#Doesn't just apply to easter either

[sprucestairs]

The Easter Curse

easter morning: better not make myself sick again this year. I'll spread eating this chocolate out over like a week. That way it'll also still feel like easter in a week.

The next day: fuck it I deserve a Little Treat Day. I'm gonna eat like shit all day. Surely the conses won't quence.

Ten am the next morning: I'm gonna theow up. I have a headache. I need to get work done but just feel like so much dogshit. My brain has been replaced by a rotten apple. I'm making a drink of water, brushing my teeth 37 times and taking a bath. Hopefully that helps

[newnitz]

I don't really see people talking about how cultural Christianity is applied to Jews.

In Christianity, Jews are the people who rejected and betrayed Jesus and are punished with statelessness and destitution, whose only redemption is accepting the Messiah and the Son of God. This is the basis of several antisemitic tropes, most prominently deception, religious supercessionism and the Wandering Jew.

In cultural Christianity, these tropes are considered tenants of Judaism rather than Christianity, as Judaism is considered Christianity without Jesus.

Christians see themselves as tortured saints, persecuted for spreading the truth of Jesus and God across the globe. Missionaries who go to non-Christian lands to try and get the people to convert by fearmongering with damnation to Hell see themselves as victims when they're rebuffed and asked to stop.

Cultural Christian non-Christians are usually atheists and adherents of folk religion revivalist movements who have suffered religious abuse, as many sects of Christianity normalize emotional abuse by instilling inherent guilt in the Original Sin and even physical abuse in "Spare the rod; spoil the child". These cultural Christians see the millennia of antisemitism and roll their eyes, to them we're just another sect of delusional religious people with a persecution complex.

To become a Christian all you need to do is accept the Father Son and Holy Spirit, to affirm your beliefs and confess your sins. To become a Jew you are either born a Jew, or you learn the Jewish culture and religion for months on end and must live half a year under the strictest restrictions of the Jewish lifestyle to show commitment. That is the difference between a universal religion and an ethnoreligion.

In a Culturally Christian world there is no room for ethnoreligions, and they do not exist. All religions are about your faith and which God(s) you believe in. So in a Cultural Christian's eyes, a country of Jews is a country that holds one faith supreme above all others and conditions rights with conversion, as that's how Christian countries have historically been.

Christianity's common ground with Jews comes from the Roman Empire appropriating the religion from the Cult of Jesus, and making it more appealing to the masses by introducing Greco-Roman and Germanic folk religion aspects into it. Xmas is Yule but with Jesus, Easter is a fertility holiday but with Jesus and so on. In the eyes of the Cultural Christian, Christianity and Judaism are two once-antagonistic sects of the same religion, no different than Catholics and Protestants.

Cultural Christianity erases and appropriates Judaism and is as inherently hateful of Jews as religious Christianity.

Now, when it comes to the elephant in the room: Islam.

Islam, like Christianity, is a universal religion. You must believe in Allah and accept the prophets, which include both Jesus and Muhammad. It is no more inherently violent than Christianity, though it's no less. In the Christian's eyes, Islam is the competitor, the enemy. The Muslims conquered Christian lands and converted them, and they've fought holy wars against one another throughout the Middle Ages.

To become a Muslim the Cultural Christian doesn't need to unlearn any of the core tenets of their culture. They can simply apply it to Islam.

Which is why many Cultural Christians, damaged by Christianity, are sympathetic to Islam. And since Muslims and Jews are no longer on good terms, they use this sympathy to give themselves a free pass to be antisemitic. Whether Muslims check their converts for bigotry, allow it or are powerless to stop them, that's another issue.

Jews are not diet Christians. We have less in common with you than you have with Muslims. Unlearn Christian cultural appropriation.

And no, I don't care that it's "offensive" to associate you with Christianity due to the religious abuse you endured. You still see the world through a Christian lens.

[nogenderbee]

♡˗ˏ✎*ೃ˚ 𝕊𝕙𝕪 𝕘𝕒𝕞𝕖𝕣 ₊˚ˑ༄

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ hi there, blade, jing yuan, welt and dan heng with a teen reader thats like nene kusanagi? :)

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ Hey hey! And omg yes of course! I love the crossover I get from pjsk and hsr honestly ^^ So hopefully you'll like at least a bit what I wrote!

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ platonic

✧ Dan Heng honestly liked your shyness, you were like the only person on the Express who didn't chat that much so he found your presence quite relaxing

✧ but if you fine silences uncomfortable, he won't force moments when you two just sit next to each other silently and relax after long day

✧ bur silence is quickly broke by you playing your games and he realizes he was wrong... you're still not this bad but when your cheering gets louder within every day, it really makes him reconsider his thoughts

✧ it certainly takes him some time but believe me, he can get used and learn how to ignore your cheering, so he's back at finding your presence relaxing

✧ he doesn't mind your sharp tongue at all, in fact he's happy you can stand up for yourself- what do you mean it's only towards people you're comfortable with?!

"Eh... they want vanilla cupcake. What? And with sprinkles... Can't you really say it yourself? You were confident enough to insult someone's whole life in there shooting game of yours."

✧ that certainly surprises him but he realizes that when someone insults you irl, he'll have to be the one to step in...

✧ he doesn't mind your passions but be he's not necessarily interested in trying them out either... he just sort of accepts it like a hobby of any other

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

@miya-akane @toyaswif3y - come get your quiet but scary trabilazer!

✧ Welt is definitely trying to be supportive and he doesn't mind your shyness a bit, he finds it adorable and it makes him somehow hopeful you won't cause troubles despite being a teen on express

✧ but once you get comfortable and he hears how emotional you can get during your games? He's on...

✧ you know how parents always say "it's because of your phone"? Yeah it's him... but he just applies that to your mood swings and sharp tongue, and nothing irrelevant like stomach pain!

"Watch tour language. I understand they made you mad but you stiill shouldn't say things like that. How about you take a break? Himeko just made tea."

✧ at some point, he probably tried giving you screen time limit but he can't be too strict... so unless you're troublemaker, you'll get past few additional hours

✧ he finds it curious how your personality switches depending on how comfortable you are, but he figures out why it happens pretty quickly

✧ he'll gladly take you with express on any exploration so you can slowly get more courageful, but if you'll prefer to stay in with PomPom and probably Dan Heng too, he's not gonna force you

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

@vodka-glrl - come get your father of the express!

✧ Jing Yuan is pretty interested in your personality and passions if being honest

✧ he didn't mind your shyness and when you started being playfully salty? He saw it as a little gift of seeing your real self after hard work of gaining your trust

✧ he doesn't mind speaking for you, he'll even lens you his ear what you want to say and he'll repeat it

"You know I don't mind you hiding behind me. But I'll have to ask you to not pull my hair, please?"

✧ also, he never takes your remarks too personally, he appreciates the friendly critique and knows that you're just being playful teen

✧ he loves listening about your games, movies and so on! In fact, he even asked you if he could watch or play a bit

✧ he's not great at gaming but with you carrying him, you still rarely loose and both of you have fun because somehow, Jing Yuan finds weirdest buts and easter eggs while wandering around

✧ he knows someone in Xianzhou who may share your passion for games... so he uses that to get you some new friends and hopefully to open up to more people

✧ that's really the only thing he might push you forward to, if you have trouble making friends, he has no problem with helping you find the right people

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

@miya-akane - come get your soft general~

✧ at first you were nothing like Silver Wolf to Blade, but after he saw how competitive and honest you can be... he finds so many similiar traits between you two

✧ you mean games made you so salty? What's going on with kids these days...

✧ but in the end, he couldn't care less as long as you worn annoy him

✧ and luckily for him, you're still rather shy so his intense gaze seems enough to make you go away and he'll use that fact

✧ but when you start getting more comfortable around him and Stallaron Hunters... he realizes it's not so easy anymore...

✧ you're not necessarily bothering him but he can hear your insults and remarks on his persona when you talk with Silver

✧ instead of 1 game fanatic who screams, yells and cheers after every victory or death, now he has to deal with 2... great.

"Keep it down you two. Don't forget where you are and what's our mission. Just because we're having a break doesn't mean you should give away our hideout. Because I can promise, I won't save you when enemies come."

✧ he really feels more on neutral end to you tho... you may talk behind his back and cheer and so... but you never tried forcing him into games he didn't like

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

@vodka-glrl - come get your cold man!

