goes bankrupt and Disney/Netflix picks up the series and gives it to competent people.

Problem is that the love square has been ruined so badly for me that even a “good” version of it wouldn’t be something I’d be into, but still.

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the problem with having all of Marinette's mistakes result in huge disasters (ex. Feast), is that is gives off the impression that teenagers aren't allowed to make mistakes. This show clearly doesn't like giving second chances to the protagonist, so why would life give one to you? Am I right, kids?

Exactly.

Marinette makes mistakes and suddenly the world is ending.

Anonymous said:

If your gonna watch the show, at least pirate the episodes so the writers dont get your support

Don’t worry, I have no interest in financially supporting the show.

Anonymous said:

ml in a nutshell: wasted potential, then giving themselves more potential, only to turn the rest of it into a dumpster fire

Yup, that’s it.

Anonymous said:

u know, when My Little Pony, Sofia The First, and fanfiction carries out character development, respect, romance, and the main plot better than the original show, especially when the shows mentioned above are aimed more at little girls and the original show is aimed at slightly older audiences... somethings wrong

*sigh*

And then it’s like--people will excuse the show because “it’s a kids’ show” and then I’m just “okay then, why are there actually good kids’ show?”

If shows get a pass for being for children then all childrens’ shows should just not try and be garbage since the standard is so low.

Anonymous said:

ive seen some cool fic ideas/concepts/reviews that made me think: ml could use so much more looking into how a character thinks in some situations. one fic i read had alya in chameleon (i know its been forever since the ep came out but hey) not question lila cus she thought: "hey, lb wouldnt befriend a bad person" w and added a plot line of lila making her think lb was cobsidering replacing rena rougue. like, just a few lines to make them seem better pls?

YES. Like, show us characters’ perspectives and why they’re rolling with the facts that they’re rolling with, otherwise they just end up looking like jerks.

We sort of got it in “Ikari Gozen” with Kagami but of course it was just to make Marinette look bad.

Anonymous said:

You know I’m honestly considering making reviews of this show and if I do I could create hour long rants about the show just from that mans twitter.

Yeaaaaaah, once you had in the Twitter stuff, it just becomes, “okay so this is going to add another hour or two then.”

Anonymous said:

Okay one thing that bothers me is how plain marinette's suits are despite being a DESIGNER. Her multimouse suit it just blocks of color and her ladynoir suit is just grey with green lines. I think the lines are supposed to represent actually clothes. Like the limes on the calves are supposed to make it look like boots but why not actually GIVE her boots. (Right, because she has to have a skintight suit unlike the boys who get some layers.)

THE SHEER DISRESPECT OF HAVING THE FASHION DESIGNER WEAR SUCH A PLAIN SUIT.

It also goes to show who really designs here, like oh, interesting, the girls get skin-tight simplistic bodysuits and the boys gets all the cool stuff--

Anonymous said:

I heard some people in my class saying they watched Miraculous Ladybug for the first time, and they were saying how good it was, and I was like: 'Oh you poor fools. You have NO idea what it's truly like.'

You know what they say: ignorance is bliss.

bat-anon said:

Isn’t it INTERESTING how in Frozer, Luka understands that Marinette is torn between her crushes and continues to support her even though he knows she probably won’t chose him, and in the exact same episode Chat Noir refuses to help save the city because Ladybug told him AGAIN that she wasn’t romantically interested in him? HMMM 🤔😑

dbfgjbdfjkgf

I’M REMINDED OF “FELIX” WHERE IT’S LIKE--THEY WERE CLEARLY TRYING TO SHOW HOW MUCH “BETTER” CHAT NOIR IS THAN FELIX, BUT LUKA WAS THE RESPECTFUL ONE.

Anonymous said:

You know what I want to see? An evil kwami, like they just want to commit crimes. No moral high grounds, just chaotic evil.

That’d be amazing just because I wouldn’t be able to take them seriously.

