#does this even count as tangled crit

[painted-starlight]

The Young Iduna Model is the Moana Model With her Brown Skin Removed

Warning: Anti-Frozen, discussion of whitewashing, colorism

Note: Don’t pull that clownery saying “people get light over time uwu” bullshit on me. I’m a light skinned black woman and I say you’re full of colorist dog shit. 

These characters were designed by a billion dollar corporation with thousands of artists. They promote/represent images of cultures and market them to wide audiences and they have a monopoly. 

And by the way, humans can look like anything because genes are WEIRD. But you can’t convince me you have anything in common genetically with a cartoon character created by a huge corporation that poured hundreds of millions of dollars into the design. 

Elephant in the Room Time

So...they basically put light skin on a Moana model for Young Iduna, didn’t they?

There are few reasons I can only speculate on this frankly, horrible decision, but I’m going to explain how I know this. 

Here is the model of Moana. The resemblance to the Young Iduna model is especially noticeable with the hair texture, style, and facial proportions.

Here is “Child Iduna.” First trailer (brown skin), promotional image (light brown skin) #1 and #2 (pale skin)

What was everyone’s first response? “Hey, that’s Moana!” 

Hell, what tipped me off what the fact that “Iduna” had almost identical hair texture to Moana and facial proportions. Like, adult Iduna doesn’t have wavy hair. 

Her bangs are straight. In fact, you could argue they don’t even share the same hair color until the final promotional trailer with the pale skin version. 

Also, the first and second image supposedly come from the exact same scene, however, the model’s skin color is different (don’t say it’s the light. It’s not.) suggesting that they rerendered the scene after making adjustments to the model.

So what I’m saying is that they used the older Moana model, shrunk it down, and then pasted pale skin on her while reducing her racialized features. 

Yes, white passing Indigenous people exist. But it’s important to note that these characters were designed by PEOPLE in a CORPORATION. Every aspect of their design is scrutinized and they go through multiple iterations before the final product. That doesn’t happen with genetics. People look how they look by chance.  

And yes, I know the whole subplot that was told and not shown about Iduna’s past through exposition-y ice sculptures. That is not the argument here. 

I am asking why specifically did they use the Moana model for Young Iduna and removed her skin color. Why couldn’t they make an Iduna model from scratch?

Literally why??

(Below is speculation btw from my observations)

Theory: The Iduna Plot Was Last Minute

I think that the “Iduna is the girl who saved Agnarr” was last minute. It could even be possible that the girl was an entirely different person altogether. It seems really strange, considering how important this plot element is. But it’s the only explanation that actually makes sense and why this whole plot point was both reliant on exposition, telling things to the audience, and believing that putting light skin on a Moana model would, in any situation, be ok. 

Either that or the writers were struggling to keep it in the movie because they wanted to bring both parents in instead of just Agnarr and didn’t bother giving Iduna a child model (but they sure gave Agnarr a unique one, hmmmm.....) until they got the go ahead. 

Theory: They Didn’t Care (all the female characters are based on the same Rapunzel Model, so in the studios’ eyes it makes them interchangeable) 

It’s also possible that they believed that since Moana was modeled from the Rapunzel model, and so were Elsa and Anna and Iduna, that it wouldn’t be a stretch to use the Moana model for young Iduna. Not caring about the implications. 

Observations: Promotional Trailer Inconsistencies 

One thing I think happened during production is that they changed the Moana model’s skin color for Iduna, but not how the light is reflected on it for the promotional materials. 

They most likely used the information from the previous model (which was brown skinned) because they pretty much only changed a few facial/proportional features and pasted it into the Frozen 2 movie. 

Seeing this, they kind of shrugged it off until they took a look at the continuity between young Iduna and her older self. She became light skinned and this looked like whitewashing (which it is). 

So for the next round of promotional materials, they played around with making the Young Iduna model as light as possible without doing too much work. At least, until they decided just to erase the color information on the model altogether, start from scratch and give her very pale skin. 

