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richardrayovaunofficial · 7 months ago

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Discuss DABewarehub's post about my worst list. This will be know that nick rejected my ban appeal on deviantart

"Lets discuss this shall we?. FIrst things first - There is ZERO evidence of ANY claims made towards these users, no archives, no screenshots, no links to PROVE the accusations for this post. At this point this is harassment and Libel."

-@dabewarehub You did zero evidence out of me first, You have no zero proof that i broke the dA rules, Second, There is no proof that i broke the dA rules. You are such a fucking liar and blaiming me for no reason. You have no any claims to be me and trying to frame me, If you thinks that this is a zero evidence out of you, Its gonna be a fucking real moron. Prove it, I already roast your post.

"Now, Onto the post at hand - Lets review some of these users you've mentioned."

-Go ahead asshole, Do it! And i will keep continue to roast your post because you trying to frame me or my tumblr account.

"First - Adrielferrer's Archive - Just to help you out. Harassement = These we can agree on. Judging by their posts they are known to create posts that are problematic and refuses to let shit die. We also agree that the post where they said they deleted everything bout you and yet has still been up is considered harassment. So (claps) congrats. We agree on something."

-You think this would help? Hell no, Adriel would lying to me if he trying to help me, And he doesn't fucking trust me since 2023 when ilia force me to ignore daniel when i got blocked by him, And you see when i trying to appeal my ban? Nick rejected my ban appeal because of her and her friends, Or maybe it was you because you are the one who got my deviantart account banned, I have right to created my dA career without you and your friends so they can blocked me on dA, Not reporting me. And luckly you will never get my tumblr account banned because you trying to report me on tumblr. So what are you gonna do? A frame me for no reason? How about i should discuss your post or any others people that i hate.

"Manipulator = Not sure about this one. They do seem to have that quality when it comes to their posts. Kinda gaslighting and guilt tripping. talking about how users "betray" them cause those users don't agree with their actions. It does seem that way. So again We agree"

Have you seen a wiki about manipulator like kim il sung has? Kim il sung has brainwashed people who started to invaded south korea, And it was came out from korean war when i wasn't born in 1950s, And i disagreed with your bullshit post because of your post you made. Why don't you deal with it or any others girls you don't like? Other girls on deviantart was surely harassment by evie when she got a exposed, This would be a real evidence of her since they archive her post, And i will also archive your post so this will be a REAL evidence of you.

"Sorry, What? You do realize there has only been 1 (ONE) Adolf Hitler in history. So are you saying that Adriel is acting like Hitler and is worse then Evie? If so, please correct your grammar. (Hitler only had those who were WHITE, blonde hair and blue eyes around him. He committed Mass murder because of his own predjuice against his OWN ROOTS. Adriel hasn't committed Murder that we know of and doesn't go around calling people racist names)."

-Yeah yeah yeah whatever you say, I pretty sure i would have a correct my grammar because i trying to fix my grammar. And yes, He is acting like hitler and worse than evie. He is a gaslighter and i shouldn't let people see his status update, If i let people then. Then they will get brainwashed, I know adriel didn't committed mass murder when hitler did this during a WW2, If he did. Then will go to jail, This would have a prison in spanish because i haven't travel to madrid before.

"It's not really forcing. Granted their posts are DEMANDING but there's no force to it. People have the right to refuse and say no, HOWEVER we have noticed that if you refuse their demand you are apparently a "traitor" to them. (eye roll)"

-Yes it does forcing, I don't know he threated people to block me on YT because he is a traitor like you who likes to block people. And i have the right to refuse to leave him alone because i can't let them attack my social media account. And you are a traitor who likes to attack minor.

"We will agree in some cases we did see uncalled for actions/words towards other users, but haven't really seen cyberbullying. Please show proof of your claims."

-I will, But soon. And if you wanna trying to roast me, You can't. And there is nothing to deal about it. And if you want me to deal with adriel, I can't. I have right to stop him because i have to keep posting my community tab.

"OH NO. blocking someone is now apparently a crime in your eyes. You do know that you just legit DEMANDED us to block your new username on dA (even though we don't know what it is YET!!!) and you are bitching and moaning because Adriel is using memes and blocking this princess person? (shakes head). First: Meme's are created by anyone. Even you create them and haven't seen you give credit to the ORIGINAL people you stoled from so.. that's moot. As for blocking Princess - they have that right. Just like you have the right to block us or block Adriel"

-Cut the bullshit about the words such as "Oh No", "Have a nice day", And etc. And how does blocking someone apparently a crime in my eyes when it has no proof? It isn't a fucking crime because the news didn't see it, You do know that you just also legit DEMANDED us to report my social media account, Such as twitter, youtube, instagram, tumblr, deviantart, and etc. And you are bitch too and i ain't moaning. And i already reply at her to cheer her up, Adriel only cares about his fans. And there is no way i am moaning because moaning is from NSFW or any adults people can do, Not minors. Because minors cannot moaning. And i don't stealing a people's memes because it's not mine. Just like you have the right to deal with someone and not to report innocent people on dA.

"Really? Really? Yelling is an "evil" trait to you? Jeez. We'd hate to hear/read about what you think of your parents when they yell or ground you for your behavior. And if you don't like "strong language" why do you cuss? hmm?"

-Prove it, Asshole, I can say the strong language because i do. And there is no ways to stop my career, Also leave my parents and my family alone. They didn't anything wrong to me and they don't ground me because i am from slovakia. And i am not from USA like you.

"We believe you meant "becoming" and also, how is she "dangerous". She hasn't killed anybody, She hasn't commited any felonies. So in what way is she dangerous? Are you referring that she's dangerous to your precious "Deviantart Career"? (btw. a career is something you get PAID for. Last time we checked, you didn't have any subs, not sure if you got commissions, but don't think you earned an actual LIVING off of your 'dA career'. Seriously.)"

-So what? I still don't care if she hasn't commited any felonies or killed anybody, So in what way is she dangerous? A causing innocent people to get banned from deviantart, "Are you referring that she's dangerous to your precious "Deviantart Career"?" Yes, She is a fucking dangerous woman because she likes to report innocent people. And you think i didn't any subs because i have a youtube? Oh yes i have any subs and my subscribers is gonna be reach 10K. The self-proclaimed masters of demands without force. It's like being hit with a velvet hammer – sure, they're not holding a gun to your head, but the pressure is unmistakable.

"There's a fine fine line between being blunt - trolling and cyberbullying. She hasn't actually cyberbullied anyone and any of the users she's called out are actually known to be toxic people who are the TRUE cyberbullies and harassers."

-The self-appointed judge and jury of the internet, here to enlighten us on the fine art of cyberbullying. Apparently, in their world, there's a 'fine fine line' between being blunt and trolling, and, well, full-blown cyberbullying. How noble of them to enlighten us mere mortals!But fear not, dear sucker, for you is here to set the record straight. They haven't actually cyberbullied anyone – oh no, perish the thought! Instead, they've taken it upon themselves to call out those 'toxic' individuals who are the real cyberbullies and harassers. How convenient! It's like the classic tale of the pot calling the kettle black, but with a twist of self-righteousness. Because in dabewarehub's universe, they're not just pointing fingers; they're shining beacons of truth and virtue in a sea of darkness. Bravo, dabewarehub, for showing us all the true meaning of hypocrisy wrapped in a thin veil of righteousness! And i hope you step on a lego.

"In what way? Seriously. You need to give evidence of your claims. The only time she comments about the users she has issues with if they do it first. Maybe if you all just left her the fuck alone. none of you would be mentioned."

-People cannot left her alone because she is evil, the paragon of innocence in the face of accusations. "mentioned?" they inquire innocently, as if they've never wielded their keyboard like a weapon before. "In what way?" they feign ignorance, conveniently forgetting their own digital footprints of aggression. But fear not, if you would do, Then you gonna trying accused with quick to provide a solution: evidence. Yes, evidence! Because apparently, in their world, allegations are merely hot air unless backed by concrete proof.And oh, the irony! You insists they only comment on users who provoke them first, as if they're merely innocent bystanders pushed to the brink. But perhaps, just perhaps, if they didn't dive headfirst into every online scuffle like a bull in a china shop, they wouldn't find themselves in these precarious situations. So, to all those who dare cross paths with you, take heed: if you simply left them alone, perhaps you wouldn't be subjected to their digital wrath. But where's the fun in that, when there's a perfectly good soapbox to stand on and fingers itching to type out another righteous rebuttal?

"What fucking power? being a senior member only gives you a cute little badge, access to a forum in community and a discord server. She doesn't work for dA and even if she did she'd have a good sense of doing research FIRST before jumping the gun and playing the blame game like some other users do (looks at you)"

-You don't know how to became a sussy baka power like her, If she gave me a badge, Then why the fuck did she reported me? Or maybe it was you because i already know you get caught. the humble denier of power, the self-proclaimed underdog fighting against the tyranny of... well, their own imagination, apparently. "Abusing her power?" they scoff incredulously, as if the mere notion were as laughable as a clown riding a unicycle. But let's break it down, shall we? Being a senior member might only grant them a 'cute little badge' and access to a forum and a Discord server, but oh, what power they wield within those digital realms! It's like a miniature kingdom where they reign supreme, dispensing justice and righteousness with a mere keystroke. And let's not forget their claim to not working for dA – because clearly, that absolves them of any responsibility, right? Never mind the influence they hold within the community, the sway they carry with their words. No, no, You just wanna keep going and during a harmless bystander, innocently observing the chaos they sow. But fear not, dear sussy baka, for you is here to remind us all of their impeccable sense of research, their unwavering dedication to truth and justice. Because, you see, they're not like those other users who play the blame game without a second thought. Oh no, they're far too noble for such frivolous antics. So, to all those who dare accuse you of abusing their power, take heed: for in their eyes, they are but humble peasants, basking in the glow of their own self-righteousness. And woe unto those who dare challenge their reign – for they shall be met with a swift and merciless roast.

"You just listed everyone. EVERYONE can be a threat when it comes to reporting. She reports ban evaders, block evaders and coppa violations. If you all don't like to be reported, don't break dA rules. It's really REALLY that simple."

-You should only stop framed me about breaking dA rules because it's fucking annoying, And i don't fucking breaking dA rules for millions times i have to fucking say that. The ever-vigilant guardian of dA's rules, wielding the mighty sword of... wait for it... REPORTING! "Report threat?" they sneer, as if the mere act of reporting were akin to summoning an army of digital demons to wreak havoc upon the unsuspecting masses. But let's not be fooled by their righteous indignation, for beneath that facade lies a simple truth: You is the judge, jury, and executioner of dA's digital domain. They report ban evaders, block evaders, and COPPA violations with the fervor of a medieval inquisitor, hunting down heretics in the darkest corners of the internet. And oh, how they love to remind us all of the simplicity of their noble quest: if you don't want to be reported, simply don't break dA's rules. It's as easy as pie, or so they claim. But beware, dear sussy baka, for in your world, the line between righteous justice and vengeful retribution is as thin as a pixel on a screen. So, to all those who dare question dabewarehub's authority, take heed: for they are the gatekeepers of dA's sacred laws, the defenders of digital decency. And woe unto those who dare cross them – for they shall be met with the swift and merciless wrath of the REPORT BUTTON!

"It's funny that you mention this cause you are also guilty of this but we would love to see your proof of these things"

-You are gonna get guilty, not me, And are you fucking gay if you say love? Prove it you are gay. The master of deflection and denial, expertly wielding the weapons of gaslighting, manipulation, and... lying? "It's funny that you mention this," they declare with a smirk, as if the very accusations levied against them were nothing more than a jest. But fear not, Dear sussy baka, For you is quick to turn the tables, casting doubt upon the very credibility of their accuser. "We would love to see your proof," they declare with mock sincerity, as if the burden of evidence lay solely upon the shoulders of their detractors. But let's not be fooled by their feigned innocence, for beneath that facade lies a cunning strategist, adept at twisting words and distorting reality to suit their own narrative. Gaslighting? Manipulation? Lying? Oh no, not dabewarehub – they're simply innocent bystanders caught in the crossfire of someone else's vendetta. So, to all those who dare accuse you of such heinous crimes, take heed: for they are the masters of misdirection, the architects of ambiguity. And woe unto those who dare challenge their version of the truth – for they shall be met with the cold, hard reality of their gaslit world.

"Please show proof of this. You're getting your information for those who have "beef" with her, they aren't really a "reliable source" and again, you've done the same things. Still have screenshots of the emails you sent to Ilia, Evie has hers. Should we include those?"

-I said this will be soon until i get then, I cares about my information but for you, You can't. The accuser turned defender, boldly challenging the accusations of blackmailing and fake allegations. "Please show proof of this," they demand with a smirk, as if the burden of evidence were not a two-way street but a one-way cul-de-sac conveniently leading away from their doorstep. But let's not be fooled by their theatrical bravado, for beneath that facade lies a tangled web of deceit and manipulation. "You're getting your information from those who have 'beef' with her," they scoff, dismissing the credibility of their detractors with a wave of their digital hand. And oh, the irony! Dabewarehub dares to cast doubt upon the reliability of their sources, all the while clutching onto their own arsenal of damning evidence like a shield against the onslaught of truth. "Still have screenshots of the emails you sent to Ilia, Evie has hers," they boast, as if the mere threat of exposure were enough to silence their critics. But beware, dear sussy baka, for in yours world, the truth is a malleable commodity, to be shaped and molded to fit their own agenda. Blackmailing? Fake allegations? Oh no, not dabewarehub – they're simply the innocent victims of a vast conspiracy orchestrated by their enemies. So, to all those who dare accuse you of such nefarious deeds, take heed: for they are the masters of manipulation, the architects of deception. And woe unto those who dare challenge their version of reality – for they shall be met with the full force of their vindictive wrath.

"Are you talking about her NSFW? if so, she's an adult. If you don't want to see nsfw turn your mature filter on. She has every RIGHT to draw what she wants. Just like you have every right to "Draw" whatever you want."

-Are you sure? I don't know this would be work because i am talking about a disturbing pictures such as gore, violence, and etc. The defender of artistic freedom, boldly brushing off accusations of disturbing pictures with a nonchalant wave of their keyboard. "Are you talking about her NSFW?" they inquire, as if the mere mention of adult content were enough to absolve all sins. But let's not be fooled by their flippant dismissal, for beneath that facade lies a thinly veiled attempt to deflect criticism. "She's an adult," they declare, as if age were a shield against moral scrutiny. "If you don't want to see NSFW, turn your mature filter on," they suggest, conveniently ignoring the fact that not all disturbing content can be filtered out with a simple click. And oh, the hypocrisy! You champions the right to draw whatever one pleases, as if artistic freedom were a carte blanche to unleash a torrent of disturbing imagery upon unsuspecting viewers. "Just like you have every right to 'draw' whatever you want," they proclaim, as if there were no difference between creative expression and outright grotesquery. But beware, dear sussy baka, for in yours world, the line between art and obscenity is as blurred as a pixelated image on a computer screen. Disturbing pictures? Oh no, not dabewarehub – they're simply the defenders of artistic autonomy, bravely fighting against the tyranny of censorship. So, to all those who dare question dabewarehub's taste in art, take heed: for they are the arbiters of aesthetic excellence, the guardians of creative liberty. And woe unto those who dare challenge their interpretation of artistic expression – for they shall be met with the full force of their indignant rebuttal.

"Proof please."

-I told you i will show you proof soon, Just waiting for few months.

"Where's your proof? She admited that she reported you up until September 14, 2023 and she has left you alone sense. Also, again just a reminder, The original owner of this dAbewarehub was actually the one who got you banned several times"

-So are you not gonna listening to me when i told you that i can show you soon? Fine then, I am gonna more write this to your post. :)

-The self-appointed prosecutor, demanding proof with the tenacity of a bulldog sinking its teeth into a bone. "Where's your proof?" they demand, as if the burden of evidence were not a shared responsibility but a one-sided game of cat and mouse. But let's not be fooled by their selective memory, for beneath that facade lies a convenient narrative designed to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing. "She admitted that she reported you," they claim triumphantly, conveniently omitting any mention of their own role in the saga. And oh, how convenient! You graciously informs us that they've left me alone since September 14, 2023, as if that erases the years of harassment and hostility that preceded it. "Just a reminder," they add with a smug grin, as if to imply that you somehow deserved the treatment you received. But beware, dear sussy baka, for in yours world, the truth is a fragile thing, easily manipulated to suit their own agenda. "The original owner of this dAbewarehub was actually the one who got you banned several times," they declare, as if to shift the blame onto a convenient scapegoat. So, to all those who dare challenge your version of reality, take heed: for they are the masters of manipulation, the architects of deceit. And woe unto those who dare question their authority – for they shall be met with the full force of their indignant rebuttal, backed by a carefully curated selection of half-truths and convenient omissions.

"It's threatened* not threated. Also, she didn't threaten to you ban you or threatened someone to ban you. She has told you repeatedly to leave her alone or she will report you for harassment."

-Sometimes i made a mistake, And yes she does threaten to ban me on deviantart, And you know i told her that i will not leave her alone because she is scumbag who forced daniel to report me, How about you ask someone to appeal my ban? Nick does not appect my ban appeal and he won't let me go, So thats why i created a another account on dA.

"Proof please, what screenshots is she faking? We were forwarded the emails you sent her and we have to say Richard. Wow. That is a lot of blackmailing, gaslighting and manipulation. Also, she primarily used archive when she called out. How can you "fake screenshot" when archive.today saves the site as it appears? Hmm?"

-If you already know i blackmail her, I don't blackmailing, Gaslighting, Manipulation, I only stop others people who cannot allowed to bullies people. And i only mailing her because i found her gmail that she has. The purveyor of truth and justice, boldly calling out accusations of fake screenshotting with all the righteous fury of a digital crusader. "Proof please," they demand, as if the mere suggestion of deception were nothing more than a fanciful tale spun by their enemies. But let's not be fooled by their theatrical indignation, for beneath that facade lies a carefully crafted narrative designed to deflect attention from their own misdeeds. "What screenshots is she faking?" they inquire innocently, conveniently ignoring the mountain of evidence that threatens to bury them alive. And oh, the audacity! You dares to insinuate that yours, dear eviejulia, are the true villain of this story, wielding the tools of blackmailing, gaslighting, and manipulation like a twisted puppet master pulling the strings of fate. "Wow. That is a lot," they declare with mock surprise, as if the contents of those forwarded emails were anything less than a digital confession. But beware, dear sussy baka, for in yours world, truth is a fluid concept, easily manipulated to suit their own agenda. "She primarily used archive when she called out," they boast, as if to imply that their methods are beyond reproach. "How can you 'fake screenshot' when archive.today saves the site as it appears?" they challenge, as if technological prowess were a shield against moral culpability. So, to all those who dare question your integrity, take heed: for they are the masters of deception, the architects of deceit. And woe unto those who dare challenge their version of reality – for they shall be met with the full force of their indignant rebuttal, backed by a carefully constructed web of half-truths and convenient omissions.

"Not a thing. Like Evie, Ilia reports coppa violations (users under the age of 13. It's illegal and the law for users who are under the age of 13 to be on deviantart. In fact most websites have that very same rule), Block evaders and ban evaders. So. How is it a "threat" when it's users who break dA rules?"

