#idk who the two guys from the original meme are btw let me know if you know ig

[maydays-big-day]

Based on:

[ehbunnehsblog]

So I am gonna be putting a compilation of parts of the PPG script here and mind you I have never seen the original so I can't comment on a lot but yes I might criticize some parts cause this is so bad. So first off as you can tell drugs are going to be involved in this because if you want an adult show ya need drugs kids fuck just fighting some bad guys let's make a show that was about kids now talk about drugs and be controversial just like if they were a Disney star.

Here is a good one right here like wtf does this even mean? Buttercup was straight I believe in the original and I get they made her to be lesbian which is fine but it feels like a slap in the face to the original like how tf was Craig supposed to know she was actually lesbian??? Lmfao! I can just see them in a dark room while she says this. Like I get how this fits the show but while it does it also is a slap in the face to the original.

Remind you that in the original these girls were kids. Imma say it now I am sex positive I am weed positive if you do that hey whatever that's great but I hate how these shows have to add sex and drugs and partying in. You know those relatable tweets people see online? That's the vibes I am getting it's trying way to hard to sound relatble and to be raunchy but like barely anyone would actually talk like this. Shows don't have to have sex, drugs or partying to be adult but CW here thinks this is what it is but hey they are just from Hollywood so of course they probably wouldn't know what people that aren't from there are actually like.

Let's tackle the first one first okay. Why are they making characters who were young before so oversexulized it's so weird and now the second part WHY TF WOULD YOU EVEN PUT THAT IN THERE???? Sorry but this is so bad who the hell wrote this who needed that? Really who needed to have that part? Sorry but it gets worse but all of these write like a 15 year old writing fanfic but these got taken down so this is most likely real and if it is that person should probably be fired. If people wanna make a remake they should know what the fans want but it feels like they didn't. We couldn't save Winx club from being destroyed so hopefully we can save this one.

Ughhh honestly that's all NEXT!

Oh god of course let's put in politics because people aren't miserable enough. Honestly as someone who likes shows, movies etc. I can watch a movie with politics but I also like watching them to get away from politics. I am sick of politics and I assume PPG was so sweet where people watch it to get away from politics.

This looks like something the Onion would write like this part would be good if it wasn't about PPG.

Whyyyy omg okay heres the thing on the internet this is fine but in a show this is gonna age terribly like don't make Harambe jokes or any memes pretty sure Harambe is an old meme anyways so it already aged badly. Look at Bubbles and her white self talking about whitewashing even though she is white and Buttercup was white in the cartoon but oh no Craig is wrong and he actually is the bad guy who whitewashed fuck off CW you aren't better you must be jealous people would prefer to watch something that's actually good than whatever this crap is. Also the black people I have talked to hate how they made Buttercup why? Because of stereotypes they made the aggressive one black. They say they wanna be diverse but than look racist. Also another stereotype is that if you are a tomboy you must like girls so they made Buttercup have two stereotypes which btw it's fine to be a tomboy and like girls but it's a big stereotype that if you are a tomboy whether you like girls, guys, both, neither etc you must be a lesbian which isn't always true.

Sorry for the amount of swearing but this writing is awful and just all of it needs to be thrown out and CW needs to stop and fire these people. I get that Y2K is very popular but this isn't what people asked for or wanted and if they wanna bring back an old and beloved show this isn't how you do it. Idk what they did but they really should have talked to fans of the series or just made a cutesy and girly remake. Idk why and I talked about this in my last PPG post but CW must really dislike feminine and girly things feminine and girly things are usually seen as less and aren't always appreciated as much as more masculine things and don't get me wrong some of those feminine things suck but seeing it from a company feels worse because it's actually making the change that feminine and girly can't be a thing and than they make it all about sex, drugs and partying and very adult and heres the thing I am 19 almost 20 and I might be too old to others to like girly things and cutesy shows maybe but it's fine to be older and like to like more feminine, girly and cutesy things. This script definitely makes me want to watch the original.

☆If you liked this post pls give it a like and follow me I post a lot of stuff about nostalgia☆

[legionofpotatoes]

alright here’s ma thoughts on that flick I mentioned

we hatewatched a*my of the dead because we were CONVINCED “zombies in las vegas” would be an impossible concept to screw up, but in so assuming we obviously invoked a holy wager with the universe and got reminded, once again, that hoping for improvement from someone who’s dependably put out bad art is never a wise choice 😐

but we were honestly kinda roped in by the marketing??? and expected a goofy fast-paced flick with the odd traditional undead metaphor thrown in, framing some sort of relationship drama maybe or hell even nothing at all! we’d have taken pure indulgent storytelling, idk italian job with zombies in las vegas, I don’t know fucking anything but??? whatever this was???? spoilers below for it is time for One Of My Rants

I mean the main reason I really want to write all this and complain. this film here probably has the most unappealing cinematography I have ever experienced in my life and that is saying something. who the fuck signed off on that CONSTANT shallow-ass depth of field that imprisons your eyeline and turns every shot into bokeh paste???? and I mean every shot almost!!!! I promise if you think I am overreacting just throw a dart at the seek bar and watch twenty seconds from wherever it lands. it is horrifying to look at. at least it gave my girlfriend a good visual shorthand for what it’s like when I lose my glasses

why was sean spicer in this movie. did they pay him to be here. was sean spicer paid hollywood money for his scene in this film because fuck everyone who was involved in that decision

the legitimately baffling hints at the extraterrestrial origins of the infection that went absolutely nowhere and had no dramatic or plot-level bearing. we love to see the franchise sprouts fellas

yet another big budget waste of everything hiroyuki sanada has to offer. and bautista too I guess? I like him but man was this an odd career move

what was the crux of his conflict/resolution with his daughter btw. I understand it was rooted in miscommunication over their forms of grief irt mom but uhh… it was all rather clunky and didn’t land for me. I tried I really tried to buy in but something was wrong fundamentally with the groundwork there, it did not click and their catharsis felt unearned. I know there’s massive amounts of tragic baggage being projected there from the author so I’m not slapping any judgment down really;

but again it would be an easy thing to wave off if they just had a vibrant cast of lovable simpletons with good chemistry and the kinetic sense of plotting the trailers promised (and this premise never discounts good drama, either). but instead it was just two and a half (!) hours of meandering into situations the filmmaking instincts had no idea how to flow in and out of

to wit. I know talking about “bad pacing” is associated with armchair bullshit but consider the example of the scene were dieter does an out of nowhere little dance after childishly screaming but then still-killing a zombie, with the film framing this as a micro character triumph, and not a second later the bg soundtrack instantly fades into an orchestral score dramatizing a nearby mcguffin reveal, completely 180 degreeing the tone without a semblance of deft insert shot stitching or even I dont know a fucking jump cut maybe. now imagine this whiplash for 2.5 hrs uninterrupted

I will keep complaining about the length yeah because this was not a story requiring this much real estate to be told. Uhh in my humble and personal opinion, of course