[onepiece-oc-archives]

Oda-approved questions to help build your OC

If you head to the One Piece Wiki page of the Straw Hats and take a look at the Miscellaneous section, you'll find a lot of trivia questions about the Straw Hats that Eiichiro Oda, the creator of One Piece, has answered in the Q&A portion attached to some manga chapters, called an SBS. I like to call those answers "Straw Hat Fun Facts" and I love them, because they work really well if you want to flesh out your OC and give them a bit more life and depth.

So, even if you're not planning on making your OC a Straw Hat, these questions might still be helpful for you to think about.

The way I'm gonna structure this post for the sake of avoiding spoilers is I'm gonna list all current LA Straw Hats with their facts and all future confirmed Straw Hats will have their facts mentioned without their name, if it makes sense to mention them. That way you can avoid duplicates within the crew if you want to do that and still have no clue about who's gonna join. I'm also gonna comment on how the various fun facts apply to the live action adaptation wherever applicable.

If you're looking for people's birthdays, I'm gonna make another post about them, don't you worry. But you won't find them here.

Animal Resemblances

Luffy: Monkey

Zoro: Shark/Tiger

Nami: Cat

Usopp: Armadillo/Chameleon

Sanji: Duck/Bighorn Sheep

Others: Reindeer, Red Panda, Crane, Falcon, Bull, Rhinoceros, Horse, Giraffe, Whale Shark, Bear

I don't think any of them were mentioned or referenced just yet in the live action, aside from Luffy's name having the word Monkey in it, but that doesn't count. I'm pretty sure we'll get some hints in the future though since these just have such great potential for easter eggs.

Specific Numbers

Now, this is a category that's a bit more complicated because each Straw Hat has at least two signature numbers, for very different reasons. Everyone has a main number based on when they joined, with Luffy being number 1. The second number is the same but it skips Luffy, making Zoro number 1, but this version is rarely used, if ever at all. Then there's the possibility of a Straw Hat getting a number assigned to them based on a pun, whether that be based on their name, their devil fruit, or something entirely different. I'll explain pun numbers in a bracket.

Luffy: 01, 56 (go-mu)

Zoro: 02/01

Nami: 03/02, 73 (na-mi)

Usopp: 04/03

Sani: 05/04, 32 (san-ji), 59 (ko-kku = cook)

Others: 06/05 - 10/09, 110, 87, 26, 43

Now, you may ask: "Evie, I wanna have a pun number for my OC, how do they work?" I got you, buddy. You can make your own pun numbers using a technique called goroawase, using this handy chart I made based on a Wikipedia chart. Everything I added is in (brackets) and consists of variants that would technically be possible due to my own understanding of goroawase, but might not be commonly used.

On a very basic level, all you have to do to create your pun number is to grab the readings from this table and glue them together. I took some work off your shoulders by adding the phonetic changes you can use, indicated by the arrows. You can also only use the first syllable of a reading or add or remove an n at the end of readings that end in vowels or n's. As you can see whith Sanji's ko-kku, you can duplicate consonants, and you can also turn short vowels into long vowels (tsu -> tsū, for example), both for spelling reasons. If you need to transcribe a c, either use an s or a k (or whatever else fits), depending on the pronunciation.

Here are some examples with my OCs:

Cora: 96 (ko-ra) or 25510 (a-ka-i-to - would be very unusual due to its number of digits, but I think I'll use this as a plot device in a future fic!)

Luna: 67 (lu-na/ru-na)

Inari: 576 (i-na-ri) or 53 (ka-mi)

Create away!

Specific Colors

This was in the live action! And I think we'll definitely see something similar again later.

You can't really see it that well but here are Luffy, Nami and Zoro lit up in their respective colors - red, orange and green respectively! I tried to take a better screenshot but, alas, Netflix will not let me.

Luffy: red (aka)

Zoro: green (midori)

Nami: orange (orenjī)

Usopp: yellow (kiiro)

Sanji: blue (ao)

Others: pink (pinku), purple (murasaki), light blue (mizuiro), white (shiro), black (kuro), ochre (ōdoiro)

As you can see, we pretty much have the whole rainbow here, which makes picking a unique color for your OC pretty hard, BUT it's completely allowed to use different shades of the same color (see: blue vs light blue), which is why I listed the Japanese color names for you. I did some digging and it turns out that these are the names of some of Japan's traditional colors. Those traditional colors don’t always match up with what my impression of the character's color is, BUT I made this handy little graphic for you:

In case there are any animal-related characters around and for those of you who like describing smells in their fanfic (me too, me too), this might be very useful!

These are all of the Straw Hats' specific colors (top row) according to the overview of Japanese traditional colors I linked for you above, their color names underlined with my perception of what color Oda might actually have been referring to, in modern terms. As for the grey names beneath orange and pink, those are the traditional colors from the overview that I used to replace the romanized English colors, based on what the first translation that popped up was. The columns directly underneath are a selection of different shades of the same color, also with their names. It just goes to show that you have a huge variety of colors to choose from for your OC - Japan's traditional colors alone are about 1,000 different colors and you can definitely play with hex codes some more. So, go wild!

Specific Smells

Luffy: meat

Zoro: steel (and probably blood, let’s be honest)

Nami: mikan (tangerines, essentially) and money

Usopp: gunpowder

I'd say everyone smells of the sea at least a little bit, realistically speaking, since they are pirates.

Sanji: cigarettes and seafood (and I'm willing to bet he wears some type of cologne or aftershave or something)

Favourite Type of Island and Season

Luffy: summer but he also loves snow, basically everywhere with meat

Zoro: autumn on an autumn island

Nami: summer on a spring island

Usopp: summer on an autumn island

Favourite Food

Sanji: a spoilery gag, so get creative!

We either directly see some of these in the live action or can easily guess.

Luffy: any kind of meat

Zoro: white rice (specifically in the shape of onigiri aka rice balls), sea beast meat, any food that compliments sake (though he's also pretty fond of beer, at least in the live action)

Nami: mikans (tangerines) and most other fruits

Usopp: pike from an autumn island and other fish of the season

Sanji: spicy sea food pasta, food that compliments black tea

Others: not really relevant but maybe interesting; cotton candy, chocolate, sweet stuff in general, sandwiches, not-too-sweet cakes, food that compliments coffee, basically anything that you can find at McDonald's, curry, mozoku seaweed with vinegar and fruits

Basically, Sanji gets to juggle around a whole lot of different flavours and cultural influences - and he does it really well and finds a way to make everything special, by the way! He generally favors the ladies in his cooking though.

Least Favourite Food

Even Sanji can't make them like everything. Their reasons for not liking something are very different, so they probably still eat it, especially if it's used in something Sanji prepared because he's their cook

Luffy: Cherry pie

Zoro: Chocolate (yes, chocolate! Adds a lot more depth to the scene of him eating Rika's rice balls, doesn't it?) - it's too sweet

Nami: orangette (candied orange peels) - she prefers actual fruit

Usopp: mushrooms - he got sick once

Sanji: konjac (Japanese konjac gel is usually made by mixing flour from the konjac plant with seaweed; it pretty much tastes like nothing and is used mainly for its texture) - it's not nutritious

Others: anything spicy, chewing gum, marshmallows, lemons, parfait

As a Family

This is part of the reason why Oda said there would be no romances within the crew in canon - but this is fandom, he has no power here. Feel free to ignore any of these roles and substitute canon with your own

Luffy: fourth son

Zoro: first son

Nami: daughter

Usopp: third son

Sanji: second son

Others: another child, parents and grandparents

Real-world Nationalities

Now, this is interesting, because these played a part in how the Straw Hats were cast for the live action!

Luffy: Brazilian (Mexican in the live action)

Zoro: Japanese

Nami: Swedish (her actress is American, but she was kept as white)

Usopp: unspecified African (his actor is Jamaican-American, so it sort of checks out)

Sanji: French (Sanji's actor is very international, but he's not French - I do believe Sanji is still supposed to be at least part French in the live action though, at least he still has an affinity for the language and he may very well have grown up multilingual)

Others: Canadian, Russian, American, Austrian, Indian

Inner Brain

Basically: What are the five words their brain/subconscious circles around?

Luffy: meat, meat, meat, meat, pirate king

Zoro: sword, sword, strength, train, sleep

Nami: money, money, money, money, beauty

Usopp: warrior, lies, lies, run, run

Suited Flower

Sanji: You guessed it, it's a spoiler-y gag. But, to summarize, he thinks about cooking and women

These were actually answered by one of the voice actresses for the anime (except for Luffy and Zoro's alternates) but they're Oda-approved! I know fanfic writers love flower language, so rejoice!