-I am not a under the age of 13 anymore, And i used to have deviantart back in 2021 when my old previous account from 2021 got hacked. And the defender of dA's digital decree, boldly dismissing accusations of report threats with all the bravado of a knight in shining armor. "Not a thing," they declare with a flourish, as if the very notion were as inconsequential as a speck of dust in the digital wind. But let's not be fooled by their righteous indignation, for beneath that facade lies a convenient reinterpretation of reality designed to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing. "Like Evie, Ilia reports COPPA violations," they proclaim proudly, conveniently omitting any mention of their own role in the digital witch hunt. And oh, the hypocrisy! You champions the noble cause of enforcing dA's rules, all the while conveniently ignoring the collateral damage left in their wake. "It's illegal," they declare with a sense of moral superiority, as if the ends justify the means in their quest for digital justice. But beware, dear sussy baka, for in yours world, the rule of law is a flexible concept, easily bent to suit their own agenda. "How is it a 'threat' when it's users who break dA rules?" they challenge, as if the mere act of enforcing those rules were beyond reproach. So, to all those who dare question your authority, take heed: for they are the self-appointed guardians of dA's digital domain, the arbiters of online justice. And woe unto those who dare challenge their interpretation of the rules – for they shall be met with the full force of their righteous wrath, backed by a carefully constructed web of half-truths and convenient omissions.

"Proof please. We haven't seen any proof of your claims for harassment. In fact Ilia is probably the only one who tries to be logical with users who are breaking the rules by showing them the link to the rule and let them know. Granted she was blunt and rude to you and if memory serves us correctly, she's already apologized for that. She hasn't talked about you in MONTHS on any of her platforms and yet here you are continuing your own misery. (aka your drama)"

-I think you didn't listen to me when i can show you soon as i said, And i knew it was her, That sucker woman logical me and claimed to be breaking dA rules when i DIDN'T breaking the FUCKING dA rules. The grand arbiter of harassment accusations, demanding proof with the haughty air of a digital judge presiding over their virtual courtroom. "Proof please," they declare with a flick of their digital gavel, as if the very notion of harassment were nothing more than a figment of your imagination. But let's not be fooled by their self-righteous indignation, for beneath that facade lies a carefully constructed narrative designed to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing. "We haven't seen any proof of your claims for harassment," they proclaim proudly, conveniently ignoring the avalanche of evidence that threatens to bury them alive. And oh, the audacity! Your friends dares to paint Ilia as the voice of reason in a sea of chaos, the lone beacon of logic amidst the digital tumult. "She's already apologized for that," they boast, as if a mere apology were enough to erase the scars of their past transgressions. But beware, dear sussy baka, for in her world, forgiveness is a fleeting commodity, easily revoked at a moment's notice. "She hasn't talked about you in MONTHS," they declare with a hint of exasperation, as if your mere existence were an affront to their delicate sensibilities. So, to all those who dare accuse devil people of harassment, take heed: for they are the masters of manipulation, the architects of deceit. And woe unto those who dare challenge their version of reality – for they shall be met with the full force of their indignant rebuttal, backed by a carefully constructed web of half-truths and convenient omissions.

"You are claiming she's racist cause she assumed a user who goes by "blackdawg" or whatever the hell that username is = as you? She hasn't ONCE displayed any behaviors of racism. and you would have to show proof of this and her reporting an account she BELIEVED it was YOU because of the defending / block evading that was going on after you and her's spat - Yeah. Anyone would auto think that account was yours. Well, except you and your "friends""

-This username will be NOT me, I believe it was made by someone when i DO not own this. And I also belived it's your fault because of your moron post. The self-appointed defender against accusations of racism, boldly challenging claims with the fervor of a digital warrior. "You are claiming she's racist," they declare with a scoff, as if the very notion were as preposterous as a unicorn prancing through cyberspace. But let's not be fooled by their righteous indignation, for beneath that facade lies a thinly veiled attempt to rewrite history and absolve themselves of any wrongdoing. "She hasn't ONCE displayed any behaviors of racism," they proclaim proudly, conveniently ignoring the subtle biases that permeate their every digital interaction. And oh, the audacity! You dares to justify their assumptions based on a mere username, as if the color of one's digital moniker were a reliable indicator of their true identity. "Anyone would auto think that account was yours," they declare with a sense of certainty, as if their own biases were somehow beyond reproach. But beware, dear sussy baka, for in your mom, the truth is a malleable concept, easily manipulated to suit their own agenda. "Except you and your 'friends,'" they add with a hint of disdain, as if your refusal to conform to their narrative were somehow a mark of guilt. So, to all those who dare accuse you of racism, take heed: for they are the masters of deflection, the architects of denial. And woe unto those who dare challenge their interpretation of reality – for they shall be met with the full force of their indignant rebuttal, backed by a carefully constructed web of half-truths and convenient omissions.

#dabewarehub

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breakingarrows · 1 year ago

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Dirty Laundry: Easy Allies and Last Stand Media

What was originally supposed to be breaking down the recent online drama between Easy Allies and Last Stand Media has devolved into me scouring Twitter and forums to try and nail down what it is that makes Colin Moriarty such a lightning rod for arguments online.

Originally I was attracted to this recent collaboration due to being a former fan of both Easy Allies, made up of former staff of the website GameTrailers, and Colin Moriarty, from his Podcast Beyond and early Kinda Funny days. I use the term former more strongly in regards to Colin as while I was a fan for a long time I eventually grew tired of his shit. I had already begun to wobble on my commitment to Kinda Funny by March 2017, the same month he made his infamous tweet that led to his ousting at the company, was also the release of The Legend of Zelda: The Breath of the Wild. In an episode of the Gamescast the quality of the game and games media’s response to it became a subject and Colin had some really out there takes that I detailed in a post at the time. He was shortly afterwards pushed out and started his own Patreon and rarely appeared on my feed mainly when people were dunking on whatever opinion got traction and passed around in screenshots or quote-tweets.

This most recent drama was due to a guest spot on a recent Easy Allies podcast called Frame Trap with guest Dustin Furman of Last Stand Media. The episode is business as usual with nothing outlandish going on. The next day Easy Allies community manager Gabby Montoute posts on the Easy Allies discord this message,

Hi guys, just wanted to quickly address the latest episode of Frame Trap. To first explain our thought process: Brad & Dustin are friends and Dustin is a fan of ours, so Brad wanted to have him on FrameTrap. We unfortunately did not think it through beyond that & that is entirely our fault. Please understand, Brad has known and trusted Dustin for many years, but we hear your concerns and will take more time to discuss & vet new guests before bringing them on. We sincerely apologize for any and all drama this has caused. Thank you so much for understanding and please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or comments!

This seemingly was posted due to individuals reaching out to members of Easy Allies to voice their displeasure that they would associate with someone from Last Stand Media, namely due to its ownership by Colin. A follow up was added afterwards

Guys, read the apology before you jump to any conclusions. No one is apologizing for being friends with Dustin, but there is unfortunately some inherent messiness (to put it lightly) when it comes to LSM that we would rather avoid than participate in. It was a mistake, but let's all please be mature about this. If you want to discuss it again, feel free to message me, but any bad faith conversation about it in this Discord is over.

Additionally Daniel Bloodworth would pin his comment on the episode on YouTube

I want to offer my deepest apologies to everyone for my failures regarding this week's Frame Trap and its aftermath. I tried to address some people's questions in our Discord about bringing Dustin Furman onto Frame Trap, and unintentionally made Brad and Dustin look bad in the process. I failed to properly account for potential reactions, and I failed by rushing out a statement which has harmed one of our guests and biggest fans. There are few things that hurt me as deeply as knowing that I've hurt others. And it's my own mistakes that have led to this absolute turmoil for Dustin, Brad, Gabby, our staff, and our community. This is my responsibility, and I'm sorry. -Daniel Bloodworth

That same day Washington Post reporter and Last Stand Media contributor Gene Park would join the ResetEra thread for Easy Allies defending the reputation of Last Stand Media.

I really want to push back on the idea that LSM, a company I contribute to, is any kind of political show or holds any kind of political or ideological stance. It does not and it is not. My employer, The Washington Post, would not have greenlit my involvement if Last Stand Media was in any way a show about strong political viewpoints. The leadership vetted it. It simply isn’t. Social issues are rarely discussed, and if they are, they’re addressed with some nuance, and Colin has always been very careful in stating his own inherent bias and ignorance on certain issues. However lightly social or political issues are addressed, it is a centrist approach, which is largely aligned with how mainstream media orgs like The Post operates. Literally all the content is about games, the business of games, the culture of games. I would not have gotten involved if that was not the case. But it is. It’s just a gaming media platform. To say otherwise is simply inaccurate and based on hearsay and memes.

Gene’s posts eventually led to a (1) month ban due to, "Dismissive commentary around banned source and transphobia." Last Stand Media would post on October 23 a tweet stating, "“We’ll see about that.” with a photo where a sign states, “Warning Poaching is Strictly Forbidden. Violators will be prosecuted.” stirring speculation on its meaning in regards to the situation between themselves and Easy Allies, namely on if Bradley Ellis would be jumping ship from Easy Allies to Last Stand Media as a result. That same day Last Stand Media would upload the episode Is the Skinsuit Complete? | Sacred Symbols, Episode 277 with timestamp “0:52:24 - The Easy Allies Situation.” During this segment Colin goes off on Easy Allies and his prior conversations with Brandon Jones which he misinterprets as ending by being thrown under the bus. Brandon Jones’ video and posts online at the time were non-committal and bore no condemnation or judgment towards Colin and were simply him becoming wary of the reputation Colin had accrued for himself online. Colin is just so thin-skinned that any pause to contemplate whether there is merit behind why a portion of your audience is saying, “maybe don’t work with this guy,” is equivalent to “being thrown under the bus.” I also find it humorous that Colin felt the need to send a strongly worded email about how the two were done and would never work together again.

Easy Allies should have handled the situation better. To suddenly denounce the guest you had on shows that no vetting was done beforehand, or the word of Bradley Ellis was held as verification enough. If the latter, to suddenly turn becomes a critique of Brad’s judgment. All of their wording has been vague-posting, meaning you leave everything to speculation and the matter would have been passed over in a short time had it just remained unaddressed. Let the segments of your audience that find Dustin’s guest appearance vilifying to move on, to peter back and forth between condemnation and apologizing just makes into the mess it is today. According to Dustin he is no longer welcome on Easy Allies’ channel and Brad is not allowed to go on Last Stand Media content going forward.

You can’t please anyone, and Easy Allies needs to be smarter about who they are aiming to please. It is often said to ignore a vocal minority, and it might have ended up being the best course of action for Easy Allies. Listening to Brandon’s old Cup of Jones, the one in which he “throws Colin under the bus”, it is clearly apparent that he is desperate to appease all the voices that are coming through the channel’s various platforms: Twitter, their forums, comments, and emails. Appeasing one group means angering a separate one, and teeter-tottering back and forth between them all will eventually shake all the leaves off your tree, namely your Patreon subscriber base. Colin echoes, more harshly, the attitude that dominated the former Easy Allies subreddit in that the company is failing and on a downward spiral that can’t be sustained, and I doubt this recent controversy has helped at all as the terminally online are the ones more likely to be giving you money on Patreon than the casual observer on YouTube who will likely never follow Dustin to his home channel and watch Colin’s rant.

Combing through Colin’s tweets (something I don’t recommend but the fruits of which are listed on my timeline at the bottom of this post) is a confirmation that not much has changed. He has always loved the term “echochamber” and frequently lacks the self awareness that this is what he cultivates for himself. Colin consistently states he loves being challenged and disagreed with but always antagonistically responds to criticism and frequently only engages with the most offensive and weakest responses to his stances on Twitter. His favorite is to pick a random Twitter user who makes claims of racism, sexism, transphobia, etc towards him and then asks for the specific instances and says he’s made plenty of pro-[social issue here] arguments in videos online.

He loves to bring on people such as Filip Miucin, Vince Ingenito, and Kara Lynne not so much as to do any sort of questioning but instead to just let them talk unopposed. Miucin plagiarized throughout his career and is met with weak opposition to his claims. Ingenito who was the subject of a sexual harassment investigation within IGN that was so mishandled it led to the entire staff walking out in protest when it was revealed but was unjustly “excommunicated” by the industry. Colin would write in June 2023 about Vince, “He has one of the greatest critical minds in the history of games media and it's unfair that audiences have been robbed of him for so long. I'm proud that Last Stand is giving him a place to speak. He'll return.” Kara Lynne who was fired from Limited Run Games after a campaign by an admitted internet bully discovered a tweet by Lynne pushing forward the myth that perverts would benefit more from transgender bathroom laws than anyone else. This is a problem I have with the same softball journalism employed by the bane of Colin’s existence, games media. He literally opens the episode with Miucin by saying, “You don’t hear very much from me. I’ll let Filip speak for himself, tell his story to you, and take from it what you will.” Where is the pushback? Where is the spine to confront someone over lies and instead just let them say their side with no inspection? It drives me crazy. People hail him as a “real journalist” because he brings people on and “just lets them speak.” as if that’s journalism. This is the same man who recommended the book Elements of Journalism by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel as essential reading for anyone wanting to do journalism but seemingly has not learned any of the lessons taught within its text. No journalist would let an interview subject just put forward their narrative with no attempt at verification or skepticism questioning.

Colin really hates games media, not for the reasons I criticize games media, but instead seemingly just because they’re all out to get him, save for the individuals who still engage with him online, they’re okay. Waypoint writes about how Horizon Zero Dawn devs responded to accusations of appropriating imagery and cultural elements from native american tribes and he calls it outrage culture. Kotaku, Polygon, and Waypoint “pedal almost entirely in outrage.” Games media’s real diversity problem isn’t in the color of your skin but instead one of ideologies. Games media is adversarial to game developers, publishers, and PR so of course those same institutions should be adversarial to games media. An article from GameSpot explaining how bra sizes work in response to people freaking out over Tifa’s bust in Final Fantasy VII Remake is mocked as why games media is dying. Games media needs to be dispassionate because they are purposefully ignoring that PAX West dropped my panel and won't refund my fans who are now boycotting the convention in response. “Who do enthusiast outlets write for? It sure doesn't seem like they write for any of us [the REAL gamers].” Game reviewers who play on easy mode don’t actually like video games (despite the average gamer never actually even finishing a majority of games they play).

Another obsession of Colin is to give the appearance of being a gracious host who just wants to debate people in the common interest of knowledge and progress. He tried to bait Bob Mackey into coming out to see him in person to debate about Bob’s accusations of Colin’s political leanings and actions while working at IGN. He frequently talks about how he would love to have people who disagree with him on his show, as if that would lead to anything other than two people talking at each other with Colin’s fans heralding his great victory and the opposition's cringe loss. Most recently he responded to his friend David Jaffe, himself posting in response to Jeff Grubb screen posting a tweet of Jaffe’s and was offensive because Grubb didn’t “tag” Jaffe(?), “The types of people that do this will never, ever sit and talk to you, just like they won't with me. They're scared. I'd be scared to defend my positions, too, if I spent years flailing around an echochamber. Thankfully, iron sharpens iron and you and I have no such issues. <3”

As I mentioned before, Colin really loves to play the victim. He was able to leverage his Kinda Funny ousting into a very successful Patreon, one whose membership outnumbers the likes of Nextlander, NoClip, Game Makers Toolkit, Jeff Gerstmann, Kinda Funny’s individual patreons, and Retronauts (among many others you can find on the Game Biz sheet I try to keep up to date). He talks about building this successful Patreon despite “Virtually no games PR or publisher goodwill.” though also would tout in 2018 that, “They gave me God of War early, too. Don't let the games media echochamber fool you. Every publisher I've approached has been more than happy to (and often eager to) work with me.” Something changed in 2019 as that same company that gave him Detroit: Become Human and God of War early would blacklist his outlet. “PlayStation has blacklisted Sacred Symbols for reasons entirely unknown, so we won't be getting anything from them moving forward.” Probably the most perfect example of pity party Moriarty comes in this response, “Hundreds? Try thousands. [of people attacking him online] Hit pieces written about me in renowned publications [I’m unable to find anything other than the usual summary of events news stories from the time of his exit]. Thrown away by people I knew for years and treated with respect [This at least checks out from his perspective of events]. Blacklisted [only by Sony as far as his statements have shown]. Defamed and lied about. Intentionally misrepresented [This is likely just the usual twitter posting being referenced]. No. He will never experience 1% of what I did. It's fine. I lived.” It’s quite melodramatic. Colin can cry in his dollar bills though, as he’s tweeted already, he has become much more successful than he ever was before, transforming his tears into financial compensation and playing on people’s apparent need to adulate him with praise.

Lastly, Colin made a big deal of him leaving the GOP in 2016 after Trump’s nomination, as if being a proud Republican for his lifetime prior bore no consequence simply because he was “socially liberal” during it. His words on there needing to be more diversity of ideas within games media reads as naive in terms of how leftists and liberals are as divided and argumentative amongst themselves as he believes they should be, they just lack a Republican review giving the latest Mario a 9/10. Nobody wanting to debate him nowadays is mostly due to a degradation of tolerance for people who are stymying progress, especially as we grow ever nearer to climate disaster, as the rich hoard more and more wealth as costs go up and wages stay as they are. We’re tired of this shit and don’t have the patience for those who want to present the insidious mask of thoughtful discussion between those who want us dead and those who are dying. As Austin Walker wonderfully put it in Febraury 2017, “While you encourage me to debate a brick wall, I'll be busy trying to keep it from fucking falling on my head.”

Tracking this stuff is exhausting, and I can see why I didn’t really do much with the “Dirty Laundry” series after the first handful of episodes in 2015. There is no shortage of drama, but actually tracking down solid information takes too much time for too little reward. Colin’s fans will read these same tweets and think they’re examples of his strong convictions and character and is correct in his assertions because he’s just so smart. Those like me will find renewed annoyance at his continual whining and bad take posting while he profits and those who actually are the, “greatest critical minds in the history of games media” continue to do so part time and scrape by on Patreon. Shit sucks! Fuck him!

Colin Moriarty: wrote guides and posted them on GameFAQs throughout the 2000s, started guide writing for IGN in 2003, was hired in 2007, jumped from guide writing to editorial in 2009, left IGN to co-found Kinda Funny in January 2015, is ousted from Kinda Funny in March 2017, creates Colin’s Last Stand on Patreon that same month, January 2021 rebrands as Last Stand Media, continues to work there to this day.

December 13, 2012: Colin Moriarty “I love being challenged, I love people disagreeing with me, giving me a different view. Living in an echochamber must be a lonely existence.” [source]

June 29, 2015: Colin Moriarty “Here's my argument: the Confederate flag is a symbol of racism created by traitors to their country. Pretty simple.” [source]

March 3, 2017: Colin Moriarty “Was his response "I wrote a game about a woman fighting robot dinosaurs, why is everything cause for faux outrage?" That'd be a good answer.” In response to a Waypoint article about the appropriation of native american imagery for the groups within Horizon Zero Dawn. [source]

March 8, 2017: Colin Moriarty “Ah. Peace and quiet. #ADayWithoutAWoman” [source] this quickly led to his departure from Kinda Funny.

