maydaymemer

[maydaymemer]

Pre-october 7th media analysis was so quaint. Now this post would just be “here’s every picture the director and actress took with gal gadot”

whiteman

not human

infatuated with an uninterested and probably gay female protagonist who he is extremely dependent on

constantly feels inferior to the strong and powerful women around him

the moment he gets a taste of power he becomes a fascist

he especially loves exerting the newfound power over the strong and powerful women he now objectifies

female protagonist has to clean up after him

critique on entitled straight men but probably not straight

sexless but still horny

wheatley from portal or ken from barbie 2023

[maydaymemer]

Nah if your response to “i dont like communists” is “well you must be a nazi” then nah it’s just that youre a terminally online culture warrior that thinks that communist is a good thing and that you should use free speech to endorse terrible genocidal regimes that failed last century so long as they agree with YOUR personal economic policies. Also Rage Against the Machine’s lead guy cried when Disney gave him a “resistance patch” so when a literal Nazi company endorses you then you are just controlled opposition

You hate that your favorite bands are exercising their free speech.

[maydaymemer]

And now Mephiles does have more of a personality thanks to Shadow Gens, being an immature trickster with a fixation on Shadow because he desperately wants to exist

The Hardboiled Heavies don't have more personality than Mephiles, if anything they have less.

If that were true, Gunner wouldn’t have a nervous disposition.

If that were true, Magician wouldn’t be affable.

If that were true, Shinobi wouldn’t be doing this every single time he jumps.

If that were true, Rider wouldn’t show signs of being a thrill-seeking stuntwoman.

The Heavies show more character than Mephiles ever did through their animations alone. In a franchise that’s notorious for having villains with next-to-no personality, Mephiles merely being one of such examples, the Heavies are all the more refreshing and appreciated for having a little more to them.

[maydaymemer]

Yes brother you are horny

This tweet had me absolutely flabbergasted twice because I read this and I was like "Dame Aylin? The tall, blonde, supermodel demigoddess? How is she at all outside of the beauty standard? This is stupid" and then I scrolled down and there were a hundred replies by straight dudes who were calling her ugly and talking about anime women they prefer

[maydaymemer]

For context heres his moronic rant that “nothing in it resembled the games” aside from:

-sonic and tails having a brotherly relationship

-a hunt for a giant emerald

-snowboarding down a mountain

-entering a giant maze

-having to overcome a fear of drowning

-eggman tricking knuckles into fighting sonic

-eggman using the emerald to power a giant mech

-using a plane to reach eggman’s mech

-punching the gem out of him and becoming a golden god

-becoming a trio of heroes

-establishing GUN

What DID MovieBob say about the Sonic movies? That they're both terrible I assume?

Pretty much. Also said they shouldn’t have changed from the original movie Sonic design to appeal to “toxic fans”.

Also went on one hell of a Twitter rant because they deigned the box for the second movie to look like the Sega Genesis game box. And that’s a bad thing, somehow.

[maydaymemer]

I cant believe Orchard has unironic fans

Honestly, you saying that pretty much the only reason why any of Lily’s crappy, drama-mongering videos get popular in the first place is specifically BECAUSE she designs them with ragebaiting people into hatewatching them in mind is one of the most honest things I’ve ever heard a member of her personality cul-I mean audience say. Yes Mantabay, pretty much the entire reason for Lily’s success IS her being an extremely cynical outrage merchant frequently adopting the most contrarian opinions possible TO make people angry at her, and then crying whenever she gets exactly that kind of negative attention she wanted so much to begin with. But, unlike your lies, that’s what makes her videos so painfully BAD to watch and why Lily FAILS so fucking hard as a critic. Because the types of terminally online, anger obsessed rants that she tries to claim are video essays. AREN’T actually appealing to any normal people at all! Hell, even going outside once a MONTH is enough to fucking gate somebody out of the terminally online creeps and bigots that she makes her videos to directly appeal TO!

You’re angry at her for saying Spy x Family is an adorable anime and possibly the best in recent years? That Hamtaro is super cute and everyone should watch it? That it was wrong of Vivziepop to misuse voudou in Hazbin Hotel? That the netflix adaptation of A:TLA butchered a beloved childhood series? That Star Wars has done dirty its characters & actors of color for years? That Turning Red was a very fun movie that nailed its target audience? That SVTFOE had a bad ending? That the Harley Quinn show is as enjoyable as it is a wild ride? That Encanto was a simultaneously cathartic, heartwrenching film? That Pokémon should return to its roots and focus on gameplay more than 4 hours of cutscenes?