[man sees zombie tiger] “this is crossing the line!” you can in fact write dialogue that is not utter nonsense that falls apart once you drill down its single fickle layer of referential meta winking. what line are you talking about. you have rules in this insane situation you’re in? total nitpick moment I know but it got burned in my brain for some reason. like a microcosm of the mismanaged dramatic instincts paired with weird writing that dots this movie. I am sure the director calls this either satire or genre deconstruction. I am SO sure

tumblr domino meme that goes from “dude getting sucked off while driving” to “entire las vegas literally nuked”

tig notaro is always great to see but once you know she’s been filmed as a separate greenscreen plate months after photography wrapped - cause she had to apparently replace some abusive asshole but that’s a whole other pig not worth fucking - it becomes impossible to unsee her odd detachment from everyone else in the movie lmao. it doesn’t really “ruin” anything on its lonesome but it is hard to unsee

why. was. sean. spicer. in. this. movie

a very simple key ingredient missing from fully turning lip service sympathy for main uruk hai dude into actual empathy that would generate meaningful conflict with hero family would be to spend a bit more time articulating what he internally wanted the most. because he was obviously trying to do something here with pointed agenda. a family, to have kids, build a caste system, save his wife’s head, return to his planet??? all of these could represent the bigger context in his psychology that spurred his vengeance but none of them are dramatically emphasized long enough for you to cheer him on. I’m not asking too much I promise. Articulating interiority of a mute character is pretty doable with deft cinema language, just gotta linger and hold a shot here and there for a few seconds, frame as his POV, donezo. I know this is also one of those like. “who cares” moments but the movie does, very evidently so, in making this guy an actual character. you can kinda piece it together and create a framework of sympathy for him, sure, but then again he ultimately becomes a foil to be killed and not defeated, so. Ehh whatever

quarantine zone stuff was not a wildly childish covid allegory quarantine zone stuff was not a wildly childish covid allegory quarantine zone stuff was n

the rooftop helicopter fakout at the end was such an ass-backwards, manufactured moment of what could be a simple setup/payoff it just pissed me off??? you gain nothing by giving sad dad five seconds of pointless crisis that flips right back to previous status quo ANYWAY, except for a weaksauce waste of runtime, which could be used instead to get inside notaro’s head and actually SHOW the remorse form as she took off, literally maybe even a frown playing on her face as she’s headed for safety right before we cut back to drax and the kid. just a simple-ass, minimal, momentary setup for what is the most basic filmmaking trick of creating macro catharsis moments. Just???? g o d if you can’t even land that shit why are you even doing any of this

that lil run final pam did was very very charming and super choreographed in a way that was the tiiiniest bit overdone

the whole intro with the simul-backstories and posing with family photos was just… oddly motivated. what was the goal? “here’s what we’re fighting for” vignettes? why? it’s not a functional setup in that vein. what was all that

also I am sorry if this is insensitive but the reasons most characters end up articulating to justify going back into the hell that destroyed their lives makes them sound seriously insane

I dont like complaining about CGI (honestly) but so much of it in modern movies can achieve higher fidelity if the animation is simply subdued. Do not overengineer and over-apply 2D cell methodologies and kinematics to each tiny twitch and movement in a hyper 3D model and I promise you. it will look a thousand times more natural. look at thanos in those last two movies. your rendering and detail are absolutely perfect with the tiger you just have to let stuff sit instead of constantly simulating swaying hair strands and firing off all facial muscles at once. great moment at one point where makeup zombie horse and CG zombie tiger are both in one shot together and just by unnecessary amounts of movement alone you can tell who doesn’t belong. again; detail, rendering, compositing, lighting, all picture-perfect; but y’all just gotta let the animation breathe sometimes, and chill it out

plot holes don’t really matter to me but it was kinda funny how lilly decided not to mention the enormous wrinkle in intel pertaining to an actual territorial tribe of intelligent zombies that require human offerings to let you pass, just so that reveal could play out in real time through the joyous punishment of the cartoonishly misogynistic dude

total chad move for mister uruk hai and final pam to rule from a rusted swimming pool complex

the ending with vanderohe oh my god. with the. cash stacks at the airport register. and specifically them working in his favor. that is literally something you do to get arrested under suspicion of theft. it was almost played for laughs and I respect that. coulda been goofier. make these movies goofy ya dorks

anyway, weird, weird movie. bad marketing. message unclear (something something sins of the father???), baffling editing instincts, literal worst-looking cinematography I ever laid eyes upon. Confidently dying on that last hill

[annebrontesrequiem]

Higurashi Gou Ep. 7 Thoughts

Spoilers for both 2020 Higurashi, 2006 Higurashi, Higurashi Kai, and the manga. These spoilers will become more pronounced the more episodes I watch, You have been warned.

Again, please pay attention to that spoiler warning. I basically spoiled the end of the first series (as in the end of Kai/all the manga/I mean the VN but I’ve never played it). Anyways, HERE WE GO!!! Also this one is LONG because I have so many thoughts.

Okay guys here we go! This was the kind of perfect episode I wanted from this show. I was seriously blown away by it (and we aren’t even at the murder), so much so I rewatched it the next day. Now I have to put the bulletpoints of thoughts in my head into something vaguely coherent. So let’s try!

The first part I want to touch on is Takano explaining the story of the demons. This part I was first of all glad they kept the sketchy style, but secondly I was a bit confused as the original story is that Oyashiro-sama sacrificed themselves for the people of Hinamizawa, then Onigafuchi, and that was... that. I could ne misremembering, I forgot to reread that part in the manga, but either way it was of note. I guess more proof of Takano’s infallibility. More importantly, at least to me since the series isn’t over and they could explain the disconnect later, this scene was great atmospherically. Not the best, but very good. Keichii VA is really talented gotta throw that out there (no I haven’t seen the dub). Oh also his “you’re lying!” was good, although I do think Studio Deen was better at getting the Higurashi face to look more distorted. Oh well I like the new animation style it doesn’t bug me.

Next is Shion knocking off the statue head. I cannot be the only one that noticed a very deliberate slit in the base of the statue. That combined with it already being broken... I think something’s in the statue. This is a theory and a pretty random one so I’m just throwing it out there and leaving it at that. Also Takano def took something.

Next is our pal Ooishi. Am I the only one who feels he comes off much creepier in this version. I mean it might be because by the end of Kai/the end of the original manga we’ve gotten a super intimate look into his life and the guilt he feels and how it manifests in his obsession with this supposed curse. But in the scene with Keichii... he’s just so creepy. In that like oh my god old man get away from me. Still that scene was pretty good. Although the timeline and the fact they’re already asking after Takano and Tomitake seems a bit odd. I know that unlike the original Cotton Drifting arc they stole a van (Is this Tomitake getting held up or getting inject with Hinamizawa Syndrome I wonder) but still it seems very soon to the viewer and a bit... rushed? Idk I think people asking after it the day after works better. Anyways.