This is probably why the models vary so much in skin tone. Because it was done without a shit given, and since Iduna as a child wasn’t seen up close in the movie itself for long periods of time (other than in ice sculptures, and a blue tinted vision in “Show Yourself” which itself has both the brown skinned and light skinned models used interchangeably in the sequence, and a poor attempt to hide them under a color filter) that their trailers “didn’t count.” In fact, the reason I can even go this in depth is because of the wide availability of the promotional trailers. 

Final Thoughts

For fucks sake, Disney. Stop using the Rapunzel model for every goddamn female character, especially GIRLS OF COLOR. Rapunzel is WHITE. No character of color should have a white base model, EVER. 

(note, 5/12/2020: Many animation productions often use a simple base model for making background characters or ones with little screen time. I am not against this method in practice. However, white characters are often prioritized and it can be very obvious when changes to characters of color sharing the same model have consistently eurocentric features or little variation, such as characters like Honey Lemon from Big Hero 6 and Moana. 

It is also important to note that it doesn’t seem like a simple base model was used, but Rapunzel’s actual finished model to create characters like Honey Lemon, Moana, etc. and make small changes rather than make a character model from scratch. Basically, the creators took a white finished model, made a few tweaks and used it for main characters of color. This practice robs them of their own unique models and prioritizes white base models. 

Characters with main screentime status like Moana should have their own unique models. But it’s obvious that her model is basically Rapunzel’s finished design with a few tweaks. And this, in itself is a problem.) 

This whole situation is just...how do they keep fucking up like this?  

When Disney does this, what it conveys to me is that they are blatantly admitting that they are reusing the R//apunzel model and that they think that their audience will pretty much accept anything they do. 

Moana’s model is supposed to be a girl of color. And it really irritated me that they decided to use the Rapunzel model, make a few changes, and then use this as the base for her design in the first place. It’s really obvious.

But that doesn’t change the fact that she’s still supposed to be Moana. Just using this character model and lightening her skin seems really disrespectful too?? Like they just pasted light skin on an Indigenous girl whose model is supposed to be brown? 

[sundayswiththeilluminati]

exotics make the noise, boys, but legendaries do the work.

After so many posts celebrating Destiny’s exotics I feel compelled to pay tribute to the other, far larger portion of the weapon pool: the legendary gear that pulls its weight all day every day. These are my top five all-arounders, the weapons I infuse up first, the ones I go to when I don’t know what I’m going up against. These are:

Blast Furnace / Hammerhead

Type: Pulse Rifle / Machine Gun

Slot: Kinetic / Heavy (Void)

Perks: Outlaw+Rampage / Dynamic Sway Reduction+Rampage

Kills: 16827 / 8697

Two of the Black Armory’s pieces, the Blast Furnace pulse rifle (shown here with the Verdigris shader) and Hammerhead machine gun (Amethyst Veil shader) still pull their weight a year after their introduction. Falling squarely on the scifi end of Destiny's scifi-fantasy spectrum, Black Armory weapons are easily recognized by their sleek-but-practical look, not flashy but new and designed and manufactured with great care. They have open straight-edged cowlings with visible internals and usually show traces of the Black Armory’s signature moiré-pattern animation.

Blast Furnace superseded Forsaken’s Go Figure pulse rifle (another of my go-to kinetics) with better stats in pretty much every column. The pulse rifle archetype is already one of Destiny’s best and Blast Furnace’s great stats, great perk pool, good chatter, and friendly sights - not to mention the ease of farming for the roll you want by completing Black Armory weapon frames instead of hoping for a random drop - plant it squarely in most Guardians’ top 10 if not 5. My chosen roll is Outlaw (reload much faster immediately after a precision kill) and Rampage (damage increases with each kill, stacks up to 3x), a classic top-tier perk set.