September 26, 2017: Colin Moriarty “Asian Americans blow the entire White Supremacy/Racism bit to smithereens. Expect the fringe left to chase ‘em hard over the next few years. Compared to whites, Asian Americans are better educated, make more money, live in more affluent areas, and live longers. Where’s the racism?!” [source]

Also, “To reiterate: If @bobservo wants to have a productive debate, I will fly him to LA, put him up, and donate $2,000 to a charity he chooses.” [source]

October 9, 2017: Colin Moriarty “All of those people are welcome to come record an episode with me should they ever find themselves in LA. Would love to host them.” This is in response to someone on Twitter saying he should have Austin Walker, Patrick Klepek, Danielle Riendeau, Gita Jackson, and Zoe Quinn on his show [source]

November 22, 2017: Brandon Jones responds positively [source] to Colin Moriarty’s invitation [source] to be on his show, there was some pushback for and against this. [source]

November 29, 2017: Colin Moriarty “The illustrious @TrailerJones joined me for this week's CLS: Fireside Chats! We chat about Easy Allies and Patreon, and open up about our time at GameTrailers/IGN, the good 'ol days at Kinda Funny, and the storm surrounding this podcast happening at all. https://patreon.com/posts/15613489“ [source]

December 3, 2017: Brandon Jones “Last week my words were upsetting to some. I worried anything else I said might make things worse. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking lately, but not a lot of talking, and that’s rightfully frustrated people I care about in the EZA community. ⅛” [source]

December 5, 2017: Brandon Jones posts a Cup of Jones on Easy Allies patreon, some bit of it includes comments on Colin's situation. [Colin later cites this as an example of not liking Brandon]

April 11, 2018: Colin Moriarty “Games media has a diversity problem, but it's not the one ably written about here. Can you name a single conservative or libertarian writer working at any mainstream games outlet? Just one. I'd like diversity of thought and ideas. Skin deep is just that. https://eurogamer.net/articles/2018-04-11-why-the-games-media-has-a-diversity-problem-this-website-especially. I love and respect IGN for a lot of reasons, but this reason may be paramount: When they brought me on as a freelancer in 2002 (and full time in 2007), they knew damn well I was a passionate, political conservative, and they embraced it. They never tried to shut me up, ever. I'd love to see some of these outlets hire a Trump voter. Hire an evangelical. Hire a libertarian. Hire a social conservative. These people also play and love games. Millions of them. We're so focused on gender and skin color that we've forgotten about, y'know... the mind.” [source]

November 8, 2018: Colin Moriarty “My favorite game of 2018 is STILL Detroit: Become Human. I bid you good day.” [source]

May 10, 2019: Colin Moriarty “I said it during Kingdom Come: Deliverance, and I’ll say it again: Game devs, publishers, and PR have nothing to lose by being adversarial to a games media that is perpetually adversarial to them. Right or wrong, it’s certainly tactically sound.” [source]

May 24, 2019: Colin Moriarty “There's no doubt that YouTube is an Outrage Fest, but websites like Kotaku, Polygon, and Waypoint pedal almost entirely in outrage. No one would care about Kotaku (at all) if not for Jason S. It's safer to call out the YouTubers destroying his media circle than honestly assess.” [source]

June 21, 2019: Colin Moriarty “It’s almost impossible to believe that old guard games media is dying. [photo of a GameSpot article ‘We Need to Talk About How Bra Sizes Work’” [source]

August 1, 2019: Colin’s Last Stand posts: Introducing CLS' First Full-Time Employee: Dustin Furman [source]

August 3, 2019: Colin Moriarty “The lack of coverage is proof, above all else, that games media isn't dispassionate. If you don't have a dispassionate media, why even have a media at all? The lack of coverage doesn't hurt Chris and I. It hurts our ripped-off fans, who the media also doesn't care about.” [source]

September 22, 2019: Colin Moriarty “It’s their prerogative not to invite us! It’s no big deal. We’ll continue to cover everything thoroughly and fairly regardless of the way publisher PR treats Sacred Symbols. We have more than 50,000 people that rely on us, and we’ll always do our best for y’all regardless. <3” [source]

Colin Moriarty “Nah. PR (and CMs/marketers) hold the cards in this regard. We'll continue to keep the lines of communication open with all publishers and they can work with us if they want. Our show will continue to grow and prosper with or without 'em, and we're happy to buy the games we need.”

October 17, 2019: Colin Moriarty “We've been asked a ton, so: No, @ChrisRGun and I don't have Death Stranding. PlayStation has blacklisted Sacred Symbols for reasons entirely unknown, so we won't be getting anything from them moving forward. We're happy to buy any game and treat it fairly, so it's no biggie. <3” [source]

November 8, 2019: Colin Moriarty “This week's all-new episode of Sacred Symbols+ is dedicated to the decaying mainstream games media. In the wake of Deadspin's self-destruction, it's worth asking: Who do enthusiast outlets write for? It sure doesn't seem like they write for any of us.” [source]

February 13, 2020: Colin Moriarty “This is the perfect encapsulation of intersectionality's complete failure. Trans women can be accepted as women. That's great. But they were born men in male bodies, and they're destroying biological women in sports. It's not fair, and it shouldn't be controversial to say so.” [source]

February 20, 2020: Colin Moriarty “With all due respect, Mr. Bloomberg, your debate performance last night was arguably the worst I've ever seen. Trump would absolutely eat you alive. I think you should step aside and let one of your better-equipped competitors take it from here. Fund 'em, if you like! My 2¢.” Directly responding to Mike Bloomberg’s tweet [source]

March 8, 2020: Colin Moriarty “Hundreds? Try thousands. Hit pieces written about me in renowned publications. Thrown away by people I knew for years and treated with respect. Blacklisted. Defamed and lied about. Intentionally misrepresented. No. He will never experience 1% of what I did. It's fine. I lived.” [source]

March 24, 2020: Lillymo Games Inc publishes Twin Breaker: A Sacred Symbols Adventure on PlayStation Vita and PlayStation 4 with ports later on Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.

May 30, 2020: Colin Moriarty “If you watch the interview (which I suggest), MLK talks extensively about the immoral and intolerable racism the black community faced (and which the community still faces). But he never condoned violence. And he knew it wasn't a useful tool. Peace is the most potent weapon.” [source]

June 2, 2020: Colin Moriarty “I absolutely loved what he had to say, top to bottom. Understanding the results of systemic racism. Holding people to account that perpetrate violence against blacks. Reinforcing your own home instead of burning it down. Planning. Responding. Organizing. Voting. It was perfect.” In response to someone mentioning Killer Mike’s speech. [source]

June 3, 2020: Colin Moriarty “We built this with:✅ Virtually no mainstream games industry support. ✅ Virtually no games PR or publisher goodwill. ✅ Persistent defamation and misrepresentation by games media and their acolytes. But the people have spoken. Thank you so much for that. <3“ [source]

This is seemingly in direct contradiction with an earlier tweet from May 24, 2018: Colin Moriarty “They gave me God of War early, too. Don't let the games media echochamber fool you. Every publisher I've approached has been more than happy to (and often eager to) work with me.” [source]

June 29, 2020: Colin Moriarty “Colin's Last Stand has acquired 49% of @LillymoGames, and I will be its Chief Creative Officer and Lead Writer moving forward. Also: Side Quest will now be a tandem operation between @DustinCanFly and @G27Status Plus: Other things in a letter from me! https://patreon.com/posts/38682170“ [source]

September 1, 2021: Colin Moriarty “I think we can all agree that Kotaku has somehow, some way assembled the Anti-All-Star Team of Games Media.” [source]

September 25, 2021: Colin Moriarty “The types of people that do this will never, ever sit and talk to you, just like they won't with me. They're scared. I'd be scared to defend my positions, too, if I spent years flailing around an echochamber. Thankfully, iron sharpens iron and you and I have no such issues. <3” Response to David Jaffe posting a Jeff Grubb video featuring a Jaffe screen grab and being blocked by Grubb. [source]

July 14, 2021: Colin Moriarty “If you can’t or won’t beat games on anything harder than Easy — and you’re reviewing them from that perspective and not from the perspective of the average player — then your criticism is worthless. Seek out critics who actually like video games. It’s all getting a little trite.” [source] [this in response to Natalie @heartimecia saying she only plays games for reviews on easy after Xbox posted a tweet saying beating a game on easy is still beating the game. Souls-likes, difficulty, accessibility, etc etc etc]

July 19, 2021: Colin Moriarty “The very games media that limply tossed itself head-first into Palestine/Israel (and otherwise goes out of its way to shove every sort of fringe political view down everyone's throat) seems awfully mum about communist China-aligned entities slowly gobbling up our industry.” [source]

January 4, 2022: Sacred Symbols+, Episode 152: The Excommunication of Vince Ingenito [This is the same Vince Ingenito who was laid off by IGN in March 2017, Kallie Plagge came out and shared that Ingenito sexually harassed herself and another female staff member and felt HR’s response was irresponsible. This led to a walk out by IGN staff until management put out a response addressing it. [source]]

April 26, 2022: Gene Park “had a very quick, pleasant chat with Colin about the trajectory of my career and my life. "games media being in its death throes" is colin's view on it but i do talk about how all aspects of media are slowly being overtaken by a creator-led revolution of coverage and distributing information. folks, try not to fight with the journalists in my mentions. i understand their concerns and why they might be upset about this. but as i say in the interview, i see this as Colin giving ME a platform. his audience includes many of my own followers, people who are good. many of you haven't followed my career closely but during my career as an audience engagement editor, i found much success in talking to audiences with an antagonistic view of the press. on reddit, i talked with fervent Trump supporters who HATE us all the time. even in Hawaii, i held in person meetings with groups of people who have every reason to hate the media. this is just how i've always operated, but it's something i passionately care about. this isn't about "validation" it's about reaching out to audiences.” [source [end of thread post]]

January 25, 2023: Last Stand Media has Kara Lynne on their Sacred Symbols+ podcast, she was fired from Limited Run Games after Twitter user Purple Tinker [source] [someone who in June 2020 posted a five page apology for being an internet bully within the brony fandom of which they were a founder of bronycon] found an old tweet [archived version] where Lynne said, “If you think the # of trans crying about using a bathroom is higher than the perves using the excuse, you are what is wrong with this world.” as well as following various conservative people on Twitter.

April 29, 2023: Colin Moriarty “Waypoint's collapse is the most recent reminder that games media is largely finished. But it's important the void fills with passionate, knowledgeable people who care about games. Not people who didn't know there would be a third Horizon. Sacred Symbols x Defining Duke is live.” [source]

May 11, 2023: Last Stand Media YouTube uploads Kingdom Hearts Anniversary Retrospective feat. Brad Ellis | Sacred Symbols+, Episode 291

May 16, 2023: Last Stand Media launches Punching Up: A Nintendo Podcast [we need to talk about co opting that term] and also announce Gene Park as a regular member.

June 28, 2023: Colin Moriarty “It was awesome having Vince on the show to talk deeply about games. He has one of the greatest critical minds in the history of games media and it's unfair that audiences have been robbed of him for so long. I'm proud that Last Stand is giving him a place to speak. He'll return.“ [source]

October 12, 2023: Easy Allies YouTube uploads Everything Going Crazy - Frame Trap Episode 195 with Bradley Ellis, Daniel Bloodworth, Michael Huber, Michael Damiani, and guest Dustin Furman of Last Stand Media.

October 13, 2023: Easy Allies staff member Gabby posts in their Discord, “Hi guys, just wanted to quickly address the latest episode of Frame Trap. To first explain our thought process: Brad & Dustin are friends and Dustin is a fan of ours, so Brad wanted to have him on FrameTrap. We unfortunately did not think it through beyond that & that is entirely our fault. Please understand, Brad has known and trusted Dustin for many years, but we hear your concerns and will take more time to discuss & vet new guests before bringing them on. We sincerely apologize for any and all drama this has caused. Thank you so much for understanding and please feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions or comments!

...

October 15, 2023: Pinned comment on Everything Going Crazy - Frame Trap Episode 195: I want to offer my deepest apologies to everyone for my failures regarding this week's Frame Trap and its aftermath. I tried to address some people's questions in our Discord about bringing Dustin Furman onto Frame Trap, and unintentionally made Brad and Dustin look bad in the process. I failed to properly account for potential reactions, and I failed by rushing out a statement which has harmed one of our guests and biggest fans. There are few things that hurt me as deeply as knowing that I've hurt others. And it's my own mistakes that have led to this absolute turmoil for Dustin, Brad, Gabby, our staff, and our community. This is my responsibility, and I'm sorry. -Daniel Bloodworth

October 15-16, 2023: Gene Park joins ResetEra thread on Easy Allies to talk about Last Stand Media (Gene Park has been banned from ResetEra for “ User Banned (1 Month): Dismissive commentary around banned source and transphobia”) [source]

October 23, 2023: Last Stand Media Twitter posts “We’ll see about that.” with a photo where a sign states, “Warning Poaching is Strictly Forbidden. Violators will be prosecuted.” [source]

October 23, 2023: Last Stand Media YouTube uploads Is the Skinsuit Complete? | Sacred Symbols, Episode 277 with timestamp “0:52:24 - The Easy Allies Situation”

October 24, 2023: Easy Allies Patreon 5,973 members, $1 lowest tier membership

Last Stand Media 15,895 members, $1 lowest tier membership

#Easy Allies #Video Games #Writing #Critcism

0 notes

yami-writes · 4 years ago

Text

MHA boys with tiktok accounts

(🏷️) paring(s): Midoriya x reader, Kaminari x reader, Todoroki x reader (🔮) summary: Midoriya, Kaminari, and todoroki with Tiktok accounts (hcs) (⚠️) warning(s): just crack n fluff here (💌) note from Yami: inspired by a request I got the other day (check it out here) (hey yall, made this at 3am dont mind me. jus vibin)

~*~*~*~*

Midoriya

i think he would enjoy tiktok

you introduced him to it

and he thought it was cool so he decided to stay for the ride

His fyp is filled to the brim with all might.

Just all might.

Occasionally some other heroes

But mainly all might ✋

He WANTS to only follow you

But he's a pushover and too nice for his own good and ended up following everyone in class

Poor bby

If he ever does decide to post, it will have something to do with heroes

Probably just recording all of his all might merch

And occasional small vlogs of what it's like at ua

Or in the dorms

And there pretty fun to watch and get a lot of love

And of course people will demand more

And, like I said, he physically can't say no

So he does more

which never fail to get under 1.5mil veiws

he’s well known in the tiktok community~~

HE WILL COMMENT NICE THINGS ON EVERY. SINGLE. VIDEO. YOU. POST.

no exceptions.

A small dance video??

"angel, your so good at dancing!!! Plz teach me someday!! I wanna be in one of your tiktoks!! :)"

precious!!

or perhaps some sort of aesthetic video

“wow! this tiktok is so pretty! just like you, angel <3(a tiktok could never compare to you)″

ahhhhhhhhhh IZUUU

you always screenshot the comment and send it to him with your response

and u could see him blushing behind the screen

if u do decide to allow him to dance in one of your tiktoks, hes so happy

like, incredibly happy

as if All Might himself walked into the room

his face will light up like a PUPPY

ok i’ll stop.

after mina’s many lessons she was able to teach him to dance pretty well

now all you had to do was teach him the dance

and it turned out really good

ill leave the dance and the overall quality of said tiktok up to u 😌

use ur imaginations loves~~

but regardless~

the tiktok yall made

blew. tf. up.

the comments were full of

“OMG YOU GUYS R SO CUTEE 😍”

and

“PLZ DO MOREE!!!!”

probably the most popular video you have tbh~

and you bet ur ass when midoriya found out he was gonna do another one

GOD-

you swear his smile could make a bitch go blind~

Follower count: 5.3mil & counting

Kaminari

i know for a FACT this bitch has tiktok

i also know he is a tiktok MASTER

he knows all the trends

and the memes

and is also quite well known

his fyp definitely has A LOT of memes

and trendy stuff

and he only posts trendy stuff

the includes dances, challenges, pranks..... PRANKS.

a lot of pranks from this man....

and you, dear, are one of his main victims

along with the rest of the bakusquad

and its annoying asf bc this idiot is wasting his damn brain space that he apparently has??? to plan out a PERFECT prank

and it works EVER. SINGLE. TIME.

there is no escaping him,

and its even worst bc these pranks of his are his most popular posts

by this point there is no stoppping him.

and dont even bother trying to get him back

he can literally sense a prank

like a second quirk or sumn-

rip 💀

he will SPAMM your comments

“FGUYJGYHUK”

“GO OFFFF”

“dat ass tho 👀👀”

“u really went: 🍰🍰“

“just suffocate me with your thighs already, boo!! 😭🥺”

lmafoooo

you cant even be bothered to reply to any of his thirsty comments

which are always the first ones you recive...

and are always top comments

rip💀

now,lemme get this straight.

he will BEG

like- on his hands and knees beg

the be in one of ur tiktoks

specifically, a dance

even more specifically, a dance thats more on the~~ scandalous side

you know what i mean sis

rolls, hair whips, throwin it back, all the shit

hell- you have NO idea how much he would love to just be in the presence of you throwin him back sum ass

damn

once you finally give in and do a tiktok with him

and he wants to pick the dance

obviously

yall prob did a doja cat song cant lie lmafo

“Candy” perhaps??

anyways, he’ll probably mess up on purpose just so u can throw it to em again

but once he’s had enough he’ll do it properly

after about 12 attempts that is-

but dont worry cause that video got LOVE

“THIS IS SO CUTE😍”

“PLZ DANCE TOGETHER MOREEE❤️💗“

and you know denki is gonna see this

you also know he, along with ur comments, also want more

good luck, dear...

follower count: 8.1mil & counting

Todoroki

you showed him tiktok

and he watched you in your dorm making some

and he wanted to try so you helped him make an acc

ofc the first thing he does is follow you and watch some all of ur videos

every single one, sis.

i think his fyp would be full of cooking tutorials

specifically, soba

he tries, he really does.

he still cont cook with out burning something, but there IS improvment

and he would post the most random shit

literally anything

a small bug he saw on his way to school?

filmed and posted.

and that shit gets VIEWS

how you ask??

good question dearie

lets just say Mr. Shouto Todoroki is HOT

in all aspects, no exeptions

people can and will watch his tiktoks just to see him

and better bet ur ass his comments are full of thirsty girls

but thats offtopic.

he also has small videos he recored of you

whether it was you singing or dancing

doing you makeup brushing your hair

dosent matter.

he’ll have a BUNCH in his drafts he likes to scroll through daily

he never told anyone, not even you

👀👀

he dosent comment on all ur posts but he does comment on some of them

only some

specifically, the ones he likes

i mean~ he likes all of them, but if he favors a specific one over the rest, he’ll let you know

“wow, y/n. i like this video more than your others. i guess thats why im commenting. anyways, i love the tiktok, but i love you more.”

he sooooo dryyyyyy

like put a heart at least man

ANYWAYS

he usually lurks in the comments, making sure everyone is staying their place

like a security guard lmao

he’ll privately message you his thoughts on your tiktok

it’ll be a long message with a mix of compliments but also questions

“i liked the song, but whats the song called?