Oh also interesting how dialogue keeps getting shifted. For example in the original Ooishi is the one who brings up Mion and Shion aren’t even wearing the same clothes. I hope they aren’t changes for changes sake but it also did bug me, just something I noticed when I reread the manga.

Anyways now we really start getting to it. The phone scene between Shion and Keichii was an 11/10 scene for me, I thought it was spectacular. Again Keichii’s VA is amazing (so is Shion’s btw not forgetting her, she’s great at being understated in a way that makes everything creepier). And the animation wasn’t as out there as the original but I still felt a sense of claustrophobia. I think it’s the way everything’s shot super close in frame before having a wideshot with Keichii and Shion alone in their relative spaces, it gives this great feeling of being watched. I really thought the phone scene was going to be the highlight of the episode and discounting the shock factor of Rika’s later stuff it prolly is. On rewatch it hit just as hard.

This is getting obnoxiously long so let’s get to the end and talk about Rika. Her pulling a Bernkastel and just snapping on Keichii was so unexpected I half laughed in shock (also another reason you should watch the original first it wouldn’t be so offputting if you didn’t assume she said she was going to protect the kittens). I could meme on this scene, hell I already have, but honestly it’s so good. Again great angles and voice work. The way Rika looms over Keichii, who’s shadowed by her, just gives this huge sense of tension and powerlessness and Rika’s adult(/Bernkastel gonna keep name dropping my fav) voice is really great at this dejected apathy. I love it 11/10. Also of note this really makes me doubt this is a sequel. I mean I always doubted it cause Rika would just repeat what she did in the last arc (Festival Arc?) and win again, which she’s not doing, but more importantly for this episode she says Takano’s dead. Unless one of the kids went on a VERY preemptive murder spree which included taking down not only two adults but all of Takano’s “dogs” Rika doesn’t know Takano is the orchestrator behind her murder. Safe to say I’m confused.

This episode was so amazing I can’t get over it. The slow pacing of this show (slower than the last this episode ends at like the quarter mark of the last manga volume for this arc) really helps ratchet up the tension when stuff happens. But also WHAT’S GONNA HAPPEN NOW? I’m gonna sleep but we’ll know in 2 hours!

Hope you liked this review and see you soon with the next episode!

[superjaegerbros]

i saw you mention floch in one of your gabi posts and can i just say, i love him? like i literally have no idea why, he’s such an asshole imo. and he’s only become more of a dick as time goes on, and yet. i love him? i think it’s funny he’s still alive at this point, and part of me wants to see him die for the memes. originally i hated him so much, that it somehow turned into love. same thing happened to gabi and reiner, but they also had more development. tldr, floch is great but idk why

part 2:

there is also a 3rd ask though, which is empty...

???

maybe you wrote something more but tumblr didn’t show it to me? if that’s the case, let me know. or if someone knows what this could be pls let me know as well.

ok, so.

apologies to everyone in advance, this will be long

this is, i think, the most interesting ask i have gotten in ages. you can’t imagine how much i like everything you wrote here, thank you for sharing it with me!

with the shit i see every day it seems so rare to find people who are so ..open-minded with fiction. feels strange to write that down but idk how else to describe it. and tbh i was lowkey hoping someone will mention floch so that i can find a chance to say IT’S OKAY TO LIKE HIM. i guess i’m a coward for not making a post on my own. you CAN say you love him anon, it’s totally cool, i support you all the way. ❤️ and even the fact that you don’t know exactly why is absolutely valid!! i would accept anything, “i like him because he causes chaos”, “i like him because he has a cool character design/he’s beautiful”. anything is fine. you think i was waiting for zeke’s deep backstory to make him my number 1? i saw him in chapter 70 in his full glory and i was like “well damn you’re my mans now”. who cares? enjoy the story however you like, you don’t owe an explanation to anyone and don’t have to prove anything either. this is exactly why i hate these moral olympics in the fandom, so many people have a complex of wanting their favourite characters to be flawless gods who can do no wrong. and so they reach and twist and bend the story so much in order to justify every single thing. really sad if you ask me. anyways.

in that gabi ask i said that floch is a character we are meant to dislike right? well the key word is ‘meant’. it doesn’t mean we must. i actually liked him very much at the beginning. i was impressed with how he talked back at the 104th and i though ‘finally, here’s a different pov’. in time though he became too absolutist for my liking but i still see how he is important. there are many floch-type characters in other stories that i’ve liked from beginning to end though. i find it very interesting that you hated floch so much and ended up loving him! sometimes there’s a thin line between these two you know? and i appreciate that you love him with full awareness that he’s a mean guy and you’re cool with the memes too. i think isayama did actually try to add some humour on the fact that he kept floch alive in 124 and kind of went:

so yeah, floch is great. you may keep liking him just cause until the end or you may suddenly find a reason or we may learn something about him that will make you like him even more. who knows. what i know is that you win because you seem to have fun with the story while others are fuming 💅

and as for gabi and reiner, once again, valid! btw, you say that gabi is not your type of character. same for me. i like her now more than ever but she is still not within my favourite characters in this series. i defended her against those haters of course because as you said she is growing and we grow to love her. i understand your initial reaction. i was thrown off both by her introduction and by her shooting sasha but it doesn’t take much to see why/how she acts the way she does. and omg the fact that reiner is your favourite character ever now!! 😭❤️ that progress is so beautiful! personally, i always liked him but after marley arc ...x1000, he’s only slightly below zeke.

thank you so much again, you made my day!

[myladyofsilver]

This is Constance. She started as a magical girl and ended up as a French painter who uses crutches to walk. Constance - or Connie - is also a Miraculous Ladybug OC because, when I got on my Obsessive Bullshit, didn’t have the motivation to make another OC and I though “Underdeveloped magical girl? Sure, I can use this.”

She actually wasn’t supposed to use a wheelchair or crutches, but I read a fic with a disabled Marinette and I liked the idea so here we are.

She is also a fashion designer, that was there before Miraculous, and is a painter.

She has a harem and I am ashamed. I just really like harem fics lol.

Connie originally had twin tails and brown hair, but I liked the black hair better and wanted it down, though she probably ends up cutting it to her shoulders.

Idk why she’s so pale all my white girls are pale oops

She’s a quarter Chinese and three quarters French.

She has nice arms because of her crutches and pushing her wheelchair,

She’s a little religious, she likes to pray and carries a rosary, a gift from her mother.

Connie smokes, and it’s entirely Death’s Fault.

She’s a little fucked up I guess? She’s a kleptomaniac and (even though she’s technically disabled(?)) is often hired to break into old homes to steal shit. She fakes a panic disorder in canon to have a reason to be missing during Akuma attacks.

Constance has aquaphobia from nearly drowning because her parents were too busy arguing. Constance doesn’t like to speak to men out of fear and can be considered selectively mute and uses sign language.