Anonymous said:

Watching S1 and S3 episodes back to back, it feels like reading salt fics at times, especially in regards to the L². Like, Marinette was happy about weird plans, she both needed and wanted the final push, and most of the time there was at least something coming out of it. Nowadays it just makes her sad, Alya and the girls act *against* her, and we get shipping for shipping's sake.

That’s a good point. The shift from Seasons 1 to 2 to 3 is rather noticeable.

Anonymous said:

I hate how Adrien's busy schedule seems to only matter when it's used to make Marinette feel bad, but the second Marinette has a bit more to do, it somehow has a negative effect on not only her, but also everyone/everything she cares about, like, what's up with that??

I’m reminded of “Lies” here and I hate it. :|

Anonymous said:

Honestly, the way the show treats teenage girls is horse ass. The show treats the teenage girls of this show as if they're stupid, naive, emotional, clumsy, and need a boy to tell them what opinions to have. Marinette is always treated like the show's punching bag and blamed for everything that goes wrong because she's "emotional" or "obsessed with Adrien", Chloe could've been redeemed but the writers would rather keep her a brain-dead Alpha Bitch Valley Girl(even though Gabriel and Felix, the latter of whom is a teenage boy introduced in one episode, get to be treated as redeemable, despite the things they do being far, far worse), and Lila is a conniving, self-absorbed fox.

And even though Kagami seems better, she's still roped into the "girls catfight over an oblivious guy" cliche and so far, all of her akumatizations have been because of Adrien. Whenever Marinette tries to move on from Adrien the other characters tell her what's good for her and steer her in the "right" direction because she apparently can't think for herself, and the writers LOVE to use the girl squad to tell us who Marinette should be with, because they apparently know better than she does.

Plus the show loves to treat all the girls as the same, making them all either fight over Adrien or be obsessed with shipping, as if teenage girls are all one assimilating, homogenized group(also when they treat Marinette as if she's "just as bad as Chloe", rinse and repeat for the other ladies.). Honestly, the show feels like it was written by those types of people who think "teenage girls are the worst" so they make them all mood-swingy, obsessive, showoffs, emotional, and downright clingy.

Plus the way Thomas Astruc talks about the female characters on Twitter is even worse, and only serves to make this more evident: he claims Marinette "has poor control over her emotions"(all the while calling Adrien "perfect"), that Chloe was racist in Kung Food "because she's stupid"(so rather than having that scene serve as a lesson on respecting other's cultures, he just did it to pick on Chloe and make her look "stupid"), that she's incapable of being redeemed, that Lila's unlikable but Gabriel and Felix aren't(even though he claimed Felix was a terrible character and a "cliche", that's not what the show says my guy), and other such nonsense.

Other Twitter users have also called out Miraculous Ladybug and its stereotypical treatment of teenage girls. The only shows I've ever seen do this worse are those pretentious "darker" Magical Girl "deconstructions" aimed at grown men such as Madoka Magica and Yuki Yuna, as well as most shonen/seinen shows such as Naruto and Death Note, which says a lot. Honestly, whenever I feel like watching a show with empowering and respectful depictions of teenage girls that treats them as bright and intelligent and actually unique from one another, I just watch Equestria Girls, Liv and Maddie, LoliRock, ANT Farm, Moesha, PreCure, or Sailor Moon. Because the way the show acts towards them is deplorable, absolutely deplorable.

Yes to all of the above. Almost all of the girls are involved in love affairs in some way, the two teenage girls are irredeemable while Felix got a sympathetic backstory right away (Chloe took forever to get hers which is a failure), and Marinette is flawed because she’s “too emotional” (a misogynistic stereotype).