“how did you make that? I really liked it though.”

dry, but pure.

i dont think he would have much interest in being in one of your tiktoks

BUT

if you want him in one of your tiktoks

he’ll offer to stand in the background.....

then you explain to him you want him to /participate/ in the tiktok

if you want him to do a dance with you

goodluck

this man is STIFF

every move you teach him is another jab at your soul

painful

if you gather up the courage to allow him to be in the tiktok

he’ll just-

leave

as in, walk out of the room leave

...what???

he’ll come back later and act as if nothing happened

and if u question him

“i lost interest.”

yea, like a fucking child

the damn tiktok barley even started-

follower count: 10.9mil & counting

Masterlist

#mha x reader #bnha x reader #kaminari x reader #midoriya x reader #todoroki x reader #denki x reader #izuku x reader #shouto x reader #y/n #self insert #tiktok AU #y/n x midoriya #y/n x todoroki #y/n x kaminari #mha #bnha #my hero academia x reader #boku no hero academia x reader

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fansofvow · 4 years ago

Text

im here to clear up some things.

edit: just scroll to the bottom for the tl;dr cause this is a lot but i think its necessary so it doesnt seem half assed or glossed over.

if you can’t tell by the perpetual lowercase here, its mod galen! i figured i should address the drama coming on here from a different perspective. no, this isn’t mod atlas dumping all her problems on me, she’s already tried talking abt it herself - its me deciding to speak up on my own accord after seeing the shitfest my dash has become.

keep in mind - i will be happy to discuss any of this with you guys civilly, but im not going to be kind to nasty anon hate. dm us, or just send us a polite ask, and we can sort things out! if we’ve done something ignorant, i promise you we will educate ourselves and apologise sincerely.

the galen thing

first and foremost - i saw some people saying its sus that i, an nb mod, was added to the blog right after the galen debacle. it was not to save face or hide behind me! ironically, the reason i got added now of all times was because mod atlas and i were discussing what was going on, i gave my thoughts on the matter, she asked me if id be interested in being a mod!

mod atlas then thanked me for my insight and educated her on the issue and figured it would be a good idea to actually have someone in the lgbt+ community on the blog - that way, these silly ignorant mistakes will not happen again. i wont let it happen. not to mention she’s getting pretty busy in her personal life so she thought itd be a good idea to bring someone else on board.

i believe that people can learn from their mistakes - i was also hurt by that misgendering galen post. i bitched about it too. but i saw that everyone involved apologised, genuinely didn’t mean it, and promised to do better. and i’ll hold them to that! but im not gonna start talking trash abt them on other peoples blogs just bc they made a rly ignorant post. if you’re cis, i really don’t want you speaking up on this matter anymore. its not your fight. youre not in the position to forgive nor condemn any of these people. trans folk, im not going to tell you that anyone deserves your forgiveness, that’s up to you, but what they do deserve is your decent respect. unless they say theyre blatantly against trans people - aka make a deliberately transphobic statement rather than one made out of pure ignorance - in that case, all bets are off lmfao. i dont take that shit lightly and ill come for you too.

to the person who made the misgendering galen post - you know who you are, i dont want to send you any more hate than you’ve already been getting so im not going to @ you, but please. reupload your apology about the post, cause i scrolled through your blog for ages and didn’t find it - if i didn’t see it reblogged on this blog, i wouldn’t have known you apologised. i wouldn’t have felt like your blog is a safe space for nonbinary folk. its important you own up to mistakes and keep the apology there.

the nahara thing

look. im poc. im also straight up sick and tired of lovestruck’s mistreatment of dark-skinned characters, especially black characters (why do half of them look like recoloured white people....?) like nahara. its important for our representation that she does well! that way, we can get more diverse li’s on our roster in the future instead of every skinny white person getting the spotlight and 9238428903 seasons. (i love you onyx and juliette, but what the fuck.)

that being said - i dont think what mod atlas said was that bad, especially considering it wasn’t here on fansofvow, the only thing reblogged onto here being her english lesson on galen’s route with a relieved comment abt how thats a series started right.

please understand - we’ve been afraid of the new characters’ routes ever since the strike. a lot of writers left, a lot are likely to be leaving, and we’re concerned about the status of the app. this wasn’t to shoot down nahara, but out of pure relief that we’re not seeing a downwards spike in the writing quality post-strike.

that being said - if you think nahara’s route is well written, and great - thats awesome! please give her all the love for us, cause we do want her to do well. she’s just not our cup of tea. can we please respect that instead of slamming this blog’s name? nahara is still doing well, im seeing hype for her everywhere- one or two negative opinions wont change that. we’re not even going to a leave a review in-app, which is the most important form of community feedback to lovestruck.

the posts have been deleted. please, give it a rest. keep loving nahara. quit the drama.

the nikolai’s route in school thing

all the students that saw the screenshots were 18+, and none of the examples were sexual in nature. teenagers get shown romeo and juliet in school, a play ending in a double suicide, but showing adults a few lines of good writing from a 17+ app is bad? its not like she showed them a scene from a straight up porno, its just a story that happens to have sexual themes in it. its up to the students whether they read the whole story or not, and they’re mature enough to handle it. that’s all im going to say abt the matter, cause im no teacher,

and lastly...

i see a lot of people saying that we, fansofvow, need to “set an example” cause we think we’re a “fandom leader” or somehow think we’re on some high horse cause of clout? i have no idea where this started because ik for a fact mod atlas has never referred to herself as a “fandom leader” or anything like that, and guys, we’re not that up ourselves. we don’t even have tons of followers! we’re just doing our thing to support VOW. please don’t put words in our mouths.

with all that out of the way, i hope we can move on and make the community a happier place for everyone.

-mod galen

tl;dr: people make ignorant mistakes sometimes. mod atlas has apologised for reblogging the post abt misgendering galen, wants nahara to do well, only showed non-sexual writing examples of nikolai to 18+ students and never called herself a “fandom leader.”

#long post #mod galen #discourse #pls let this be the only time we have to use that tag

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silver-wield · 5 years ago

Note

Omg. Your body language analysis is so on point it makes me go uwu. If you're still doing it, will you make one for the scene where Cloud catches Tifa while Barret shoots his damnest at the heli? I have my own analysis but very curious what's your take on it.

Heya, I'm guessing you don't mean the scene with the hand catch, but the one after it where they reach Barret's position on the stairs. Although I have many thoughts about Rude too and why he first of all directed Reno's attention to Tifa, but then noped them away when Reno was about to shoot her. He had an interesting microexpression – teeny facial tic – that hinted something different to the OG “he's crushing on her” angle.

A lot of these “action touches” get discounted by you-know-who because in those situations it's impossible not to touch? I don't get the reasoning and I'm not gonna try and figure out just what counts and what doesn't. It's non-optional. Isn't that the only argument that matters?

Ok, spoiler warning for ppl who haven't played (I tag FF7R spoilers as final fantasy 7 remake spoilers) and it's gonna be a long one so prepare to scroll.

Also, this is one person's interpretation of the scene, so if you disagree that's cool and we'll agree to disagree.

You're also gonna have to excuse the janky quality on some of the screens, I'm grabbing them from Youtube and it's frustrating af trying to get the exact moment I want.

Other analyses if anyone's interested.

Shinra HQ vision scene (Cloti/plot analysis)

Chapter 3 (Cloti reblog)

Tifa character analysis

Aerith Resolution (plot analysis/theory)

Train graveyard (not really an analysis, but I got some sweet screenshots of Cloti)

Clotiscrew tunnel analysis

Cloti reunion analysis

The Promise Analysis

Andrea's approval (Cloti ask response)

Now, strap in and enjoy the ride.

Quick recap. Cloud and Tifa are reunited after that hand catch scene (smug? Me? Nau) and they're heading up to find Barret after seeing Jessie “die”. The mood is not good. This is not romantic, okay? This is war.

Ok, so already we have touchy touching here. You can argue it's high tension/stress moment and Cloud is making sure Tifa's safe, but he doesn't do that with Barret, is all I'm saying.

Cloud's got hold of her entire arm, not just her wrist or hand, he's got hold of her as securely as possible giving they're in motion. He doesn't want to lose her. She's got her arm on him, braced and using his body as a shield, which he is clearly fine with because he positions her partly behind him while he turns to check the threat from the stairs – possible further collapse of the platform they're now on. He's protecting her. Obvs. I shouldn't have to spell this out. It's not romantic, but it's telling of their trust and reliance on each other as partners. This is a clear pair.

Ok, so moving on from Cloti – cause action scene and this isn't a romance game – we get Tifa hearing Barret behind her. She turns and there's her concern for her friend. Obviously, she cares. It's her entire motivation for leaving the safety at the bottom and hauling her ass up those stairs.

Her face here hits me hard in the feels. She's so grim and worried and doesn't want to lose anyone else. She's caught up to Cloud, but then she lost Jessie – right in front of her and she couldn't do a thing about it. Now, she sees Barret facing down a helicopter.

Take that in. It's a dude – ok he's got a machine gun on his arm – fighting military spec weaponry on a fucking helicopter. Of course she's frightened and worried that she's about to see him get shot. Someone else she couldn't save.

Remember, FF7 has themes of loss and failure. The heroes don't always win or if they do there's a cost. How much of that threads into Remake is still to be seen, but since this scene is following canon we can assume it stands for now.

Tifa's character is often motivated by the desire to not lose people. She even says as much to the Shinra middle manager that she doesn't want anyone else to die. She stops Cloud killing the security agents and Johnny. This is a girl who fights because she wants people to live, not die.

Ok, so now we've got her running to reach Barret, leaving the safety of her bolt hole beside Cloud, who immediately turns and is all wtf when he sees her playing chicken with a chopper. Tbf, Barret doesn't sound that pleased about it, either. It's a crazy impulsive move likely driven by the desire to not lose her friend. If they're together they can stop whatever's coming. Tifa is very teamwork oriented if you recall all her actions from chapter 3 and how demoralised she was when she had to agree to disagree with Avalanche.

Cloud for his part doesn't take too long to dive to the rescue again. I think by now he's pretty much fulfilled that childhood promise and this is way more than just helping out a colleague or friend. He's not hesitating for a second to put himself in front of her with nothing but a sword for a shield.

Sorry, I just stopped the vid on this moment and it looks so damn cool I couldn't resist adding it. All it does is reinforce the above statement that Cloud has zero reservations of putting himself between Tifa and certain death. He's her hero without even stopping to think about it. The framing is stunning. Barret in the background, Cloud in the middle distance and Tifa in the foreground. Cloud has lined himself up with Tifa so that she's as protected by his position as he could possibly get. That takes skill. Tifa's half crouched to make herself a smaller target, but Cloud's body language is open, defiant. He's basically saying “come at me”.

Ah and now I'm sure some people will be all “but Cloud left her in the middle of the platform”. Well, yes, it's called diversion. He's the bigger target, the better target. And by making the chopper follow his progress, he's taken its sights away from Tifa's position. It now has less chance of hitting her when it next fires. Remember, Cloud knows tactics. He's not a dumdum. You can see that on his face as he's deciding his next move. The chopper won't wait for him to stop and explain what he needs to do, it's gonna fire. He's gotta move quickly. He also needs to trust that Tifa can get herself out of trouble. So many people's complaints about how she's not a damsel and should take care of herself. Well, this is Cloud trusting her not to be a damsel. He helped her out, and now he's gotta rely on her helping herself too. If he took her by the hand at this moment and dragged her along with him, she probably would've died. Tifa got herself to his position alone, she's clearly capable. He knows how much ass she can kick.

After that we've got the typical checking for danger and guy banter. I'm loving the development of Cloud and Barret's relationship. They went from outright hating each other to friends over the course of this game. It's beautiful and develops even further in their resolution – I love their one, it's so sweet and sad and such a guy bonding moment. Male friendship is important too, especially to Cloud who doesn't have many friends.

Now, despite the banter, Cloud's head turns at this point, back to Tifa. He's made sure the immediate area is safe, checked in with Barret and now it's back to his primary focus.

I love that Barret calls himself the leading man. It reminds me of Balthier in FF12.

And you'll see that Barret is still in the middle of that line while Cloud is stretching his hand out for Tifa. Could be a “I gotta grab my teammate” move, but I mean, really? Are we that delusional? He didn't have to do any of this. He could've relied on Tifa to get herself over there and not put out a hand for her. Barret didn't grab him. You could say that Barret doesn't like Cloud enough for that, but it's a high action moment. They're comrades and being shot at. Any helping hand is appreciated. Maybe Barret thought Cloud was capable enough not to need help. But then wouldn't the same apply to Tifa? Why does she need helping just cause she's a woman? She can kick ass.

And what about Barret? His attention isn't on Tifa at all. His focus is the helicopter, so he's either relying on Tifa to be ok without that level of help or he's expecting Cloud to support her.

Yes, she is literally throwing herself into his arms. That's how much she trusts him to catch her. Again, Cloud is going for a full arm grab – a hand or wrist isn't secure enough in this situation and he wants to keep her safe.

Tifa. Well, she looks scared. Shocker. She just got shot at by a helicopter. Ofc she's scared and leaning on Cloud. She's taking strength and reassurance from him. I mean, she could've just grabbed his arm and pulled herself to safety. There's no need for this depth of touch.

You'll notice this all happens within miliseconds while Barret says that leading man line. This is very quick action, very decisive. No hesitation on anybody's part.

I mean, this is full upper body contact between them. I don't know what else to say about it. There's no need to get this close. He could've pulled her over and then let go. He didn't. They both prolonged contact. This is relief they're ok for the moment. They’re united in how they feel.

Oh look, eye contact. I've pointed out before that Cloud doesn't do eye contact with people very well, but he does with Tifa, no matter the situation. Looking at this I'm like damn get a room. It's an intense look between them and even though there's shit hitting the fan around them you can see they have attention for each other, too. He's pulled her to safety and now he's meeting her gaze to gauge if she's ok. She nods. He nods. Back to the action. They don't have time for a drawn out romantic bit. They've got more serious things to think about, but even during the most high tension action scenes they have this energy about them that speaks to their close bond and affection. He's comfortable with her touch in every situation – if I'm wrong about this then someone point it out to me so I can see plz. He's still got his hand on her after they separate from their action hug and then when he drops his hand he braces it against the pipe beside her. Still close to her, though not actually touching.

After Barret asks if they're ready, Cloud looks around then looks at Tifa again. Did he need to do that? Idk, but he didn't look at Barret before they hauled ass.

Conclusion:

Kinda obvious. Even in high tension situations Cloud has part of his attention on Tifa. He's hyper aware of where she is and whether she needs him at any given time. It's sweet af how much he focuses on being her hero without even really knowing why. This instinctive need to protect her comes from the real!Cloud part of him. The one that made the promise to her. The one that has a crush on her.

Some people can say these kind of moments don't count because Cloud has no choice(?) but to touch her, but actually, he has no reason to touch her the amount he does. There's ways to execute these moments without this much unnecessary touching. He does it this way because of an instinctive need and desire to touch her this much. It's what he wants to do.

#final fantasy 7 remake spoilers #final fantasy 7 remake analysis #cloti #action romance scenes #battle couple #there's really no need for them to be this touchy #unless they wanna be #they act like a couple already

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precuredaily · 4 years ago

Text

Precure Day 200

Episode: Yes! Precure 5 Go Go! 02 - “Nozomi and Coco - A Troubling Reunion” Date watched: 4 July 2020 Original air date: 10 February 2008 Screenshots Transformation Gallery Project info and master list of posts

yes, the whole episode is like this

So, full disclosure, the first time I watched GoGo I was kind of only half paying attention to it while I worked on other projects and I don’t remember the overarching plot that well. That may become apparent in my posts about this series. Just something to keep in mind.

If the first episode was a fun but talkative reintroduction to the world, this episode doubles down on the talk and halves the fun. The writing is weak and the art quality is weaker. It still has some heart, and helps to properly set up the conflict of the show, so it’s not a total loss, but these early episodes are missing some of the magic of the previous season. Let’s explore.

The Plot

After a brief recap of the previous episode, the girls admire their new outfits for a moment before snapping back to reality and fighting Scorp. They overpower him with their teamwork and then he declares he’s seen enough for now and leaves. After the dust settles, the girls greet Coco and Nuts and Dream gives Coco her letter, which he half-heartedly accepts and pockets without reading, prompting a silent glare from Nuts. The girls ask what’s going on, and Syrup is still taken aback by the whole ordeal. They regroup at the gazebo at Karen’s mansion for some good old exposition dumping. Nuts explains that the Rose Pact is the key to the Cure Rose Garden, a mysterious place nobody has ever been (so how do the know about it?). The power of the four monarchs of the territories surrounding the Palmier Kingdom is needed in conjunction with the Rose Pact to open the path to the Cure Rose Garden. They further explain why they’re back in the human world: the monarchs were visiting the Pamier Kingdom on a diplomatic mission, when they were attacked by Eternal, and are now hiding in the human world in the form of Palmins.

We cut to Eternal’s headquarters where a purple-haired woman named Anacondy is giving a tour to an unseen but familiar-sounding figure, explaining their corporate mission is to archive every valuable item from all of history (lofty goal). Scorp shows up in her office and explains that he found the Rose Pact, but he was unable to procure it due to the interference of Precure. Suddenly the mystery guest speaks up, admitting he’s scuffled with Precure before, and he is revealed to be none other than Bunbee, preparing for employment at Eternal. He explains how the Precures caused him trouble at his last job, but Anacondy just orders Scorp to go retrieve the Rose Pact with little regard for Bunbee’s words.

Back at the gazebo, the girls start to realize that Eternal is responsible for the attacks on both the Palmier Kingdom and Nozomi, and try to figure out what to do about it. Coco and Nuts need to contact the Palmier Kingdom to let them know what’s going on, so they ask if Syrup will deliver a message. However, due to some obvious friction between him and Coco he declines and flies off, so they focus on finding somewhere to live. Fortunately, Karen has just the place.

Some things never change

It’s not clearly established what happened to the old Natts House location, unless they explain it down the road in future episodes, but this is the new home base, and of course once again Karen presents it as a “small” spare warehouse her family owns, only for the others to protest that it’s bigger than their entire homes. Is it the same gag from last year? Yes. Does it still land? Also yes.

Anyway, the girls want to help tidy up the place, but Coco pushes them away and insists he and Nuts can handle it. That night, Nozomi is standing on her balcony in her pajamas, looking sad, when Syurp pays her a visit to chastise Coco’s behavior. She angrily defends his honor and slams her curtains closed, startling Syrup. Back at Natts House 2.0, Coco and Nuts take a break from cleaning to exposit some more, recalling a story about how the Cure Rose Garden produces both red and blue roses, and a new power emerges when they meet. Nuts surmises that the Rose Pact contains the power of the Red Rose, but isn’t sure what the Blue Rose is. The conversation shifts to their presence back in the human world, with Coco feeling guilty for dragging the girls into the conflict again, while Nuts reminds him that he wanted to see them anyway so he should make the most of his opportunity.

At a later day at Cinq Lumieres we see that Coco has resumed teaching under the guise of Kokoda Kouji. Things are still awkward between him and Nozomi, but she meets him in the library and they have a talk. He acknowledges her letter and her feelings, but stops short of telling her how he’s feeling. Syrup shows up and talks shit about Coco, who just gets sad again, but before they can talk things out, Scorp appears. Coco attempts to de-escalate the situation, but Scorp isn’t interested in chatter and he knocks all three of them back, reverting Coco and Syrup to their fairy forms. Nozomi takes a moment to give Coco the Rose Pact, instructing Syrup to carry him away to safety, and then she transforms. This time, Scorp doesn’t fight on his own, instead he pulls out a yellow and orange orb that he throws into a nearby bookcase, transforming it!

Yes, these are our monsters of this show, called Hoshiina, which means “want” or “desire”. Cure Dream fights the Hoshiina, but it uses books as shields and whips and manages to throw her around. Coco approaches her, not having run away yet, and unloads his emotions on her, explaining how he feels guilty about dragging her back into the conflict, and inadvertently tormenting her by not communicating because he wanted to wait and show off the fully rebuilt Palmier Kingdom to her. She thanks him for being so concerned, and then the other girls turn up, having heard the commotion. They transform and so does Scorp. and they duke it out over Coco’s honor and intentions. Between blows they reiterate that they want to go to the Cure Rose Garden, they decided that themselves without his influence so he shouldn’t feel guilty, but they still want him to lend his power to make it possible to get there. The Hoshiina puts up a good fight with some diverse tactics, but the girls don’t lose faith and they manage to pin it down. Dream implores a relieved Coco that she wants them all to go to the Cure Rose Garden together, and then launches into her all-new finisher: Precure Shooting Star, where she flies directly into the Hoshiina, destroying it. Scorp flees.

Later, Nozomi and Coco have a heart-to-heart outside the library where he says he really appreciated the letter, but he isn’t sure what he can do to help them. Right on cue, Nuts shows up and explains what they CAN do: detect Palmins! There’s one nearby, and Coco guides Nozomi into catching it in the CureMo by taking a picture.