Speaking of her parents, her mother is dead. Her father is in an asylum/prison for killing her. Her father went insane after her baby sister, Ambre, was a stillborn and he murdered her mother and beat her. She now lives with her older half-sisters Kara, Death, and later Verity. They are a part of a larger universe that I’ll explain in a later post. Her aunt also lives with her, but she doesn’t last long.

Constance also picked up schizophrenia and it is completely her father’s fault.

Constance shows signs of PTSD from watching her mother die and her father’s abuse.

Constance is a descendent of a Guardian that survived Feast, and has passive magic.

Personality- she’s flirty and denies it left and right, even though she flirts with everything that moves. She’s a manipulative asshole who uses tears to get what she wants, but is nowhere near as bad as Lila, and is vengeful, swearing to hunt Hawkmoth down for interrupting her flirting abusing the Miraculous. She’s protective and will not hesitate bitch try me Kagami. Better social skills than Adrien (no high road shit) but is apathetic to other’s feelings and only cares when she befriends them. She sugarcoats things but won’t hesitate to cut to the chase when she’s short on time or is just fed up. While she is manipulative, she does understand that being a bitch and hurting others will get you nowhere in life, and is quick to jump to the aid of her friends. She’s intelligent science and artistically wise, but not so much maths and people wise. Constance is secretive, knows she has to live another day and often doesn’t take risks unless absolutely necessary, and likes touch, holding hands or draping herself over others with their consent. Religious but only really prays because it makes her feel better, she does believe in God but not in Heaven or Hell. She really hates pushy guys and people who touch her without permission. She's really creative and wakes up in the middle of night to start a painting or a sketch.

Constance is taken in by her half-sisters in Eden (country I made, later post) when she is around seven, returns to Paris she is when she is eleven and meets Chloe, and become Lady Dove when she is twelve.

OK ACTUAL PLOT NOW

This happens in the middle of the summer break, and Constance is in Paris for the first time in years. She is twelve and skips a grade.

Constance breaks into an abandoned home for Fiona, a client and later possible SO, to find an old heirloom. Constance breaks in through a window and finds some weird shit (weird spell books in code, diaries) and is seriously creeped out, but Kara didn’t raise no bitch so she keeps going, she’s seen creepier in Eden anyways.

Constance (on her crutches) goes upstairs and finds a room with a shine dedicated to a cameo. She picks it up because hey, it’s free real estate.

The cameo is a Miraculous, The Dove Miraculous of Restoration.

Constance freaks and thinks she’s hallucinating and Meme, the Kwami, snaps her out of it, and explains. Constance transforms into Lady Dove.

It’s a lame name but hey, I like it.

In Origins, Lady Dove only appears in Part Two of Origins, because Constance just doesn’t care and thinks that Ladybug can handle restoring the city and cleansing the Akuma. When Ivan/Stoneheart is at the top of the Eiffel Tower and spits out the mass of butterflies, Ladybug manages to get most of the Akumas and panics when they try to escape and get someone, Lady Dove uses a cleansing spell (learned from the tomes) to get the rest and makes her debut.

Also, in this mess Ladybug can only cleanse the Akuma and not restore the city, Lady Dove does that. Meme didn’t tell her that and only said something after the first Stoneheart.

She steals part of Ladybug’s role lol whoops.

Lady Dove cleanses Ivan’s Akuma, restores the city, and sleeps because that’s the first time she used the restoration spell and she’s fucking tired.

That’s Lady Dove, now to Constance.

Constance joins at the same time as Alya, and is Chloe’s friend. She gets mad at Chloe for being rude and scolds her in front of the whole damn class. Chloe get pissed and Constance gives up and just starts flirting with her to make her shut up. Marinette and Alya still end up with different seats and Constance sits in front in her wheelchair and pouts.

Constance tries to talk down Alya in the library and fails miserably.

Watches the fight on the news but otherwise doesn’t do shit

Meme begins her explanation of Miracle Boxes, potions, unification, and Feast. Meme explains that the runes she had Constance draw all around the house were to hide them as long as they stayed inside.

(Second Day) She gets mad at Adrien but is finds out what happened from Sabrina, but doesn’t say anything, deciding it wasn’t her problem. She sits with Chloe and fakes a panic attack to escape, realizing that Ladybug didn’t get the Akuma and god fucking damnit Alya. Lady Dove debuts.

(Third Day) Constance manipulates Chloe into letting her sit with some else, quoting Sabrina’s and Chloe’s strong friendship and how she wants to make more friends. Honestly probably just says she doesn’t want to sit in the front and gets mad when Chloe tries to get others to move. She sits with Chloe and Sabrina at lunch and occasionally in class when she doesn’t want to sit in her wheelchair or the second row.

Constance asks Alya and Marinette if she can join them in the second row, is accepted because she stood up to Chloe, flirts with Marinette, and probably sleeps through class or just flirts because goddamnit I want this bitch to have a harem.

When Adrien arrives, Constance greets him a little coldly but doesn’t ignore him.

She witnesses the umbrella scene and teases Marinette for falling head over heels with him.

MIRACLE BOX

Later on in the week, Constance's aunt dies in a crash. She receives her first Miracle Box, which is the one Meme belongs to because fuck you.

I want a kwami reunion scene with Constance in the background crying for her aunt but being utterly fascinated with the kwamis and the designs of each Miraculous.

The Eagle Miraculous of that box is missing.

Lady Dove introduces the idea of temporary heroes early on and uses her Miracle Box

BTW Master Fu doesn’t know Lady Dove’s identity and disapproves of Lady Dove handing out the Miraculouses out already and not hiding them from Hawkmoth, who might target them.

SKILLS

-Shitty manipulation

-Creation of high-quality paintings and articles of clothing she designs

-High flexibility and reflexes, and high upper-body strength

-Able to wield several Miraculouses at once due to high mental resistance

-Several spells to enhance the Miraculous

-A cleansing spell that can be used to cleanse a mass Akuma

-Can speak French, choppy English, Eden’s language, and learning Mandarin/Chinese and Japanese

STUFF I’M ADDING

She has four friends from Eden- Eshaal, Caitlyn, Himari, and Rowen. They’re not a part of the harem but run the Constance Protection Squad. They come in later one at a time – expect Himari and Rowen, they’re dating and refuse to be separated. Eshaal’s parents are diplomates, Caitlyn’s mother is a war photographer who takes pictures of Akuma attacks and her father is dead, Himari’s mother is a chef and her father a financial analyst, and Rowen’s mother is a painter and his father a general who was sent in to monitor the Akuma situation.

Eshaal is a pop star, Caitlyn is a photographer, Himari is a dancer, and Rowen is an actor. Caitlyn is a workaholic and likes to gossip, and Eshaal is a ball of sunshine and dramatic. Rowen is insecure but very flashy and unbelievably dramatic, and Himari is an introvert but not afraid to be dramatic or cause a scene.

I’ll do a post on them later because I’m still trying to figure out what they look like.