Luffy: cosmos, sunflower

Zoro: thistle, wisteria

Nami: sunflower

Usopp: daisy

Sanji: delphinium

Others: tulip, casablanca, anemone, rose, peony

Blood Type

-> this is a topic for another post since it's more of a life fact than a fun fact, isn't it? Maybe, I'll put the blood types in with the birthdays and make a sort of Straw Hat info post?

How often do they bathe?

Bathe, not shower, I would assume. Zoro showers after training... right?

Luffy: once a week

Zoro: once a week

Nami: every day

Usopp: once every three days

Sanji: every day

Typical Hours of Sleep

The only reference to this we have in the live action is Zoro's habit of napping. An interesting thing to note is that the Straw Hats' sleep schedules largely coincide in just such a way that someone is always awake - except for during one hour. Maybe this really is a coincidence or maybe this is a habit they built while travelling together. They do still have night watches though, I believe. But that means there's usually always someone to keep the night watch company :)

Luffy: no set time, but usually sleeps around 5 hours

Zoro: 4am to 7am (3 hours) + naps

Nami: 11pm to 7am (8 hours)

Usopp: 1am to 8am (7 hours)

Sanji: 12am to 5am (5 hours)

In conclusion, more than half of the crew has no idea what a healthy sleep schedule is. This is a pattern that's gonna continue, by the way...

Suitable Careers

Basically what careers they would have if they weren't pirates. Their actual careers in-universe also don't count.

Luffy: firefighter

Zoro: police officer (I will not accept this slander)

Nami: childcare worker

Usopp: graphic designer

Sanji: beauty salon worker

Others: elementary school teacher, cabin attendant, pilot, detective, train station attendant

Cooking Specialities

What are they best at cooking? According to Usopp in the live action, none of the guys besides Sanji can even boil water, so I'm willing to assume Sanji may have taught them a little. A lot. Not Luffy though. He's still a disaster.

Luffy: raw meat on a plate

Zoro: sashimi - a dish consisting of variously cut raw fish and meat

Nami: roasted duck with mikan sauce

Usopp: fish and chips

Sanji: literally anything, but he prefers seafood

Who would win a 50m sprint?

Only the current Straw Hats count here.

Fifth: Nami

Fourth: Usopp (he's already fairly fast, mind you)

Third: Zoro, slowed down because he got lost (but I still don’t think he could beat the people ranked higher than him, I'm sorry, Oda)

Second: Luffy

First: Sanji

Alcohol Tolerance

Another very useful one for fanfics! Tolerance doesn't equal how much they like drinking, by the way. I'd be willing to bet that the Straw Hats' alcohol tolerances got toned down in the live action, or at least Zoro's, judging by him stating how he woke up under a table once. With his manga-level tolerance, he would have had to drink gallons worth of alcoholic beverages before that happened. Still, I think the ranking holds up.

Fifth: Luffy

Fourth: Usopp

Third: Sanji

Second: Nami

First: Zoro

And finally one last bit that doesn't really fit anywhere else:

Sanji is currently the most qualified to give the crew a haircut. This makes sense if you read about his alternative career choice earlier and due to him generally putting a lot of thought into appearances.

So, that's it! Hope these help you!

[quins-makeshift-menagerie]

I'd like to weigh in on the voice claims!

first off, I LOVE Cyn's voice for Digital Mosy

For Live Mosy, you mentioned how Izzy sounded too tame, and my mind quickly wandered to Ikki from legend of korra. The voice itself doesn't match, it's a little too high, but I feel like the Energy behind it would be worth your attention. 17 seconds from the same video is also a good example for what I mean.

I loved Zeus' voice, I expected a more movie mewtwo voice, but I like this so much better.

Janus is Absolutely perfect

Goopy/Typhon is also perfect. Before you posted this voice claim, I imagined Goopy's voice being somewhere inbetween The Laugh and The Whisper from this Undertale easter egg.(Specifically, what you'd get if you overlayed them and make them say the same words.) Their real voice is really close (hazy, strained) and I adore it.

As we got to hear Cyn/AS talk more it clicked so hard like YES!!! Ikki is definitely a choice XD DEFINITELY has the energy though! I didn’t mention it before but another of Kimiko Glenn’s roles that I’m aware of is Nifty from Hazbin Hotel which stays in line with the specific voice and DOES have the energy but Nifty is very…Herself lmao…So I’m not very comfortable applying that to Mosy

Fuji has movie Mewtwo’s voice so I didn’t use it, plus it would be far too deep. While Raine isn’t perfect they’re definitely more in line for Zeus than M1 Mewtwo. Zeus is still young in a way, and I wanted their voice to reflect that without leaning either way masculine/feminine wise. Plus I noticed Raine has a slight way of over pronouncing syllables and speaks very clearly and that just fits Zeus lol

I jumped a lot for Janus actually! I wanted to find something more neutral before finally going “Janus would not care if someone called them a female because of their voice, why should I?”, that and the Sea Emperor Leviathan is also an old, wise creature. It fits

Ooooooo those are interesting picks! The biggest driving factor with picking AM was its mannerisms and general distain for…Everythig really XD The parallels are absolutely there if you look hard enough. Plus since Typhon IS missing his entire lower jaw I always imagined his voice is more synthetic, sounding like it’s coming from a speaker(because it probably is), which AM shows off perfectly in my eyes 👌

[sugarywishes]

Well, as I've always asked it about the Afton Kids, I may as well ask about the favourite & least favourite activities of the Murdered kids as well? And perhaps the Emily's too, although no pressure there if it is too much of an ask. Sometimes even I forget just how many characters there are to ask about. XD

Totally, I wouldn't mind doing all of them! This will be quite a long post (which explains why this is a little late haha) but thankfully that's why we have the read more option, answers below as usual!

Okay, so we'll start with the Emilys first (just to get them out of the way /lh), more specifically, Henry. He, unlike William, actually liked making robots. He took that class in college for a reason! (He's the one who came up with an animatornic restaurant idea...) and when he was younger, he loved partying. He came from a very strict and religious household, so once he got his independence from them, he went wild! He'd mellow down in his later years as a dad. Speaking of dad, he also cherished anytime he'd get to spend with Charlotte, sometimes they'd bicker and stuff, but all families do that. She's his daughter, and he wouldn't trade her for anything in the world (ow) . And finally, one of his top 3 activities is...making money! He's a business man (and he used to be a very selfish one before Charlie's death) so running his business was one of his tops priorities. And since Henry is religious, he also liked going to church (he's also one of those parents who would force their kids to go to church with them no matter what, I would know because my parents do that shit too lmao)

For least favorite, being active LMAO (Charlie ended up being a tomboyish sporty girl, the total opposite of his wife and who he thought his daughter would take after, so constantly playing soccer or basketball or anything like that always wore him and made him feel bad that he couldn't keep up with her) He also doesn't like decorating because it reminds him of Barb (so when it came to the restaurant he'd let William or the other employees handle the decorations, and when it came to holidays he wouldn't really participate, Charlie would try her best to though!) Speaking of holidays, he doesn't do those either, which really annoyed Charlie since sometimes he'd try and get her to not go trick or treating or go caroling or go on Easter egg hunts (cause yk he's pretty overprotective!) He also doesn't like being by himself, it stresses him out quite a ton (and after severals years he'll grow to hate being alone since he was lonely as hell after Charlie died, and also cause he got locked away in a mental institution)

Okay moving onto his dead wife, Barbara! (Yeah I know she's dead and she's not actually important in the long run, but also, this is my account and I do as I please) She definitely adored decorating, she liked special occasions and holidays and all that jazz so she went above and beyond to make anything she made or used stand out when it came to girlypopping her house. She's a pretty 'traditional' girly girl, so one can expect her to like cooking and baking and shopping and getting her nails done (or things like that) when she was pregnant she really hoped for a girl since she wanted to do all those things with her (if she did live then she would've been a tad disappointed that Charlie ended up less traditionally feminine than her but she'll do her best to support her no matter what)

For least favorite, she didn't like partying (I mean like crazy, drunk and messy parties like Henry would throw during college) because she enjoys peace and quiet so that life was definitely not for her (so it's quite a shock that she even got interested in Henry since he was the polar opposite of her), she didn't like going out in bad weather because it would 'ruin her clothes' (bad weather to her applies to really cloudy days or any days without the sun in general) overall she didn't like getting messy, so painting or going to waterparks or things like that was a no from her! She is an indoor person (wow hey just like me!)