The girls all gather round to see what she captured, and it turns into.... a futon. Coco explains that there’s different kinds of Palmins, they’re not all disguised monarchs, but they may be useful down the road so it’s not a loss. They vow once more to find all the monarchs and go to the Cure Rose Garden together, as Syrup watches from a distance, still a little confused by their togetherness.

The Analysis

Credit where it’s due. In stark contrast to Max Heart, which had no idea what to do for a plot and just kind of meandered about for the majority of its run, GoGo is hitting the ground running. It has clearly and effectively established the objective (reach the Cure Rose Garden to meet Flora while rescuing the four monarchs along the way) and the conflict (Eternal, the company that wants to preserve everything). In fact I might even say there’s too much plot crammed into these premiere episodes. You’re absolutely inundated with information and it’s a lot to absorb, whereas the first series spread its exposition out over all the character introductions. GoGo could stand to slow down a little, and I think episode 3 still has more to give us yet. A lot of the middle of the episode is taken up with explaining who the villains are, how Coco and Nuts got back, and some private conversation about Precure’s new powers. The Precure were upgraded with the power of the Red Rose from the Cure Rose Garden, and the legend says the garden also grows blue roses. The audience has probably deduced that the mysterious girl in the opening has something to do with that, but I’m still going to pretend I don’t know about Milky Rose for a bit.

The dialog at least feels more natural in this episode, but it’s contrasted with the tension between Coco and Nozomi, which I don’t think was necessary except to add a little conflict. However, I can see the reasoning behind it. He cares deeply about Nozomi and everyone and he didn’t want to drag them back into his and Nuts’s battle, he wanted them to continue to be ordinary girls living their ordinary lives, worrying about school and their hobbies and interests. He feels like it’s his fault they’ve transformed again whether they wanted to or not. However, Nozomi and the others explain they want to go to the Cure Rose Garden and are more than happy to help Coco and Nuts out along the way. Knowing that they don’t feel burdened by him helps put Coco’s mind at ease and he cheers the girls on. From the real-world writers’ perspective, it’s a pretty stark reversal of his personality from the first season and as I suggested, is probably there to have some drama. Normally Nuts is the moody one, but his character arc last season was all about opening up and being helpful and taking things in stride, so now it’s Coco’s turn to be the dramatic one, though in his case it’s based on concern rather than past betrayal. They seem to have resolved it in this episode, we’ll see whether it carries forward or not. However, there’s still a lingering mystery about his past with Syrup, as the latter seems to resent him, and that will definitely carry us for a bit.

The fights in this episode are great, especially the second one. The first is brief but to the point, filled with dynamic team kicks to throw Scorp off his rocker. The later fight is for all the marbles, and the fairies get caught in the crossfire. It’s a struggle but the girls come out on top with the strength of their convictions and some fast thinking. Despite being a few months since they’ve been at it, clearly the girls haven’t gotten rusty. If anything they’re faster than before, or maybe that’s just the early animation budget. It’s evenly balanced between physical and ideological fighting as the girls try to convince Coco that they’re not upset at him, and explain to Scorp why they care about Coco. The Hoshiina is pretty creative for a first enemy, using books as swords, whips, shields, arms, and legs at different times. It spins itself around at high speeds to avoid attacks and gives the girls a good fight. For their part, they use a lot of flying punches and kicks to wear it down and Dream gets in a particularly good one-two combo before her finisher. Speaking of which: Dream’s new solo attack! I liked Dream Attack and its successor Crystal Shoot, but Shooting Star is next level. She FLIES DIRECTLY INTO THE ENEMY? It’s like Five Explosion but as a solo attack and it’s totally badass. We’ll get to see more of the others’ attacks in the coming episodes, of course. Once again it’s a while before they get their group attack, so enjoy the solos.

The artwork this episode is, unfortunately, laughably bad. I mean come on it’s only episode 2, you’re not supposed to have the super off-model shots until later in the show. And yet....

These faces are laughable. Misshapen, disproportionate, or just blank stares. It’s not the entire episode but it’s present at key moments throughout and it takes away from the experience. I looked ahead and actually Milky Rose’s debut is also pretty bad so maybe they were in a rush with the early part of this show.

Now, it wouldn’t be Precure without some good old fashioned merchandising, and we’ve got a brand spanking new toy to sell in the Curemo! The extended sequence of Coco walking Nozomi through the process of capturing a Palmin is also promotion for kids to buy the toy and see what they can do with it. It’s a little fancier than the Pinky Catch from last year, taking the form of a pink flip phone, but it also has a swivel hinge, similar to the Heartful Communes from Max Heart.

The top of it has a grid design with depictions of the five butterflies of the Palmier Kingdom, and on the lower left is an emblem of a rose. When it’s opened, it has a blue-green screen surrounded by pink, and the body where the keyboard would be just has three buttons, shaped like a rosebud and two leaves, and some stem designs etched in beneath that. It’s a much more involved toy than the Pinky Catch, at least visually, and I’m here for it. While the Pinky Catch could only open and close, the CureMo also has a rotating screen as mentioned, which lays into the capture gimmick. The user rotates the screen sideways and snaps a picture of the Palmin, similar to a real cell phone, which is then scanned into the device and turns into its true form. It looks neat and it compacts nicely, blends into their world well, so I think it’s effective as a device. I do find it funny how heavily the Palmin capture is emphasized and how blatantly similar it is to last season’s Macguffin quest, but that’s the business, I’m not going to dwell on it too much.

Despite some major hiccups after a bumpy premiere, GoGo 02 is still a pretty good episode overall. The characters are starting to settle into their new roles and we’re learning about the conflict. If the animation smooths out then the show will be off to a strong start.

Next time, Mailpo appears! What’s a Mailpo? Wait and find out! Look forward to it!

Pink Precure Catchphrase Count: 2 kettei!

#Precure #Pretty Cure #Yes! Precure 5 Go Go!#YPC5GG02 #PCD200

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pigstepmp3-moved · 6 years ago

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the writers really did buck dirty in s01e02

its the post you’ve all been waiting for—my Aggravated Analysis Of Everything That Makes Me Mad about the Therapy Scene tm, now featuring some things that show just how emotionally and mentally fucked buck is. now, i know we All hate that scene with all of our hearts (buck deserves to have a Good experience w therapy for once, but thats just my opinion), but i wanna go into detail about what exactly makes me SEETHE about that scene, complete w gifs and screenshots so i can better explain myself. im putting it all under the cut bc its kind of A Lot, so click that “read more” if you wanna read my angry complaining

alright, lets set the scene (i know we’re all aware of the situation behind this scene, but i think its important to remind you all of it). season one episode two. bucks still very much a Huge horn dog. buck has also very recently suffered his First loss on the job and its taking a huge toll on him. i think what’s most important to talk about before we get to the therapy scene itself is the scene where abby’s watching him on the news with carla.

(not the greatest quality, but that doesnt matter). he very clearly looks uncomfortable just talking about what happened in such a Casual, No Pressure setting. he says, “i was just doing my job. i’m happy we were able to help the people we helped and i’m really sorry about those we couldn’t save.” he stutters a few times as he says it, looks and sounds very uneasy, which seems very out of character for him. he’s usually super confident and chill, but as he’s asked to talk about this (most likely) traumatic thing, he kinda clams up, yknow? theres also something in his voice that reminds me very heavily of the way My voice sounds when Im trying to force back tears, but that might just be The Way He Talks

another thing that he says that really stands out to me (i dont know if this is necessarily important to the topic at hand, but i wanna talk about it so whatever) is, “. . . um, i’m sure they’re just turned on by the uniform. you know, i don’t know if they would feel that way if they saw me out of it.” ignoring the more sexual connotations to what he’s saying there, let’s talk about what he most likely meant by that particular statement. he still sounds a little nervous as he says it and kind of avoids the reporters eyes. it sounds to me like this is a rare moment of buck’s insecurities being let loose. “i don’t know if they would feel that way if they saw me out of it.” this implies, i think, some insecurities about like.. every part of himself. it almost seems like, in this moment, he thinks his only redeeming quality is the uniform. which might actually be what he’s thinking right then, ‘cause he’s still trying to figure out how to cope with his first loss. i think theres some part of him, somewhere behind that overly confident persona, that has a lot more insecurities than he shows, but thats a conversation for another day.

now, let’s move on a little from that. what i think is very important and notable about that scene is some of the things abby says after watching buck on the news. first thing she says that stands out to me is, “i’ve been thinking i might want to call him to see how he is.” she’s worried about him. i think she’s probably been worried about him since the first time he was on the news, earlier that episode. and for good reasons, i think, because later on, she says, “. . . he needs help, you know? i mean, he’s got so much pain in his face. everybody’s treating him like a hero. he doesn’t feel like a hero. as far as he’s concerned, the guy that he was trying to save fell.” like, wow, just tear my heart out and stomp on it a bunch, why dont you? its such a wonderful and apt summary of what buck’s going through. to put it rather simply, he’s fucking distraught, and for good reasons. plus, that quote is one of the Big things that influenced my headcanon of buck having depression, and i could probably analyze every single scene bucks in in this episode that have added onto that head canon of mind bc there are at least a couple different things i could blather on about, but that’s some analysis for another post (if you’re interested in me talking about that tho, definitely feel free to let me know)

now, let’s move on a little further to the Dreaded Scene (i’d totally go into the scene that immediately follows the last one i talked about, where buck and abby are speaking on the phone, but i think i’ve emphasized my point of buck going through some shit in this episode to the point where that isn’t strictly necessary). for the rest of this post, i’m gonna kind of analyze every single little thing that buck does and says in the therapy scene bc pretty much all of it contributes to my burning hatred of that therapist.

like, yeah, no SHIT, honey!! as far as we, the audience, are concerned, this is the First time he’s EVER been to therapy. in my own personal experiences, my first time going to therapy was SO uncomfortable. and just looking at buck right here makes me feel uncomfortable, too—he’s fidgeting with his hands, looks to the side, looks down, looks up at her for a moment before looking away again. this boy looks nervous as hell, and for good reasons. he confirms that he is in fact uncomfortable, and then the therapist says, “well, that’s not unusual. you’ve been through a trauma. that’s why you’re here—to deal with those feelings.” remember that, because i’m not gonna go into the importance of that quote just yet.

the next thing buck says is, “uh, yeah, i’m, uh, i’m not really into feelings.” he kind of avoids looking at the therapist as he says this, though not as much as he did in that last gif. but his voice is like... uncharacteristically quiet as he says it.

more!! avoidance!! he keeps averting his eyes, looking anywhere that ISNT his therapist. and at the end of what he says here, he clenches his jaw a little. a nervous tick, maybe? i don’t know. as he talks here, though, his voice is, yet again, very quiet. he sounds just about broken right here, and it makes my heart ache so bad for him

after a brief break to check out what athena and michael are talking about, his therapist says, "i treat a lot of first responders—people who run toward danger—but maybe there's something you're running from as well? what is it about discussing your feelings that scares you?" the answer buck gives her? a very defensive, “i’m not scared.” if youre not scared, then why are you avoiding talking about your damn feelings like the fucking black plague? and when i say that he says it defensively, i mean, like, way too defensive to Not be suspicious

we don’t get to hear anymore about that particular question because next, we’re checking up on athena and michael again, and then we’re talking about something else. the therapist says, "you lost somebody. that's hard."

as he says this, he sounds fucking SAD. he sounds completely and utterly BROKEN. throughout this whole clip, he sounds entirely broken. the therapist asks if this was his first time. he responds with, "i mean, i've had calls where it was... too late, but, uh, but i've only been doing this not even six months. now, i... i just can't shake the feeling that this one didn't need to go down the way that it did." again, he sounds like he’s hurting really badly. this loss is really taking a huge toll on him and that is Very clear. she then asks him if he thinks there was something he could have differently. he doesnt respond, just looks up at her like this:

his eyes are a little red, and it looks like there are some tears in his eyes. like wow, you could murder me and it would hurt less than seeing buck like this

now, the next snippet is about where everything Starts Going To Shit (this is also the part where i start sobbing like a dumb baby, but thats neither here nor there).

you see that shit right there?? if you listen hard enough, you can hear my heart breaking into a million pieces. from this point on, buck is CRYING. honest to god fucking CRYING. he looks like he’s hurting so badly, especially at the end of that gif, when he furrows his eyebrows. it looks kind of like he’s trying to keep himself from straight up Sobbing. i’m sure it seems almost like i’m dwelling on this for a little longer than necessary, but i think emphasizing how emotional he is in this part is very important to understand just how much the end of this scene makes me fucking SEETHE. this next little bit is where i start to transition from Sadness to absolute Rage

you see that? this is the start of my slow deterioration into madness. up until this point, everything about this therapy session was completely and entirely professional. but home girl decides, hey, yknow whats a good idea? waltzing my happy ass across the room, sitting down directly in front of my PATIENT, and resting my hand on said PATIENT’s arm. i dunno about you guys, but this seems terrible on so many levels that it isnt funny.

now, yknow what happens next? some classic avoidance from our boy. she calls him mr buckley, so he says, "it's, um... it's actually just buck." (after VERY AUDIBLY SNIFFLING by the way, but i digress). he then deflects even FURTHER by asking her if she friended him on facebook.

“i thought you looked familiar,” he says. he’s no longer actively crying at this point, but there are most certainly still some tears in his eyes.

now, do you know what happens next, after a brief break to check up on athena and michael? the worst thing that could happen happens! i know it, you know it, little miss unprofessional sleeps with buck! and yknow what she says Immediately afterwards? “i can’t believe i just did that. i am so sorry.” like.... no! saying “sorry” doesnt change the fact that you TOOK ADVANTAGE of someone who is CLEARLY not in the right frame of mind to consent to something like that. yknow what he was doing the last time we saw him? crying. bc hes in a very vulnerable place in this episode. and yeah, sure, i guess you could make the argument that he was seducing her a little, but that doesnt change the fact that this is fucked up. now, side note about me, i’m only in high school and i’ve never had any job before, so i dont quite know the ins and outs of the professional world. but i do know a thing or two about common sense, so its pretty easy for me to assume that shit like this is awful on like a million different levels. i think the power imbalance is super clear to anyone who has any number of brain cells.

now, buck being as emotionally stunted as he is, says that she made him feel better (probably just for a few minutes, but thats neither here nor there). and yknow what she says? “you should go.” remember that quote from earlier? the one that i said was important and that i was going to go into later? “well, that’s not unusual. you’ve been through a trauma. that’s why you’re here—to deal with those feelings.” yknow what buck Didnt do? deal with those feelings. he talked about his feelings for maybe ten minutes, and that’s assuming that, during the cuts to athena and michael, the session was continuing and that it wasnt a matter of like, oh, this stuff is happening At The Same Time.

and all that is just During the session. we dont ever see the aftermath of it, we dont ever see buck talking about that session or anything along those lines. and we most certainly dont see him trying to go talk to a different therapist. the rest of what im going to be talking about this post is purely speculation, but i think its highly probable that this could all be canon. like i just mentioned, as far as we know, buck hasnt gone to another therapist after that shit show. additionally, we can also assume that buck really hasnt talked to like....... anyone about the shit he’s gone through, both past shit and shit that was brought up from this first loss of his. so as far as we’re concerned, he’s never properly worked through it all. he’s also probably never gotten any proper coping mechanisms to deal with any further losses. it seems a little too morbid to think that bucks just gotten used to the feeling that comes with losing someone, so i think its pretty safe to assume that, after every single loss he suffers, he gets like..... super fucked up, purely because he never talked about (a), the reason why hes scared to talk about feelings, or (b), how to deal with said feelings, especially when they’re bad. and thats not fair to him!! that loss clearly took a huge toll on buck, Most of the description of that episode is talking about the roller coaster and bucks feelings, but he never got to heal from it. if buck doesnt get something akin to a redemption arc, where he gets to see a therapist to properly work through all of his issues, i’m going to riot

anyway. thats all i have to say on the matter. i’ve been working on this for most of the day because i have so many thoughts and feelings about the way buck was treated during this episode. i will die mad about it. but i think i’ve said pretty much all i have to say on the topic now, so i hope my frustrated rambling was interesting or whatever to read. so, thanks for reading! ♥

#evan buckley #buck buckley #911 fox #911 on fox #lemme know if there are any errors or anything? im not proof reading this bc im much too lazy and bc i just wanna post this shit already #kendall blabbers #(maybe i should make a tag eventually just for ranting like this. i dunno. we'll see)

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lechevaliermalfet · 6 years ago

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Seasonally Appropriate, part II: A Long Look at the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow Series

In the early to mid-2000s, there was an odd trend of Japanese game developers farming out high-profile intellectual properties to Western developers. To the best of my knowledge, this began with Metroid Prime, though it really got going with the beginning of the first HD generation of consoles, and would go on to include DMC: Devil May Cry, Bionic Commando, Sonic Boom, Sonic Mania, every Silent Hill game from Origins onward, and probably a host of others I’m forgetting.

The reasons for this are difficult to pinpoint, and probably vary considerably from developer to developer. Some developers seemed to have been caught flat-footed by the sheer amount of personnel and time required to make a game in HD. Konami is said to have, at one point or another, pulled basically every single human being capable of operating a keyboard to work on Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots. Others may have wanted to capture a larger audience (thanks to the increased expense of creating games in HD), and felt that their games looked and felt “too Japanese” to cater to a more international audience (a move that ironically would have angered many existing fans, and often did). Still others may simply have wanted a breath of fresh air, to see what a different design sensibility brought to the table. Yet others may have noticed the upswing in popularity enjoyed by Western games and developers, and thought the best way to ride that gravy train was simply to give their franchises to Westerners to handle.

At any rate, it was a thing that happened.

More below the cut. There will be spoilers.

If Metroid Prime isn’t the first example of this, then it’s the first big, high-profile example. Nintendo basically co-founded Retro Studios, along with some of the development staff that had made the Turok gmes, and said “Here’s a big pile of money. Cancel all your ongoing projects and make us some Metroid games. Try not to fuck it up.” This looked completely insane on the surface of things. Nintendo buying what was at that time a no-name studio and giving them one of their sacred cow franchises to develop seemed unthinkable at the time. But, as they often (though not always) do, Nintendo knew what they were doing, though their reasoning was opaque to outsiders.

On the more recent side of this phenomenon, meanwhile, we have the Sonic games. If I had to guess, I’d say the decision to farm the series out to a Western developer was motivated by some of the same factors as Metroid Prime for Nintendo. Like the Metroid series, Sonic has greater appeal for a Western audience at this point, I think, so Sega let that audience call the shots. This initially resulted in Sonic Boom, a multimedia blitz that consisted of a decent cartoon, a couple portable games of variable quality, and a WiiU title broadly derided as a buggy, broken shit-heap of a game.

But this really just amounted to what was at the time the most recent manifestation of the so-called “Sonic Cycle”. It seems to go something like this: Sega announces a new Sonic game → The fanbase collectively gets hyped for the game on the strength of some carefully vetted videos, screenshots, and assorted other promotional materials → The game comes out → Reviews and impressions come in, and the game is revealed to fall somewhere on a spectrum that goes from “okay, I guess” to “complete, total, utter, and absolute flaming garbage” → The fandom reminisces mournfully about the good old days of the 16-bit era → Sega announces a new Sonic game… The Sonic Cycle is basically the perpetual triumph of hope over experience.