I’m also adding Edward and Thomas DeLeon, twins who join probably after Origins. Thomas is a jealous bastard and is aiming to work in business, while Edward is a musician and shy. Thomas falls in love with Constance and is like Chat Noir but worse with his flirting and declarations of love. He gets Akumatised later and gets beat down. Edward also get Akumatised because his song is stolen.

Thomas finds the Eagle Miraculous and becomes a hero, name pending.

Why Constance has a harem: Her passive magic has something to do with love and naturally draws people to her. This is only amplified when she finds the Dove Miraculous, whose side effects include making people easily drawn to her for one reason or another. So, she’s a walking love magnet :D

OTHER THINGS

She totally sets the classroom on fire to scare off Lila

- “Are you insane?!” “Schizophrenic, actually.”

Forgive the spelling and grammer I’m tired.

[kotsume]

hi i’m back from the dead (tumblr gave me my blog back)

hi i said i’d post this tomorrow but i lied and couldn’t help myself.

first off, happy 2019!! it’s been nearly a year since i’ve seen y’all!!! how are you guys? i just wanted to say thank you to everyone who supported me and i am so thankful for you all.

i have a full explanation under the cut and i would really appreciate it if y’all read it!!

also, i think i’ll reblog this a couple times sorry ik it’s annoying

now, a lot of people i talked to/talked about me kept thinking i was terminated. to be clear, @kaijohs was not terminated, but suspended. they are 2 differnet things as there’s actually a spot in support for terminated blogs :)

i could log into tumblr and go on my dash, check out my activity and drafts, but could not like/reblog, add to drafts/queue, edit drafts, view my inbox. this only happened to @kaijohs, all my other sideblogs (like @fyeahvioletevergarden​) functioned normally and i could still do everything i normally would on them.

for some idiotic reason, tumblr still let me create new sideblogs ????????????? it doesn’t really make sense because that’s the reason why i was suspended in the first place but okay tumblr you do you i guess.

okay so:

i had saved, unused urls. those urls consisted of my old ones and my future urls. i tend to change my url every couple of months or so. anyone who’s been following me from the very beginning can tell you that i had a url change about 6 times over the course of 2 years. so yeah, it is safe to say i’m an indecisive girl who can’t stick to one url (but i think i’ll stick with kaijohs bc i love it).

tumblr must have done some random search bc you can’t report it? i didn’t see an option for it, so feel free to correct me and show me if i am wrong. anyways, i ended up getting suspended over it even though i was keeping most, if not all, of them updated. there are many users on tumblr with hundreds of urls, selling them for money, and i got suspended bc i was unlucky. not much i could do about that.

i am NOT saying i didn’t deserve it bc it was my fault for breaking the rules, but i deleted the urls as soon as i read the email and was STILL suspended for 11 months (february 27 2018 - january 22 2019). verbatim, tumblr said “Let us know when that’s been done so we can restore your access.” i sent them at least 2 emails every week through support in the first few months, as well as replying to the original email they sent me. it didn’t really do much. one time they decided to responded to my email (not one of those automated “support request received” emails, but an actual follow-up email), they completely missed the mark.

imo 11 months was overkill.

i don’t know if they actually read the things people send in support, but i have a feeling they don’t (it’s probably just bots tbh) because no human with a job is dumb enough to respond like that if they read the original request.

–

i thought a lot about starting over from scratch and making a new blog because i honestly did not know if i would ever get @kaijohs back. i’m just so happy it’s back now ^^

–

so what exactly happened during my suspension? i…

- turned 18 !!! - became a stressed out university student (major: biomedical sciences) - made many gifs to post - lost my queue* - read lots of manga - watched a lot of anime - went to europe for 3 weeks >>> france, italy, and england - lost 1.5k+ followers on @kaijohs (rip nearly 34k) - found lots of people reposting/copying my gifs :) - cut off my long ass hair wooo - distanced myself from tumblr for the time being - found someone i want to spend the rest of my life with

*i had ~100 queued items and posts just disappeared in groups idk where they went nor do i have an explanation for what happened except that tumblr deletes posts in your queue when you’re suspended.

–

oh yeah here’s a funny story: i tried calling a (false) tumblr support number but it turned out to be a scammer, and when i asked the person on the other end of the line if this was a scam. the guy told me to press the windows key and R, which raised flags for me. then he yelled at me, telling me to do my research before i accuse him of scamming me because apparently i “didn’t know anything”. i didn’t need to do research when i had Common Sense *insert that rainbow spongebob meme* backing me up… why would i need to run a new program in order for him to unsuspend me on tumblr? then he hung up after lashing out on me.

–

i will be posting a lot of darling in the franxx gifs btw. sorry woops zero two is still the best girl ever

also, as much as i am happy to have my blog back, i’m a little concerned with how i’m going to manage school + my life + gifmaking. i really do miss it, but i get easily stressed and overwhelmed, but i hope i can work something out because i want to continue doing what i love!! 

–

if you’ve made it this far and actually read all this shit, ilysm, you’re amazing, and have a wonderful day~

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Tel Aviv 2019: Straight outta Montenegro to Eurovision with 6 young souls

(this is a pre-vamp review so take this whole thing as “something I wanted to publish but my schedule was withholding until it was specifically time for them to be reviewed”, therefore, this is a bit of a retrospective review. Will tackle on its revamp later!)

Montevizija, which finally has an official Twitter account (we all should forget the times some dude named Vasilije pretended to having made one), offered us another batch of 5 songs for another year, actually revealing all of them beforehand this time and not just the snippets! Joy to the world I guess.

You gotta love Montevizija for it being the most underrated ex-Yugoslavian national final btw. Granted, it only lasted for 2 editions as of now, and it will take years to grow bigger as a thing, but so far, for us the NFs that are ingrained to our brains more are Dora, EMA and Beovizija (and even Skopje Fest when THAT was used to pick an act and not just served as a festival like it originally was meant to be), therefore Montevizija seems more shunned. But what do you expect when the lineup of 5 for two years in a row is not exactly as stellar as hoped for? Well, there are gems here and there, but they haven’t really won on either years (or at least not on the 2nd year if you call Vanja’s song a gem too), and yet somehow they find someone who call them great. But for me this Montenegrin entry is not. :L

And who is up there to be colossally blamed for its existence? None other than this group of 6 refering to themselves as D mol (with “mol” decapitalized for whatever reason... they used to have hyphen separating the ‘D’ and ‘mol’, but now they scrapped it altogether, an anime death I’ll never forget). Worth noting that I, as a 19 year old, have this particularly ugly feeling I must get rid of, and that’s the one of “feeling old”, already at my age. And this is how I felt seeing that the band whose song I am not fond of today is made up by members that are of 16-17 to 21-ish years old!!! So my heart insists that I shouldn’t go too hard on these poor younglings, even if this is just me, currently tackling the brethren of my age. Prepare as I’ll go to shred their composition they’re going to Tel Aviv with, “Heaven”, to bits.