Okay, now onto Charlie. She liked sports (mostly soccer) and doing exercise and stuff (she probably really liked PE, which like can't relate 💀), she has quite a lot of energy and vigor! But like I said in her headcanon post, she still enjoyed girly activities like dress up and playing with dolls. She liked listening to older music (remember that the first half of the story is in the 80s, so by older music I mean during Henry's time of the 50s and 60s and 70s) and she was pretty great at dancing! (Before anyone says something about "Charlie isn't like that in the books!!" Just to remind, I don't care about the books and I don't like them, this is my rewrite/re-imagining of the FNAF GAMES. I'll only include some details of the books that I like into my story, which are not many. So no Carlson or Jessica or whatever is going on in any of that stuff)

Now onto her least favorite! She doesn't like school stuff (as one would expect), it's not difficult at all for her, she gets good grades and is naturally smart, but she prefers playing outside and having fun than reading books and writing math problems. She also HATES going to church because she finds it boring, which really bothers Henry (and he thinks she got this mentality from Lizzie, who also doesn't attend church because the Aftons don't believe in God with a capital G) Speaking of the Aftons, it's sometimes a 50/50 chance things will go fine anytime she hangs out with their family (cause yk they're really not a normal family) so sometimes she'll be hesitant to hang out with Elizabeth cause she is a little...okay VERY temperamental, Charlie has to walk on thin ice when it comes to playing with her (and on some occasions Evan, she once joked that he was the loneliest boy she knew and he cried and ran away from her) She also sometimes doesn't like being near Mike, he's a huge jerk to his brother and because she doesn't know the full extent of all the abuse that happened in the family, she just thinks that Mike is being mean just to be mean. And when she becomes the puppet she also hates being in the music box (But like it's not like Jeremy can just let her leave cause yk then she'll kill him 🤷) she hates being alone, just like everyone else I've mentioned beforehand lol

Okay so now that those guys are done, I'll speed run a bit through the MCI/KCI kids (mostly because I expect no one to really be interested in reading all that, and also cause I haven't fully fleshed out their interests or anything like that, they're important but not *that* important yk?)

Okay for Susie, she loves hanging out with her dog Quentin! As a matter of fact she's a nature and animal lover, so she likes dogs and cats and birds and going outdoors to smell flowers, or whatever I suppose. (She didn't have a lot of human friends but she was fine with the critters!) She also loved feminine interests publicly, but secretly also harbored an interest in video games (hence why she played that Fruity Maze thing)

For least favorite, she doesn't like 'boy hobbies' (her words not mine), so sports and roughhousing and all of those things are off the table. (She felt a little shameful that she liked video games since that's stuff for boys in her mind, hence why she kept it a secret from everyone) Susie also dislikes shopping cause all the choices seem too extreme for her. She also doesn't like going anywhere without her dog, so when he disappeared, she was super distraught about it

Now onto Gabriel, he wanted to become a detective when he grew up, so one can expect him to be writing notes (or clues) in his journal, or snooping into things that he shouldn't be. He is pretty nosy, but it calls it 'investigating like a professional' (Everyone just calls him a nerd 💀 he totally was though) He is basically the Huey or Dipper of the MCI. So he enjoys getting into other people's business for the sake of knowing what's going on (he is indeed a know it all)

For least favorite, manual work. His family doesn't really think his dream career will really take him anywhere in life so they often put him to work to try and get him to move on, so he'd get stuck helping his dad on his job or helping his brothers. Or even worse, helping his mom out with his baby sister. He also hated getting out of bed early (he is not the earliest bird 😭)

Now onto Jeremy, uh, he really liked sleeping and chilling (join the club) he doesn't get that a lot in his household so he takes any opportunity to relax and wind down. He also really likes going to the beach or the pool (even if the crowds are loud and annoying) He also enjoys book reading and music. Anything that calms one down basically.

For least favorite, going to school, he too also has 'school loser' syndrome so he would get bullied often and thus doesn't really like talking to people. (And also cause school work stressed him out a lot too) He hates going to amusement parks or parties or things like that because again, they're too damn much! So he's another introvert.

Moving onto someone who isn't one, Fritz! He really enjoys making chaos, he's like Horrid Henry basically except he's not 🇬🇧 thank god, and also his pranks aren't meant to be mean spirited on purpose. He likes being loud and crazy and overall enjoys having a ton of fun.

For least favorite, funnily enough he doesn't like playing sports (he thinks their rules are too restricting and he likes free play more) he also doesn't really like school, his teacher would be really strict on him because he was a 'rambunctious brat', and also his classmates thought of him as a 'Fregley', so like a weird and unpopular kid. He likes his independence and hates authority (except his mom and grandparents 🫶)

Okay so now we head towards Cassidy, she didn't have friends either (these kids are so damn lonely!! I mean it's for storytelling and metaphors and angst so yk 🤷) so she'd turn to books, comics, movies and TV for entertainment. And boy did she love them! She became really fascinated with all the adventures she'd see on those things and wanted her life to be just as incredible and to get away from the hell that is Utah to become...anything she wanted! She also enjoyed history as she found it amazing that the events she would read or watch about like, actually occurred!

Okay for least favorite activities, being dead (💀💀) okay okay besides that, she also didn't like talking to people, mainly adults because they would see her as undesirable and thought little of her because of her albinism (cause yk she's an orphan and people didn't adopt cause of that) and also she didn't like kids because they would bully her too for being and looking 'weird'. She also didn't like being stuck with Evan in Fredbear/Golden Freddy.

Okay now onto the KCI/DCI kids lmao, first off, Christine. She is a pretty typical nerd girl of the 80s, so it's common to see her bury her face in books and homework and be studious. But she also enjoyed shopping and putting on cute clothes, albeit she didn't do it as much as her sister because she thought pretty clothes would look bad on her because she's 'uglier'. She's also another closed off and reserved person (mainly because of her social anxiety) She also enjoys cleaning and keeping things tidy and neat.

For least favorite, hanging out with Holly's school friends (excluding Jonathan but she still doesn't like him lmao), she'd usually get ignored a lot by them or they'd use her for homework. She doesn't like spending time with her family, also because they favor Holly more over her. And as we already know she doesn't like hanging out with Jonathan either. She thought he would be the kind of boy who would ask out ugly chicks as a prank or just be overall shallow about appearances (in reality, Chris was actually the judgemental one because Jonathan ISN'T a jerk despite the fact he was a conventionally attractive boy but she just assumed he would be, just like how she assumes her sister to be vain and mean)

Onto Holly, she too is a fellow girly girl, so getting nails done or going to the hair salon is one of her favorite things to do. She also likes reading magazines (that are meant for teenage girls, what is she doing reading them at 11 YEARS OLD 😭), and watching movies and TV (cause yk she wanted to be a famous celebrity when she got older, so she'd base off her mannerisms and quirks from shows and stuff) she loved going to the mall and buying expensive things (thank goodness the Bennets are upper middle class cause dear lord the spending these girls do...) and she really liked holidays where she can dress extravagantly like Christmas or Halloween or whatever. And singing and dancing, I told yall she was inspired by Britney Spears and other child stars of the 80s and 90s.

Least favorite activities, cooking (she's horrible at it, Holly said she'll hire maids and chefs when she gets rich so she won't have to cook), arts and crafts, cause yk it's messy and stuff. And she also hates being active because always makes her sweaty (yet for some reason she idolized cheerleaders and ballerinas and thought of them as peak teenage beauty, as if they don't make you just as tired). She also thought going to school was boring too.

For Jonathan, he loves going outside and being happy and socializing with his (two) friends and shit (his step parents usually lock him away to do chores and housework, very Cinderella esque) and he was indeed a skater boy, she said see ya later boy, he wasn't good enough for her (okay fine I'll stop but he did skateboard and go bicycling and he knew some pretty sick tricks) he still liked quieter activities like coloring books and reading comics. (I would also add watching TV and movies but he doesn't get to do that a lot)

Least favorite, being with his step parents (they are pretty abusive, like I said he is Cinderella esque), on some occasions spending time with Holly, she'd get a little touchy with him by trying to hold his hand or hug him and he really hates physical touch. He also doesn't really like gossiping, which is a thing that Holly did a lot, and it made him uncomfortable. He also hates being alone. (At least his friends went with him in death,,,)

Next up is Brandon! He's a gamer, so of course he loves playing video games to the CORE. You should usually expect him to be high on the high score of Arcade games (plus his addiction to games was not helped by the fact his dad worked at a company that made game consoles, so he'd get early access to devices that haven't hit the shelves yet!) He too also loves TV cartoons and comics (and he is indeed another introverted character, he doesn't need real friends when he's already got his games) he has an entire collection of VHS tapes of TV episodes and movies he loves.