Hammerhead was one of the first non-exotic machine guns introduced and its decent range (here extended by Ricochet Rounds), 59-round clip, and fast-but-not-too-fast 450 RPM fire rate put it right at the sweet spot where it performs well against both large numbers of weaker enemies or a handful of powerful ones. It also fares well in PvP where heavy ammo is very rare and Hammerhead’s ability to put paid to a Guardian in 5 or 6 solid hits means you get more effective bang for your heavy ammo crate buck. My Hammerhead features Rampage and Dynamic Sway Reduction (holding down the trigger boosts accuracy over time) which doesn't come up much when firing short bursts but helps a lot when pouring an entire clip into a boss’ crit spot. Whenever I’m running an Energy-slot exotic or if I just don’t want to think too hard about my loadout, it’s a good bet I’ll throw on one or both of these weapons.

Subtle Calamity

Type: Bow

Slot: Energy (Void element)

Perk: Dragonfly/Archer’s Tempo

Kills: 11806

Subtle Calamity (Clouds At Sea shader) has no great lore or storied manufacturer behind it; it’s a general world loot drop added in Forsaken. And it’s great. I was already pumped for the addition of bows and Subtle Calamity ended up hitting the sweet spot for daily use. With bows the key stat is draw time; longer draw times equal more power but also, well, longer draw times. Hence why I went for the perk Archer's Tempo, which decreases draw time as you land precision hits. It also has the Dragonfly perk, a flashy ability I like probably more than it deserves, which causes enemies killed with precision hits to explode into AoE elemental damage. Bows are a lot of fun, occupying the middle ground between Auto Rifles and Sniper Rifles that Scout Rifles were supposed to fill, and given how lousy I am with snipers if I need to land precision hits I'll usually go for a bow instead.

In-universe, what's the explanation for Guardians suddenly getting into bows? It's because of the events of Forsaken and the Guardian push into the Tangled Shore and Dreaming City i.e. into more regular contact with the Awoken, for whom it's a culturally-significant weapon - something like a claymore to a Scot or a katana to the Japanese. More pragmatically when the Awoken first returned to our solar system and settled in the lashed-together space derelict habitats of the Reef they faced the problem of using weapons inside said space habitats as well as launching cables and small satellites. Their solution was bows: strong enough to fly far, carry payloads, and deal damage, but unlikely to pierce a hull and far easier to manufacture than firearms. Awoken Corsairs still use bows as near-silent precision weapons in actual combat, relying on technologically-advanced payloads to deal the real damage. Or not so advanced - Sjur Eido puts a broadhead arrow through an inch of Guardian plate armor with little more than determination, skill, and the properties of whatever magical material Wish-Ender is made from.

Tigerspite / Age-Old Bond

Type: Auto Rifle / Auto Rifle

Slot: Kinetic / Energy (Void)

Perks: Outlaw+Kill Clip / Rampage+Fourth Time's The Charm

Kills: 14623 / 11863

Though they come from different sources in-game, I’ve grouped these two together because they’re both Awoken weapons. Age-Old Bond (Circadian Chill shader) drops from the first encounter of the Last Wish raid while Tigerspite (Night’s Chill shader) comes from activities in the Dreaming City. I love both of these weapons and use them all the time even when they’re not ideal for the situation at hand. Tigerspite, like the rest of the Dreaming City weapon set, has an elven high-fantasy style featuring cloth wrappings (?) and long, sinuous curves. The Last Wish raid set has a similar aesthetic but goes for a combination of carved-bone paneling and animated celestial diagrams that recall Awoken tech displays.

Fun lore note: Tigerspite is one of the few non-exotics to be mentioned by name in the lore. Sjur Eido selects a Tigerspite for one round of her duel with Uldren Sov back in the Distributary. It gets referenced again as a standard Awoken weapon after their return to our solar system, so it’s had quite the service life. Tigerspite’s stats were superseded a while ago by newer auto rifles but I love its sights and feel and keep using it anyway. Outlaw (faster reload on precision kill) and Kill Clip (increased damage immediately after reloading after a kill) are a classic weapon perk combo that’s always in season. Also I’m pretty sure a cat gave me this gun. Not a cat-cat, a Dreaming Kitty, one of the nine adorable stone cat statues hidden in the Dreaming City. While doing Dreaming City activities you’ll sometimes pick up an item called “A Small Gift,” a dish of something that “smells faintly of mint.” Since catnip is a member of the mint family, that’s your hint to bring that gift to your nearest Dreaming Kitty. Doing so rewards a weapon and causes the chosen statue to disappear. I’m pretty sure the first or second kitty I ever found gave me this specific gun, which just seems appropriate given its name.