Although, what I call “shredding to bits” is merely just nitpicking the reasons the original version (keep bearing in mind that I haven’t heard the revamp yet) sucks imo, and idk, the new “Heaven” miiiiiiight just grow on me, but I heavily doubt about it because I never cared for it in the first place (youhouuu, they were my last in Montevizija ‘19 for a reason), and I’m rather looking forward for the new faves from the 8 songs I haven’t listened to yet rather than those that were already chosen. And even the Eurofans were not quite fond on the revamp, as some think the additional ethno sounds made it sound worse (and of course there are some that kinda like it or think of the song as their guilty pleasure). So why shouldn’t I? :O

Anyway, old “Heaven”. The first sounds on here to grace my ears on this song consist of one light piano note being tapped to an exact rhythm and a confused baby girl stuttering. And I’d’ve maybe enjoyed this more ironically at some point if it weren’t for the latter sound effect being re(ab)used later in the song!! Ugh I hate it. The lyrics are fine I guess... though isn’t it ironic the only English song in Montevizija’s lineup this year won?? It’s like the Montenegrin people were openly cringing when being the only ones to understand Vanja comparing his life to cat’s and mouse’s and calling his heart “the most expensive toy” in his song and then they were like “you know what? Let’s let the WHOLE Europe understand how terrible our lyrics are! ^_^” (no but for real, who still uses “I’m in heaven, falling straight into your heart” as a pick-up line? Did they travel through time from 1998 to 2019 or something???)

Speaking of the 90s, the whole song smells like a dated cliché of that period. You know, the kind of “the high school prom song from that 90s teen sitcom’s who you’re forced to watch when your elderly aunt is in the house with you and there’s nothing else on TV” dated. Dated even more than “Chain of Lights”. Seriously though! It includes the pathetic “wah wah” bassline, mid-tempo beats, the boy/girl-group harmonies... catch me puking sugar-coated cheese to this, no thanks. Oh and if you already read my “Zero Gravity” review (which you probably never even bothered to after seeing how much text would you have to read), I definitely mentioned that I’m not a fan of those “two verses-two choruses” songs, and especially those kind of ones that aren’t sounding like something suited for radio (e.g.: Poland 2018, “Light Me Up”)... this obviously sounds like something from the radio of the times the at-the-time senior highschoolers are currently over 30 or slightly over 40, and that should be 4 and a half minutes long. These verses could just not be more ridiculously dragged out for the choruses to prevail and get stuck in our brains... fucking welp [sic] me already.

Well, if there are any brownie points I could give this, it’s pleasant, it’s harmless if I don’t take into account the cheese vibes this emits, and all this bunch are made up by up-and-coming talented singers that clearly deserved a better song...

And the staging concept in their NF was cool tho (illustrating their power of D mol), and I applaud the couple chemistry I guess

Oh and this below is one of the most underappreciated memes this Euroseason:

*stares into your soul in Montenegrin*

So yeah. Oh and the Rizo(tto) guy who is self-aware of his hotness and the hotness of the much older Eurovision guys this year, but he’s not doing it for me so that I could be in heaven falling, so he’s getting a hard pass.

All in all - a nostalgia cash-in made to appease the housewives from Podgorica to Skopje, from Novi Sad to Štúrovo, and nothing quite else, sung by a cool bunch of people that if anything are deemed this year’s "great people with an unfortunately too dated song and a shitty draw” by me. I don’t know much of their personalities but I do believe that even if they like what they’re singing, they’d be much better off doing a better sounding throwback, at least. So that even the disappointed-by-”Heaven” Eurofans could at least call it “so dated but a BOP!”. And hey, I’m aware of those fans that will likely be pissed at me for not bopping along to this, but I said what I said about it and yet again, if revamp changes my mind, I will change my opinion, but right now I’d not prefer to. Grumpy Adio.

Approval factor: Hell with the no. I would like Vanja back instead. At least he made himself a somebody to be cared about even if the Eurofans didn’t quite adapt to his song in return.

Follow-up factor: somehow, both “Inje” and “Heaven” were/are seen by the masses as instant NQs, so it somehow doesn’t sound like Montenegro is following a great path so far. And after this year anything that audience favours and wins can be seen as a way better follow up after something meh coming after something wrose.

Qualification factor: For the n-th time, I’m yet to check the revamp out to state where this will actually go, but being put 2nd in the draw is a massive stab in the knee, as demonstrated by even the national finals this year (Electric Fields in Australia Decides, Aly Ryan in Unser Lied für Israel, Lisa Ajax in Melodifestivalen final... the only glaring exception is ZENA in Eurofest but is it me or these producers did this just so they could be all like “heeeey we put a winning song on 2nd just to show that a NF song can win from ANY draw! ANY DRAW!!!” lol nope), and from it only a few lucky souls have crawled out victorious (Nathan Trent for example, the draw might have pushed him down in the semi but he got up again!). D mol, for as young and developing in talent as they are, don’t seem to be such. You can be young and pitied for your personality, but you always can at the same time have a song that completely crushes your chances to do well and sweeps up the last shards of hope right in front of your eyes despite being an angel worthy of protection (Ari Ólafsson, anyone?). Unless the D molians work all their magic and the random ethnic vibes into their favour for some reason, but for now it ain’t gonna work.

NATIONAL FINAL BONUS

And even then, what was so interesting about Montevizija 2019?? Let’s see...

• First off, let’s address one meme of the beginning of 2019 that Facebook may or may have not used purposefully to upgrade their automatic “facial recognition” skills - the 10 years challenge. Our first one of this season is the sassy maneater who spent her ESC stint by trying to unlove a guy so hard that he just couldn’t oblige - Andrea Demirović. Her decade-later A-game happened to be this one song she sang in her mother-tongue: “Ja sam ti san” (I am your dream). Now, I wasn’t particularly into it - I enjoy some electro tracks out there (like hello, “Igranka” is one of my favourite Montenegrin entries, and 2013 entries overall as well) but this one just ended up being the right amount of cool AND overbearingly unsettling for me to not really fancy it. Kinda like “Red” by HyunA - I can only bop to this if I don’t care about the fact I actually hate it, oops. (Or maybe it is just because Andrea once again used a composition done by one of those “rent-a-NF-songwriter” people. Which is at least better than collabing Ralph Siegel who’s stopped being relevant ever since starting to work with San Marino, or even since the hilarious attempt of a peace song sung by the original common framework, six4One. But since Michael James Down has co-contributed to one of the better Montevizija songs last year, I will not allow myself to think it’s thanks to those kind of songwriters.) Nevertheless, the Eurofans actualy kind of loved this song, but sadly, Montenegrins and the international jury did quite not, and she didn’t land on to the superfinal 2 (as opposed to a superfinal 3 last year, to which she could have easily qualified if it still were a 3). Here’s her song to y’all anyways (and the performance too, which just needed to include some random monster dudes dancing around... why? Because Eurovision! ^^):

• Speaking of Andrea, during the results part there was this one shot of hers where she was pictured just casually chilling on her phone, not giving a damn that she’s being underrated on the scoreboard. Not only she was badly rated, but this moment was such an universal #mood!

