#it isn't even supposed to be played actually. just made into long and short youtube videos for me to watch

[parme-san]

on a good day streak of 3

[all-the-fish]

Oh, you know, just the usual internet browsing experience in the year of 2024

Some links and explanations since I figured it might be useful to some people, and writing down stuff is nice.

First of all, get Firefox. Yes, it has apps for Android/iOS too. It allows more extensions and customization (except the iOS version), it tracks less, the company has a less shitty attitude about things. Currently all the other alternatives are variations of Chromium, which means no matter how degoogled they supposedly are, Google has almost a monopoly on web browsing and that's not great. Basically they can introduce extremely user unfriendly updates and there's nothing forcing them to not do it, and nowhere for people to escape to. Current examples of their suggested updates are disabling/severly limiting adblocks in June 2024, and this great suggestion to force sites to verify "web environment integrity" ("oh you don't run a version of chromium we approve, such as the one that runs working adblocks? no web for you.").

uBlockOrigin - barely needs any explanation but yes, it works. You can whitelist whatever you want to support through displaying ads. You can also easily "adblock" site elements that annoy you. "Please log in" notice that won't go away? Important news tm sidebar that gives you sensory overload? Bye.

Dark Reader - a site you use has no dark mode? Now it has. Fairly customizable, also has some basic options for visually impaired people.

SponsorBlock for YouTube - highlights/skips (you choose) sponsored bits in the videos based on user submissions, and a few other things people often skip ("pls like and subscribe!"). A bit more controversial than normal adblock since the creators get some decent money from this, but also a lot of the big sponsors are kinda scummy and offer inferior product for superior price (or try to sell you a star jpg land ownership in Scotland to become a lord), so hearing an ad for that for the 20th time is kinda annoying. But also some creators make their sponsored segments hilarious.

Privacy Badger (and Ghostery I suppose) - I'm not actually sure how needed these are with uBlock and Firefox set to block any tracking it can, but that's basically what it does. Find someone more educated on this topic than me for more info.

Https Everywhere - I... can't actually find the extension anymore, also Firefox has this as an option in its settings now, so this is probably obsolete, whoops.

Facebook Container - also comes with Firefox by default I think. Keeps FB from snooping around outside of FB. It does that a lot, even if you don't have an account.

WebP / Avif image converter - have you ever saved an image and then discovered you can't view it, because it's WebP/Avif? You can now save it as a jpg.

YouTube Search Fixer - have you noticed that youtube search has been even worse than usual lately, with inserting all those unrelated videos into your search results? This fixes that. Also has an option to force shorts to play in the normal video window.

Consent-O-Matic - automatically rejects cookies/gdpr consent forms. While automated, you might still get a second or two of flashing popups being yeeted.

XKit Rewritten - current most up to date "variation "fork" of XKit I think? Has settings in extension settings instead of an extra tumblr button. As long as you get over the new dash layout current tumblr is kinda fine tbh, so this isn't as important as in the past, but still nice. I mostly use it to hide some visual bloat and mark posts on the dash I've already seen.

YouTube NonStop - do you want to punch youtube every time it pauses a video to check if you're still there? This saves your fists.

uBlacklist - blacklists sites from your search results. Obviously has a lot of different uses, but I use it to hide ai generated stuff from image search results. Here's a site list for that.

Redirect AMP to HTML - redirects links from their amp version to the normal version. Amp link is a version of a site made faster and more accessible for phones by Bing/Google. Good in theory, but lets search engines prefer some pages to others (that don't have an amp version), and afaik takes traffic from the original page too. Here's some more reading about why it's an issue, I don't think I can make a good tl;dr on this.

Also since I used this in the tags, here's some reading about enshittification and why the current mainstream internet/services kinda suck.

[theographos]

Have you heard of Inazuma ?

Ahhh Inazuma... Land of eternity, who was mainly inspired by Japan and its culture.

I play the game since 2020, and I can say that Inazuma was a pretty big deal when it got out. First of all, it was the first big region that we were introduced to since the beginning of the game. Yes there was Liyue and Mondstadt, but they came with the game so... No real reason to get hyped about them.

It was also a region who got talked about a lot, like I remember that most of the Youtubers I was watching at the time were sponsorized by Hoyoverse to talk about it's region. And just the fact that it was based on japan made it even popular on the internet. What I want to say by that is that it was of course a trap for all of the weebs to fall into.

A good trap really, the region had a lot of new content, a bunch of really good characters like Arataki Itto (my lovely main) and the final result is just so pretty.

It was a lovely gift, made with the finest wrap and the biggest promises towards the players of the game. And when they all got rid of that wrap to actually get into the plot content of Inazuma, they (and me included) were delighted to see a plot line full of junk.

So a few disclaimers before we dive into why Inazuma's archon quest was a mess :

I am not blaming anyone for liking Inazuma. Just because you like something doesn't mean it's flawless, so don't come at me for that. I have no say over what anyone likes or dislikes as long as it's not illegal or obviously endangering someone's mental or physical health. And liking a region in Genshin Impact is none of that, so don't see any slander on any character of the game. I'm pointing fingers at the writers behind the region and most importantly Hoyoverse itself.

I will also criticize how they used Raiden Shogun's character quest to make most of the evolution of Inazuma. A character quest is not accessible by people under the level of 40, so there is no real reason as to why they did that. It just makes the main plot less accessible to the main players, and so I don't consider what happens in the Raiden Shogun's character quest as a valid part of the main plot line.

There will contain spoilers about Sumeru's archon quest, but none about Fontaine. For personal reasons that are too long to talk about in this post I haven't played Fontaine's archon quest yet. Yes, even the first act. And no, I do not wish to be spoiled about anything about Fontaine.

My whole rant, including the introduction and the disclaimers, is over 2.3K long, take it or leave it. I also happen to believe that longer is better. Yes it is time consuming to read all of this, but this is my way of showing that I care. Plus good storytelling needs time. Like I said, take it or leave it, if you don't want to read this whole rant then it's okay, as long as you don't blame me for not doing something shorter.

So now that we are clear on those points, we shall begin.

My first point is that the archon quest is too short.

Like way too short. We barely have time to get a proper tase of what Inazuma is like, and we also barely have time to process our traveler's character arc. The first part of the archon quest screams of how much the writers knew they had to add the part in which the Traveler refused to help anyone, but they were bothered by it. So they tried to wrap it up quickly by making the traveler see the problem directly. The second part is laughable at best, I mean we all saw the memes about how the war cinematic looked off, like we just have 10 soldiers and 10 rebels against one another and we're supposed to understand that the conflict is big ? And the last part is confusing, mainly because of the sudden apparition of Kazuha, who got a whole character arc while we trying to beat up Signora.

And it's not like Hoyoverse isn't capable of making a character arc during an archon quest. Venti had his little character arc, Scaramouche has his character arc behind the scenes during the Sumeru Archon Quest, but us player are still aware of its evolution, with for example the visions of that one npc researcher. And if we take a look at Honkai : Star Rail, Dan Heng also got to have a whole character arc really similar to the one with Kazuha, but they made it relevant to the plot.

They are capable of all of that, if they gave more time to develop it by having a bigger archon quest. Either by making a part 4 and maybe a part 5, either by making longer archon quests.

My second point is that there is too much unnecessary quests.

Sure, for gameplay purposes it's perfect to have a lot of quest, because it means a lot of content. But with Inazuma it really isn't the case.

We had a whole archon quest, well more like a prologue quest, to introduce Kazuha's motivations through Beidou's fighting competition. I would understand if it was a world quest, i mean they did that with the chasm : an archon quest locked behind a world quest. The world quest could have been about the whole trip towards Inazuma, with the beginning about the fighting tournament. But nope, it's overly long for almost nothing, and it raises another point of mine

They based their whole plot on making the players like their characters. It's not a bad thing, I love Kazuha with all my heart, but our time with him isn't making the plot come forward. Just like, having to do Yoimiya and Ayaka's character quest have nothing to do with plot. You just hang out with them and learn a bit about their personal lives. It's great, but what about the plot ? Okay cool you made a deep dive into Raiden Shogun's motivations during her character quest, but what about the plot ?

They gave too much time over things that weren't necessary for the plot, and like I said previously, didn't give enough time to important parts.

My third point is that it doesn't even fufill the concept of an Archon Quest.

Every archon quest makes a deep dive into the Archon's motivation, how it affected their land and how they'll arrange the situation. For example :

Venti's entire core is to fight to let his people be free. He gave them everything they needed, and let them take their own decisions in order to not become another tyrant. But some people, like Dvalin, saw that move as him giving up on them. So, he made everything clear towards Dvalin and stayed to help him get better.