Anonymous said:

Hi, I'm the anon who got upset at the lady who made the "Miraculous Ladybug is a Mess" rant, and yes, thank you zodiacspirit17 for liking and agreeing with my rant! I'm glad someone else saw that video! And ugh, Marinette learning to love Chat Noir? Really? I don't remember that line but I also don't want to go back and revisit it to make sure so I'll take your word for it. Ew. That was actually one of the things I hated about the Glaciator scene. Chat was supposedly comforting Marinette by taking her to the rooftop where he planned Ladybug's date, and yet only Marinette finds out about Chat's crush on Ladybug and comforts him on that(while rethinking her feelings), while all Chat knows is that Marinette's heart was also broken. He never asks who it is, or tries to help her get over her crush even if he doesn't know it's coincidentally him.

I know it's because of the "love square" but it's unfair that only Chat's love problems are directly addressed. Come to think of it, the reason Chat took Marinette to the rooftop...I know he was doing it in-universe to help her instead of intruding on her personal feelings(which might have also been why he didn't ask her who her crush was, he was probably thinking along the lines of "we don't have to talk about it right now, we can just have fun!"), but meta-wise, since we know she's Ladybug, the writers were probably trying to tell her "See? This is what you could've been doing, but you missed it. Shame on you!" That's a huge issue I have with the show: characters will do things in-universe to help Marinette, but the show has a different motive in mind. Compare to how Tikki gave actual advice to Marinette in Puppeteer 2, but the writers intended that for the statue scene so they could embarrass her in front of Adrien and the thousands of eyes watching the show(except we're not laughing.). Even if characters do support her, the writer is using them as props for her ritualized humiliation. And yet Luka is the problem somehow.

If Marinette needs to learn how to love Chat Noir, then it should at least be balanced out by Adrien learning to Marinette. I'm sick of this double standard that "girls need to learn to accept boys who like them but guys can do what they want". Another thing she said was that "Marinette needs to learn to define herself outside of who she's crushing on." NOPE. NOPE. NOPE. You see, unlike Adrien, Marinette HAS a life outside of who she's crushing on: she has school, she has Kitty Section, she has her "girl squad", she has her parents, she has her outside family, she babysits Alya's and Nino's siblings, and she has OH YEAH HER FASHION DESIGNING! I didn't even count being a superhero since Adrien does that, too. She has so many things to do outside of Adrien, and yet the fact that she makes gifts for Adrien or dreams about Adrien or wants to have kids with Adrien somehow makes her nothing but an "Adrien fangirl"?

First of all, she's the bloody protagonist?! That's such a "Real Women Don't Wear Dresses" argument, that she can't have her own life AND be in love at the same time! And somehow her crushing on Luka also means her life revolves around him, too! But Adrien's life doesn't revolve around Ladybug even though he doesn't really have anything going for him in his ordinary life? Outside of being rich, hot, white, and male, that is? What are his interests and hobbies, besides what Gabriel lets him do to pass the time? He doesn't even like modeling! And the Agreste plot is more about Gabriel, Emilie, and Nathalie than it is about him.

And what about his friendship with Nino? He didn't even care that Nino was getting strung along by Lila with the others! What about his friendship with Chloe that also waxes and wanes? Granted, Chloe's not a GOOD person, which that lady acknowledged, but she at least tried to change and has more development than him, the writers just won't let her change. I hate when people come for Marinette for doing literally anything when the show won't let her have agency and progress. It's so unfair of her and I wish they could see that. These double standards are driving me insane and they're sexist(maybe even a little bit racist, too), and it hurts even more when a woman's doing those things.

(I had to cut off some of this ask because I didn’t get all of it, so I cut it off at the point where it still seemed like a full ask.)

I FEEL THE “GLACIATOR” THING SO BAD. It hurts even worse when you realize that “Frozer” has to take place after “Glaciator,” so Chat Noir heard that Marinette has love problems and then ignored it to ask her for advice about his own love problems later on. The total lack of insensitivity???

Also, the idea that Marinette’s life would revolve around her crush on Luka is stupid. It’s the exact opposite, in fact.

Meanwhile, Adrien has so little going for him and the “interesting” parts of him involve who he’s connected to or what his father has forced him into.