The exceptions tend to be of the rule-proving variety. Miraculously, Sega’s next move was ultimately to farm the series out to yet another developer, who had the dangerous idea that perhaps the best thing to do – by process of elimination, since Sega seemed to have tried literally everything else by this point – was to give the fans precisely the thing they had been clamoring for since Sonic 3 & Knuckles (which, for those of you playing at home, was over two decades ago): A new 16-bit Sonic game.

Sonic Mania is great, by the way. Incidentally, it’s also probably the most widely acclaimed game in the series since the 16-bit titles it so lovingly homages.

There’s probably a whole thinkpiece to be written, right there: Contrasting Nintendo and Sega’s decision-making abilities. But you really only have to look at where the companies have wound up over the years to get the essence of it. Nintendo is still bravely, confidently, profitably soldiering along in the hardware business despite having been technologically outclassed on both the console and portable fronts since 2006. Sega, meanwhile, ended the hardware side of their business with neither a bang nor a whimper, bur rather with a sort of resigned shrug, a sigh, and a muttered “Fuck it, we tried.” They have since managed to defy expectations by staying in business. And they still keep churning out Sonic games, despite the Cycle, to an audience that seems to consist primarily of

Children whose grandparents bought them the games

Furries of a certain stripe

Deluded Sega fanatics who are probably still waiting for the promised day when Sega releases the Dreamcast 2 and we all go home to glory.

The rest of these Western-helmed sequels, reboots, and re-imaginings of popular franchises have had varying reactions from the fans. The phenomenon seems to be over for the time being, the causative problem either having been solved or otherwise rendered irrelevant. At any rate, I have gone far, far afield in a piece that’s supposed to be about the Castlevania: Lords of Shadow series.

I brought up all of the foregoing to lend some context, and it went to its own weird place, but it entertained me, and fuck it, it’s not like I have an editor. So…

Somewhere in the middle of all these Western-flavored farmings-out, we had Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. In terms of why it got farmed out to a Western developer, this one seems to descend from the House of Fuck If We Know What To Do With It; Let Someone Else Take a Crack At It. Castlevania 64 and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness tried to make the series work in 3D on the N64, and failed. There was a running joke for a while that Capcom had made 3D Castlevania work in the form of its Devil May Cry series, which must have incensed more than a few of the fine folks at Konami. Then Koji Igarashi, fresh off his successes with the Metroidvania games on the Playstation and the Gameboy Advance, was given a shot at it. Castlevania: Lament of Innocence and Castlevania: Curse of Darkness were better games than the N64 efforts, but… well, you could make the argument that a good trepanning might be a better experience than those games. If anything, both were ultimately kind of shallow Devil May Cry imitators that lurked somewhere in the B tier of the PlayStation 2 library, far less than what the series deserved.

So, come the next generation, Konami decided to let Mercury Steam handle it, and assigned Hideo “Motherfucking” Kojima to keep an eye on the project from time to time.

It had been remarked by any number of industry wags that Capcom's Devil May Cry franchise was probably the closest we were going to get to a translation of Castlevania into three dimensions. This mostly amounted to a snide, backhanded swipe at Konami's troubles bringing the franchise into 3D on the N64 more than anything else. There are certainly some similarities at a surface level, such as the aesthetic. Like Castlevania, Devil May Cry is a horror fantasy that leans far more heavily into the fantasy side of its heritage. The horror imagery is less for actual scares, but more to project an easy sense of danger and menace. And like Castlevania had been in its 2D outings (Symphony of the Night aside), Devil May Cry was a pure balls-to-the-wall action game. But this is mostly where the similarities ended. Castlevania's pace, in the 2D games, was always more deliberate than many of its peers (contrasted against, say, Mega Man), though you still had to have nimble fingers and a keen sense of timing.

But perhaps the greatest difference was in personality. Devil May Cry's personality as a game was centered on its protagonist, Dante. Sarcastic, wise-cracking, brash, cocky, and irreverent, with his long red coat and his trademark giant sword and twin pistols, Dante was the epitome of badass. And that's before we get into all the crazy antics in his moveset. Castlevania, meanwhile, didn't as a general rule really have characters as vivid as Dante; in fact, the only real recurring character is its villain, Dracula. Its heroes, members of the Belmont clan of vampire slayers, tended to come across as grimly determined, muscular, sort of generic warriors who tore down all their enemies with a combination of skill and raw force, with a few straying into leather-and-fur-clad barbarian territory. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. But it does leave most of the characters lacking in personality. But it’s to be expected. The template for the series was created in the 8-bit days when any kind of personality was difficult to convey.

One of the most distinct features of the heroes of the classic Castlevania games (for reference going forward, "classic" is going to be shorthand for "the 8-bit and 16-bit games prior to Symphony of the Night") is the sense of pace and momentum. There was a sense of weight and heaviness to the various members of the Belmont clan who served as player characters in those games. Some of it came down to the way they moved. None of them were especially fast on their feet, as video game characters went, and the series was unique for not letting you control the direction of your jump in mid-air the way so many other video games did. It's realistic, of course, but was unusual for the time. There was no course-correction possible if you jumped wrong, no mid-air take-backsies if you misjudged your timing. If you got your timing wrong, then oh well. Don’t fuck up next time.

And the Belmonts' weapon of choice, the Vampire Killer whip, was also a bit unique. As a whip, it's got a bit of a wind-up to it. Not a huge one, but enough that you have to be aware of it. Your attacks don't land immediately with the press of a button. Castlevania III was probably the best early demonstration of this, where even though it only takes three frames, swinging that whip for the attack and pelting the morning star forward is clearly animated as a full-body action. It gives the attacks a deeply satisfying feeling of force, regardless of how much damage they do, but also means you have to pay attention to how you maneuver through the game, and have a keener sense for spacing and timing when facing an enemy.

This is another reason I feel like the assessment of Devil May Cry as the ideal for a 3D Castlevania is off. Dante is a fun character to play as, but when it comes to maneuvering him, he's constantly leaping, dodging, and rolling about. He's lighter than air. And that's fun, naturally. But he also doesn't really feel like a Castlevania hero.

After the first disappointing venture into the third dimension with the N64 titles, Konami came out with a second set of 3D Castlevania titles for the PlayStation 2: Lament of Innocence, which aimed to tell the origins of the Belmont clan and their eternal war against Dracula and everything else that goes bump in the night; and Curse of Darkness, which was a sequel/side story to Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. With Koji Igarashi at the helm, these fared somewhat better than the N64 entries, but still ultimately wound up climbing no higher than the upper end of the B tier of PlayStation 2 games. Which is kind of sad, really. Castlevania deserved better than to play second fiddle to the top tier of hack-and-slash action games. As a series that used to be a premier example of that kind of game back in the 2D days, it deserved to be on that top tier.

Really, you'd think all anyone had to do was just rip off Devil May Cry (which, given the accusations of Devil May Cry lifting liberally from Castlevania in the first place, would certainly seem justified if not terribly original), but the final products were ultimately lacking something, though it was difficult to say exactly what. The response from critics and fans alike was generally positive, but ultimately with a feeling that something was missing. The games were good, but didn't seem to quite live up to the legacy of their forebears. And so the idea of creating a 3D Castlevania seems to have gotten shelved again for the time being.

As the first generation of HD consoles really came into its own, it became apparent that the old total dominance of Japanese developers in that arena, at least at the upper end of technical and technological prowess, was on the wane. There are a number of different reasons for this, and the discussion frankly deserves its own write-up. The bottom line is that Western developers were quickly becoming ascendant in console gaming, where previously they had made up a small minority of the notable output. And so Konami got the idea to do with Castlevania what they had done with Silent Hill, what Capcom had done with Bionic Commando and what Nintendo had done with Metroid: give the franchise to a Western developer to handle.

MercurySteam was, in the beginning, basically a no-name outfit with nothing published under their own name. Wikipedia indicates that MercurySteam was made primarily of personnel from an older development studio called Rebel Act. They were notable apparently for just one game, and that had been back in 2001. What they did in the nine-ish years between that and Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, if anything, is a mystery to me. Why they got chosen to work on one of Konami's classic series is likewise a mystery. But whatever; it happened.

Lords of Shadow was initially teased just by its subtitle, and first billed as a new intellectual property for Konami. This was done in part to avoid trampling the hype Konami wanted to build for Castlevania Judgment, a Wii-exclusive fighting game featuring multiple characters from different points in the timeline. This was almost universally dunked on and dumped on by critics and users alike, so it's questionable how much damage the announcement of Lords of Shadow could have done to it.

I can't pretend to know what the reaction was when Lords of Shadow was announced officially as a Castlevania game. To be honest, I wasn't paying much attention until near its release, though I picked up a copy near launch. I sometimes think that even without the impending release of Castlevania Judgment, Konami might still have teased Lords of Shadow without the Castlevania name for a while. At that point, it may have been easier to build hype for an all-new IP than for a new Castlevania game on console, given the baggage the series carried.

I was curious to see what a Western-developed installment of the franchise might look like. In terms of aesthetics, the classic 8- and 16-bit Castlevanias had always had more of a Western look to them, which made sense given the eastern European setting and backing history/mythology. If anything, this was one of the franchises where handing it off to a Western developer made the most sense.

(As a side note, MercurySteam later went on to make Metroid: Samus Returns on the 3DS, which now makes them the only developer of Metroidvania games to have worked on both a Metroid and a 'vania.)

For inspiration, Lords of Shadow seems to have turned to the God of War series. From the burly, muscular hero, to the chain-based weapon that allows the player to operate at some distance from the enemy (though in fairness, the chain whip has been part of Castlevania since way before God of War was a thought in anyone’s head), to the brutal take-downs, to the regularly occurring puzzle-solving challenges, to the quick-time events used to finish off bosses and major enemies, there is a lot of God of War in this game. But one of the first, biggest differences is in tone. The player character's brutality in Lords of Shadow is more utilitarian, more matter of fact and by the way, where God of War's Kratos explicitly relishes his violence.

Rather than a sequel, though, Lords of Shadow serves as a reboot of the series, which frustrated some. There had been talk by various characters in Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, which take place in 2035 and 2036, respectively, about a conflict in 1999 wherein Dracula was finally beaten and destroyed once and for all. Fans had naturally been clamoring for the chance to play this epic final showdown pretty much since it was first hinted at, and had been repeatedly disapopinted when it failed to materialize. The forecast for said showdown appearing seemed to go from "unlikely, but stay hopeful" to "nope" with the announcement that Lords of Shadow was going to be a reboot. This kind of thing usually signals that the old continuity is done for good. And it effectively is, though that's mainly because Konami seems to have gotten out of the video game business entirely at this point.

As a story, Lords of Shadow follows to some extent in the series tradition, which is to say, it's pretty ridiculous.

We start off with Gabriel Belmont, an original creation for this reboot series. He belongs to the Brotherhood of Light, a group of holy warriors whose purpose is to eliminate supernatural enemies of humankind. Clad in their signature red outfit (probably a nod to the artwork for Simon Belmont in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest), he wields the Combat Cross, which is (or rather, will become over the course of the game) this continuity's take on the Vampire Killer whip.

It is medieval times, and Satan has cast a spell to seperate Heaven and the Earth, trapping the souls of the dead in the world of the living, and generally causing all sorts of supernatural shenanigans. Gabriel, at the behest of the Brotherhood, is after an ancient relic called the God Mask, which should enable its wearer to break Satan's spell. However, it's been broken into three pieces, each one held by one of the titular Lords of Shadow.

Said Lords are revealed over the course of the game to have once been members of the Brotherhood of Light themselves, who achieved such a degree of holiness that their spirits ascended to Heaven. However, they were so holy that they didn't even have to die for this to happen. Their spirits just... ascended, and left their bodies behind. Their fleshly, mortal bodies, which were now susceptible to all manner of vice and villainy and corruption, and lacking none of their former power. Thus were the Lords of Shadow born as dark reflections of their former holiness.

Along the way, Gabriel is occasionally assisted by another, older member of the Brotherhood, named Zobek. In addition to his passive observation, advice, and occasional hands-on assistance in Gabriel's quest (all meant to subtly goad him in particular directions for reasons initially left unexplained), Zobek also narrates between chapters.

Zobek is voiced by Patrick Stewart, but unfortunately, he just seems ever-so-slightly off in Lords of Shadow. He's not bad at all. It's just that he seems to always be a little off from what I think of as the right tone for the character and his lines. Robert Carlyle, who provides the voice of Gabriel, seems to be a bit more on-point.

Gabriel also has a dead wife to avenge, or ideally, to bring back to life, a feat he hopes to accomplish with the power of the God Mask. He also has (without his knowledge) a son, whose gestation and birth occurred during one of his long absences on Brotherhood business, and whose existence goes unmentioned until later entries in the series. The secret of this child's birth was deliberately kept from him by the Brotherhood and his wife (who was sworn to secrecy by them) due to some unspecified danger they saw in his future.

His journey takes him through the wilderness of a version of Europe that never existed, and then into the ruins of the ancient fictional civilization of Agharta, and to worse places yet. Background lore is dispensed by way of scrolls found on the bodies of fallen Brotherhood members that Gabriel encounters as he goes. All of this, as well as information about the various creatures Gabriel faces, items he acquires, and moves he learns, is kept in a tome he brings with him, which the player can read at their leisure. Most of it is stupidly, wonderfully overwrought.

Gabriel, we are eventually told, is God's chosen champion, empowered to confront Satan himself in order to undo his malevolent magic. Slowly but surely, Gabriel confronts each of the Lords of Shadow and retrieves their piece of the God Mask. This includes Zobek, we eventually discover, who is a necromancer of considerable power, and who is ultimately revealed to have escaped death despite his defeat.

Through the course of Lords of Shadow, Gabriel does indeed successfully beat up Satan and restore the world to its normal order. However, he is unable to resurrect his wife after all. Then the DLC gives him a new foe to face, and in order to do this, he must give up his humanity and become a vampire.

This culminates in him becoming the evil Dracula who served as the villain for the vast majority of the original Castlevania series.

Mirror of Fate, a spinoff released physically for the 3DS and digitally for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, occurs in the ensuing years and decades after Gabriel rises to become a vampiric overlord with ambitions of world domination.

We start off as Simon Belmont, who is unaware that Dracula was once a Belmont himself (in fact, Dracula is his grandfather). Simon is a fur-clad, muscular barbarian with very little in the way of characterization, who is aided from time to time (sometimes without his knowledge) by a pale, black-clad stranger running around the castle, who turns out to be Alucard, the son of Dracula. The two team up to stake Dracula, though as series fans already know, this isn’t going to be permanent.

Then the game shifts focus, and we get to play as Alucard. Alucard likewise has very little character growth or development. Then, when his section is finished, the game shifts focus again. We end the game playing as Trevor Belmont, Gabriel's son, a generation or so before Simon's time, and find out just exactly how bad Trevor's own mission against Dracula went.

When we come to the opening of Lords of Shadow 2, we find that Gabriel-as-Dracula is still God's chosen one, despite all the murder and blood-drinking and oppression that's just du rigeur for being a vampiric overlord. As such, he is immortal – virtually impossible to kill even by the standards of vampires.

But Lords of Shadow 2 proper begins in the modern era. Zobek, now a wealthy and powerful businessman with his fingers in a variety of pies, approaches Dracula in the cathedral where he has recently reawakened. But the lord of vampires persists in a diminished state. Weakened and desiccated, he looks like a walking corpse, a pale shadow of his former self, hating his eternal life but feeling compelled to go on with it in order to spite his enemies (Zobek, Satan, and God Himself). So he lingers.

Zobek offers him a way out. Satan's minions are increasing in power, gearing up for their master's return to the human world. As God's chosen one, Dracula alone is empowered to fight against him. In exchange, Zobek promises he can finally put an end to Dracula's life once and for all, as he has reassembled the broken Vampire Killer whip once wielded by Gabriel himself. And so, after a meal to freshen up (probably one of the most disturbing and problematic parts of the entire series), Dracula sets off through the city that now stands on the foundations of his ancient, massive castle from centuries ago.

Where the original Lords of Shadow was more plot-focused, Lords of Shadow 2 tries to be more character driven, focusing on Dracula's return to humanity – in spirit, if not physically. Unfortunately, the focus on story, not just in Lords of Shadow 2 but in the entire reboot series, is where it most falls flat.

The whole thing is difficult to take seriously much of the time. Granted, Castlevania as a whole is ridiculous and over the top. This has been true from the very first game, which was riddled with anachronisms (fighting Frankenstein's monster somewhere in the sixteenth or seventeenth century) and featuring Death himself as Dracula's right-hand man – well, right-hand personification of the abstract concept of the end of life – all throughout the series. Seriously, it isn't a proper Castlevania game if there isn't a boss fight against Death somewhere near the end, preferably one tough as nails. But that oddly makes a certain amount of sense. As a being who routinely flouts death by coming back to life once a century just as a matter of course (not even getting into all the times people resurrect him just because), Dracula might be expected to be on some kind of terms with the Grim Reaper.

But then the Lords of Shadow continuity introduces this whole Satan business, and I just...

No.

So the idea in the Lords of Shadow continuity is that Gabriel Belmont is for whatever reason God's champion, chosen to face down Satan and prevent him from taking over the world. And for some reason, I just have a hard time buying it. Having a character fight off lesser demons and mythological monsters? Sure, no problem. Having that character fighting off the servants of Satan in this world to prevent him from entering it, yeah, that's perfectly fine. But having a knock-down, drag-out with the big man, the capital-D Devil himself? Somehow, my brain draws a line there. Maybe it's because the game uses a generally Christian mythological framework, and Lords of Shadows' idea of Satan doesn't really mesh with that. You don't just throw down with the Father of Lies. I mean, yes, there are all sorts of folktales about conflicts between humankind and the devil, but none of them end in a brawl. That's just not how it goes; that's not what he's there for.

Which is a goddamn shame, because there are hints of something more interesting going on. Gabriel-as-Dracula in Lords of Shadow 2 has positioned himself as an enemy of God (he refers at least once to being a thorn in His side), mainly by going against God's stated purpose for him. The game opens pretty memorably with him in a conflict against the Brotherhood of Light, displaying his immunity to the holy powers they try to call down on him, screaming at one paladin in particular that his reliance upon God is his undoing, because despite Gabriel's defiance, he is still God's chosen one. There's also the idea that as Dracula, Gabriel is a necessary evil, that although he stands in opposition to God (over his anger at the fate God thrust upon him), he also stands as a bulwark against Satan, as well as Zobek, who has his own designs on the world.

And the games are gorgeous. All of them lean hard into a sort of quasi-gothic horror-fantasy aesthetic that I really would love to see more of. This is all quite apart from the technical capability on display, which is also top-notch. I love just running around in them, looking at the scenery and beating the unholy hell out of the monsters that come crawling out of it.

But it ultimately falls apart for being too self-serious. Castlevania has always had an odd silly streak. As mentioned, the original games took a bunch of mythological creatures and classic horror movie monsters, mashed them all together, and played the whole thing completely straight. They did this knowing how ridiculous it was, but doing it anyway because it was also completely fucking awesome. This is in the grand tradition of old-school video games, where the plot was less of a story that you got invested in and more of an excuse for all the things the game was going to have you do.

The problem is that this really works best when you do it in the style of those older games, when you don't draw too much attention to it or elaborate on it too much. I mean, let's break down the series mythology from the original continuity:

-- Since the Middle Ages, Dracula the vampire has been terrorizing Europe, returning to life once every century to do it. He summons to him all manner of creatures from myth and legend (and other fiction) in pursuit of this goal.

-- The Belmont clan, carriers of the Vampire Killer whip, are uniquely empowered to smite him. This they do, with as much reliability as Dracula's return, alongside a growing number of allies.