Zhongli's entire core is to fight to protect his people. He saw war, he saw death but he survived. He created the Adepti to help him, he also sort of created the Qixing to help him rule over Liyue. But now he becomes old, and doesn't want to see everything that he has done come to rot after he passes away. So he decides to retire himself from his position to force the Qixing and the Adepti to work together without him to help Liyue.

And if we compare Raiden to that well... She makes her people suffer, only she is happy with eternity, and she reflects upon that after the archon quest. But she has the potential to be so much more than that, heck it's not like she didn't become popular with the few times we see her in the archon quest, so looking back now there was no point in making her not that present in her own archon quest. Even Nahida, who is locked inside her own temple at the time we meet her, gets to have an equal amount of screentime as every other archon during their quest.

And also every archon quest shows how much every archon is different by their way of ruling :

Venti thought the bestest thing for his people was to leave and give them the freedom to do anything.

Zhongli thought the bestest thing for his people was to give them a safe haven and to dedicate his whole life to serve them instead of trying to really "rule" over them.

Nahida's people never gave her a chance to actually try to be their leader. They stayed focused on the past and let bad people morphed the values of Sumeru into something horrible.

And Raiden Shogun was supposed to show that for her the bestest thing was to keep her land in check, to make sure everything stays at the right place, so that no one has to ever feel grief and feel "nostalgic" of the past like she did.

Which brings me to my fourth point, which is that Raiden Shogun has control over nothing.

Yes she controls what the commission do, yes she has the power to do a vision hunt decree. But, when we take a look at Inazuma, we can see that she do not have any actual control. Four of the six islands in Inazuma are not liveable, and the fifth island is actually full of people who do not worship her, who do not want her. There is a rebellion going on, and she hasn't done anything more than send her army. The magical sakura tree in Narukami is slowly decaying, but nope there's nothing she can do about apparently. It's as if she doesn't even know it's happening.

She is described as omnipresent over the mortals. She is described as always making sure Inazuma reaches the goal of "eternity", and yet everything is going nuts, she doesn't have full control over who goes in and out of her country since there are still immigrants in Rito. I would have understood if Monstadt was in that state for example. After all most of the problems in the islands are god-related, so really no one except a god can do anything about it.

And I would have understood if the main problem was that she thinks she is omnipresent but really everything is out of control, but no, the point of the archon quest is to make us understand that the people want things to change, they don't want her to be overly in control.

I'm not against the fact that the Traveler is often the one who has to do everything, but at least make it understandable. For example, ofr the Aranara world quests, the traveler has to be the one who does that because Nahida isn't capable of helping the aranara, and because the traveler is an adult who can still see the aranara, it makes him important to them.

But in Inazuma we're just doing Ei's dirty work, as if an omnipresent deity would want someone other than them to be supervising big problems.

My last point is that the archon quest doesn't feel like it's happening in Inazuma.

None of the problems in the archon quest are talked about in the world quests, it's barely mentioned in some small quests, and the archon quest is royally ignoring all the problems of the world quests. Sumeru doesn't do that for example : it talks about the decaying of pretty much everything in the archon quest AND the world quests, aranaras are showed in the archon quest, and really the archon quest goes to a lot of key points in sumeru, meanwhile for the archon quest in Inazuma it's only 4 different places, 6 if we count the comissions.

Inazuma have so many different species cohabiting together, has a lot of mysticals things happening everywhere, there are even cat who can talk and yet none of this magic is showed in the archon quest.

Honestly it just looks like a showcase of everything that Japan has to offer and that's it. Yes I see tanukis, I see sakura trees, i see the clothings and the buildings. But what else ? What is the core of anything that Inazuma has to offer ? When we take a look at every other region, we see that they at least tried to give them a proper identity with the inspiration material. Meanwhile Inazuma is just the inspirational material.

When they included nobility in Monstadt, they really did it. They showed how much they were accepted into present society (plot twist they aren't), their role in history, how they feel about a society where no one wants them anymore (with some clans who are okay, clashing with the Lawrence clan who aren't ready to admit 'defeat' yet), they included etiquette and made them active in society.

This just doesn't happen with the tanukis, the onis or the kitsunes. The onis have a bit more depth since they have Itto to develop this part, but really unless you go into the forest you will not encounter kitsunes or tanukis in inazuma.

My conclusion,

The main problem with Inazuma's archon quest is that they didn't give enough time. They didn't give enough time for the plot to unfold correctly, they didn't gave enough time to the worldbuilding, and dare I say Hoyoverse didn't gave enought time to the writers to be able to do anything more than the minimum. I have seen what these writers could do and it is so much worth it, but damn Inazuma is to me, something that Hoyoverse should be ashamed of in terms of storytelling.

And I feel like no one is talking about that. As of now the only things I found on the internet about it are slanders of some characters, or really just people who hate the whole "inspired by japan" thingy, and are just mad about that.

Hoyoverse is a big enough company to have decent storytelling, to give a decent amount of time for their writers to work, and so on and so forth.

To be honest I feel like that if you truly care about Japan and its culture, you should be mad at Inazuma for doing a poor job at representing it, but that's just my opinion.

[akfamilyhome]

YouTube 2023 Year in Review

Welp! Guess it's that time of year again. I'm sure 2023 has been a...pretty interesting year to say for quite a few people. And for me personally, it's also been a weird little year that's great in some parts and could be better in others.

What have I been up to?

My life right now is kinda divided into three parts:

A) the "IRL" stuff, as in working on my editing day job and spending time with family.

B) working on YouTube videos which I still have the passion for,

and C) playing video games, collecting cool things and socializing with my online friends.

I've always felt that it's difficult for me to put equal attention to all three, and lately, it definitely feels like I'm focusing on 'A' and 'C' more. Of course, my day job is kinda how I make a living at the moment so that obviously gets priority, but that doesn't mean I want to ignore my YouTube stuff! It's just hard to sneak in a few lines of script-writing while multitasking at a day job, and only being able to freely spend time on 'B' and 'C' during night isn't the most productive way to go about things, especially with other things that aren't YouTube production. I also have games I want to play, art I want to draw, folks I'd like to hang out with etc.

And that's a fine, healthy way of going about things online for regular folks! But I don't want my YouTube channel to stagnate as a result of this, because I still love making videos! I have support from folks on Patreon, and I still hope to continue growing the channel so that it becomes more sustainable to do frequent updates.

Part of me has always thought about just quitting my day job once I have a decent amount of money saved up and just try doing YouTube full-time and rely on Patreon, even if there's a very low chance it'd be sustainable. Of course, that's a big gamble, and I'm not truly sure if that's really the best way to go about things. But those are just my inner thoughts and I've rambled long enough...

So, I apologize for the above situation sort of being the root cause of the recent slower pace of my YouTube channel! The pace of the channel this year is about the same as in 2022, if not a little slower. I didn't really get a lot of dormant scripts from 2020-2021 off the ground, but being true to what I said in last year's Year in Review, I did end up working on a lot of spontaneous ideas even if there wasn't a "big" core video! In fact, I think almost every video released in 2023 that we'll discuss below were spontaneous ideas.

I'll talk more about what's to come for the channel in the end of the post, but for now, as usual, we'll take a look at each video I made during 2023 and I'll share my thoughts and some fun facts about each!

A Trip to the Hong Kong Kirby Pop-Up Store

Various things were put up on the channel from January to March, including a funny little short for Mario Day and a new trailer for a revamped Patreon, but the major thing I put out was a look at the Kirby Pop-Up Store in Hong Kong! This was my first time doing a scripted documentation of an in-person event, and Nintendo Hong Kong would eventually do more events like Nintendo Live 2023 Hong Kong, and I'll definitely be talking about them on my channel eventually!

As for fun facts...uhh...I suppose Patreon patrons get to see the full unedited raw footage I took from the event lol

Top 10 Nintendo Trivia You NEVER Knew

This year's April Fools video...was also a last-minute sort of idea, if I recall correctly! The concept is simple: it's a parody of generic Top 10 trivia videos in terms of presentation, but the curveball is instead of just doing other blatantly obvious fun facts, the facts would actually be super obscure, inconsequential Nintendo facts that barely anyone would've known about, so in the end it's kind of a legit trivia video in a twisted way. The facts in the video were sourced from new research, me asking friends for suggestions and some of my old posts on Twitter, so there were a few 'fun' facts that were left on the cutting room floor, and here's a good place to share them!

In an early version of the GameCube instruction manual, Mario 64 was used as a placeholder game

The infamous 'black box' in Super Mario 64 DS is not a visual glitch as commonly believed, and briefly appears in E3 2004 footage

Prototype screenshots of Mario 64 have appeared in an early print of the game's box art...and on a Nintendo Monopoly board in 2006 (next to the ? Block on the right side of the board if you're looking)

The Onion in Hey! Pikmin has white and purple in its colors, even though white and purple Pikmin never appear in the game

The original 3DS had two separate sets of black & white colors, for some reason

And to finally come clean...yes, around 30% of the video's script was generated using ChatGPT, as part of the joke. Mostly the introductory bits at the beginning of each segment, since it definitely did not give me the results I wanted when I asked it to describe the specific details of each fact, so y'know, hopefully that's a sign it's not coming for my job of talking about obscure Nintendo things! And don't worry, this will probably be the only time I ever use AI in my videos.