#other: askplosion #category: salt #episode: Party Crasher #special: Miraculous New York #character: Bunnyx #other: ml spoilers #episode: Gang of Secrets #episode: Truth #episode: Lies #category: fandom #episode: Backwarder #character: Lady Noire #character: Kagami Tsurugi #relationship: love square #relationship: Luka Couffaine & Marinette Dupain Cheng #relationship: Adrien Agreste & Kagami Tsurugi #category: staff #episode: Furious Fu #character: Marinette Dupain Cheng #character: Adrien Agreste #character: Luka Couffaine #character: Viperion

[gamer-logic]

The States and 2P America

So the 2ps get to the 1p world after making a truce with their counterparts and escaping their collapsing world where they're the only survivors. They then proceed to live with their 1ps in a crazy roommate sort-of situation. The only problem is that when Allen gets to Alfred's house it's this huge mansion and one of the states opens the door making him very confused as he never had states of his own and his idiotic 1p is the father of 50 kids!

"What the *beep* Porkchop?! Since do you have fifty little brats runnin’ around?!"

Alfred gives him a full rundown on finding/raising the states and then proceeds to draft him into babysitting! At first, Allen tried to ignore them but then faces the painful realization that leaving 50 states alone is never a good idea. After finally rounding up everyone he could find and freeing the thirteen (most responsible being Delaware and Virginia) from being trapped in the barn by their younger siblings, he does a headcount.

Allen: Okay one, two, three.....45. We're missing five! Where's Nevada, Hawaii, Alaska, Texas, and New Mexico?

Random state raises their hand: I think Nevada's in Vegas gambling again. He goes there a lot to triple his allowance!

Another state: I remember Texas said something about rodeos and bull riding all the way to Dallas. Also, Alaska and Hawaii left a note saying something about hanging out with New Mexico and Tony in Roswell!

Allen: But we're in D.C.! How did they get all the way over there in 3 hours?! *States shrug while Allen looks close to screaming into the void* Okay, everyone into the bus! We're going to get your siblings!

Cue cross country road-trip like the hangover where, after hours of getting lost in Disney Land, Delaware’s nagging about being the oldest and most mature much to Massachusetts chagrin because he’s clearly got better colleges, getting into a dance contest in Maine, keeping Arizona from getting stuck in the Grand Canyon for the hundredth time, Wisconsin participating in a cheese eating contest, Maine cooking seafood, Georgia making 30 peach cobblers, Colorado making a giant igloo, Washington and Oregon's hippie phases making a return, playing hockey in Minnesota, fishing Michigan out of the great lakes, New Jersey getting stalked by the Jersey Devil who’s like that stray cat that keeps following you around, keeping New York from starting a fight at Yankee’s game, gator wrestling in the Florida everglades, getting dressed for Mardi Gras in Lousianna, getting lost in Iowa’s biggest corn maze, the Dakota twins almost killing the Carolinas for trying to graffiti Mt. Rushmore (there’s a bit of a twin rivalry), avoiding the secret service less they get caught and ratted out to Alfred, seeing Old Faithful at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and trying to keep Alabama from sticking his head in it on a dare, crossing the Mississippi, running from rodeo clowns that Tennessee angered after he picked a fight with them for insulting his country music, finally picking up Texas with his new Rodeo bull-riding championship belt and tying him up with his own lasso, various misadventures, including recuing Idaho from an accidental marriage, in Vegas that will stay in Vegas, finding/grounding Nevada from gambling after he almost lost 50 grand and Wyoming to a circus, they finally arrive in Roswell.

Allen, too tired to care at this point: Alright! Who's this Tony New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska said they we're with?

Maryland: He's Dad's cool alien friend from 1947. New Mexico likes hanging out with him in his spaceship playing pranks on Britain and the other nations!

Allen hardly believes her but is too tired to care at this point: A-Alien? Sure, why not?! Let’s just go get them! Maybe we’ll run into Nessie too!