Least favorite activities, basically anything that requires going outdoors. He hates family road trips too, which really sucks for him because it's a yearly thing his family does. Hates sports, hates talking with other people, hates shopping (unless it's for new games or VHS tapes, and 9/10 it's not that), hates taking photos, hates going to school (his teachers would usually confiscate his things) and just doesn't like being in public. he's a loner, basically.

Okay FINALLY we made it to our last dead kid, Tommy. Tommy was also kind of a naughty and troublemaking kid, but instead of doing it for fun he did it for attention (living in a house with 7 siblings is quite a challenge!) So he also liked making messes and being annoying. He liked spending time with his family despite the fact he'd get neglected (because who else is there for him to hang out with? He didn't attend school yet) he loves going shopping for toys and candy (his parents would get him gifts to make him leave them alone) and he LOVED playing with his siblings. They didn't care too much for him so they'd only play with him whenever their parents told them to (Tommy didn't know that of course so he really thought they just liked playing with him)

For least favorite activities, he hates quiet time (it's basically his parents locking him in his bedroom to make him not bother them) cause they'd leave him in there for pretty long stretches of time. He hates being alone also, since he really likes attention (so becoming BB was also inconvenient for him, the only way for him to get Jeremy's attention is to be obnoxious!!)

Okay. That's it. Thank goodness 😭😭 sorry this post took longer to respond!

[emeraldtart]

TWST X Ben 10 (ft. Appoplexian/Rath!Yuu)

I'm having a lot of fun with this one.

As everyone might know, Appoplexians are powerful, argumentative, and extremely aggressive. They believe any problem can be solved by hitting it.

That summaries Appoplexian!Yuu to a T.

The mirror chamber is nearly destroyed because of the two cats; Grim and Yuu.

Riddle attempts to stop them both by collaring them. It works for Grim.

Riddle: Queen of Heart's Rule #213: Tigers are not allowed within castle grounds. As you are a tiger, I will personally see you out of the school

Yuu: *breaks off Riddle's collar with their bare hands* LET ME TELL YOU SOMETHING, SHORTY! (Excuse ME!!?) YOU THINK YOUR RULE APPLIES TO ME BECAUSE I LOOK LIKE A TIGER!!? WELL GUESS WHAT, PUNK? I'M AN APPOPLEXIAN!!!

It turns into a screaming match between Yuu and Riddle. The students watching doesn't know whether to be scared or impressed because damn, somebody actually managed to be on Riddle's level when he's angry

Crowley ties Yuu's mouth with his Whip of Love, because if he let the two be they'd faint because of oxygen deficiency.

After failing to send Yuu home, Yuu ends up staying at Ramshackle for the meantime.

Grim is understandably scared of Yuu, but he's also a bit amused when Yuu was being their usual self. It's funny just watching them.

I don't think there would be students who would pick Yuu up for not having magic. Because who in their right mind would do that to an apoplectic alien tiger with blades on their arms?

Ace got chased with Yuu because he's always managed to piss them off, either on purpose or by accident.

By the time school year ends he might consider changing to track club

Vargas definitely rile Yuu up to make sure everyone runs seriously.

Azul for the first time in his life managed to get first place.

Of course, Yuu isn't always angry 24/7. Whenever they're not yelling or chasing someone, they're always grumpy or finding something to eat. Or take a nap

Leona sees Yuu sleeping in his place at the greenhouse, too tired to care and just sleeps on them, using their body as a pillow.

Ruggie just stood there weighing his choices.

Then he got a bright idea.

He wakes Yuu up, and after getting a harsh growl to the face, promises they'll give Yuu food if they bring Leona to class.

And to class they did.

Leona wakes up as Yuu grabs him by the back of his collar like a cat as they went to class.

The whole fiasco with Octavinelle is a nightmare for Yuu

They hate water. So they stayed back except during the final fight

That didn't stop them from beating up Azul's phantom

Malleus was genuinely surprised at Yuu's anger and how they growled at him the first time they met (Yuu didn't yell because Grim was sleeping)

He values their emotional openness, though

Malleus definitely gives Yuu something to sharpen their claws.

Consider this; first year squad and Malleus are the first ones that hears Yuu chuff

They just made Yuu happy, but they're not going to tell them

Leona definitely knows, but he's not going to risk his life

(There's an Easter egg with the Queen of Hearts rule)

[maddiviner]

i think it's okay to leave out the UPG disclaimer when someone is acting like their UPG is universally correct. especially when it's as wildly blatantly ahistorical and made-up as the hecate person's (don't remember her username because i IMMEDIATELY blocked her). also when you use your UPG to demand other people practice a certain way

I thought about it a bit after I posted that.

IMHO? None of what she posted counts as unverified personal gnosis. Reason being that UPG is by definition the kinda thing that you can't disprove, exactly. If you're making false claims about objective, known history, that doesn't count. That's just called lying, either to yourself, or other people, sorry.

UPG is also personal. It's one thing if other people find your UPG compelling and join in on their own. It's also, IMHO, appropriate to share it if you're comfortable. If you're trying to force it on other people as the absolute truth, it really stops just being your UPG, and it's a jerk move. This is, obviously, especially true if the claims are ahistorical nonsense (which, again, doesn't count as UPG).

How I view this might piss people off, but I'm going to break down my views. I'm open to discussion of course, but this is just how I use the phrase ("unverified personal gnosis," I mean).

Some different UPG-ish things I've heard over time...

A certain Goddess considers me Her daughter in a spiritual/metaphysical sense. She expects certain things of me.

Humans all contain a lil piece of the Divine. I will work on connecting with that by prayer/meditating/whatever.

Reincarnation is real (or not real).

After death, I will join my loved ones in the Summerlands/etc to rest or something similar.

Everything above is, IMHO, UPG. I say that because it's unfalsifiable and personal. It's not ahistorical, nor does it conflict with physical reality. And, in the situations where I saw the above comments, it wasn't presented as absolute fact.

Some things that definitely don't qualify as UPG for the reasons I've mentioned...

Rather than originally being a Greek Goddess, Hekate was actually Scottish-Irish human woman who was murdered by men. (This was the original claim by the OP, actually.)

Jesus revealed to me in a dream that the earth is actually flat. The truth is being concealed by elite reptilians.

The Christian holiday of Easter connects to the Sumerian Goddess, Ishtar. Ancient pagans worshiped Her in springtime with eggs and bunnies.

I was burned at the stake in Europe as a witch in the 1700s along with the rest of my Wiccan coven. I reincarnated as a witch again.

None of the above is UPG. It's misinformation instead. You can look at historical/scientific sources and prove it's inaccurate.

I found the concept of UPG hard to grasp initially. I think some others do, too. Many of us are coming from or steeped in more organized religions.

I don't think a lot of them, at least in the pervasive American sorta Christianity, have anything like UPG? I mean, I didn't see much of it. So, it's kinda been a new concept for some, and a lot of us have to feel our way around it a bit.

Another thing I wanna add? UPG isn't always healthy or good even if it does quality as UPG. Some ways of thinking about the world just work better, I guess, and that applies across the board. A lot of UPG tends to be very fluid and adaptable, I've noticed, which I think is good.

The Hecate person is kinda funny because she just posted this huge spiel about how she knows she's doing it right now that she has "haters" and called us all ignorant "heathens" (her words) for not accepting her divine truth straight from God's Hekate's mouth.

The idea of someone who claims to be pagan using "heathen" as an insult is just... weird. I know there's probably some kinda discourse around the word but... still.

Someone I talk with on Facebook commented that it's weirdly Protestant?! Similar to how Jesus gets portrayed. You've got a divine being that was, uhhh, actually from a completely different culture being portrayed as Scottish/Irish, Greek roots being erased. Said divine being was somehow also incarnated as a human, and martyred? And then we have a prophet, too! Sounds super similar to me, too, now that I start to think about it in those terms, but I didn't notice before.