-- Sometimes there are cultists or other Bad People who resurrect Dracula for their own ends outside the usual once-per-century pattern, or other evil entities who borrow his power in some fashion.

And that's basically it. And it worked. It was simple, but it was effective, in the way that the stories of games like, say, Super Mario Bros. or the early Sonic the Hedgehog games were. It wasn't built to handle a lot of lore and characterization, and in fact it kind of falls apart under the weight of those things. You start trying to give Castlevania a really deep, involving story, and that just exposes how ridiculous the whole thing actually is, how shaky the framework, how unsteady the foundation is to build lore upon. You can hear its light, almost slapped-together framework creaking under the weight of all that load.

We see this happening in the original series. Symphony of the Night, and the portable entries that followed in its footsteps, crammed in just about all the story that the games were really set up to handle. Then we get to Lament of Innocence, which tries hard to justify Dracula's motives and tendency to return from death to fulfill them, the Belmont clan's struggle against him, and all the rest. And the real problem is that it's totally unnecessary, and the attempt to sell it as high drama with this inherent silliness in its premise just continually falls flat.

To a certain extent, I get the perceived need to do this. We seem to have left behind the era when major, big-budget games can be just fun. They have to be these big, trampling, sober, serious things now, all high stakes and serious business. Most of the games that revolve around being fun tend to find themselves in the vanishing B-tier of games, or else indie titles. Or the exclusive province of Nintendo. There doesn't seem to be room in the industry any more for big-budget games that don't take themselves entirely seriously.

So what does Lords of Shadow, as a sub-series, get right?

Quite a bit, it turns out.

Despite its missteps with the story, the world looks gorgeous. I'd love to see a remastered version that features the games running at 60 frames per second in 1080p, and maybe sharpens the textures up a bit, but honestly, it looks pretty much fine as it is. The characters and environments are nicely detailed, and I love the overall sense of design. Especially toward the middle of the first game, where the levels tend toward "Gothic, but totally over the top".

The beginning of Lords of Shadow seems a little questionable, mainly because of the focus on purely fantasy creatures: goblins, trolls, etc.; things that don't really have much to do with the horror imagery Castlevania typically goes for. It's not bad, it just doesn't quite fit right.

But as the game goes on, it dives more into horror territory, with werewolves, vampires, and more outlandish creatures still. Boss battles are giant setpieces which are plenty challenging, and usually end with a series of quick-time events that work you through an ultimately brutal but satisfying take-down of the boss in question.

The sense of substantiality, of heaviness, that I usually associate with the classic Castlevania heroes is present and accounted for. With his broad shoulders and muscular physique, Gabriel evokes the deliberate movements of the heroes of the classic Castlevania games. And his attacks land with a satisfying impact, again hitting that feeling of "considered and deliberate" that I associate with the classic titles. At the same time, he's actually quite light on his feet. While that still makes him a little different from the Belmonts of old, it makes sense with the way the game's designed. Unlike those classic games, most of the enemies don't die in just one or two hits. Like many hack-and-slash games, Gabriel's movement through the game's areas is very stop-and-go, stretches of travel and puzzle-solving punctuated by combat encounters with multiple enemies (or one major enemy), each of which takes some work to bring down. Faster and more complex maneuvers are necessary to avoid being obliterated.

There are also a few callbacks here and there to the previous series. Although Gabriel is a completely original character to the series, his design is clearly meant to evoke the look of Simon Belmont as he appeared in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. Structurally, Lords of Shadow borrows from the more linear structure old-school, classic style of Castlevania games. The first Lords of Shadow follows in the classic mold more than either of its sequels in the rebooted continuity. Lords of Shadow 2 features a seamlessly interconnected environment, but in the end, the player is still directed through it in a mostly linear fashion, with the optional digressions being just that.

Mirror of Fate, meanwhile, is the least classic-like of the three, instead hewing much closer to the Metroidvania style, but it's pretty shallow as Metroidvanias go. It apes the style of Igarashi's 2D predecessors, but lacks much of the real substance. It's not bad, but it's sort of a letdown. It’s disappointing mainly in the way that it presents itself as a Metroidvania game, but then... isn't, really. The whole thing is so on-rails that most of the major backtracking feels forced, and the backtracking that isn't is so minor that you can safely skip over it. It's more of a straight-up action game dressed up like a Metroidvania, as if they did it because that's just what's expected of a 2D Castlevania these days. Which is a shame, becasue MercurySteam can make a good Metroidvania – they went on to do it with Metroid: Samus Returns (though, admittedly, they were working from the template of a pre-existing game).

Interestingly, one of the classic series features that doesn't get touched on in Lords of Shadow is the music. Over the years, the classic Castlevania titles have built up a variety of iconic pieces that people tend to expect to hear. "Vampire Killer", "Wicked Child", and "Bloody Tears" are just some of the more famous ones. These often get worked into the various sequels and remakes in one form or another. Lords of Shadow mostly lacks these, barring a music-box rendition of "Vampire Killer" in an unlikely spot. In fact, the soundtrack is mainly comprised of generic orchestral pieces which are nice – they swell and pound in all the right places to evoke the appropriate mood – but not really melodic or memorable.

A number of fans of the series were upset by the lack of classic tracks. While I can understand the general complaints about the soundtrack on its own merits, I do find it somewhat overblown. It would've been nice, sure. But plenty of other well-regarded games in the classic seriess, such as the particularly revered Symphony of the Night, did without the classic tunes from the series history, and nobody complained then.

Bits of original series lore also pop up here and there, recycled and repurposed to match the tone and style of the new continuity, as a wink and nod from the developer to the fans. But in the end, it almost feels more frustrating than anything else. These bits of the original series that poke up into view here and there seem to serve as reminders of the game that I wanted, bolted onto the game that we got. I was looking for something dark and grim and gloriously over the top, borderline goofy in its melodrama.

And that, I think, is most of my problem with Lords of Shadow, as a continuity unto itself. There are some great setpieces, and the combat is fine, and the games look about as good as it's possible for last-gen console hardware to get. And the story is gloriously over the top. It just... It takes itself too seriously. It gets in its own way, falls over itself, and just generally doesn't land right. It looks right, it just doesn't feel quite right. The tone is off, and it dwells on itself too much. Classic Castlevania would do something over the top and ridiculous and awesome, and then move on. Lords of Shadow dwells on it, lingers on it, and it’s neither deep enough nor solid enough to support that level of seriousness. I think most times that it really should have been its own intellectual property.

It's better than the 3D Castlevania games to come before it. But Castlevania still deserves better.

It's a shame that, with Konami being what they are now, we're probably never going to get it.

#halloween #castlevania #lords of shadow #lords of shadow 2 #mirror of fate #video games #games #video gaming #gaming

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gmabaj · 6 years ago

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Jeb’ël Skin Regimen

In the photos above, I did my morning regimen. Also wearing Maybelline eyeliner, Media W Eyebrow liner, a bit of lipstick, and absolutely no foundation. No filter either ;) it looks fuzzy bc I screenshot it from a video.

After having taken a small break from IG (to maintain my sanity), IG got a new feature which allows friends and followers to anonymously ask a question to a page/person through their story. I obviously had to try it out. And one of my closest friends asked me what my skin regimen is “cause you’re always glowinggggg” and, like, I had to answer.

I immediately appreciated this question since I do care about my skin. Note that I didn’t say that I care about my skin being clear. If you see my stories and posts, and if you’re fortunate enough to see me in person, you know that I am not perfect. Sometimes my skin is really clear and other days I have cyst like pimples on my temples (like right now) or flaky skin or blackheads on my nose or just huge amaca sized bags under my eyes.

Stress is inevitable as an artist and most especially an anxiety-prone, perfection-driven, growing and glowing artist living in New York City, the eye of the vortex, we commonly know as capitalism. It’s hard not to be stressed when the world is literally melting and burning, all at the same time in different places, affecting us all. The stress is real so there is no doubt that the millions of tiny pores on your body and face will be affected by it all too. After all, your skin is literally alive and it needs to be taken care of and protected from harsh sun rays, pollution, harsh winds, pollution….

I try to be as gentle and patient with my skin as possible. If this week I have major pimples, well, my body knows best. I try my best to trust the processes in my body. If the process this week results in a whitehead gala on my forehead, so be it. I rather be patient then add another layer of makeup or stress because the person I’m going on a date with might be bothered by this pimple. If they are, I’d be bothered by their presence and let. their. trivial-asses. go. Respect, prioritize and learn about the processes of your body.

With that being said, I take care of my skin every day for my own inner peace. It’s less about looking good than it is a regimen to de-stress and de-toxify after a long day. A friend commented on my IG story saying that they used to be “that annoying person whod be like “my skincare routine is splashing water on my face🤷🏽‍♀️”” I used to be that person too; it was during the time when I could play 90+ minutes of futbol without taking a break between halves. A lot of things have changed.

At this point in my life, walking out of the house without anything on, not even sunscreen, is horrifying. I always have 50+ SPF sunscreen on when I leave the house. Even if I’m going out to the deli or to walk my shih tzu-child, I still make sure I have sunscreen on. Trust me, I love my brown skin and getting browner makes me binkey with joy but I will not go down from 50 SPF. I just don’t play with UV rays and skin cancer. Also, as you age, so does your skin. What worked when you were nineteen probably will not work for you (me) who is seven years older.

My type of skin:

Oily t-zone

Sometimes dry cheeks and dry laugh lines

Blackheads on nose and sometimes cheeks

Sometimes whiteheads on forehead

Tiny papules near sideburns

Very rare but sometimes get nodules on cheeks and temples (I go to my dermatologist for help for that)

Does not easily scar

Pretty sensitive (a little extra dirt can make my face irritated)

I’m going to start my skin care regimen by describing what I do at night time. This is the most important and enjoyable aspect of my routine. I low-key look forward to taking all the grime and slime off from that days schedule.

With that being said, my regimen may not work for everybody. If you do end up using a product I use and your skin reacts negatively to it, you should stop using it. Obviously people who have severe acne/skin condition should consult a dermatologist/doctor first. I ain't trying to get sued here.

Also, please keep in mind that I am using all products that can be bought. I do want to move towards more natural ways of taking care of my skin. This is just my process at the moment. Also, if you like more matte looking skin, this won’t be for you, tbh.

FACE WIPES

I recently started using Yes to Tomatoes Detoxifying Charcoal wipes. The wipes are black so its kind of hard to tell if you’ve cleaned anything off. They’re also not soft wipes, they’ve got a bit of texture to them, which I like because I feel like I’m exfoliating a little bit. It’s been a few weeks so far and my skin hasn’t reacted negatively towards it. I use them every night to remove my make up.

FACE WASH

Cetaphil. Usually I get lazy and just move onto toner after the face wipes. Whenever I feel like my skin is a bit flaky I use a bit of Cetaphil and scrub gently with my loofa (which is an exfoliant). That’s all I do for exfoliating. Probably not the best way to go about it. I would probably suggest buying a small loofa for your face, only. But sometimes I’m just like fuck it.

TONER

As I said in my IG story, I used the Clinique Toner 1 for sensitive skin. Yes, it is a little pricey (15 bucks) but that shit works. Toner 1 is for sensitive skin and does not have any alcohol. I use a cotton ball and gently but firmly cleanse my cheeks, in an up and outward movement. Then I move to the temples, forehead, nose, chin, above the lips and, I never, ever forget, my neck, front and back and all around. I typically completely use one large cotton ball to get all the grime out, sometimes two.

NIGHT MOISTURIZERS

Yup. I use Clinique. It’s funny because I wasn’t going to Macys to buy this but dang those saleswomxn. They sold it to me BECAUSE THEY KNEW I’M IN LOVE WITH GLASS SKIN. I DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO SAY IT. THEY JUST KNEW.

I must also say that I utterly love South Korean beauty trends. Many of the beauty products/trends that occur here in the US like BB / CC creams, glass skin, etc. were actually created in South Korea and popularized there first. Why do I love their stuff? Because they prioritize taking care of your skin and making it healthy, not just making it appear healthy.

Glass skin or mul-gwang is the type of skin that is smooth, flawless and poreless. Additionally, it has a glowy sheen which makes the skin appear dewy. I love this finish because it prioritizes a skin care regimen that works for you and does not focus on make up.

I honestly love eye makeup. Foundation on the other hand, I tend not to wear as much anymore since I feel like all the foundations I’ve tried clogs my pores. Clogged pores just leads to more acne.

Despite the acne, you can still achieve glass skin. Its all about figuring out what makes your skin react negatively to something and what you can use to moisturize to get that dewy look. When I realized that touching my face caused me to break out, you bet I halted my hands from ever reaching my face.

Also, you don’t need to be light skinned to have glass skin. Pretty damn obvious. Literally any skin color can achieve that dewy look of glass skin, its just about figuring out what products and remedies work for you.

Back to Clinique. I bought the small jar of Moisture surge which came with Clinique All About Eyes cream and Moisture Surge overnight mask—all of which I praise. I take a quarter size amount and dot it on my face and spread it in an upward motion. I also dot the eye cream around my eyes. Lastly, once or twice a week, I place the Overnight mask. You should be left with your face looking pretty dewy. Maybe even to an excess. The key is to not touch your face. Just don’t. Let the product soak into your skin, not your dirty ass hand oil.

I then read a little, pray and fall asleep, without any technology around me to disturb me. Well, that’s on a good day. If I’m hella tired, I would just go straight for Cetaphil and toner. A little bit of Moisture surge and that’s it.

ONCE A WEEK ROUTINE ADD-ONS

So once a week I use:

Yes to Tomatoes Charcoal Paper Mask. Its mainly for acne prone skin but they also have face masks for other qualities like anti-aging, firming, etc (I haven’t tried those yet). Once you place it on your skin it starts to tingle which means that its working to detoxify your skin from impurities! I love me a face mask, especially when I have my de-stressor show playing in the background (I’m basic, I watch Friends. Ugh I know). I typically put on the face mask after I cleansed myself with the face wipe/face wash and toner. I do not remove the juices after I remove the face mask, I pat them into my skin with the backs of my fingers.

Occasionally I do use natural face masks that I make at home. If people wanna read about that, I can write about that in another post.

Also once a week, I use Earth Therapeautics Clari-T Pore Cleansing Strips to get rid of blackheads. It contains tea tree oil which to this day is one of my favorite oils besides Vitamin E oil, castor oil….They are paragon free and contain no mineral oil, no lauryl/laureth sulfate, and no artificial colors. They don’t do animal testing. I bought this at Whole Foods for like six bucks, which isn’t a bad price for 10 of them.

IN THE MORNING…

it’s pretty simple.

I wash my face with water. Sometimes I use the toner, if I feel like I didn’t get it all the night before. Sometimes I use Cetaphil.

Then I use Nivea FROM THE BLUE TIN CAN. NOT PLASTIC. TIN. I remember the huge ass blue tin can, always in the bathroom of my families apartment in downtown Brooklyn back in the 90’s. And if you look at my families skin in family photos, they’re fucking flawless.

MUL-GWANG BEFORE IT WAS MUL-GWANG.

I place a quarter size on my face IN AN UPWARD MOTION and then some sunscreen, usually between a button and dime size. I always put a bit extra on my nose because I have a flat face and my nose sticks out. I don’t want to get sunburned! And just because your skin isn’t red, does not mean its not sunburned. Again, I do not play with UV rays!

I don’t usually wear foundation but when I do, I use Smashbox Camera Ready BB cream. Let your skin and pimples breathe and just be. Don’t try to cover them up, it’ll only make it worse.

For my body, I don’t use lotion anymore. I just rub Vitamin E oil into my skin (thank you Sushana for that tip). Honestly, I haven’t seen my skin this naturally healthy and vibrant. There are a lot of brands in our local hood beauty stores; you just gotta try which one works best for you. So far, my skin has reacted lovely to Cococare.

Eat healthy, lots of veggies. Drink water, lots of water—water is life, after all. Exercise (and make sure to wash your face with water after a good work out. Don’t let the sweat just dry, that will also irritate your face). And if your face gets a little too dewy, I just use Boscia Green Tea Blotting linens, to soak up the extra juicyness around my laughing lines, nose and forehead (thank you Kat for putting me on).

And that’s it :) Jeb’ël* skin!

*beautiful in Kaqchikel

#beauty #beauty care #skin care #skin care regimen #glass skin #artist #self care #self love #Indigenous #Kaqchikel #beautiful #healthy #healthy skin

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news-mashable-yahoopartner-blog · 6 years ago

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Self-care apps want to make us happy. So why do they make us feel so bleak?

It's 2019: How are you tracking your happiness?

If you're not already logging and quantifying your moods, don't worry. Apple declared self-care apps the top app trend of 2018, and they've been growing in number by the month. There are thousands available to guide you along your happiness journey. And while it's hard to come out against a pro-snacking, nap-positive app genre, the boom in self-care and digital wellness shouldn't automatically be a cause for celebration. It's a reason for pause — and maybe even cause for concern, given the questionable quality of some of them.

Take Happify, a subscription-based app that allows you to build your "happiness score" with a series of scientific-ish tests, and track your weekly happiness with quantitative analysis. Or Sanity & Self, which promises it can help you remain "mindfully productive" with a seven-day course and achieve your core purpose in life in just five sessions. As you work to improve your happiness:sadness ratio, consider setting reminders to meet your daily goal-of-choice using the lifestyle optimization app Strides.

Take a "class" in self-care with Sanity & Self

Image: screenshot/sanity & self

Quality, schmality

Type "self-care" into the app store, and you'll find a plethora of apps loosely categorized under the genre. These are apps that allow you talk to a *real* therapist, guide you to "paint the stress away," or offer to send you daily affirmations.

Some use evidence-based techniques more than others. There's limited evidence that meditation apps are effective, for example, but at least there's proof that meditation itself is good for you. And I'm not sure how snarky you can be about an inoffensive app like Aloe Bud, which reminds you to do the simple things in life: drink water and go to bed.

SEE ALSO: One woman's quest to find the right meditation app in a messed-up world

Then there are apps like Calm Harm, which was designed by a clinical psychologist. It's used by social workers in conjunction with counseling and relies on evidence-based DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) principles. Calm Harm isn't supposed to replace psychotherapy; instead, it's meant to help soothe nerves in moments of crisis.

Unfortunately, this kind of app appears right alongside far more suspect apps that have little or no scientific grounding. Take the app labeled #SelfCare, which allows users to experience calmness voyeuristically through the use of an avatar. The avatar is stationed in boho paradise: underneath a comfy white duvet cover with a succulent plant on the windowsill to soothe them. #SelfCare encourages users to breathe and offers aesthetically pleasing in-app purchases to complement their experience, including an animated zodiac wheel duvet for your avatar for 99 cents. Your avatar (not you) can even slip into a pair of fictional fur slippers for free.

Breathe into this app

Image: screenshot/#selfcare

Calm yet? How strange. Me neither.

Plenty of apps try to make you quantify your self-care. I'm particularly terrified of Happify, which — in addition to helping people improve their happiness score — tries to teach people how to practice empathy. Empathy, the app reveals, is scientifically proven to spark joy (not that you would practice empathy for any other, you know, spiritual or moral purpose).

Happify's self-assessment scale

Image: screenshot/happify

You can also track your weekly happiness score with this happiness scale until you reach maximum happiness optimization.

Users can build their happiness score with activities in Happify

Image: screenshot/happify

After using the app a few times, I felt like I needed self-care from spending all this time monitoring my self-care. Spiritually, I was busted.

There are apps like Happify that are annoying, and then there are apps that feel downright toxic. Consider Youper, a five-star-rated "emotional health assistant" that uses AI technology to track your emotional health. In practice, the app functions as a kind of robotic life coach. Users type their most pressing problems into the app, and the app provides them with an automatic "therapeutic" response.