Iowa whispering to Ohio: But isn’t Nessie in Scotland?

Ohio: *shrugs*

After falling into a series of booby traps a la Alaska, they finally track down Tony’s ship in Alaska and find the three playing video games with Tony. It finally registers in Allen’s mind that there’s a real freakin’ alien in front of him playing Mario Kart.

Allen: T-t-that’s an….

State: Yep!

Allen: And he’s playing video games….

States: Yep!

Allen, not able to handle this anymore: *faints*

After a not so long drive back to D.C. courtesy of New Jersey’s driving, Getting KFC in Kentucky for supper with vegan salad for Allen and irritating said state in the process, and almost forgetting Rhode Island, they finally make it bake to D.C. and settle Allen down on the couch, gathering around him to watch a Marvel marathon acting like the innocent little angels they’re not. They also duct tape California’s mouth shut and tie her up with Texas’ lasso because she wouldn’t stop complaining about watching her newest one instead. Alfred finally arrives home from a meeting in Berlin around the time they finish Doctor Strange and sees Allen crashed on the couch with the states around him.

Alfred: So did you have a good time with Uncle Allen?

States: We sure did!

Wisconsin bragging about his trophy made entirely of cheese: I’m the king of cheese once again!

Alfred: Great! Now it’s off to bed everyone!

States: Aww! But we wanted to stay up and play with Uncle Allen!

Alfred: No buts, you can play again tomorrow! Now off to bed!

The states start trudging up to their rooms with California finally being freed. Georgia putting a blanket over Allen, Hawaii putting a hibiscus print pillow under his head, and Maryland putting a note on the end table as they go out. Allen finally wakes up and Alfred, watching the rest of the marathon notices.

Alfred: You were awesome with them dude! I’m going to let you babysit from now on!

Allen: *Screams and faints again*

Alfred: Heh! He’s so excited! *Munches on popcorn*

The next morning Allen wakes up and reads the note: “Thanks for taking care of all of us today! We had a lot of fun, Uncle Allen! From the states. P.S. You were super cool playing baseball at Yankee stadium! Teach us sometime? Also, there's a salad for you in the fridge! :)"

He crumbles the note and puts it in his jacket trying not to break his tough-guy persona. But later when no one looking, he takes it out with a small smile and thinks these brats aren’t so bad after all.

Eventually, they grew on him and Allen comes to consider the all the states like his own secretly loving it when they call him Uncle Allen. They may be little gremlins but his gremlins and if you so much as touch one hair on their head you’ll get a face full of his nailed bat!

Just another day in the Jones’ household!

Meanwhile In Canada:

James is babysitting the provinces for Mathew and is currently in drill sergeant mode pacing in front of the nervous, with the exception of Quebec who's extremely excited, lined-up provinces. Kumajiro (cub) and Kuma (adult) are just chilling and watching them with whistles around their necks and cute little maple leaf hats courtesy of British Columbia.

James: All right, listen up! I’m going to teach you all how to rough it and survive out in the wilderness! Now, who knows how to start a fire?

All the provinces turn to stare at Manitoba.

Manitoba: Oh, come on! I set fire to Papa’s flannel shirt collection one time!

James: Okaaaaay ignoring that, everybody get into groups of two and I’ll assign jobs!

Nova Scotia raises her hand: But there’s thirteen of us!

James: Fine then, eenie meenie miny mo… *Points to Prince Edward Island* you! Prissy pants boy you're with me! We’re gathering firewood!

P.E.I. looking up from his mirror: Excuse me!? I’m not gonna get these designer clothes dirty picking up filthy wood!

James *facepalms*: Give me that! *Proceeds to chuck the mirror into the lake much to P.E.I’s horror and Ontario’s glee!*

(They don't get along because of P.E.I.’s arrogant personality and constant declaring himself in charge despite Ontario being the oldest and having the capital).