Age-Old Bond is a special weapon to me. It comes from the first fight of the Last Wish raid, an encounter with the Taken Techeun Kalli, the Corrupted, and was the first fight I ever completed with my informal raid crew named “World’s Worst Fireteam.” Last Wish released at 550-590 light at a time when most Guardians were still trying to crack 530 and thus could barely handle redbars on raid day one. We were like most Guardians. But we were unlike most Guardians in being stupid and stubborn, and so we went into the raid anyway, because if we couldn’t get World First, we could still get World’s Worst. We never had a chance at the full raid, but after great struggle and great teamwork we finally managed to bring down Kalli and net ourselves our first Last Wish raid drops. For me that drop was this specific auto rifle - which is not just sentimental, but actually special. Some legendary weapons in Destiny have “curated” rolls, perk and stat combinations chosen by Bungie to be top-tier if not the best possible. Anytime you get a weapon drop you have the chance to get a curated drop instead, which comes fully-masterworked with those chosen perks. Age-Old Bond’s curated roll was the only one at the time with the new Fourth Time’s The Charm perk; when you land four rapid precision hits (they don't have to be sequential) it refunds two rounds directly back to the magazine. This does more than you might think for the weapon’s versatility, since if you’re pouring fire into a single target’s crit spot (i.e. a boss) it effectively gives the weapon 50% more clip i.e. a solid 48 rounds before you have to reload. It won’t replace a Heavy or high-DPS weapon anytime soon, but it’s pretty handy in a tight spot. The other perks on the curated roll max out Age-Old Bond’s range stat compared to other auto rifles, one of the dump stats of that archetype, and with a Counterbalance Stock mod to reduce recoil it’s practically a trace rifle.

I do favor these five weapons, but I also try to mix it up - I picked these five based on my top kill counts, but that biases it towards Y2 guns that have been in service longer. Plenty of newer weapons routinely turn up in my loadout these days: the pleasant chatter and Demolitionist perks of Outlast, Full Court/Field Prep Love and Death, the delightful new kinetic bow Accrued Redemption, Shaxx's broke-ass Crucible pinnacle weapon The Recluse, last season's snappy Patron of Lost Causes, the 600 RPM bullet-hose Arc Logic, and of course the reliable, venerable Y1 IKELOS shotgun. But in the end the only wrong loadout is one you don't enjoy, and the best choice is whatever you find the most fun.

[pokemonpundit]

So I’ve been doing another weird run in Omega Ruby again, and I wanted to document some of it because I keep thinking about it a lot. I decided to take after my in-game father and become the master of normal-types. Here were my rules:

I can only keep one from each evolution line ending in a normal-type Pokemon. 

(There are 12 such lines in Omega Ruby: Linoone, Swellow, Slaking, Exploud, Delcatty, Spinda, Zangoose, Wigglytuff, Castform, Kecleon, Girafarig, and Dodrio. While Swablu and Azurill are also normal-types, they don’t evolve into normal-types and so were left off this list. You could try this in Alpha Sapphire, but then you don’t get Zangoose)

If my Pokemon feints, it dies and must be released.

Battle Style -> set

Exp. Share -> off

No o-powers

No anything that requires connecting to another device.

Since it’s necessary, I will permit one non-normal-type Pokemon to be an HM-slave (I ended up with a Tentacool), because the only normal-types that can learn Dive are Bibarel and Arceus, neither of which are in this game. It can never be sent out in battle though.

Here were the results:

So when I started this run, some things became immediately apparent. Since all your Pokemon are at least half-normal-type, most of them are weak to fighting which instantly makes any fighting types you encounter way more scary.