The Better N64 Wavebird Experience

This is a follow-up to a 2021 video where I also used the N64 Switch Online controller on an original N64, albeit with a different adapter! This actually isn't a case where I received a free product to do a review on, I just happened to read about a better alternative, pre-ordered it online, it arrived in April and I decided to knock out a quick review/comparison video in 2 days!

As such, this is more of standard informative review video, but in all honesty, I still really like this setup, and it's in my opinion still one of the best controller options for original N64 games. So much so, that I recently completed my NSO controller collection by picking up a Sega Mega Drive 6-button NSO controller to eventually use with my original Mega Drive! I'm still looking for the compatible 8bitDo adapter though, so maybe when I eventually do, that can be a quick little video on the Plus channel for patrons!

The Most Expensive amiibo

This is my favorite video I put out this year! The Qbby amiibo has always been in my sights for a while, and I've gone on record saying that I'd make a video on it if I got my hands on one.

Back in 2019, I once saw a Qbby amiibo being offered on Yahoo Auctions for a relatively cheap price, but to afford it I asked for extra donations via Ko-fi. Looking back on it now there were probably better options I could've taken, but either way the listing got cancelled and I refunded everyone who donated for that. Then sometime later I saw another relatively cheap BOXBOY package in a local listing, but then the seller never replied and deleted the listing, so the amiibo has eluded me until now, and there seems to be no signs of Qbby stock going down any time soon. My hope for a Qbby reprint continues, and hopefully this video still serve as a little awareness boost for folks who are wondering why he's one of the most expensive amiibo around!

Some of the gag editing on this one got spruced up a little bit which I enjoyed doing, but you also probably noticed that I got a turntable specifically for those glamour shots! ...yeah, I'll probably get more use of that thing later on as well.

The Kirby Battle Royale online joke wasn't exaggeration: I couldn't find anyone to play online with! I suppose that is to be expected for, y'know, playing a mid 3DS game in 2023, but it's a shame that Kirby Battle Royale doesn't at least offer a option to play with friends, and from some experimentation, it seems that two of my US-based friends were able to match with each other online while I couldn't, which also suggested some region-based matchmaking was at play. Oh well! There are some better 3DS games out there that I'd still like to play online one last time before their servers shut down this April.

Tetris...on a McDonald's Nugget

Continuing the trend of 'make video on a recent find' for the third video in a row, it's the China-exclusive McDonald's Tetris Chicken McNugget! For an unscripted Things of Interest video, it turned out pretty well, kinda like the Rhythm Tengoku arcade video in 2022! Compared to the first unscripted TOI back in like 2018, I've definitely gotten a bit better at rambling since.

I was kind of a few days late to the party, and some other videos about the Tetris Nugget from larger channels have racked up more views since, but that's not really the point! As a casual Tetris fan that happens to be in proximity to mainland China, something as bizarre as this is totally right up my alley. Covering China-exclusive gaming stuff just kinda reminds me that I have yet to do a video on the iQue Player though, which I really want to...

FlashBoy Plus: The $95 Virtual Boy Flashcart

I haven't really taken a YouTube sponsorship deal yet, but I do get emails about doing reviews or ad reads of items on occasion, like new Switch gaming accessories from different third parties and whatnot. Unfortunately, that's not really the type of stuff I do regularly on the channel unless I find a great angle to tackle it from, so the only review offer I've done on the channel until now is a limited Switch physical release in 2020.

When I was offered to review the FlashBoy Plus, I was definitely intrigued despite having already previously covered the HyperFlash 32, a technically better option! Virtual Boy flashcarts are already a very niche thing, so I gladly took the opportunity to take a look at any new option out there, and even if it's not a mainstream topic at all it does kinda appeal to me specifically.

In the video, I mentioned the (very cool looking) clear cartridge shell was not a publicly available option yet at the time of the review, but looking at the order site now, it has been added since! So hey, good for them! It is honestly pretty sick to have a transparent Virtual Boy cartridge.

Playing PC Games with the SNES Mouse & Famicom Keyboard

I started work on the next core video right after the FlashBoy Plus video (more on that in the last section), but getting sick during early December forced me to delay it, so for that month I decided to do one last spontaneous idea: a followup to the 2021 video where I used the Famicom keyboard and SNES Mouse on a computer...but this time on a proper PC!

A thing that was brought up in the comments was one setting in particular: when I was changing the mouse settings in the Control Panel, there was a 'Enhance pointer precision' option that I didn't uncheck, which presumably slows down the mouse for precise movements. There wasn't a super noticeable difference when I unchecked it during further testing, but when I coupled it with further increasing the mouse sensitivity in games that allow you to change it in-game, I was actually able to get the SNES Mouse to move at a decent pace in some games! Of course, that requires tweaking with additional settings that would normally be overkill for a regular mouse, so it's still not practical, but at least there was a setup that would alleviate some of my complaints in the video.

Akfamilyhome Plus videos

Over on my second channel Akfamilyhome Plus, once again there's a variety of stuff! There's Mario Wonder memes, a new high quality video game rip album, archival footage and more. If there's one thing you should check out though, it's the supercuts of me playing Everybody 1-2-Switch with my Discord server. It's the best kind of chaos. Long live Kitchen Timer 4.

This year, 8 new unscripted bonus videos were released publicly! You can enjoy watching me:

Visit the 3DS eShop on its final day of operation

Check out the Nintendo DSi XL Demo Video carts

Look through gaming goodies on a Chinese second-hand market

Unseal Captain Toad Treasure Tracker for the 3DS

Read through the 2010 Nintendo Anti-Piracy Manual

Unbox a complete copy of the original GBA Play-Yan

Compare the two popular 3DS capture card models

And check out the Nintendo Power...rewritable cartridge!

And over on Patreon, 8 more exclusive videos are also available, featuring things like a slew of Nintendo cleaning kits, iQue DS games, the Chinese Mario Movie DVD and more! As always if you don't want to wait till some of them rotate into public availability, they're all available on Patreon for just $1 USD a month!

The fuuuuture

Okay, so what's next for 2023?

I mean 2024. Oh god the typos are already starting.

Right before the FlashBoy Plus video came out, in late June 2023, I did a video topic poll on Patreon, asking what idea I should do next. Out of the four options given, one of them is a continuation of a limbo project from 2021, and the other three were spontaneous new core video ideas I came up with and wanted to do.

Well, one of the spontaneous new ideas won the poll, so the next core video is...

A look at the camera and sound apps on both the Nintendo DSi and 3DS! I originally wanted to get this out in December, and you all know what happened to that plan, BUT the script is done, the VO recording is done, footage recording is well underway and I am confident I'll be able to get it out this January. I really like how the script for this one shaped up and am commissioning some banger thumbnail art for it (🐦), so I REALLY hope you'll look forward to it!

Afterwards, there are a few in-progress ideas that I also want to work on for quick videos afterwards. As mentioned above, I visited Nintendo Live 2023 Hong Kong which was hosted on November, and ALSO the Nintendo Hong Kong Pop-Up Store which is running from December to January, so both of those would make for a perfect video in a similar vein as the Kirby Pop-Up Store video last year!

I also went on a trip to Japan last August, and took quite a bit of photos and footage. I still want to share my findings and experiences of being in Tokyo for the first time that I could remember, so there will be a fun little piece about that going on the Plus channel in the future!

And don't forget, I'm making a video about every game I beat during 2023, continuing the thing I started last year!

And after ALL of the above is done, I still have the remaining core video ideas from the June Patreon poll I did, since I did say I'd eventually love to do all of them, and that desire still hasn't gone away. I don't know how the rest of 2024 will go for this channel but I'd say this is a fantastic starting point, and I hope it'll all go up from there, since I'd really love to be more productive on here, while trying to keep that A-B-C balance in check!

So yeah! That's it for the 2023 Year in Review. If you've made it all the way to the bottom, thank you for reading! Here's a 25-use invite link to my Discord server as a little something! Thank you to all of you who've supported me this past year, whether you're a viewer or a patron, and I hope to keep up the work this year and try to strive for better!

[electriczayre]

give me scarab one eight ten fifteen lets go

(i don't feel like making a new scarab doodle rn so just take this drawing i made trying to design a good idol outfit for her)

1. Whats their favorite food?

Scarab doesn't really have a particular favorite food. She'll eat mostly anything, as long as it's actually edible/safe to eat/meant to be eaten. Maybe she likes dark chocolate a little more than other foods

8. What is their dream job? What do they hope to achieve in it?

Scarab is content being an idol in her group, SUGAR☆SWARM (an OC group with a few different people contributing OCs!). She actively fought against being replaced in the idol scene with v4 units when they came out, after all. Singing is something she loves to do! If she wasn't an idol, perhaps she'd be a youtaite uploading covers of songs she likes on YouTube.