Those contrarian, ragebaiting opinions?

None of those are controversial. Those are extremely popular opinions. In fact, so popular that she’s now doing better than MovieBob. This evidently seems to bother you. Her success gets under your skin so much that the only way you can vent your hurt fee fees is to go running after anyone who interacts with her content.

I’ll bet dollars to donuts you’re one of the people who caused her to make her Steven Universe video public again. Your inability to stop frothing at the mouth over her made her money, didn’t it? She gave you the option to just leave her alone and it’d stay privated for good, but you just couldn’t help yourself. You’re that obsessed.

As entertaining as it is to know you hoisted yourself on your own petard this way, unfortunately none of this is going to make its way to your favorite woman in the world. I never make any effort to lead her to my blog, which means you’re screaming nonsense into the void. Isn’t that kind of sad?

Hey, but if you still want attention I can field more of your anonymous asks, since you’re too scared to attach your username to your apparently “normal” and not at all terminally online opinions. I’ll just respond only with the same reaction image over and over. ‘Cause there’s nothing else to say to you that you don’t already know.

[maydaymemer]

Ive always found “well actually people were scammed by misogyny and fascism to not want to vote for the Top Cop who sucked off the Cheneys and whose husband is a zionist wanting to hunt down college kids” to be a loveably retro argument

At least Clinton was a competent politician, her being evil is just a part of her competence. I can understand blaming misogyny and fascism because you have an evil regard and an evil smart person and they went for the regard

However to then go “well voters just didnt know fuck all about the economy” when they cant afford shit is like, well what did you expect them to act like? They should be happy rich people get more yacht money because that means the economy is great?

We’re going to hear a lot of stupid bullshit over the next few days/months/years about how Harris/the Democrats failed to win over men, or young people, or uneducated voters, or those worried about the economy, or whatever….but the truth is this: this country hates women and minorities; its citizens understand fuck all about the economy; and the people are incredibly susceptible to outright lies, scams and fascist values

[maydaymemer]

I love how the final post here is just a dude wanting his fetish for scarred women praised

This tweet had me absolutely flabbergasted twice because I read this and I was like "Dame Aylin? The tall, blonde, supermodel demigoddess? How is she at all outside of the beauty standard? This is stupid" and then I scrolled down and there were a hundred replies by straight dudes who were calling her ugly and talking about anime women they prefer

[maydaymemer]

Lily thinks Rebecca Sugar is one of those people btw

One thing that has eased a lot of political anxiety over the years has honestly just been accepting Moviebob's stance on 'people.'

A lot of my fellow leftists/liberals keep running themselves in circles trying to rationalize the actions of conservative voters.

"How could they ignore all the sexual abuse Trump has committed?"

"How could they ignore the coup?"

"Are they even paying attention?"

It's part of the long standing leftist fallacy of assuming The People are inherently good, and their actions are the result of businesses and politicians deceiving them and forcing them to believe things. That advertisements are literally mind control.

The truth is they're not. Republican voters are in favour of sexual assault against women. They are in favour of genocide. They are in favour of fascism. They are in favour of anything that hurts the minorities they hate, regardless of the effect on them. And they are in favour of these things eagerly.

Now you may wonder "Are they really that evil and stupid?"

Yes. They really are. They deserve neither your sympathy nor the VERY generous benefit of the doubt you consistently give them. If they all dropped dead tomorrow the world would be a much better place. The only rational move forward is to stop trying to "reach" them.

Shove past them.

Abandon them.

Leave them in the dirt of obsolesce where they belong.

Subvert them at every opportunity.

The better world waiting for us all is not one they should get to benefit from.

If they want to live in a dying, Heartland hellhole with crumbling infrastructure and rural decay, let them.

If they want to so thoroughly destroy themselves, let them.

Do not include them in a plan for a better tomorrow. Their absence from it is a prerequisite.

They are obsolete, primitive, and they do not matter.

You will find yourself with far less anxiety and far fewer headaches the moment you stop trying to get through to people who have already shown you how worthless and disposable they are.

[maydaymemer]

Media Literacy reminds me of that MovieBob tweet where he went "the next Smash should have Mario and Link look down on gamers in disappointment" and when that Iranian politician said "Americans have no real heroes, only fictional characters like SpongeBob and Spiderman". Anyway, shout outs to the fraud that created the "Thermian Argument" which plays a big part in "media literacy" discussion. AKA the same fraud that tried accusing some website of having horrible things… by being the one uploading such things to the site to begin with… And also knew about Jewwario being a groomer but covered it part, partially because he didnt want people he didn't like to be proven right.