[fancysasquatch]

I've decided to watch Gravity Falls, and I want to see if I can figure out the various mysteries without looking up any answers. I'm going to catalog my efforts to do that here on tumblr.

Going into this I've only seen two episodes back in like 2013 (the pilot and one where there's a pig) but I'm not totally in the dark about the show because there's a few things I've gleaned from cultural osmosis on tumblr. Namely, the bad guy is a pyramid man named Bill Cypher and also Grunkle Stan either has a twin or a clone, I'm unclear which.

I'm currently two episodes in and I've already discovered and cracked one secret code, and am keeping my eye on a couple other things. During the credits of episode one I noticed a string of garbage text, pictured below

Knowing this show's reputations I figured this might be a coded message, probably either a substitution or transposition cipher (since this was a code meant for children and those are "Baby's first cryptography" material). I put it in an anagram finder and got back 48 results that all contained the word "fjord" but none seemed like an actual message, so it probably wasn't a transposition cipher.

If it was a substitution cypher then there were three options that seemed the most likely to me. It was either a shifted alphabet (each letter in the message is shifted a certain amount up or down the alphabet, so A becomes B becomes C, or A becomes C and B becomes D, et cetera), a reverse alphabet (every letter is mirrored back to front, so ABC becomes ZYX) or a keyed alphabet (where every letter's replacement is randomly determined by a secret key).

If it was a keyed alphabet then I was out of luck for now, I would have to wait until either they reveal the key or I collected enough messages to brute force it. I tried a reverse alphabet first but it was still garbage text. So it was down to being one of 25 different shifted alphabet keys (unless it was multiple codes, like a reverse alphabet and a transposition, but I'd finish dealing with single codes first).

I could have tried each of the 25 possible shifts first, but that's a lot of work, so instead I focused on the two letter word. One of those two letters has to be a vowel, and there's only six vowels so that means 12 possible options. Only two of the options were real words. Shifting back two letters turned "wr" into "up" but the rest of the message was nonsense. Shifting it back three letters turned "wr" into "to," and applying that to the whole message made it read "Welcome to Gravity Falls."

With that code cracked, I moved on to episode 2. I hadn't paid much attention to the intro during the first episode but this time I paid closer attention, and noticed a few things (and then went back and confirmed they were the same in the first episode's intro).

In Dipper's title card there's some symbols on the wall that look like runes, but the only real rune is the third symbol. The others don't seem to appear in any actual runic or pseudo-runic alphabets I can find online. I'm going to be writing this off as purely decorative for now, but I'll keep an eye out in case these keep popping up as a symbolic alphabet, like the alien alphabet from Futurama.

At the very end of the intro this pops up for a split second. That guy in the middle is Bill Cypher, I already know he turns up later. I recognize several of the symbols surrounding him as being from the show. The shooting star is on Mabel's sweater, the handprint is on the cover of the book, the tree is on Dipper's hat, the lobster claw is on Grunkle Stan's hat, and the question mark is on Soos' shirt.

To the right there's a string of text which, when translated using the same alphabet shift code from above, reads "Stan is not what he seems." It also has the Konami code, which I'm just taking as an easter egg.

On the left there's a few possible number codes. In red it looks like something in binary but it's doesn't actually mean anything in binary. But if you convert it to morse code it could be either "sror" or "oksk." Using the same -3 shift, "sror" becomes "polo," which means nothing for now. Reverse alphabet shifting does nothing, I used an online tool to test every other alphabet shift but nothing came up. I don't even know where to begin working on the other two possible number codes.

The credits for the second episode had another hidden message. Using the -3 shift, it becomes "Next week: return to Butt Island."

[signalhill-if]

I'm averse to including any customization options that either don't contribute to the overall experience of the story/worldbuilding or restrict the player's imagination unnecessarily. I consider colour options to be both of those, at least in this game. So no

not the same anon, but im genuinely really curious as to why you think this. I think it's a really interesting perspective. i was wondering if you could perhaps expand on this. 👀 /g

i hope it doesn't come off as rude, im genuinely interested to know more about your perspective on this,only if you feel comfortable doing so ofc, if not feel free to ignore this ask. 😅

I am always open to rambling about my game design philosophy anon 😌

I am of the opinion that every single choice you make in game design must serve the game in some specific, defensible way. If it isn't serving the game, it's bloat, and it needs to be excised. The number one thing that kills a project (especially in indie) is feature creep, so for me, being conservative with game design is extremely important. This is also going to probably be in my portfolio, meaning it's especially important to show a future employer that I know how to manage a project like this, since at the kind of indie studio I want to work at people tend to wear a lot of hats.

The number one example I can give you of feature creep to explain why it's so deadly is Yandere Simulator. Funny game concept, terrible execution. Why? Feature creep. Also the dev is a creep. But primarily feature creep. The game had a whole slew of clubs you could join, a full menu of dozens of easter eggs, a bunch of carefully crafted events with placeholder characters... He was so busy implementing random crap and then fixing all the bugs he introduced that he did not implement the first rival, the purpose of the game, for like 8 years.

What the fuck does that mean? It means if you let the project get bloated, you let it get fucking bad. There is no fixing Yandere Simulator now. Those decisions have doomed it.

Tight game design, on the other hand, feels great. This is why I love Apocalypse World so much. Everything is deeply intentional and extremely tight. That kind of tight, focused game design is what I'm trying to aim for here. Everything must serve the game.

With that in mind, how about I show you how Apocalypse World handles character customization? Here's the Skinner playbook:

Mwah. Beautiful. They show you only enough to clue you in on who your character might be- showy, expressive, troubled, lush. These are playbook specific, meaning a different character will have a different array of options. It's minimalist, it's focused, and it has no fluff.

It's easy to think about character creation as "just what you need to do before the game starts," but that's a misunderstanding. Character creation is the first impression a player gets of your world and its rules. And just like you want to present yourself well in your job interview, you want to present your game well in the "am I going to bother playing this" interview.

The approach I've chosen is meant to mirror that anti-bloat philosophy. What I want to tell players is that this game is gonna be stylish, a little more mechanically involved than what they're used to, but importantly, tight as fuck. So choosing the options wisely and removing bloat means getting that message across. Colour is bloat. The game will never reference your character's skin or hair or eye colour, because that's just not really how I write. It doesn't contribute to the worldbuilding, and the player will naturally decide those things themselves regardless of whether I give them the option. So it's gotta be cut.

Does that mean this approach should apply to everything? No. You've gotta make sure it fits your game. For example, for another game technically inspired by Apocalypse World (twice removed haha), @zorlok-if does this incredibly well. It has an absolutely bonkers amount of customization, a real maximalist approach that makes a huge impact when you start up the game- it makes you feel like a kid in a candy store. And it works great, because it matches the feel of the game.

All of this is a long way of saying that you've got to be intentional with every aspect of your game design, even the ones that don't feel like they matter much.

[heir-less]

But have you seen that freaky deranger that made a tweet about Charlotte's "age appropriate" dress at Easter day and fashion like this "protecting children from pedophiles"? Ofc they're getting dragged because Andrew is behind Kate and her and Charles alone is linked to multiple pedophiles but just foul that this is the norm in that fandom and the type of audience the Waleses *knowingly* pander to. To comment on a child's clothing is to view them sexually and this weirdo needs to be removed from the internet and be locked away forever. Literally saying you can easily tell when a child is well adjusted, proper fashion will keep pedophiles away, Charlotte fashion icon in the making...my blood boils everytime this shit happens because the platform lets the tweet stay up and fellow derangers post other children. You damn well know there's pedophile saving these tweets and images.

TW rape, pedophilia, abuse

Oh, yeah, these people are freaks. People like this also suggested that it was inappropriate for Charlotte and Co. to not wear tights during Harry and Meghan's wedding. They go around applying these weird sexual standards to little girls when it comes to their skirt lengths and them having bare arms and legs outside. Charlotte has worn shorts and short-sleeves in official photos, her doing so doesn't mean her parents dressed her "inappropriately".