(long post, rest under cut)

10. How do they feel about their friends/acquaintances?

Currently, Scarab's friends are limited to SUGAR☆SWARM. She also knows *of* Wick but never knew him personally. Her relationship with each S☆S member is as follows:

Scarab is quite fond of teasing Mothball because of the reactions she can get out of him. A little bit goes a long way with this guy because she barely has to do ANYTHING to get a rise out of him. All that being said, the minute she realizes she crossed a boundary she will back off and apologize

Something about Hive makes Scarab really, really uncomfortable. Which is weird, because usually she's pretty chill with super cheerful and/or ditzy people - even if occasionally they can get on her nerves. But that really isn't the case with Hive? Something about her feels off to Scarab. Because of that she tries not to talk with her too much. This, unfortunately, also leads to her being less close with Mothball because of MB and Hive being longtime best friends

Scarab thinks Spider (friend's OC) is really bossy and overly nosy, but despite that she respects her as a team leader and as the glue keeping S☆S together. If Spider disappeared randomly Scarab would certainly miss her. She just wishes that Spider would chill about idol stuff for more than two seconds

Scarab kinda views Butterfly (friend's OC) in a younger brother sort of light. She likes to tease him (less than Mothball), and also makes sure to encourage him and not let him get too down. She also heavily questions his taste in men. Affectionately.

Orchid (friend's OC) and Blue (friend's OC) joined S☆S at the same time and Scarab has a similar opinion of both of them. She views them as the silly younger twins of the group and finds joy in taking up a role as the chill older sis to them. Sometimes she tries to encourage them to help her play jokes on Mothball. She respects Orchid for her boundless optimism and energy, and Blue for her go-with-the-flow attitude. She probably calls them both "kid."

How Scarab feels about Dragonfly (friend's OC)... I'll just let this image do the talking

15. How do they react to being recognized as a vocaloid/android?

She'd probably be like, "Yeah, I *am* v flower, thanks for noticing~" and be all smug about it. And then if someone asked her something like "isn't your hair supposed to be short now? why is it long again?" she'd get really annoyed lmao

[appreciatingtokrev]

hi! sorry for disappearing, i was feeling a bit down and then i 🫠 for a little while after that. yes, nfsw is a massive no but like you said there are other topics that shouldn't be discuss about. it actually is but a person will either get upset or find it rude, depending on their mindset but i suppose it's both like a double edged sword. those relationships def are treated as inferior but the friendships that turn into relationships are probably criticise most esp if the parties been friends for years but you can't force feelings to come out at an acceptable time if it ever happens 🤷‍♀️ that's true, a relationship need to be stable before progressing more.

it is a bit unfair esp if the newer users become massive fans, there are playthroughs on youtube but from what i've seen, it is a bit jumbled up and all over the place. i'm assuming you must have a lot of weapons then? oh i see, are they both mobile based? fans want a nintendo switch port for GI. it is a bit of a random topic lol. that's true and it would be super hard too, the spellings for my mum and her siblings overlaps a lot, they have double e in all their names. it's been a cool topic to talk about but it's finished now 🤣 that sound like an awkward situation to be in, i hope your teachers never thought that for like signed permissions slips for school's trips 😭 did you guys ever have problem with telling which one is your mail/posted package considering the initials thing. ah my dad and my names spelling are very similar (we have the same letters expect for one that isn't in mine) along with the initials so someone accidentally gave my option of voting to my dad because they skimmed through our names 😂 i did asked my dad if this was planned regarding our names and he said no.

also, i saw a short animated of koko accidentally confessing to inupi and it made me wonder what happened to inupi in the bonten timeline and his relationship with koko.

oh don’t worry, i’m glad that you’re back & feeling better again! <3

yup, agreed

yep. my ex & i tried to love each other romantically and force the feelings, aaand it did not work out lol. in hindsight i’m amazed we managed to go 8 months lmao. funny story too bc we’re both aroace now so it was double stupid. we also didn’t talk at all for 2 years (bc i had them blocked afhjfhg) but we started talking again last week and it’s going great now that we’ve both grown and realised that we’re way better off as friends so i’m not too upset abt our past mistakes anymore lol. anyway, lesson learnt, forcing relationships or love does NOT work out, no matter how desperately you want it to. also agreed, relationships definitely need to be stable to move on bc if they’re not it just keeps getting harder to somehow make them stable (again).

yeah, true. i mean yes.. to be fair i’ve been playing for a really long time and for most of that i’ve been playing it daily so,, hoyoverse (i think i called the company mihoyo in my last reply? they used to be called mihoyo but changed their name to hoyoverse idk a year or so ago but i keep forgetting adhjf) now releases all of their games for both mobile & pc, and i think gi, hi3rd, and hsr are for ps4 & ps5 too? honestly not sure, i play them all on pc. ah yes, the switch port... i used to be kinda excited for it but i’ve lost hope for getting one soon (if ever) bc we were promised one two and a half years ago and nothing’s been done ever since 💀

funny thing my dad is a teacher at my school so he knows some of my teachers a bit & even is friends with one lol so i never really had any problems with our signatures after explaining why they’re so similar. idk abt other places but on the post here there’s always your full name so we never had problems with that. tho i’ve had a bunch of other teachers from my school text me on teams thinking they were texting my father bc our usernames on there (bc school) are almost the same afhjgfjshd

ah lol, that seems annoying

oh i think i know which animation that was bc i think i’ve seen it too! i personally hc that they went no contact or at least barely have any contact even if they’re both not really happy with that (especially koko) but they think it’s for the best. i just think inupi wouldn’t want any associations with criminals and koko wouldn’t want inupi to have associations with criminals bc of him either, so... tho that’s pretty sad afhjggfh but imo the most realistic version of them in bonten

[lov3nerdstuff]

Hi Kay!

I just wanted to take a moment and say how deeply moving (and overall comforting) I find your writing to be! I've gone through almost the entirety of your masterlist twice in the past month alone and have found myself returning more often to the pieces of literature/poems your reference sometimes. (Especially that one poem by Benedict Smith! I've read a few more by him because of you and they're just wonderfully lovely 💛 so I'm eternally thankful to you for including it.)

I may be wrong in assuming, but I believe you may have studied/are currently studying a degree involving literature. I hope this isn't too foreward of me but I was wandering if you have any other works of literature that you'd recommend? (I'd love to read anything you recommend from poems to plays 💛) I'm slightly embaressed to say but the works I've read are quite limited to a highschool level and since I'm currently studying Pharmacy, there are very few people who can recommend me such moving works. :)

I also feel like I should apologise for writing such a large ask, so please accept this apology as well hehe 💕🥺

Sincerely,

Bek 🌻

Hey there Bek 💚💕✨

First of all... I'm incredibly sorry for how long it took me to reply to this ask, I know you sent it weeks ago and I'm honestly just ashamed of myself for only replying now! I've been taking a bit of a Tumblr break again, or rather a break from literally everything, and I guess not having written anything in a while made me feel guilty whenever I opened Tumblr, so... All I can say for myself really is that I'm sorry you had to wait so long! Again, I never ever ignore anyone, I promise! It just sometimes takes a while for me to reply 😅🙈

Now, I'm so happy to hear that you've been enjoying my writing! 🥺🥰 Hearing that it's comforting and inspiring to you is honestly such a relief and indeed does make me happy more than I can say 💚 It's so cool that you're checking up on all the references I make aaahhh 🥺🥺🥺 I love it 😁 You're always more than welcome, love! I don't think I could stop including references to literature, culture, history and the science around it even if I tried 😅☺️

And yeah, I did study classics and newer literature as a minor for my undergrad degree 😄 But tbh I still work with literally a lot even now (I'm in grad school for media and cultural studies) even though it's technically not something I've been properly taught ☺️ I'm just a nerd who likes to learn on her own, and with media and culture you can pretty much delve into almost anything you want 😂😅🤷🏻‍♀️

Now, it's not forward at all to ask me for literature recommendations! 😁😃 I truly love recommending stuff!!! I have a few up my sleeve, even though you've probably heard of a few already, for obvious reasons: A lot of what I truly enjoyed reading was something Tom Hiddleston has worked on in one way or another! It's truly a magnificent guideline for picking new literature... Just look up the literary origins of his films/shows/plays and you will be in for quality literature most of the time! I don't think I've ever mentioned it on here, but me reading High-Rise (JG Ballard) because I heard Tom would be partaking in the film adaptation was actually what sparked my love and passion for literature!!! Yep, it's that good. Now on to the recommendations though 😁(This... got rather long):

Plays

Anything by Harold Pinter really, but for obvious reasons you'll find a lot of additionally fun stuff for Betrayal, which is lovely and truly funny if you're in on the kind of humour btw

Medea by Euripides (a classic, but I love it nonetheless... You can find translations in almost every language) ((and pls stay away from Seneca's Medea, because ugh... Euripides is far better AND the og story, as much as anyone can say that for Greek mythology)

La Bohème by Puccini (I know, this is technically an opera, but if you read the libretto it's honestly just like a play... And if you're up for it, the og story is in prose and written by Henri Murger... It's better than the opera, but oftentimes more difficult to find) ((this one is hilarious and basically explains an entire cultural subgroup in the 19th century)

Faust by Goethe (many people hate it, but I LOVE this one!!! It's also been translated into any and every language, and it's so interesting philosophically!!! It's also referenced SO freaking often literally everywhere, and the operas and ballets based on it are always my fave) ((there's technically Faust I and Faust II, but you're good to go just reading the first one)

Anything by Shakespeare, obviously... Though I do love me my Hamlet like every other literature enthusiast (Yes, I can do that one famous soliloquy in act 3 scene 1 by heart as well...)