Rock-types and steel-types are also annoying, since they resist your stab moves. Ghost-types might be immune to you, but you are also immune to ghost-types, so those battles end up rather fair.

Another thing is that since your Pokemon can never faint, it’s best to try and make them have defensive sets of moves and stats; Those specialized for attacking don’t live very long.

Roxanne seemed like she would be difficult, but Whismur comes with Echoed Voice, which just keeps increasing in power. After the 5th+ consecutive use, it’s at 200 power, and it barely matters that her Pokemon resist. Brawly also seemed like he’d be quite a task, but Taillow’s flying moves made short work of him.

My first death was my Whismur against a Carvanha in the soda shop that knew Focus Energy. I have learned to fear that move, because this is not the only Pokemon that eventually dies from it. Just bumping your crit rate up to 1/2 might not sound that great, but when you’re not allowed to faint ever it becomes really scary. 

My Taillow died trying to switch into the Winstrate Grandma’s Meditite.

Watson’s gym was nothing against the stupid good special defense of my Delcatty.

I caught a Spinda on route 113, taught it some moves via TM, then sent it into battle against a hiker. The hiker sent out Geodude and so I was like “well ground-type moves beat rock-types so this would be a good time to use the dig move I just taught it”. The Geodude used Magnitude. *sigh* Welp, bye Spinda.

The next 4 gyms went very easily, then my Linoone managed to die because of its own Double-Edge, and my Zangoose and my Delcatty both died shortly after because of Maxie’s Crobat’s Acrobatics. Always liked that move.

For those counting, you would know I only have 6 Pokemon remaining, which makes things even more tense because another death means I don’t even have a full team, but lucky me the rest of the game was rather uneventful until the Elite Four.

Before I start the Elite Four, let’s look at my champions.

Once Slakoth evolves into Vigoroth and loses that horrible Truant ability, it become amazing. It has a self-healing move, and can learn both Bulk Up and Amnesia, which makes it really easy to sweep entire teams with it. 

Once it was of level to evolve into Slaking, I decided not to do it, because I really didn’t want that ability back. At least this means I can give it the eviolite and have it be even more of a defensive beast. The singular attacking move gets switched out when I feel like it.

Named after the activity it is literally incapable of doing since it became a Vigoroth.

Similar to Vigoroth, Girafarig just collects a giant bundle of stat buffs before anything else. Sometimes, I switched out Double Team with an actual attacking move like Psychic, but mostly I just Baton Pass into Kecleon or Castform.

Named after that weird Giraffe from Madagascar.

Castform surprised me with how powerful it was. Not only does weather ball become 100 power under any kind of weather, but the weather also helps you and the move is also a stab move. Along with a decent special attack and probable type advantage, Castform can mostly ohko anything that isn’t a water-type.

Named after the water-molecule protagonist of some game I have for the Wii called Dewy’s Adventure.

It took a bit, but I wanted a Kecleon with Protean ability, and the Dexnav also provided one with nasty plot. So I built a special Kecleon, because most of my Pokemon were physical attackers at the time. The three attacking moves are swapped out with whatever seems appropriate at the moment

Named after the chameleon from Tangled.

I was never quite happy with Wigglytuff’s move set, but it did it’s job of being a tank. It’s high health was good, and reflect would fix it’s low-physical defense. Its main job was using its typing and Dazzling Gleam to get rid of annoying fighting-types.

Named after the other super tough pink puff.

Dodrio was probably the best attacker on my team, but it only really comes out when I’m in trouble. Always super worried about it dying, because there are no more replacements. It can ohko many things with Return and Drill Peck. It mostly just functions as my team mascot.

Named after... you know.

On to the Elite Four!

My Vigoroth set up Bulk Up+Amnesia against Sydney’s Mightyena, then swept the entire team with Brick Break. I tried to do the same thing against Phoebe by swapping Brick Break with Shadow Claw, but Dusclops has Curse, which meant I had to keep switching to shake off the curses until the Dusclops killed itself and Sableye was sent out, which doesn’t have Curse.