• In between the finally final results announcement (which I didn’t really know when exactly was it taking place because the winner wasn’t really said out loud before the event I will describe next was taking place??) there was this lottery going on of who would be the lucky two audience observers that’d win tickets to Tel Aviv... hilariously enough though, it somehow malfunctioned and there were some sort of errors regarding the announcement of the RIGHT winner <3 but the winners happened and I hope they’re getting to go to Tel Aviv at some point during the Eurovision events! Hope they don’t feel startled by the lack of taken seats this year.

• Unlike Eesti Laul, Montevizija this year took up the job of showcasing tweets of Eurofans, and somehow this fellow fella ended up seen by a handful of Montenegrins AND international viewers. Take a wild guess which of them know what a daddy Serhat is.

• And who could not forget the magic flying envelope for to announce the winner of the NF:

there must have been some Harry Potter magic in there :O

As for what touches the other songs, well there’s the last year’s fan fave Nina Petković with another song, but it’s no “Dišem”, so don’t even bother. Or bother, but imo it’s just okay-sounding, nothing that groundbreaking or pleasant enough to be competitive. The other few songs were also nice but I’d like not to make this longer as my other write-ups, to be fair. Sucked to be Mr. Kállay-Saunders who, as the international juror chosen for this national final, had to rank its songs... as that NF happened right on the same day his second A Dal 2019 performance was taking off. Not that the international jurors were supposed to be present in Montenegro on the day of this NF, anyways...

Anyway, despite all this goddamn criticism (that could’ve flown more smooth had my computer not restarted in the middle of me doing paragraphs for this review), I’m fare welling the D mol-ians and would like to wish them a heavenly Eurovision experience. ^_^

[crowned-ladybug]

Prepare for lots of holes and “idk have we established this already?”s but anyway. Here’s how @citrispace and I’s pile of boys are doing rn (in general and everyone. Pls ask for details on anything if you wanna!!! Give me that sweet sweet excuse to infodump)

(I’m totally gonna leave out half the important things so Krista add on whatever you want)

Chase ended up being more of the center of the group now. He has the same name still btw, but last names haven’t been decided for anyone yet, including him. Also idk if he still does yt, in which case he’s also gonna need a new screen name. He still has kids, but they haven’t gotten new names yet

Anyway, he met Anraí when said demon chose him to be his next target of torture. Long story short, Anraí turned out to be p bad at his job and ended up kinda just adopting Chase and becoming roommates with him. For a while everything is good, Anraí is helping Chase with his mental health and however his divorce is doing atm while just having fun in the human world.

Except another demon shows up also wanting to prey on Chase bc i guess he didn’t do his damn research. His name is Julius, he’s the way cooler dude who became of Dark, and Anraí almost tears him limb from limb bc How Dare You Try To Hurt My Brother.

Julius then figures out that if he lets Anraí and Chase keep doing their whatever weird shit they usually do and stays on good terms with them, he can just pretend to be torturing Chase and not have to actually work. He commits demon fraud, basically.

Except eventually both him and Anraí are found out and get kicked out of the demon world bc they’d rather that than jail, and end up in their own lil flat together after Chase tells them that hey, I love you guys, but Anraí keeps eating my toothpaste so you should really move out now. I guess they end up with a dog/hellhound at some point bc i still love McNugget but we haven’t talked about that yet

Personality-wise Chase is still a sweet meme dad, Anraí is friendly and excitable and really curious about human shit, and Julius is just tired and dignified and secretly also v fond. He also has a neat scarf now and I love that. You’ll see.

There’s also ofc my Best Boys Marvin and Jackie who i still just Will Not shut up about, and since they’d already been p unique before we fucked off with them, not much has really changed?? Marvin has purple hair now and will get a new stage name, Jackie got a new suit design with the ability to make him blend in with his surroundings, and will also get a new hero alias. But story and personality-wise they’re still the same. Also Varjú is still there bc i’m not letting go of him

Also a while ago we figured out a bunch of stuff about them when they met and were still in high school, remind me to tell you about that sometime.

Jackie (i think it was him???) went to uni with Chase and that’s how they tie in with the group. Chase stayed at uni longer than Jackie did, who only did two semesters, but they kept in touch after (esp after Chase and Marvin discovered each other and became Obnoxious Bros together)

Amongst all that i forgot to mention poor Benjamin. He usually just goes by Ben and he’s what became of Bing and he’s still just a good good sunny boy who loves memes. He’s still an andriod (idk what his original purpose was yet but it’s probably to be like a companion or something) and looks really cool and also he blushes blue and it’s great. He also doesn’t really understand snow

There’s Stephen who used to be Schneep and so far we know fuck all about him except for 1. he’s spanish probably?? 2. he’s still a doctor and 3. he’s tiny and both looks and acts like a dad.

Then there’s Lee who’s kinda grumpy and originally from the 20s and also he’s trans and I love him. One day through a glitch in reality that just happened to affect him he ended up being time travelled to present times. Anraí found him bc he was reeking of magic and also v scared and managed to coax him into coming with him to Chase’s place, where him, Chase and Julius would try to figure out what happened to him and also help him.

A couple days later he’s followed by a time travelling demon called Theodore, who also happens to be his best friend in the world who has been frantically searching for him. So on the bottom line Chase has somehow accumulated three demons. Lee and Theodore used to be Shawn and Jameson btw.

Ships are all still the same just with different names now, but we haven’t talked about that a lot yet.

Also, Second Chance AU will be mostly unchanged (aside from Jackie’s alias + suit design). I gotta rewrite a bunch of the Rivals AU now, which i haven’t gotten around to yet, but it’s staying around too, with the relationships/dynamics being the same. But the story’s gotta change bc i’m not having Anraí be the bad guy.

[ravy-nevermore-archive]

So on that note, I’d love to talk about something else that @kittenfair​ brought up in her post (at the risk of enraging Cloud Strife fans everywhere, lolll no biggie a super small fandom I’m sure) but I didn’t want to derail that thread because this is quite a tangential thought—

Why is that relevant? A quick googling has informed me that the average heights of men in Japan (between 2004-2013) is 5′7 - I’m gonna guess it was probably around that or shorter back in ‘97. This is, not coincidentally, a familiar number - it’s how tall the OG says Cloud, our protagonist, is. So for the original team creating this game, the protag is average height, your “relatable” everyman. Now, if they wanted to make the villain tower over him? 6′1 isn’t bad at all! In fact, that’s a solid seven inches taller. Huge gap. Saying Sephiroth is 6′1 establishes him way taller than Cloud.