Poetry

Again, anything Shakespeare for the win, but I LOVE the sonnets and keep a copy of them with me most of the time (Yes, I own multiple copies of the sonnets...) ((My faves are 116 and 91, but there's always so much truth to be found in there!!!))

A lot of the stuff William Blake wrote is amazing, though you have to pick carefully with him if certain religious motives aren't your thing... I love The Tyger, which is an individual poem, and the collection of works called Tyger, Tyger which does have many good ones and a few ones that are a little more on the mediocre side

Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas (I know this one by heart as well... It's beautiful, and there's a version of Hiddleston reading it on YouTube, which gives you even more goosebumps than the poem does anyway)

Invictus by William Ernest Henley (same for this one, also read by the one and only) ((I love to read this when I'm feeling down or powerless))

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot (This is another wow piece with many quotable lines and truths... I love it a lot and keep coming back to it! It's also a great example of how literary modernism tried to condense the complexity and passing of time and history into a single frame that had to be intrinsically poetical in nature... As in, this poem could've been a short story in any other period, but modernists loved to make everything a poem so here you go)

Der Zauberlehrling by Goethe (This one sucks in all English translations I’ve found, poetically speaking, but in German it’s such a fun piece! If you’ve ever seen the Disney ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ with Mickey Mouse or listened to the orchestral piece by Paul Dukas, then this poem proves very useful in truly understanding either! But again, the English translation should only be taken for informational value... The German one is also worded hilariously)

Prose

Short edited by Alan Ziegler (This is a collection of short prose forms that honestly is a must for me... I love this book to pieces and have had it for years now! It’s an international anthology, so you’ll find more and less famous authors from all around the world represented with short stories, prose poems, short essays and just curious and interesting snippets of writing! I draw a lot of inspiration from this book)

High-Rise by JG Ballard (As mentioned above, I owe this book part of my personality... I don’t think I would be the same person without having read it. It’s not necessarily full of wisdom, but if you’re interested in a different kind of portrayal of the human condition, then this is the read you need to take a look at)

The City of Dreaming Books by Walter Moers (This is another piece that changed my perception of literature, even though this is a more ordinary and ‘fun’-value read... It’s one of my favourite books and it’s endlessly entertaining! So if the classics are a bit heavy for you, this one is perfect for casual readers as well! Its value really does lie more in the realisation of how fun literature can be, and the freedom you have as an author... So really, I could recommend everything by Moers, his style is amazing both in the German original and in the English translation. Yes, I’ve read both.)

Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (This is comedic gold, stylistic gold and generally a bloody perfect book. Also a ‘fun’-value read, but it also does a magnificent job at showing you what you can do with literature, and how well-developed characters are supposed to be written)

The Penguin Book of the Undead (Penguin Classics) edited by Scott G. Bruce (This book is basically an education on fifteen hundred years of supernatural encounters and how culture wrote, used and perceived them. You get introductory texts for different periods and social groups, explaining how and why ghost stories were written and used, followed by passages of the prime source texts (eg. ancient necromancy shown on The Odyssey). Really, this book is just for cultural history nerds)

The Earthquake in Chile by Kleist (This isn’t necessarily one of my faves, but it has helped me understand what studying literature and culture can do for you. In case anyone remembers my insistence in Wicked Game that you gotta know what a pomegranate symbolises... this novella is such an instance where this knowledge would prove useful. Generally, it gives many opportunities to think about privilege and circumstance)

The Symposium by Plato (You’ll probably not want to read the entire collection of speeches tbh... But the concepts introduced mainly here and in some of Plato’s other work are well worth looking into! For example, the ‘double being’ introduces a concept that in modern fiction is called soulmates... Just sayin’)

[xavier-on-quack]

Did TikTok and Instagram murder blogging?

Short answer, maybe.

Long answer, maaaaaaaybe?

Let me explain.

Where should I begin?

Right at the start I suppose. The first blog was Links.net, back in 1994 when a fellow student got bored one day and made his first website to publish his writing. This student was Justin Hall, who wanted a place to share this thoughts, his own academic work and some website links that he enjoyed (probably some memes back in the 90's).

But just like content creators nowadays, when they see someone doing a novel thing and is getting a lot of attention, they started doing it too, thus during the age before the term "blogging" was born, these sites were known as "Online Diaries" or "Personal Pages", which makes you wonder why they were shared to the entire internet. In 1997, when the "Online Diaries" formula was worn out and people couldn't find ways to continue innovating, Jorn Barger from his own site called Robot Wisdom referred and coined these sites as "weblog".

Since making a website was a really technical thing to do back in the day, most of the sites were made by programmers that talked about nerdy stuff. But on 1998, Jonathan Dube did the unthinkable and made a blog about something actually fun, an event. He "weblogged" an event called Hurricane Bonnie for the Charlotte Observer. The website looked something like this:

This masterpiece, along with the creation of something called the "Open Diary", which was a platform that allowed people to comment on their writing allowed people with no programming experience to also interact with others. A few tweak and changes were made, including the term "blogging" by Peter Merholz in 1998.

TikTok on the clock, on the clock, but the party won't stop.

As Kesha once famously said, oh whoa, whoa-oh.

TikTok is undeniably a worldwide phenomena, starting as a rival for an app called Musical.ly. It was called Douyin (抖音) at first, but was renamed TikTok to appeal to it's international users. The two apps were fighting in a market that was relatively free of competition, with the posts consisting mainly of music playing in the background and a short video.

This formula was a bit of a hit or miss, as the content was so random, that every single frame of the 15 seconds of content was literally filled to the brim with content and information.

Yes, I said 15 seconds.

Because that is where TikTok is truly unique. For younger generations that grew up with video content, like TV, Youtube and even video games to a certain extent, their attention span is very limited and reading just isn't as interesting or appealing to them anymore.

With that being said, who doesn't like creativity?

When you are only given 15 seconds to prove yourself, what would you do to grab the attention of millions or billions of overstimulated individuals?

No matter how short, simple or straight to the point your blog is, blogs will never be able to do what TikTok does. You can't condense a blog to be a 15 seconds read, while being meaningful or interesting. You can put a lot of pictures in to to make it fancy but where do you go from there?

Everyone and their mothers know what TikTok is.

If you think about it, why are we even pitting TikTok against blogging? Why can we go up to someone, ask them if "TikTok" is killing blogging and assume they know what "TikTok" is?

Because of just good advertising.

Good advertising isn't just important for a platform to be well known, it's essential. Developed by a company in China, ByteDance understood the application that they had, and advertised outside of China, they went international, going so far as to even rebrand themselves from Douyin, to TikTok. They took a risk, they advertised all over, and it paid off. Once they got people to start talking about it, they won't stop talking about it.

Not to beat a dead horse but, after 2010, do you still see people advertising about blogs?

No, and it's not because that it's irrelevant, but it's because all the blogging sites are scattered everywhere. The one prominent blogging site, Tumblr was barely hanging on, but was shot in the head after the ban on pornography on 17 December, 2018. Tumblr was once a 1.1 billion dollar company, bought by Yahoo in an attempt to save it from drowning, but failed soon after and ended up sleeping with the fishes at a value of around 3 million.

But that's not to say that the ban was the only reason that it was bleeding of it's users, we'll get to that later.

The rise of Instagram

I never knew that one day I'd had to actually research and write about Instagram but, the things I do to pass the semester is insane.

On 2010, Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger started a video and photo sharing platform called Instagram. 2 years later, it was bought over by Facebook for 1 billion dollars.

Why did Facebook buy Instagram? What was so special about an app that mainly focuses on pictures and videos? Isn't it just the same thing as Facebook but with less features?