James: We’re out here to survive off the land which means no cell phones, no internet, and definitely NO BEAUTY PRODUCTS. NOW IS THAT CLEAR?!

Provinces: Sir, yes sir!

James being the big softie that he is but won't admit: Good! Now we meet back here by sunset and we’ll roast marshmallows!

Everyone hurries and gets on with their jobs with Alberta somehow ending up stuck in a tree and harassed by woodpeckers and Yukon and Saskatchewan being the most successful by communicating with/befriending a family of beavers that help them build a shelter. By the end of the day, James also feels a sense of fatherly protectiveness and pride over the provinces like Allen. he also secretly loves it when they call him Uncle James. Nunavut also manages to find bigfoot who helps gather food much to James’ shock!

#hetalia #aph america #alfred f jones #2p america #2ptalia #allen f jones #hetalia states #hetalia world stars #hws america #hws #aph canada #mathew williams #2p hetalia #hetalia headcanons #2p canada #Sorry if I messed up the province's personalities. #I'm not very familiar with them since I'm from Georgia #hetalia provinces #canadian provinces #united states

[chelsea-gilbert]

D&AD: Duolingo Character Profiles from Duocon 2020

When naming the characters, it was important to ensure they would sound the same or similar across the world in different languages as well as reflect the characters personality. They also had to be easy to pronounce in many languages and be spelt the same. When watching the talk about each character, they each had a character description which ultimately influenced their visual appearance and so if I do create my own characters, I think creating a character profile to give them a personality before actually starting to create their appearance will help me massively. As I am aiming to target 16 - 22 year olds within this project, I think that designing new characters will be more beneficial than reusing characters from the app that already exist. The new characters will need to focus on this target audience more specifically and portray characteristics which they can personally relate to. Not only this, but depending on the narrative of my campaign, the current characters may not fit well into particular scenarios. I decided to take note of each character profile mentioned within the talk to see if there are any which particularly focus on the target audience of 16 - 22 year olds already. 

Junior 

Vacuum Cleaner of a child: Inhales food, absorbs everything he hears. 

Bright 

More interested n video games, air conditioning, candy and facts about frogs than anything that requires breaking a sweat. 

Bea

Speed talker and walker

Difficult to keep up with 

Big heart for others and loves to help as long as it’s being done in the right way 

Out to show the world that she’s right even when she’s wrong 

Lily

On an emotional scale of 1 - 10, Lily is at a negative 4

Last time she smiled was when she dyed her hair

‘Scarred’ by a life of being raised by two very loving and affectionate parents. Vowed to never become like them but deep down she knows she is like them. 

Honest, faithful and good (But makes sure no one finds out!)

Zari

Skipping from place to place 

Looking for exciting things to do and roping Lily into anything she finds 

Doesn’t care what others think of her unlike most teenagers 

Never looks before she leaps 

Effortlessly successful

Oscar

Reserved and temperamental 

Diehard devotion to detail 

Comes off as snobby and stubborn 

Wants everyone to appreciate art, culture and food as much as he does

World traveller 

Carries his moustache grooming kit wherever he goes 

Eddy

Human version of a golden retriever 

Eager, pure and impervious to criticism 

Hilariously ill equipped for the challenges of parenting but devoted to son Junior

Second guesses every decision 

Lucy

Does odd jobs to stay active: Dangerous jobs

Incredibly reckless 

Officially retired

Resourceful 

Able to repair, cook and explain almost anything 

Stumped only by how many cats she owns 

Lin

Not driven - Unless its about her relationship with her motorcycle ‘Tank’

Cares for Tank like you would a pet

Extremely laid back 

Vikram 

Master of the grill, thermostat and two kids schedules 

Leads with love

Generous

Positive nature

Skates through life

Loves everyone and everything 

Can’t stand being alone

Each character will have a different voice actor for their speech to stylise their voice and fit it to their personalities. 

Sources: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zJySKYG38y0