Yeah, it is interesting that an alleged child rapist is allowed within proximity to little children, considering that, if Andrew was a regular citizen, he would have been placed on a sex offender's list and prevented from doing these things. Andrew isn't being cut off when he could literally be a danger to those around him, he literally compared Virginia to Beatrice. Like he literally told her she was "his daughter's age" and proceeded to rape her. People who are sexual predators pray on members that are vulnerable, this includes family members. It doesn't always have to be a sexual thing, either: Andrew was very good at manipulating his dying 96-year-old mother into doing his bidding. Who knows who else he's gas-lighting and taking advantage of behind closed doors? I assume he's still allowed around the family at private events. Elizabeth wasn't a victim in this situation, but Andrew 100% exploited her emotional state for his own gain.

And your final point! YES! Let's not forget that pedophiles online will literally save "cute" pictures of little girls that appear unassuming in order to get off on them. This was a recent issue that was reported happening on Pinterest of all places. It's disgusting at these idiots are playing right into these people's hands when they post content like that. I have seen so many "royal children" Pinterest boards and Instagram accounts that are downright weird in their commentary about children. It's sick.

[kylesvariouslistsandstuff]

7 to 7: The Scrapped Pixar Originals of the '10s

The other day, I was revisiting the concept art of the cancelled Pixar picture NEWT.

NEWT, as many would know, was going to be an adventure story about newts. Little amphibians that kinda look like lizards. Two blue-footed newts, the last of their endangered species, a guy and a gal. They have to mate to save their species. Sounds familiar, doesn't it? The Blue Sky film RIO did this story, but with blue macaws.

NEWT was announced by Disney Pictures and Pixar in April 2008, then penciled in for a summer 2011 debut. This would've been the feature to succeed TOY STORY 3 on the release schedule, and coincidentally, this was the year RIO opened. It was pushed back months after its unveiling, as it played musical chairs with CARS 2, formerly a summer 2012 release. And then as time passed, NEWT was without a release date...

If you frequented the corners I did in the early 2010s, you would've known NEWT was dead before Pixar said so. Floyd Norman, who needs no introduction, casually let it slip in a reply section in early 2010... And then a few months later, Pixar officially announced that NEWT was cancelled... Unprecedented, in a way... An original movie, previously announced, was no longer moving forward. They then proceeded to dump a ton of concept art for the movie... The other remnants of the movie are merely small Easter eggs seen in TOY STORY 3 and BRAVE.

Many seem to believe that NEWT was scrapped by Pixar brass because of its similarities to RIO, and that they wanted to avoid another ANTZ vs. A BUG'S LIFE situation... But given how many other similar animated movies have opened near each other, I never bought that. ANTZ vs. A BUG'S LIFE was its own unique case, while almost every other similar-movie situation was really just coincidence. NEWT and RIO were no different. (This of course applies to big studio movies, *not* cash-in mockbuster shovelware like those Video Brinquedo movies.)

The real reason is more fascinating. Former Pixar president Ed Catmull stated in 2014 that they had first removed director Gary Rydstrom from NEWT, and then gave it to Pete Docter (current CCO), fresh off of directing Oscar winner UP. Docter showed them an idea he had been working on the previous summer, and they decided to go with that movie instead, leaving NEWT to collect dust. What was that idea? INSIDE OUT...

A rare instance where an animated movie outright replaced another one in development, because most of the time in these big studios... That never actually happens. For example: Sony Animation did not jettison Genndy Tartakovsky's POPEYE movie in favor of THE EMOJI MOVIE. Tartakovsky's take on the classic sailor was openly disliked by top Sony brass at the time, such as Amy Pascal, and he was off the movie by the end of 2014. The studio wanted to make a POPEYE movie, but under another director, as Genndy went and focused on HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA 2. THE EMOJI MOVIE was thought up by animation vet Tony Leondis on his own, and three studios got in a bidding war over his concept, Sony being the winner... And that was some time in mid-2015. So, no correlation. I think a lot of animation fans were simply upset that they cancelled Genndy's POPEYE, but saw EMOJI MOVIE through to completion. That's not the same as putting two separate movies on a table, and voting on which one to go through with.

Anyways, back on track. NEWT. Not cancelled because of similarities to RIO, cancelled because it seemed like no one wanted to make this picture. I found it kind of bizarre that Pixar, which was being run by John Lasseter at the time, didn't hand it to someone else after Docter pitched INSIDE OUT. I get the sense that he hated it, and just wanted it off the runway. Either that, or it was perceived as a standard talking animals adventure and not the usual "what-if" stuff that Lasseter's Pixar tended to favor. For whatever reason, it's a shame, because this is a movie I'd like to see happen. Who knows, maybe Docter - given that he doesn't run Pixar like Lasseter - could let either Rydstrom return or give someone else a fair shot with the concept. Maybe it can be turned into a short film or a Disney+ special/featurette... Who the heck knows!

Pixar released only four original features in the 2010s, which were BRAVE, INSIDE OUT, THE GOOD DINOSAUR, and COCO. Four original movies, against seven sequels. NEWT being made would've definitely brought things a little closer... But that wasn't the only picture that got put on ice during this tumultuous decade under a Lasseter who was letting all that leadership (not just Pixar, but also Disney Animation, Disneytoon, and various parks positions) get to his head...

Around 2010, Henry Selick and his CinderBiter Studio struck an ambitious collaboration with Pixar to bring out the studio's first stop-motion film, and their first feature co-production at that. First known as SHADEMAKER, THE SHADOW KING got very far in production. Lasseter, however, aggressively micromanaged the picture and imposed all of these changes on Selick, ballooning the budget. The picture was aiming for an October 2013 release, but after a change in leadership for Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures (this is when we went from the inexperienced Rich Ross to former Warner exec Alan Horn), and no faith in Tim Burton's then-upcoming stop-motion pic FRANKENWEENIE, THE SHADOW KING was cancelled and all the props and hard work done on the film were destroyed. Workprint footage still exists, and Selick was allowed to shop the concept/script to other studios.

So that would've been 6 original films. Heck, Selick could've even adapted Neil Gaiman's THE GRAVEYARD BOOK for Pixar, so we could've had 7 non-sequel movies *and* Pixar's first feature film to be an adaptation of pre-existing source material. (Prior to this, two stories by William Joyce - THE LEAF MEN AND THE BRAVE GOOD BUGS, and DINOSAUR BOB - were in consideration for the Pixar feature treatment. The former was eventually made at Blue Sky and titled EPIC.)

Lastly, to my knowledge, there's an eighth film... A film we know little about, that was to be directed by Pixar long-timer and Brad Bird collaborator Teddy Newton and written by Derek Connelly (a regular collaborator w/ Colin Trevorrow), a film some news sites talked about in late 2012... But not Pixar themselves. Something that was said to be a little edgier than the usual Pixar fare. Someone I know, who attended an event where Newton was present, learned that this was the case... And that it ultimately didn't make it because of how edgy it was. With the way they made it sound, that could've possibly been Pixar's first PG-13 film.

Speaking of PG-13, one of BRAVE's directors wanted to be the one to make Pixar's first "adult" movie. That was Mark Andrews, the person who essentially "finished" the movie that originator Brenda Chapman had started and had been kicked off of. Andrews had an original sci-fi film lined up at Pixar as far back as early 2012, when BRAVE was in the final lap of production... But eventually, it fell to the wayside and Andrews apparently left Pixar. That film likely would've been an early 2020s release, I reckon.

With all that, there is an alternate history where Pixar balanced out the flood of sequels that dominated their 2010s. Of course, those particular sequels existing is rooted in some *very* convoluted and sometimes legal stuff, which explains why we got at least three of those movies. That's another story for another day, and I've talked about that extensively in the past... But, it's interesting to note that a lot of originals were in some form of development during that decade, but sadly didn't make the cut... This all coincided in a decade where the sequels all flooded out, leading some people to think "Has Pixar sold out? Are they just a sequel factory now? Did Disney gut them of their soul?"

The reality of the situation is usually boring-er than that. Lasseter didn't greenlight some originals and outright pulled the plug on other ones, and Pixar's original contract with Disney didn't allow for sequels...

However, under its current leadership, Pixar could very well dust off an idea that may not have made it in the past, and could try again with it... That's not the first time that's happened. WALL-E is a great example of this, it was born out of an unmade movie called TRASH PLANET that was in development during the mid-to-late 1990s. It even went back and forth between Pete Docter and its eventual director, Andrew Stanton. By 2000, Stanton ended up pitching another idea he had been kicking around for some time, FINDING NEMO... but by the time NEMO was nearing completion in early 2003, Stanton revisited the robot... And WALL-E was his next picture...

Sometimes these things can be saved...