Well you see, that's where Instagram caught the world by storm

Instagram does one thing, but does it well

Instagram only practices one kick, but they do it very well.

Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger initially made Instagram as a location check-in app, called Burbn. They soon found out that users were mainly using it for the picture sharing function, so they played towards their strength and reduced the app to only picture and video sharing, in addition to renaming it Instagram.

You get a post, you get a post, and you get a post, everyone gets a post!

Instagram is owned by Facebook, and also is in cooperation with Twitter and Tumblr, making sharing images really easy. You can post on Instagram, and simultaneously post on other platforms as well. This allows ease of access for those who just wanna live in the moment while sharing their experiences with others. The unique "story" feature also allows ads to be incorporated without much disruption for the user experience.

While we're on the topic of advertising, Instagram started with only 25,000 users, but some of them were big names, namely Jack Dorsey, who was the co-founder of Twitter, tweeted about it. This made Apple users to flock to Instagram and on a brilliant part on Instagram's part, they released the Android version two years after the original Apple launch. With more than 30 million iPhone users taking pictures on Instagram, they used the Word-Of-Mouth advertising method to keep the none iPhone users craving to be apart of this fad. Due to this, on the Android release 2 years later, there were over 1 million downloads on the first day.

Once again, we see how marketing and good advertising played a crucial role in starting of a social media platform right.

Where does that leave blogging?

Blogging is by no means dead, it just evolving. Instead of writing down their experience and thoughts on a page or site, they are instead sharing it through videos. If you narrow down the meaning of blogging as a form of writing only, then you will be sorrily disappointed.

Blogging is not dead, and it won't be in the foreseeable future. Although, it will be interesting to see where the internet will take blogging from here on out.

Reference list:

Anon 2021, A year after Tumblr's porn ban, some users are still struggling to rebuild their communities and sense of belonging, viewed 4 October, 2021, <https://www.businessinsider.com/tumblr-porn-ban-nsfw-flagged-reactions-fandom-art-erotica-communities-2019-8>.

Anon 2021, The History of Blogging: From 1997 Until Now (With Pictures), viewed 4 October, 2021, <https://themeisle.com/blog/history-of-blogging/>.

Anon 2021, Word-of-Mouth: Instagram Gained One Million Users in 3 Months, viewed 4 October, 2021, <https://www.referralcandy.com/blog/instagram-marketing-strategy/>.

[gronjon44]

Ok I need to talk about this. No hating me even though I know people will

Ok. So. I enjoy overwatch. It is, and I feel like it can be an amazing game in the future.

BUT

There is such a problem with it and I think I'm finally becoming depressed by it. Not clinically depressed but I'm just getting tired by it. I still enjoy the game and I love the variety of Characters in the game. But it's just becoming a big pile of shit. I mean everything I say in the nicest way possible. And take it with a grain of salt.

This game has by far the most toxic community that I have ever been a part of. The players in Overwatch just get too competitive, which I got used to. But its hard to get used to the fact that there are so many people who will throw matches for no reason, smurfs who just tend to ruin the game as a whole by sneaking their way into the lower ranks. And that's just the players.

I'm sorry. But Jeff Kaplan is the biggest idiot I've ever seen. He's done a decent job running Overwatch so far. But what isn't doing right is communicating with his player base, the very driving force behind the game.

IDC what you say. He doesn't care what we think, or at the very least doesn't care to listen unless his sales are dropping. He has gone above and beyond to appease the fans i admit that. But thats precisely what is ruining the game itself. He does whatever it takes to make the players happy, be it changing a map in a way it never needed to be changed or by ruining a character into the ground. Look what happened to Mercy and hog at the beginning. Hog went through hell and back because of his gun and Mercy has been ripped inside and out to make players happy. But instead of that, Mercy hsd become the most ruined character alongside Brig and Doomfist, Hog only recently got put into a place where he fits into everything. And that isn't the end.

Look at Reaper. He has always needed to be fixed. Shadow Step is by far the worst ability in the game it holds no combat advantage, and now he is the most deadly hero there is thanks to the change to his passive and to Armor. Hog and Winston, as well as every other tank, is now the ultimate battery for Reaper. And you know what, Jeff won't do anything to fix his permanent Damage boost, or the uselessness of Shadow Step. Because he won't.

Honestly the only person I've seen outside myself be willing to call Jeff out on his bullshit is BTC, or Blame the Controller. He is by far, the most in depth overwatch content creator on YouTube. He should be on the Dev Team doing Jeff's job in my opinion, because he seems more fit to run the game that Jeff. He brings up valid points, as well as alternative replacements for failing mechanics in the game. And guess what happens when he does. Jeff gets mad.

BTC gave so many alternate ideas for Reaper tk have a better setup. And Jeff responded with saying that his ability is meant to get him into the fight quickly and suddenly. It isn't supposed to be stealthy so stop asking.

I guarantee Jeff watched BTC and is getting upset at the idea that there are those who are more communicative with the community than he is, and have more effective ideas than he does.

To be fair this is all my own opinion. I just feel like Jeff isn't doing his job. I mean look at the lore. They are giving us toenail clippings for lore. It's been three almost four years and FNAF has a more consistent plot than Overwatch does, and FNAF is 80% theories. I've been dying to see something to do with the Swiss Base attack, or more specifically the Los Muertos. I want more lore and I see that some people could argue that the game isn't meant for lore. But you know what,

I DON'T RIGHTFULLY CARE

I am not the only one who enjoys the game for lore. I can get being the gameplay still but I mainly first entered the game for the lore and variety of story. But now it's just a big mess angry fans, ignorant developers, and such lack luster content that it's just getting old. And I think I, as well as many others are getting close to finding an alternative.

I won't be the first to admit it, but Respawn entertainment is doing MUCH better than Blizzard right now. In terms of a quality game, Titanfall 2 is by far the best game of it's year, even compared to Overwatch.

They have so far managed to keep a game as old as Overwatch in better shape with minimal changes, a balanced system with it's fair share of problems (but those problems arent cram fixed like what Overwatch does), and they actually release good games consistently. Case and point, Apex: Legends.

TBH, I was half expecting Overwatch or even EA to jump on the Battle Royale hype train. I was getting on a "Star Wars: Force Royale" or some other cheesey cash grab. But Respawn was a huge surprise honestly. And the shear quality of the game is astounding. I always played Fortnite over Blackout and PUBG, only because it was simpler and the art style appealed to me more. But Apex just hit all the marks. You don't need to have a mic to communicate with the Ping system; there's a decent roster of characters so far, small as it may be; the controls are smooth and there's no need of Building (thank God). And it's just an amazing game already and it's only been out for what a month?

I'll be short and sum this up cause I've made this pretty damn long. The point of all this is to say that there are much better alternatives to Overwatch. I have more fun playing Titanfall 2 in the span of 3 weeks cause I bought it recently finally since I missed out when it released. It is a much better game and it has yet to die and is by far a great step in the right direction. And let's not ignore the fact that they STILL HAVE A SINGLE PLAYER MODE, UNLIKE MOST GAMES NOW WITH ANY MULTIPLAYER.

I just think OverWatch needs to step it's game up or they're gonna start losing players real fast.

This is all my own thoughts so take it how you will. Hate me, agree with me, I don't really care cause I just wanted to vent all this

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “People Pleaser“

Written by: Haley Mancini, Jake Goldman

Written & Storyboared (sic) by: Jaydeep Hasrajani, Leticia Abreu Silva

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

YouTube videos! To-do lists! Evil goo!

This episode, which became the season finale whether the writers knew it or not, starts with a lesson on what biomes are from a fake YouTube personality. Said personality seems to be stuck in the worst part of the 90s.

Braeden: This is Biomes with Braeden! We talk about biomes 24/7! (sudden cut to him playing an electric guitar) diddledodiddledodiddledo-wreeeeeeeeeeeooooh!

Yeah, he's no Strong Bad. He never appears after this scene, his only purpose is to teach the kids at home what a biome is. They could have had Blossom explain what it is, but it just wouldn't be hip if we aren't down with the Yous and the Tubes. He also introduces the Make Your Own Biome set; so easy, a baby can do it.

Bubbles is apparently less than this baby, as she can't get a tree to stand up. This still unnamed outside of the three seconds in one of the shorts school has given our girls another Science Project. Bubbles is doing a taiga biome, Buttercup is doing the egg drop, and Blossom is doing nothing. I guess she got a free pass after making that animal ray reversal button.

Bubbles: I got the tiger! (stock tiger roar)

Bubbles can actually do this with her special power of speaking animal, but it's hard to tell if this joke was made with that in mind. Since Bubbles can't build the biome herself, Blossom promises to Bubbles that she'll help her out after school. In her words, it's her top priority, as she puts it as number one in her cell phone's to-do list. After school, she helps her out, and the rest of the episode is about the girls punching monsters in the face.