The battle against Glacia was probably the longest and stupidest battle of the entire run. Castform and Glalie were having an argument about what the weather was, Kecleon was trying to use Thunderbolt to convince Glacia to waste all her full restores on Walrein, Wigglytuff and Girafarig switched out of Froslass’ confuse ray what felt like ten thousand times. It was some glorious madness.

Drake was comparatively easy. Girafirig can set up Calm Mind and Agility against the Altaria, Baton Pass to Castform, which can Hail and then Weather Ball - Ice to sweep the whole team.

Vigoroth couldn’t set up against Steven’s Skarmory because of Toxic, but once Kecleon got rid of it with Thunderbolt, Vigoroth was able to setup against Aggron and sweep the whole team as usual.

And that’s everything. It was pretty fun, and I got to try some Pokemon I wouldn’t have had a reason to use otherwise. I mean, when am I ever going to use Castform again.

Anyway, if you actually got this far, thanks for reading I guess. I just had all these thoughts in my head about the run and wanted to write them down somewhere, but I’d be glad if in interested someone for a couple minutes.

[yourplayersaidwhat]

so my brother in law wanted to go on a side quest for his pathfinder homegame, for a perfectly ordinary, but very expensive, emerald necklace. he needed one more player, so I offered to help.

so there’s my bard, his magus, and his two friends first level fighter and sorcerer.

we explored the town, found that despite being almost completely abandoned, this tiny-ass town had a horde of zombies, choker vines everywhere, a cult, and a motherfucking dragon.

We destroyed the choker vines, avoided the zombies, had tea with the cultists. We also found the emerald.

brother-in-law: “before we leave, where is the dragon?”

cultist tells him it lives in this old, ruined keep with no top at the edge of town. where we go, because apparently, I’m slow on the uptake.

Me: “wait. why are we going there?”

Brother-in-law: “because we haven’t killed the dragon”

Me: “… why do we need to kill the dragon?”

Brother-in-law: “well, dragons have hordes.”

Me: “and will continue to have it with more satisfaction when we are dead?”

Brother-in-law: “I don’t care what you do, but I’m going.”

Me (thinking): oh my god. I’m the healer you moron! how am I supposed to just let you do that??

Me: “fine, I’ll go die with you.”

So we go in, and I attempt to talk the dragon out of his horde- which goes over better than expected.

GM (my dad, for reference): “roll sense motive”

my bard: 18

GM: “ you think if you give it the emerald it will let you leave.”

Brother-in-law: “Nope” attacks the dragon.

initiative hits, no one counts as surprised here and the dragon rolls a 2.

I immediately roll up a intimidate check and because it is my character’s specialty, I shake the dragon for four rounds, then the squishies and I fall back to the human-sized part of the structure and let the magus tangle with the lizard.

the magus starts of with a crit, and confirms it. the dragon pulls a full round but only hits once. the following three rounds the magus does near max damage, and the dragon continues to miss for the sake of bad die rolls. Meanwhile, me and the sorcerer are taking what pot-shots we can through the archway.

over all, it goes well, but even with the dragon missing like crazy, Brother-in-law’s magus is being torn up badly.

Brother-in-law: “so can we withdraw-”

Me: “No, we can’t because we had to come into the dragon’s lair and now we are stuck with it because the motherfucker has wings. Now fight the lizard.”

finally the dragon decides it’s sick of how hard it is to hit and climbs up the wall out of the magus reach.

the magus casts an ranged spell, makes spell resist

DM: “okay, it’s dead”

Me: “wait, really? but no one’s dead”

DM: “yup because my dice are mutinous bastards. one more round and you’d have been dead- it was climbing over to go collapse the roof on you”

Brother-in-law: “See, <my name>, it was fine. we-”

Me: “shush. this was luck we should be dead. let’s find it’s horde and leave.”

DM: “you don’t find it- it’s no where in the keep.”

Me: frustrated “well that’s great. then we leave. No, I’m not healing you till tomorrow.”

then we fought 20 cultists. they killed the 1st lv fighter. I blame the ninny that asked the dragon cultist where the dragon was.