Wouldn't it be kinda mindblowing if we had heard that NEWT was back and was going to be one of the studio's 2025-2026 releases? I'd be delightfully surprised.

Anyways, that's some fun facts stuff I wanted to share.

Here's a list of a Pixar 2010s that could've been:

TOY STORY 3

NEWT

BRAVE

CARS 2

MONSTERS UNIVERSITY

THE SHADOW KING

THE GOOD DINOSAUR

INSIDE OUT

FINDING DORY

UNTITLED TEDDY NEWTON FILM

UNTITLED MARK ANDREWS FILM

THE GRAVEYARD BOOK

CARS 3

INCREDIBLES 2

TOY STORY 4

..

[dandelion-wings]

Sorry for the slow reply, was reading the rest - it's absolutely fantastic. Among many new and delightful things I can't articulate so soon after finishing it, I'll just say the "simply say Lisa said it"-ing got even better

Well, it sounds a bit like an easter egg either way, so it works out regardless! (The simplification of it is that his Burst applies a lot of cryo hits, but because of the Internal-Cooldown his Burst is coded with, there isn't an opportunity for them to all trigger melt. There are more interesting breakdowns online of how his Burst ICD work, as the icicles system makes it somewhat unique. It's designed more for constant freeze, however he's a pretty good quickswap/subdps for Melt Rosaria, who doesn't have ICD on her Burst, or applying for someone else to Melt.)

(It did a good job of showing the fight scale too, as intended! I was only curious if it had a double purpose.)

Thank you! :D I'm so glad you liked it. Yes, Lisa made for a very convenient excuse (which Kaeya is going to have to pay her back for later, after Amber has gone to her asking for the highlights of that lecture XD).

I hadn't used Kaeya in a Melt team yet, just Freeze and Superconduct, so that is very useful to know! Especially since at some point I am going to build Diluc and then I probably will put them and Jean and someone in a team at some point just for funsies. And it's nice to know it works as an Easter Egg too!

[foxounderscorecube]

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline

¼⭐

I'm leaving a review at all because I really passionately hate it. It's probably one of the worst books I have ever read.

As a disclaimer, this isn't a book that appealed to me a whole lot conceptually. I did my dissertation on cyberpunk media and this was one of the books I read for it, and I really wish I'd read some of the other books I'd bought and never ended up getting round to instead. I finished it only because I couldn't let such a terrible book beat me.

The book follows Wade Watts, an insufferable young man, as he competes to find an Easter egg within the OASIS - the MMORPG everyone plays in Cline's vision of the future - and win a whole load of money. Wade is very poor and very sad and so he wants to win the fortune, and because he knows so much about video games and 80s culture (much like the creator of the game), he wins, obviously, and he kisses the girl he likes and everything is lovely and happy. A lot of critical literature I read for my dissertation spoke about how cyberpunk as a whole had a tendency to be a way for nerdy guys to write a fantasy story where they were really cool and powerful as a direct result for their nerdiness, and I'd say this particularly applies here.

The misogyny is really out there. It's that weird "nice guy" flavour of misogyny. Apparently, all the girls in the OASIS have avatars that either look like supermodels (read: too skinny for Cline's self-insert) or porn stars (read: too "fake" and large-breasted for Cline's self-insert). The girl Wade likes isn't like that. She's curvy. Nerdy, too. And Wade saves all the pictures of her avatar that she posts and stalks her obsessively for years, because, you know, normal behaviour. Yes, of course he ends up dating her. No, he never faces consequences for being a massive creep, unless you count a falling-out they have at one point where he wins her affection back by stalking her some more. As in, she blocks him on everything, stops posting on her very popular blog, so he visits her in-game home repeatedly to harass her, because he reckons that's really romantic. I reiterate: he never faces consequences for this.

Similarly, there's a degree of racism, mostly in the characters of Daito and Shoto, who are always going on about "honour" and are essentially walking stereotypes. Daito gets "disappeared" by Generic Big Evil Corporation in the real world, and Wade asks if he could have possibly killed himself after losing access to his avatar (on which he had made good progress in the Easter egg hunt, and maybe you can only have one avatar, I don't recall). Shoto says "No, Daito did not commit seppuku," because, you know, he's Japanese. Not like seppuku is a very specific form of ritual suicide or anything. The scene is meant to be very serious and dark, to my recollection, and it feels like a weird joke that doesn't land.

There was a missed opportunity, I think, in that Wade would have made a good main character for something satirical, or at least something where the overall goal of the story was for him to grow from his mistakes. Instead, he remains whiny, immature, and generally dislikable, and the most character growth we see is probably after a point where he becomes depressed and stays inside masturbating constantly, and eventually decides to stop doing that.

The book relies on the reader thinking "Hey, I get that reference!" very, very heavily, and so most scenes that are clearly meant to be really cool and epic end up reading as… a bit sad, honestly. I have my own niche and/or obsessive interests, and will never put people down for loving a franchise or whatever, but "Ooh, my car is the DeLorean from Back to the Future and also the Knight Rider car and it has the Ghostbusters numberplate!" is just, I don't know. A bit much, maybe. A bit fanfic.

The book tries to have a vaguely anti-corporate message, presumably because Cline felt that was needed as part of the cyberpunk-y vibe he was going for, but it falls on its face even conceptually when it is so indulgent in the consumerist nostalgia that's so prevalent in media currently in the real world. I personally think it's perfectly fine for a book to be fun fluff in general, don't get me wrong, but I still feel like the irony is worth mentioning.

If you like to get references and you miss the nerd culture of the 80s, maybe you will like this book. A lot of people do and I would guess there's a reason for it. If you want to emulate the experience of this book without actually reading it, then I recommend reading Reddit posts by lonely "nice guys" and switching to a tab to read an entire Wikipedia article about an 80s video game every so often. I'd say that'd be rather more fun.

[stageplayhero]

Continued from here | @rabbitholewritten

Reusing dialogue isn’t something new. It’s called a callback. A reference. An easter eggs, sometimes.

Reusing it like this isn’t the same.

Lines are spontaneous. They don’t fit into the script. Appearing out of nowhere, they insert themselves into the script before Rue realizes they’re there.

Rue isn’t surprised that Mark is visiting them. They’ve been waiting for his visit.

They look up from their book — properly. “ Testing something means that you were intending it before it happened and anticipating a result. I don’t believe that either of those apply to this, unless you’d like to prove me wrong. ”

Rue folds their hands neatly and focuses on Mark. Studying him. Looking for something, even if Mark has no idea what said something is. Yet, at least.

They've seen it too, then. It isn't just him. It isn't just in his head.

He would be relieved, except it doesn't exactly solve his problem, and Rue is giving him more attention than he had bargained for. Like they're waiting for something.

Slipping anything by them would be unlikely.

It doesn't mean he won't try to feign ignorance, though. "Of course I intended it. I was testing overlapping paths with the first handful of scenes; I've never done it to this extent before. The wormhole should have made it work smoothly."

"Unless," he adds slowly, searching for answers without asking. Tread carefully. Don’t act up. "You thought I was talking about something else?"

[do-angels-dream-of-starry-seas]

No but I’ve been dying to hear what others think about the whole thing with Jim being knocked out/waking up being guarded by Ivan?? Like what does this mean??? Is Jim a hostage???

If you have any thoughts please share

GOD I'VE BEEN THINKING BOUT THIS TOO!!!!

Cause in my mind, it's either simple or plot-relevant.

Simple answer: Jim's a strong crewmate and can fuck Ed up even when off the ship. Better to not only separate them and Olu, but keep Jim so he at least has an assassin on board

(I've also seen takes of Ed using Jim as a potential... assistant, in case he decides he doesn't wanna be the Kraken anymore, which aaaaaaaaaaaaa)

Plot relevant answer: something maybe with Jackie and Jim? What the fuck did they talk about what did they agree on how and why did Jim just show back up on the Revenge?

At first I was a little peeved when the season ended without answering these questions but they gotta mean something... maybe. Some creators you try to read whether they make plot decisions cause of some deep seated blink and you'll miss it easter egg. Or just that it makes it easier for them.

With ofmd, it's definitely loose with its plot in terms of logic and historical accuracy, but this is something completely different, so it may not apply?

If anything, my theory is: in the beginning of s2, Jim convinces Ed they now wanna be part of the crew to lure him to Jackie, since they know she'll help them. Just a convenience they were on the ship as he went all Kraken