[maydaymemer]

“Women look like women” is a funny thing when no one would play a game where you look like Moviebob or Lily Orchard

The last few years people have been losing their minds when women in video games have peachfuzz or cheeks, and is it just me or is this super confusing? Women look like women? Hello?

Moviebob summed it up nicely:

"There's this whole thing where hyper political gaming YouTubers throw tantrums when female characters don't look like anime jailbait."

[maydaymemer]

which one is just the game

[maydaymemer]

“I understand workers” - is unemployed

Many such cases!

For an unemployed person, I sure am busy all the time!

[maydaymemer]

When you’re mean to me, this is who you’re being mean to btw:

[maydaymemer]

This is an evergreen post because just had to check back in on it because Gen X mario fans are STILL mad that the black edgelord sonic with a gun gets a more accurate adaption than mario has

I didnt really get into the Sonic movie as a 20 year old guy who likes the old games, good for kids but not my thing, but what I love about that movie’s existence is how it makes 40 to 50 year old Mario fans who got bullied at school irrationally mad that it’s doing better as a franchise than the Mario movie

[maydaymemer]

Hitman WOA: Ambrose on Trial - The Case for and Against

Back in 2022 IO released their final sandbox level for the Hitman trilogy: Ambrose Island. This level took place between the events of vanilla Hitman 2’s penultimate and final locations, but due to being released during Hitman 3’s lifecycle it was never treated as such. Instead Ambrose sat in an obscure spot of a specific menu, placed after Hitman 3’s locations but never having a mechanism during either campaign to go to it naturally. Until recently when a patch brought Ambrose to its chronological placement: now players upon beating Whittleton Creek’s Another Life will be prompted to play Ambrose’s main mission before moving onto the rest of Hitman 2

But was that a good decision? Even before this happened I was planning this post with the premise of if a new player should try to incorporate Ambrose into their first playthrough, but now it’s reality I want to examine if that made sense as a decision. In this little essay I will example the case FOR and AGAINST chronological Ambrose:

FOR #1 Convenience of Discovery

The first argument for placing Ambrose into chronological order is that every map of the trilogy is part of the main campaign, and keeping this consistent will ensure not only can old players who want to play Ambrose cant get there as convenient as possible but new players will know Ambrose exists without having to be told about it by the internet. Someone binging the trilogy now has a quick throughline to know what to play next, what has been played and what can be played

Even if Hitman 2’s cutscenes now change from motion comic style to cheap full motion back to motion comic and then to slightly less cheap full motion it’s at least consistently inconsistent. It was already precedent with Hitman 2’s DLC to have each level follow another in chronological order. You dont go from Sgail to Dubai; you go from Sgail to New York to Haven to Dubai. IO released this trilogy episodically so even retroactive releases earlier in the timeline should be accounted for

It also may be confusing for new players to play Romania and then see storyline targets they don’t recognize, granted they may still do that with New York and Haven but hey that’s IO’s fault for not having a convenient bundle of all the DLC

FOR #2 Fanservice, Plot, Development

It just makes sense to play Ambrose in its chronological place because the map’s identity as a pretend-lost chapter in H2 is so engrained into the design and premise of the map that anyone currently playing Hitman 2 will appreciate the details more having just played everything in a big glut. The map mixes set-pieces and characters from Hawke’s Bay, Colombia and Mumbai to give you the sense that this happened soon after those, so just outright playing it in that order will enhance what they were going for

It also helps to know what’s going on in the plot if the events are fresh in your mind. Taking out Grey’s militia is a big part of H2 but putting too much space between that and your playthrough of Ambrose might make you forget some details

With the foreknowledge of Hitman 3, IO went into Ambrose trying to patch up mistakes in the trilogy’s writing, and to clarify some plot points that were previously obscure details

For example, a conversation in Isle of Sgail that The Constant has on his phone directly references that Grey disbanded the Militia after the killing of Janus in Whittleton Creek. This detail is never mentioned again and if you dont ever hear this again the idea of “what happened to the militia?” might come off as a plot hole. Even though it isn’t a plot hole, closing an entire narrative thread in one phone call is still a bit strange

So Ambrose already fixes this, but the major problems come in Hitman 2’s DLC which inadvertently created a shadiness in Grey’s character that H3 had to correct. With the context of Ambrose people will be less inclined to get a false impression of Grey’s motives