At least, that's what could have happened, but what about this? During school, Miss Keane calls on Blossom to do a favor for her. She needs someone to write a speech for a guy that runs a bean resturaunt. Apparently, Blossom is literally the only person in the entire class that won't make fart jokes.

Blossom puts it in her to-do list, and being the loving sister she is, she immediately puts Bubbles below the bean enterpeneur. Anyone can guess where this plot is going at this point. Most PPG 2016 episodes seem to take plot points from the original, but in this case, it's taking the plot from Run, Blossom, Run. The big difference, is that in that short, Blossom felt the need to do everything immediately so she can get to class without guilt.

In this episode, she constantly takes on new favors, and instead of doing them, she just puts it on her to-do list. In her mind, any new favor should be her top priority, no matter what. Of course, this comes at the expense of poor Bubbles. She doesn't even care, and this will be far more apparent later.

I'll give one example, because it really shows how forced this plot is. One of the favors she decides to take is to deliver a pizza to a bunch of “hangry” astronauts. They really rub in that word, too; they have this mission control say what it means, and then has some yelling astronauts repeat it in a cutaway "gag". Huh, delivering a small box to a satellite in space quickly. A perfect job for someone who could fly really fast and survive in a vacuum.

This seems like something she can do instantly, but because of this episode's plot, she puts it in her to-do list. Those astronauts can starve while she fills her list full of silly things like deliver clowns to the clown college. Get it, clowns? Yeah, I don't get it, either.

It's long after school, and Bubbles is rightfully sad that Blossom isn’t helping her out. Out of luck, Buttercup shows up. Oh yeah, that Buttercup subplot about the egg drop. The egg drop simply consists of finding out how to drop an egg without breaking it. The running joke is that Buttercup's experiments consist of throwing eggs at her sisters, because that's what humans do.

Buttercup wonders why Bubbles is crying, and Bubbles explains her situtation. That rascally little green princess decides to help her out in Blossom's place. All this episode needs is a sitcom "wah wah wah" sound effect, but they thankfully wasted those in the last episode.

We get a montage, cutting between Buttercup helping out Bubbles, and Blossom finally doing her favors. I guess after getting 500 of them, she finally decided to do them. If there's one improvement over the short: at least some of these favors actually involve superpowers. For example, she uses super speed to fix the library, and eye lasers to light up the Non Copyrighted Multinational Sports Event's torch.

Of course, Buttercup's help doesn't go too well. Buttercup shoots the paper trees like shuriken, pours soda all over the taiga, and drowns the entire project in marshmallow goo. Bubbles initially laughs, and then starts crying that her project is "terrible".

Buttercup: There's only one thing that can cause Buttercup to be terrible.

It is way too easy to respond to this line, so fill in the blank: "____________________? No, she's referring to Blossom." She leaves, not realizing the biome project is slowly expanding. This will have an explanation, but it will not be a satisfying one.

There might be someone who is thinking, "well, maybe this is all against Blossom's will, and she's desperately trying to get to that Bubbles favor!" Well, that's not the case. Buttercup confronts Blossom on not doing the favor of the one person that truly matters.

Blossom: The Professor?

Buttercup: NO! Bubbles!

Blossom: Oh no, I forgot!

Yeah, she completely forgot about Bubbles. I guess she was too busy adding things to her to-do list than to be a caring sister. To try to rub it in, Buttercup tells her that she had to help Bubbles.

Blossom is more concerned that Buttercup decided to take her place, because Buttercup is incompetent! Buttercup tells her to relax, because insert obvious joke about character talking about something that can't possibly happen but will happen after the character talks about it.

Buttercup: It's not like marshmallow goo turns biomes into giant rampaging monsters!

Yes, marshmallow goo turns biomes into giant rampaging monsters, who knew? Blossom treats this as if this is supposed to be common knowledge. She does throw in a line about chemical composition, but that's all we get. Hmm, there is this magical chemical they could have used that would make a better explanation.

Come to think of it, I don't remember if Chemical X ever appeared in this reboot beyond the opening of the music video. Now that's one part of the original that could have been expanded upon. All we know about it is that it creates life, causes superpowers, and has an antidote. Wait, I'm rambling again. Quick, get me a non sequitur scene that adds nothing to the episode.

Oh yes, it's completely necessary to have a random scene where Buttercup pours marshmallow goo out of an oil barrel. Seems to be a staple of Hasrajani and Silva episodes to have poorly animated scenes that only serve to make this cartoon worse than it already is. Well, there is a giant monster, so can we get a giant monster battle?

Buttercup tries to defeat the monster by throwing eggs at it. Remember, that funny running joke that isn't funny or a joke? One of the eggs lands in the marshmallow goo covered portions of the monster, and doesn't break. This gives Buttercup an epiphany on how to drop an egg without breaking it, finishing her homework assignment. The Buttercup subplot ended, and the world became slightly happier because it did.

Blossom's Plan B: actually punch the monster! Wait, "the toughest fighter" didn't think of that first? The bigger shock, unlike every other time they tried this strategy in this reboot, it succeeds! The monster doesn’t even land a hoof on her, it’s just like the old days. Well, except for the hit flashes. Better hit flashes than previous episodes, but still.

Unfortunately, this turns out to be a bad thing, as Bubbles is sad that her biome looks even less like the picture. Finally doing her favor to the second person she cares about the most, she uproots some trees from the nearby forest, steals a water tank to give the taiga a river, and uses her ice breath to make it snowy. She apparently had learned nothing from the Snow Month incident. Average for the show, really; how many times did Buttercup have to learn to not be selfish?

This ends up making a biome big enough for the whole class to experience. Buttercup isn't too impressed; she was the one that made the biome a gigantic monster in the first place. It turns out those stolen trees, stolen water, and climate change-causing superpowers were put on the monster, apparently making it habitable and friendly. Eh, I'll take anything at this point, thumbs up.

Bubbles gets an A on her project, she turns into one of those chomper plants from Super Mario World, and those astronauts probably died of starvation. The episode ends with Blossom putting "get the monster out of the parking lot" on her to-do list, showing that she has learned nothing. Honestly, after watching 39 episodes and 4 shorts that might have counted as one, the biggest lesson I've learned is that I shouldn't take Cartoon Network's quality for granted.

Remarks:

Is the title accurate?: One could say that Blossom is pleasing people by doing them favors, though that title could refer to any time Blossom does a favor to someone. I could mention that this episode didn't exactly please me, a person, but that's kind of a foregone conclusion with this show.

Clarification: According to Buttercup’s paper, her and apparently Blossom’s nickname for Bubbles is actually spelt “Bubbz“. I will not use that spelling.

Come to think of it: One of head writer Haley Mancini’s previous works was an internet show called Raptor Raptor. According to the credits, it was directed by Matt Chapman, one of the creators of Homestar Runner. Maybe it could be a tribute to Bubs after all.

Final Verdict:

The season was going to either end with a bang or a whimper, and this one falls in the latter category. However, I feel like being a little charitable to this one. I liked how the biome monster ties to the ending, I do like how Blossom was actually using her powers, making the superhero part of the show necessary, and it didn't have any bad memes. Also, it's because it's the last episode of Season 1, and I can finally say that this blog completed something. This episode gets...

Uh, Buttercup. I said it wasn't that bad. Come on, try to straighten that face.

Oh dear. I guess after judging this whole season of the PPG 2016, her face got stuck in a permanent scowl. I could imagine 2016 itself didn't help. Maybe I should try to fix that up; I'll put that on my to-do list.