For some reason it’s a little harder to google up the average male height of the total human population without it being broken down into specific regions, but this webpage has some nice infographics that make their (albeit somewhat edited down) data a bit easier to visualize. Let’s look specifically at this one:

From the countries they selected, 5′4.75″ is the lower boundary and 5′11.25″ is the upper boundary, making the mean 5′8″ and the median of this somewhat arbitrary selection 5′9.25″. Wikipedia’s more complete chart has 5′2″ as the lower boundary in Indonesia with 6′1″ as the upper boundary in the Dinaric Alps, making the worldwide mean height for men 5′7.5″. (You can’t really find an accurate median or average from this data.)

You can maybe see where I’m going with this. Cloud is not actually a shrimp. This is a post about body image and our skewed perception of it.

Even more damnably, I’d like to call attention to Livestrong’s (still somewhat arbitrary) selection of countries, ordered by height rather than alphabetically as they have done:

India: 5 feet 4.75 inches China: 5 feet 5.75 inches Mexico: 5 feet 5.75 inches Japan: 5 feet 7.25 inches Brazil: 5 feet 8.25 inches Australia: 5 feet 8.75 inches Canada: 5 feet 9 inches Russia: 5 feet 9.25 inches France: 5 feet 9.25 inches Italy: 5 feet 9.25 inches America: 5 feet 9.5 inches The UK: 5 feet 9.75 inches Spain: 5 feet 10 inches Greece: 5 feet 10.25 inches Germany: 5 feet 11.25 inches

I’ve highlighted two countries on this list, and they are the US and Japan. The US is highlighted because Livestrong is an American website and specifically addresses their article to American audiences, but also because the US tends to influence a lot of worldwide culture, and I think especially in our fandom on Tumblr, which is also a US-based website. But I've highlighted Japan because, of course, that’s where the source material we’re discussing (Cloud Strife’s height) comes from.

Out of this list, is there anything you might notice about places where the average height is lower than 5′7″ and places where the average height is higher than 5′7″? Because I am noticing a very eurocentric trend.

Here are some other countries with the smallest average male heights from Wikipedia’s list:

Bolivia: 5′3″ rural India: 5′3″ Vietnam: 5′4″ Nepal: 5′4″ Malaysia: 5′4.5″ Sri Lanka: 5′4.5″ Nigeria: 5′4.5″ India: 5′4.5″ Peru: 5′4.5″ Bahrain: 5′5″ Baghdad, Iraq: 5′5″ North Korea: 5′5″

Here are some of the countries with the tallest average male heights (they have multiple entries so I’m not going to list specific heights, but these are all in the 5′11″–6′0″ range):

Netherlands Sweden Denmark Norway Germany Iceland Serbia

So, when we say that 5′7″ is short, could it possibly be that what we’re saying is that 5′7″ is short for white people??

Now, granted, Cloud is arguably white despite coming from a Japanese game. Then again, he is arguably Japanese because Japanese character designers have a habit of creating visually Caucasian characters who we simply have to accept are Japanese/Asian “Because They Say So.” But he’s mostly perceived as white, I think, which might be why nearly everyone looks at him and his height and goes, “omg, he’s so short??”

Except...even among white people, he’s not all that short. If you consider that the average men in the US and UK are around 5′9″–5′10″, and the average men in Australia and Canada are around 5′8–5′9″, 5′7″ is only an inch shorter than that. (And I have chosen these four countries because stats say that’s where the highest percentage of my followers are from, with the overwhelming majority being US-based.) And idk about you guys but even if the difference of an inch is statistically significant, on an individual basis I never stand next to someone an inch or two shorter than me and go “wow wtf you’re so much shorter than I am.”

But...did you know that the average male heights in these countries was even that short? I live in the US and I usually observe people anecdotally marking the distinction between “short guys” and “tall guys” around 6′0″, which is a laughably unrealistic “goal” IMO. There’s also a reblog meme that goes around the Tumblr RP community now and then significantly proclaiming “reblog if your muse is shorter than 6′0″!” like that’s some kind of distinctive feature even though most humans are under 6′0″.

So where do we get these unrealistic standards from?

“The Average Height of a Model”

According to industry standards, fashion models are preferably tall but not too tall. Elite, a top modeling agency, specifies height requirements on its website. Women must be between 5 feet 8 inches and 5 feet 11 inches tall. Men must be between 5 feet 11 inches and 6 feet 3 inches. Models who want to enter the Ford Supermodel of the Year Search, should be at least 5 feet 8 inches.

I used to work in a department store, and specifically for a while I sold ladies’ clothing in the “special sizes” department: “Petites” and “Women’s.” (That’s code for “short” and “fat,” which by the way are separate distinctions and there are in fact some clothing sizes that are both W and P, although good luck finding even W or P in most stores.) The technical definition of a “petite” woman, in US clothing sizes, is a woman under 5′3″.

According to Wikipedia, the average US woman is 5′3.5″.

But the average fashion model? Is 5′9.5″. And how many women do you hear in the 5′3″–5′5″ range bemoaning how “short” they are? I am 5′1.5″ and I can tell you I hear a lot, because it never slips by me unnoticed because I need to catch my eyes before they roll out of my head and you tend not to miss that.

Around here at least, men are less likely to be caught complaining about their supposed physical deficiencies than women because it’s considered unmanly to do so, but if you listen long enough and hard enough and gain the confidence of enough men under 6′0″, you might just hear a recurring insecurity expressed about the failure to reach that height and about consequently “being short.” That’s not altogether unwarranted, because, disgustingly enough, more often than I hear men expressing a preoccupation with being 6′0″ or not, I hear it from women who say they won’t even consider dating a man under 6′0″.

This is significant because of the next thing I’m going to bring up, which is the part that is going to make the Cloud Strife fandom v angry with me. 😂

Why is Cloud infantilized so much for being “short”??

Unlike the other questions I’ve posed here, I’m not asking this to set you up because I have a proposed answer ready. I am honestly baffled and a little disturbed by this. If it isn’t right to sexualize Tifa because her breasts are large (and it’s not), then why is it acceptable to treat Cloud like a cute little baby child almost precisely because he’s the shortest man in the cast? And more importantly, how does that make actual men who are 5′7″ or shorter feel? (You can come at me about “male fragility” but I hold that all humans have feelings that are worth considering even if they fall into privileged groups.) I can tell you as a woman under 5′2″ that I am sick to death of being infantilized for it, and that’s while falling into a demographic which is supposed to enjoy being thought of as “cuter” or whatever. I don’t, btw, but at least I’m not openly derided and thought of as “less of a [my gender identity here]” than I would be if I were a short man (ooo, there’s some intersectionality we never talk about).

So, a proposition for your consideration: If you tend to associate Cloud with being cute and diminutive, maybe pause and ask yourself if these feelings are influenced by his height and culturally instilled notions of shorter men being thought of as less manly, and if these assumptions do not warrant being challenged. It’s no less than I would ask anyone to do of assumptions about Tifa being hypersexual possibly having anything to do with the size of her breasts.

I welcome respectful discussion, but please note if I feel your contribution is more about arguing with me than about actually making a thoughtful contribution to the topic, I will reply on my personal blog @ravys-ravings rather than trouble my followers with unproductive bickering.