The introductory briefing then provides minor foreshadowing of Diana’s character arc in H3, which isn’t much but it’s nice to make the trilogy seem more cohesive story-wise by including that

FOR #3 A Better Penultimate Level

I would argue that if you look at Ambrose and Sgail as two sides of the same coin, there’s some interesting thematic mirroring between the dingy, dark island of the Militia and the dark but opulent island belonging to an asset of Providence. I think its important to have that juxtaposition especially since this is the last major map of the trilogy where we tackle these sorts of themes, at least until Berlin

I also think that if you were to consider Whittleton as the penultimate level of Hitman 2, it’s a little easy. To go from a relaxing level like that to the last level in the game and one of the most intense it’s a little too abrupt. This stopgap also helps to buildup the location in-story as an important and secure area, which adds to the mystique and imposing nature when you get there

AGAINST #1 Pacing and The Themes of H2

My main issue with Ambrose’s placement is how it retroactively fucks up the one constant of Hitman 2’s design philosophy and that’s the contrast between levels

In the lead up to marketing and BTS of the trilogy each entry’s main philosophy is always touted as follows: Hitman 1’s theming is clean professionalism with each level showing 47 at the height of his career, Hitman 2’s theme is the criminal and colorful with each level visually and conceptually being the complete opposite of the last and Hitman 3’s theme was of the emotional journey, it starts out light, gets darker before ending on a more hopeful note

Unlike Hitman 1 and 3 which are more homogenous for the sake of the tone they’re going for Hitman 2 aims for this contrast and keeps it even into the DLCs: the quiet and stormy Hawke’s Bay is followed by the bright and bombastic Miami, then by the quiet and naturalistic Colombia followed by the bustling metropolis of Mumbai, then the serene Suburbia ended off with the dark and ominous Isle of Sgail which is then contrasted with the very small and modern Bank which is then contrasted by a tropical paradise in Haven

Ambrose fits the criminal and colorful (which doesnt need to mean literal color, because H2 has a ton of dingy and monochrome areas, moreso it refers to the colorful personalities of career criminals). It even adheres to Hitman 2’s more blue collar theming, contrasted with New Money in H1 and Old Money in H3. The problem is its aesthetic of the night time storm is already similar to Sgail, which is the very next map chronologically. The progression from Whittleton to Sgail was always intended to wow the audience, and I feel this plus H2 vanilla’s amazing pacing will now be lost on new players because H2 now has three levels made post-launch that are tacked onto its campaign

AGAINST #2 Difficulty Spike

The problem with Ambrose being considered now as part of H2 is it isn’t a H2 location in terms of its design philosophy. It makes use of mechanics like crafting, shortcuts and the camera which aren’t properly tutorialized until H3 and even Freelancer

I actually have any conclusion I drew from admittedly anecdotal evidence and it’s nowhere near conclusive but the fact Ambrose Island doesnt have guidance for its mission stories kind of assumes you have enough experience playing Hitman to know what you’re doing. When Berlin did this it was a calculated decision and the amount of signposting was carefully crafted to give a sense of freedom without being aimless. Ambrose isn’t nearly as well designed to accommodate the inexperienced player

So when I see streams of new players going through Ambrose I see them getting lost and finding the map impenetrable. This is with half the maps under there belt, but it seems Ambrose is maybe too much of an enthusiast’s map to be sprung on a player in the middle of a more guided experience like the other H2 maps

AGAINST #3 Repetition

This is more of a misc. category but there’s problems with Ambrose’s placement in a visual and gameplay sense. Just to rapid fire those complaints:

- The fact it reuses so many assets from Colombia and Mumbai so soon after playing those maps will make the map seem odd

- The fact there’s three island maps almost in a row from Ambrose to Sgail to Haven will potentially fatigue the play on that structure of level design

- Its briefing menu clearly uses the H3 style, but also the fact the pre-Sgail cutscene is meant to follow on from Janus death gives a slight anachronistic order to the whole affair

The Verdict

Now that Ambrose is forever part of H2’s gameplay experience, I think it’s up to the individual player to decide whether it works as part of the campaign or if they think it comes off as padding. Ive given reasons for and against, and I hope next time you play Ambrose or try it for the first time in its new Chronological order if it was truly better that way or not

And that may seem like a cop out, but that’s just because it is

[maydaymemer]

Is this satire?

The thing is that Walter White doesn't have any tragic flaws that aren't seen as virtues under white masculinity as constructed by American capitalist individualism. Like, you can make fun of the dudes who idolize him for missing the critical subtext, but they're attuned to the text itself at a very deep level.