See what happened here.

Thanks for listening, bot.

Image: screenshot/youper

Youper gives users a range of goals they can work toward — for example, making 2019 the year they become a "Wonder Woman" (an absurd, faux feminist, patently unachievable goal of the First Wives Club variety).

As you can see, I probably went a little farther in my responses than most. The fact that Youper didn't recognize that pattern is disturbing. Because this is an app operated by a robot, not a trained psychotherapist, Youper's responses are often absurd.

Think of it as a Samuel Beckett play, but somehow, incomprehensibly worse.

Image: youper/screenshot

By the end of my first "session" with my therapist, the AI had already diagnosed my thinking patterns. I was thinking too much in the present as well as the past. I was catastrophizing. I was engaging too much in "should" thinking. I was using "negative glasses."

I was doing everything wrong.

As a former social worker who spent years providing one-on-one counseling to young adults, this kind of depersonalized, automatized, rapid-fire assessment terrifies me. Typically, therapists wait multiple sessions before they publicly assess a client's thinking patterns. Rarely are we supposed to provide advice. We help clients find their own solutions, and it takes time. Assessments are supposed to be conducted by real, breathing, caring, thinking humans — not hypercritical bots responding to programming as opposed to actual human needs and personalities.

It's borderline dangerous for an automated "therapist" to operate that way.

"A psychotherapeutic relationship that is purely digital is the antithesis of what therapy should be is or is," Sara Richardson, a social worker in private practice, told Mashable. "[There are exceptions] when a person doesn't have access to a clinic because of financial reasons or mobility issues ... But often these apps can serve as resistance to actual real work. It can make you feel like you're doing real work, when in fact you're doing something superficial."

Richardson isn't opposed to the idea of these apps. She's just anxious that wellness apps will replace the most critical part of the process: the therapeutic relationship.

"Technology does allow so many people to access each other through the internet. But it shouldn't replace human connection," Richardson says. "That's its fundamental failure."

SEE ALSO: The Crisis Text Line analyzed 75 million texts to pinpoint the best way to ask if someone's suicidal

SaraKay Smullens, a social worker and the author of Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work, is herself concerned that self-care apps are treating the surface of the presenting problem instead of the underlying trauma. A self-care app might help you fall asleep, but it can't tell you why you're not sleeping in the first place. It might remind you to eat, but it won't reveal to you why you're not eating. It can improve your breathing, but it won't unpack why you need breathing assistance.

"Technology offers so much, but you can fall into a trap with these apps if the apps aren't speaking to what's really overwhelming you," Smullens told Mashable. "For me, that's a philosophy of the examined life."

No amount of animated zodiac blankets can save us from ourselves.

Options are limited

Even if the quality of the apps is inconsistent and evidence for their success mixed, nothing has stopped the wellness app boom. Part of this growth spurt has to do with the self-care trend itself. The apps have the wind of an entire cultural movement at its back.

For some users, the answer is even simpler than that: They need help. There are no resources for them in their home environment.

After the 2008 recession, states cut approximately $4 billion in public mental health funding, shifting the bulk of costs to consumers. These days just 55 percent of psychiatrists accept insurance, making mental health all but a luxury for cash-starved millennials already confronting stagnant wages and staggering student debt. Couple that with long hours spent at work and a freelance gig economy, and, well, of course people need reminders to take a shit.

It's no wonder people are turning to self-care apps for care, regardless of their therapeutic value.

"Well, I personally think they're better than nothing," Antonia Frydman, a psychotherapist who serves patients struggling with anxiety and depression , told Mashable. "If they're talking about sleep and exercise, that's at the very core of self-care. These can be compliments to therapy, which is unfortunately inaccessible to a lot of people.... We're all so addicted to our phones, the only way some of are going to unwind is through iPhone media. They [the apps] can be the minimum you need to not be totally miserable and survive in this capitalistic society."

The minimum you need to not be totally miserable.

Thank you, mobile technology.

A better way forward

To be fair, there are plenty of people who do take pleasure in self-care apps. It might be a placebo effect, but it's something.

Here's how T.J, a former social services administrator, describes her nuanced approach to self-care apps. T.J. doesn't see it as a cure-all. She's careful about which apps she selects.

"I’ve used Talkspace [a teletherapy app that provides therapy over mobile] to get me through some hurdles, but generally when I can get Groupons or a discount," T.J. told Mashable. "I think it’s good for motivation and helping yourself when your routines are breaking down due to stress, but not good for psychodynamic work."

T.J.'s approach is reflective of how some counselors would like to frame the self-care app boom. When the *good,* evidence-based apps are used correctly, as a complement to ongoing psychotherapy, they can boost the therapeutic process.

"If you're trying to figure out the meaning of your life, they're not going to help you with that," Frydman says. "But these apps can be helpful in how you regulate yourself."

"I will sometimes recommend a CBT [cognitive behavioral therapy] thought tracking app," Richardson says. "It can supplement therapy you're already doing. Apps that help you manage bowel movement or manage pain — I think those can be really useful."

Smullens encourages people to find the strategy that works for them, whatever form it takes: "Don't force yourself into any self-care strategy that somebody else says is right for you. So much of life today is the expectation to fit yourself into someone else's paradigm."

And if you really feel like you need to download a self-care app, proceed with caution. Be mindful of which apps you download. If you have access to a licensed therapist, ask them which ones are worth considering. Don't download apps based on listicles written by journalists who haven't interviewed real clinicians. Don't be distracted by apps that were supposedly created by "real psychologists" (that doesn't necessarily mean anything).

Use apps that are humble in their mission: an app that reminds you to breathe at your desk is more likely to be successful than an app that promises to permanently alter your mood. The more limited the app's goal, the more likely you are to accomplish it.

Apps can't do the real, full work of self-care. Let's see these apps for what they are — band-aids — and leave it at that.

WATCH: AI tech can identify genetic disorders from a person's face

#_uuid:dd136d7d-fc99-3767-b35c-78eb0a30470f #_author:Heather Dockray #_category:yct:001000002 #_lmsid:a0Vd000000DTrEpEAL #_revsp:news.mashable

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dianaagron · 8 years ago

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hello darkness my old friend i’ve come back on tumblr once again (after like one month of not uploading anything or reblogging or answering messages for that matter because im a shit person who is actually very busy)

once upon a time this was called the your fave crack edits maker watched the thing earlier review but let’s be honest im not editing a flying fuck lately so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (here are part 1, part 2 AND part 3 tho)

warnings: i talk like a sailor, i haven’t been in touch with the fandom or with the whole franchise for like months and if you’re not that interested in the actual plot of the thing and you’re just watching out of love for the characters, there’s a 99% chance i’m even more disinterested than you (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:·ﾟ✧

basically if you’re looking for in-depth analysis and metas yo this ain’t the post for you my friend

good luck reading lmao

it’s a truth universally acknowledged that if a tri movie is coming out, tumblr user dianaagron (clara for friends) won’t know about it until the day after, when she’ll wake up and check twitter after 84 years of not logging in and realize that yesterday was the day. actually, this time i remembered the episodes were out the same day they were released, but still it was because of good ol’ twitter, because with all the mess that’s going on with me (part of the reason why i’m never here) even if i happened to check at the beginning of the week when soushitsu was coming out, i still managed to completely forget about it in the span of a fucking day. also, i’m fucking pissed because i’ve always watched the thing after downloading the various episodes because that way i have all my stuff and i can go back and easily find caps and other stuff like that but nope not this time because i can’t fucking find a single torrent and i’m refusing to download subbed episodes because a) it’s gonna take so long to direct download something and b) what use are subbed episodes when i know i’d be replacing them with unsubbed ones as soon as i can find working dls (this is a cry of help: tell me where i can download the episodes, im dying, thank you)

one thing to take into account: i was extra pissed for various reasons yesterday night when i watched the first two episodes, so i’m not really sure if that’s why, compared to the shit that i had to deal with in real life, the episodes (in the contrary to all expectations) weren’t bad at all. truth is i actually liked this installment? INCREDIBLE, I KNOW. of course it had its nonsense moments and parts that made me roll my eyes (im buying pizza for everyone who can guess which were those moments) and other negative parts, but i really preferred movie 4 to movie 3. i’m guessing this is an unpopular opinion because i remember everyone was so happy with kokuhaku back in the day and i was the only soul going like lmao i didnt even cry but idk, i liked this one, it wasn’t bad. btw, i said i’m guessing mine could be an unpopular opinion because i’m writing this sorry excuse of a review before reading anything else cause i don’t want to be influenced :)))))

(save me ive written 500 words on nothing) (meanwhile i finally found torrent links) (and i had to pause the review because i ended up going out yesterday night so this is me talking one day later from what you’ve read before)

once again, i feel like nothing happened in the course of these four new episodes. now, i know i’m extremely slow when it comes to get plot points and all that (not because i’m that stupid, thank you very much, but because of my attention span varies from 1 second to 2 and a half so it’s hard for me to recall what happened in the previous installments unless i go and rewatch all of them - thing i won’t ever do because this girl right here is lazy as fuuuck) but if you sit down and think about what was revealed, you get close to nothing lmao.

winning points of the movie (for me):

not too many extreme closeups like in the previous installment. it flowed better, the animation quality wasn’t as terrible as it was in the previous four episodes (im saying this just by quickly looking at the caps i took - while in the other i had so many ugly caps here they all look presentable and usable) (i say this from the point of you of someone who makes edits of course, i dont have the knowledge of an animator lmao), the majority of the shots with mimi, which are the ones that i pay the most attention to, are super pretty, but also those with taichi’s!!! his design was super on point, i have many caps im probably gonna insert later of just him looking hella attractive, and sora!!! omg sora was so fucking beautiful in these episodes i was so :)))) yay for nice designs, they make me happy.

the lack of you know who for basically two episodes. it was so good, so nice, so calming. i was loving life and life was loving me.

HOW THEY HANDLED THE TAIORATO!!!! if you know me or if you’ve been following me for a while you’ll know this already, but i’m saying this in case i have new readers (HI) or, y’know, to swipe some dust off: i’m not the biggest fan of the main three. that comes from the fact that michi is my otp and i love taishiro probably too much for my own sanity, so i tend to be on the taichi/koushiro/mimi & yamato/sora/jyou side of things (which is like, super unpopular because if it’s not taiorato then it’s yamichi, so you get why my life is a constant struggle). anyway, thing is that i actually loved the interactions between the three? it was light and it felt super real, it could easily be relatable. it was also clear to me that taichi’s and yamato’s roles in sora’s life were blatantly different and i also loved to see how the two of them while being in the same situation reacted differently, but i’m gonna touch this topic later. overall tho, good job on the dynamic between those three. im clapping my hands, i wasn’t excited about it when the movie poster came out five months ago but i’m so happy that they made me love the parts with taichi, yamato and sora.

it wasn’t heavy on fight scenes. i know. I KNOW. but as i’ve said, i’m not the average digimon fan so i’m happy with my bonds developing and less fights and all that stuff :))))

meiko exceeding all expectations and NOT CRYING for all four episodes. such sorcery.

on the other hand tho

y’all, who the fuck is that ygdradude? am i supposed to know? did i miss a focal point? am i that disinterested in the plot to miss a fucking focal point????

also what the fuck was that part with i dont know his name, the teacher, with the white space shit and the talk about libra. what is libra, who is libra, what the hell, what the fuck

pedo gennai dear lord i felt so fucking uncomfortable

remember when i said meiko didn’t cry? she didn’t cry because they replaced her with her partner and made meicoomon whine for 3/4 of the movie instead

the opening scene ???????????????? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ artistic choice ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

the fact that they basically wasted half an episode (the last one) on three evolutions. they really need to cut down the timing of those, for real

i can’t think of anything else rn

they could’ve kept meiko away for other three episodes if it was me ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

then again they could’ve just kept meiko away from tri in general if it was me

warning: i have 98 screenshots ready to use, i’m gonna try to cut some stuff because that’s too many, but here we go

they were pulling some hikari shit right here (as well as some charlie chaplin sorcery for the whole sequence)

that’s what i’m saying

OKAY LISTEN, that fucking egg with the circular thing under it made me highkey hope for some sort of magic shit happening and bringing the 02 kids back because it looks like a digimental egg or however those things were called. like my hope was so highkey that i fucking ended up dreaming the night between me watching the first two episodes and the latter two that miyako was back. unfair. i hated it. i want my kids back.

taichi being handsome: exhibit A

mimi being beautiful: exhibit A

sora being incredibly pretty yet sad: exhibit A (i told you guys the design was extra better compared to the last movie)

random caps taken merely for the fact that taichi and mimi were next to each other looking aesthetically pleasing to the eye (also do you ever cry about the skin tone difference between these two because i tend to do that a lot)

i can’t stand them hahahahah

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) frankly they could’ve shown yamato in the next scene so that way the foreshadowing would’ve been blunt and people wouldn’t still be bitching. or maybe they would anyway lmao. also look at the girls being all pretty together im so :))))

just pretty mimi and taichi + koushiro talking i was :)))) i love them all i love my kids, especially kou when he goes on about his tea

and i also FINALLY appreciated a koumi scene!!!! it happened!!!!! honestly, as i’ve said, i’m not entirely sure if it was because i was facing so much rl shit right before i watched the thing or what, but this time i was just enjoying what tri had to offer me without caring too much about other stuff like “ugh they’re pushing the fanservice with ship baits” and such. this was just plain cute, mimi was terribly in character, koushiro as well, and it was just the kind of interaction that i love. i love my kids pt. 2974521248 like, of course i would’ve loved for mimi to feed one to taichi, but i’m still somehow sane and i know they’ll never show something like that in canon? but still, it’s nice cause i know how differently from koushiro taichi would’ve reacted in a setting like this and i just can use it in my fanon world. goodbye.

this is why i’m team taichi, yamato

taichi being handsome: exhibit B

JUST IMAGINE HIM LOOKING AT MIMI LIKE THAT BEFORE THEY KISS IM SO ??????????? im gonna make a manip just wait for it

AH YES The Interaction™ also known as one of my fave parts of the movie lmao but it’s so nice whenever mimi talks it’s taichi the first one to answer im happy goodbye

cutie patootie be looking at his cute patoote

legit thought palmon was going to transform into sailor palmoon or something

why so ugly good lord

AAAHHHHHH!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHH THIS!!!! THIS THING RIGHT HERE!!!! let me put it into context in case you don’t remember: this was taichi asking his LEGIT CANON BEST FRIEND IZUMI KOUSHIRO TO NOT PUSH HIMSELF TOO MUCH AND REST. can anything be as beautiful as this? this made my heart defrost, im alive, y’all need to reevaluate your “taichi and yamato are bffs” business because. of. this. right. here. (im slamming my fist on the table, in case you were wondering)

hikari being smug af with takeru tho, that gave me life as well. also jyourato sitting next to each other <33333

AND THE SISTER IN LAWS <3333333 under a blanket that it’s so mimi’s

penis shot

taichi you fool...

a word on the so called triangle that of a triangle it has nothing but whatever: it was clear to me that yamato and taichi hold two very different spots in sora’s life, while both being important to her. there are multiple times when we see yamato trying to make taichi break the ice and talk to sora, and that’s because he is her best friend, so he should be the one who is supposed to know how to make her feel better at all times. another thing i noticed was how it was yamato to be the most sensitive to sora (unsurprisingly so): you see it especially when taichi is busy with agumon and he’s still monitoring sora, worried

here

and of course this whole exchange was beautiful, and i don’t have much else to add. truly iconic.

[insert penis joke here]

can we please take a moment to appreciate sora and mimi? they are so important

DA BACKHUG DOE guess who also watches kdramas lmao

minute 18 of episode 2 say goodbye to all your dreams of greatness

CRYING HE’S SO PRECIOUS I LOVE HIM SO MUCH imagine him holding a baby

i’m too lazy to go back and take another screenshot, but jyou with both palmon and patamon holding onto him was something else

🙄 🙄 🙄 even here mere expression makes me 🙄 but at least she wasn’t crying

i wasn’t

actually, as studies say, mimi is, in fact, a libra

why you know who tho when we all know it was sora who was supposed to be in the picture

why you know who pt. 2

GET OFF THE RAILS YOU FUCKING FUCKS IS2G THEY FUCKING WAITED UNTIL THE LAST MOMENT TO GET OFF LIKE YAMATO AND KOUSHIRO U PRICKS IF YOU DON’T SEE THE OTHER TWO MOVING WHAT ARE YOU EXPECTING, A HAND FROM THE SKY? THE TEA TO BE SERVED????

the fluff tho

the contrast between hikari being the calm one and having accepted the situation vs taichi still being unsure and lost was nicely done by making her facing the light and him staying in the shadows, good job with the cinematography im clapping my hands

F U C K I N G W H Y no, but seriously, i was already uncomfortable before with him being on top of her but this just just like yikes to a whole new level like i just don’t get it???? was it necessary???? just ew

i love mimi and the lowkey koukari pass it on

who the fuck is ygdrasil tho

ah yes, chosen children be so fit, they be running from huge monsters wanting to kill them off, they be escaping just with their two legs. incredible.

digimon au: cruise OR digimon au: titanic (spoiler: meiko is jack)

tag urself im jyou speaking the words of wisdom

takeru was cute here

weird lighting aka good luck to those who gif these scenes lmao

teach me this choreography guys don’t keep it to urselves

this was some weird shit right here let me tell you

ah yes again with the superhuman strength, surviving after a fucking huge machine slams you repeatedly against a mountain or smth like that

ur the one saying it gennai get a fucking grip

AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!!!! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!! MY JYOURA HEART, JYOU BEING DASHINGGGG how can they not believe him when he says he has a girlfriend i mean have you seen the dude? he’s going to be a doctor, he can fucking catch a girl falling from 20 meters up in the sky i meAN

THE REAL HIGHLIGHT OF THE MOVIE. GALS BEING PALS. (for real tho, i felt so blessed? it’s in moments like these that i just feel all the love for this anime, im so :)))))) )

and jyou comforting sora as welllllll~~~~

and that’s it with the pics you guys!!! a couple of further points

if they didn’t waste half an episode on three evolutions, they could’ve just gone further with the plot, but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

im not saying meiko grew on me, because i still want her out, but i can deal with her if he doesn’t cry as much as he did in the first three installments

what’s up with that ygdradude and libra talk is my question

they still need to address the 02 kids mystery and i need my babies back

the triangle is not, in fact, a triangle

i love my kids

and the episodes weren’t bad, come on. they went a little further with the plot by showing that the chick whose name i don’t remember had a partner that died and so that was the reason for the reboot, so they did give some answers, and at least the pacing of this movie was faster than in the previous one.

also, as i’ve said, idk what’s the popular opinion but i loved sora’s arc, it was nicely done and i don’t have anything to bitch about (except for meiko’s unnecessary presence). i felt for her and i wanted to wrap a blanket around her and just give her all the love.

and that’s it i think?

im blocking out the memories of the scenes with gennai because im feeling super uncomfortable whenever i do

we’re talking first kiss between wang so and hae soo in scarlet heart levels of uncomfortable

the ending sequence was so cute <3333 especially sora and piyomon, they were my faves closely followed by taichi and agumon

and im done

thank you for reading

i’ll probably go back to my hibernation now

ily all

if you got to this point i’m truly buying you a pizza

and let’s not forget the winning screencap, you can use it every day at every hour, every moment in your life

#digimon #digisafe #michi #mimi tachikawa #sorato #clara reacts #i cut down the number of caps from 98 to 62 or smth like that #y'all thought i'd be sleeping on this #AS IF #i need to write my pointless thought somewhere #tri spoilers

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