← Somewhere Over The Swingset ☆ Bubbs and Donny Get The Mail (Short) →

[duanecbrooks]

The Return Of Girls Gone Write     Further unmistakable evidence that women, by and large, are the superior writers: the former George W. Bush press secretary and current Fox News host Dana Perino's my-life-with-my-dog-Jasper memoir Let Me Tell You About Jasper...: How My Best Friend Became America's Dog and the large-screen sprite Anna Kendrick's personal/professional memoir Scrappy Little Nobody. These two books are, frankly, flat-out joys to read, the former being a frequently warmhearted, often humorous, always heartfelt telling of her life and experiences with her pet dog Jasper, who, as she convincingly claims, has become the real and true star of the Perino family; the latter being an engaging, sprightly, consistently witty literary self-examination of one of the modern-day American cinema's most succulent and most appealing chicks. To partake of these tomes consecutively, both from beginning to end, is to spend quality time with a pair of delightfully quirky, keenly aware, firmly articulate she-babes who, each in her own way, have a marvelous sense of proportion, a marvelous refusal to see themselves as having any kind of Greatness.             Before getting into just exactly why these superb books are superb, allow me to go into how I first became aware of Kendrick (If you'll remember, Perino first came into my life via her first-rate within-the-George W. Bush-administration memoir And The Good News Is...: Lessons and Advice from the Bright Side). Kendrick caught my attention, as do many other other folks and things these days, via YouTube. Specifically, first, during a compilation of Kathie Lee/Hoda's "best" Today "celebrity moments," wherein, when Kendrick was asked whether or not she'd like to play a game, she facetiously mimicked Nader and replied mock-earnestly: "No! I hate games! I hate fun, I hate laughing!" (Later, she was shown doing some mock-dirty dancing with said girls); second, during a trailer for one of Kendrick's more recent theatrical films, namely Get A Job, the aforementioned trailer's two highlights, for me, being 1) this scene where Kendrick's filmic character, Jillian by name, is sitting on the floor lamenting the fact that she spent almost all of the money she had on a BITCHIIN' pair of shoes, while clad in a pair of equally bangin' black toreador pants that, given her sitting position, magnificently show off her magnificently long, lean legs and her magnificently-proportioned bare feet; and 2) a long shot of Kendrick adorned in a man's white shirt and tie and black high heels and again displaying those stylishly long, lean legs. Thus I was already primed, due to being previously turned on by Kendrick, to favor her tome.             It's here where I'll deal with the highlights of both books, the places where our memoirists especially grab ahold of and, simultaneously, charm and delight us.               .Perino, on the vast network of fans/friends that has developed due to her having Jasper: "It is a bit wonderful that through television and social media, Jasper and I became friends with so many people across the country. I enjoy interacting with my followers and fans, and I really feel that we have modern-day friendships--people I've never met, but that I've come to know over time through short digital interactions. It has widened my circle of people I talk to, and it's deepened my appreciation for people from all walks of life. I now get a chance to communicate with people I wouldn't have ever known; the Internet has given us a way to connect and network that didn't exist before. We're all neighbors now (with the proper amount of fencing to keep things friendly).               "Often this new group of people has cheered me up or warmed my heart just when I needed it. Working in politics and live cable television can be stressful, and switching off at the end of the day isn't always easy. Jasper's following has actually given me a way to set aside the work portion of my day and exchange some messages with my electronic friends, which helps me keep grounded and cheerful."                 .Kendrick, on her brother Mike: "My brother is my hero. I've idolized him since the day I was born and I still do. He's responsible for at least sixty percent of my personality, for better or worse. I'm told that if you're an only child, you grow up thinking you're the center of the universe, and if you have tons of siblings you grow up with a healthy perspective on how small you are in the grand scheme of things. I'd like to think that my brother told me I was a worthless brat often enough that I got the same effect...     "Mike's main interests [when we were kids] were watching Star Wars, playing Magic: The Gathering, and avoiding his annoying little sister. The only time he happily included me was when he wanted to play 'Pro Wrestling Champions,' as I was an ideal partner on which to inflict moderate injury."           .Perino, on Jasper's television debut: "Jasper made his debut on The Five [Perino's Fox News political talk show] as a sleepy puppy at just two months old, and a star was born. I brought him on set and when we were back from commercial break, I showed him off for the camera. He looked right into the lens with his deep blue eyes (a Vizsla [Jasper's breed] is born with blue eyes that eventually turn amber). He snuggled into me. Hearts melted.             "Jasper has tons of personality and is as photogenic as any dog I've known. On Jasper's birthday, my [The Five] producer lets him come on the show and he sits on a chair, for the most part, wearing a bow tie collar, and you would think he knows exactly what he's doing when he looks into the teleprompter. He's certainly better behaved than [Five co-host Greg] Gutfield."             .Kendrick, on her early period as an actor: "Starting in theater gave me a basic work ethic that I may not have gotten if I started in film and television. I worked six days a week, eight shows a week (two shows on Wednesdays and Saturdays, Mondays off). It wasn't so much the schedule--I worked in accordance with child labor laws--it was that I was held accountable for my work.             "Once, during rehearsals, our director was playing with the shape of a musical number that involved most of the cast--which jokes should stay, where they should go, etc. He decided to try reinstituting a small joke I'd had in a previous draft, and we started the number again from the top. I lost where we were in the music and I opened my mouth to say the line, a measure too late. He was already shaking his head and signaling the pianist to stop.             "'Anna just lost a line. Let's go back to how it was before and start again.'"         .Perino, on her period as W.'s press secretary: "[B]ecoming the White House press secretary was the best thing that ever happened to my career. I learned so much--about policy, world affairs, management, and politics.             "But the most important lesson I learned working for President Bush was about character and how to conduct myself under stress and attack. I found out how to be productive despite obstacles, and appreciated how a communicator can help calm a situation, advance a negotiation, or lead to a solution.               "The press secretary is the pinnacle for a public relations professional--it was the opportunity of a lifetime.                 "But having worked in politics for so many years, I'd built up a fairly tough exterior. The daily battles can wear a person out, and in some ways, I became edgier and harder than I'd ever been.         "It was also a lofty position, and the surest way you can lose your way in Washington, D.C., is to let any of that power or prestige go to your head.             "Throughout those years [first dog] Henry kept me from losing sight of what was important in life: appreciation and gratitude for my health and blessings, and the love I shared with [hubby] Peter and our dog."     .Kendrick, on her early life as a struggling actor: "The next pilot season [for television series] was starting up, which meant I was usually sent on one to four auditions a day. I discovered MapQuest and wrote down directions by hand since I didn't have a printer. Between that and my growing knowledge of the city, I was only getting lost, like, six times a day. Pilot season is grim because you're sent in for everything, no matter how wrong you are for it. I kept a mountain of clothes and accessories in my trunk so I could go from the fourteen-year-old goth daughter on a TNT drama to the spoiled twenty-two-year-old receptionist on a workplace comedy. It's obvious now that splitting my focus made it responsible for me to do well on any of them, but I was in no position to turn down auditions.               "How do I describe my personal life during this time? I met funny, interesting people. I went to art galleries downtown, I performed a one-woman show for free on the street corner. Except none of that's true. I spent most of my time trying to find ways to occupy myself without spending money or ingesting calories."                     .Perino, on what she terms Jasper's "protest pee": "When I wrote And the Good News Is... I received a lot of gifts for Jasper, including an embroidered quilt with the Great Seal of the United States. It is beautiful and functional. [Peter and I] take it with us to our friends' homes if we are invited to stay the night, because, well, you try telling Jasper he can't sleep on the bed. With the quilt, we're covered. Literally and figuratively.                   "When we're at our place in South Carolina, leaving him in the house is even more stressful. For a while, whenever we'd go out, we'd come home and find that he'd peed on the floor. As soon as we'd walk in, we'd know something happened, because Jasper would grab a toy as he always does, but instead of frantic joy and butt wagging, his tail would be down and he'd look guilty. It was hard to discipline him because you're supposed to catch them in the act. [Hubby] Peter would get pretty made at Jasper, and I'd feel terrible.                 "'He's so scared to be left alone,' I'd say.           "'No, he's being a brat,' Peter responded."                   .Kendrick, on behavior at showbiz events: "There's a campaign called #AskHerMore, which was started by some thoughtful, intelligent females (Lena Dunham, Reese Witherspoon, Shondra Rimes, etc.). It aims to ensure that when women attend events, they are asked about more than their dresses. Men don't answer questions about their clothes; why should we [women]? A simple and understandable request.                 "However, if people could ask me less, that would be great. I would love it if we could limit my red carpet topics to my favorite colors, what sound a duck makes, and my thoughts on McDonald's All-Day Breakfast--blessing or curse?"                 Also: Nearly the final half of Perino's book consists of various @FiveFanPhotoshops pictures that very humorously show Jasper in a collection of quite colorful poses--Jasper painting a portrait of Perino's former boss, W.; Jasper as a race-car driver; Jasper and Perino involved in the Kentucky Derby with the latter on top of the former, et al. And Kendrick's tome closes with a "Bonus Reading Group Guide," wherein there are "a few questions to help you get the most out of your reading experience."(As an addend, Kendrick wittily 1] apologizes for the "fact" that her "Guide" offers no red meat for those of us who "happen to run a trashy celebrity news blog that requires you to peruse the content of privileged cretins like me"; and 2] gives us permission to "use these questions [in the "Guide"] as a template for creating misleading but juicy headlines." She winds up by, also wittily, summing up what she, so she claims, is conveying: "[F]amous white girls are really fun to be mad at") Among the queries asked in the "Guide":                                        .."Though every page of Scrappy Little Nobody is perfect in every                           way, which part is your favorite? Make a list (it can be a Post-it that                           says, 'Every part is my favorite') and tape it to your chest for the rest                                 of the day."                                        .."When Anna compares Zac Efron to Charles Manson, is she making                                 a joke or trying to warn us about a potential murderous mastermind?"                                .."In the sections about Alexa Chung and Olivia Palermo, the author                           viciously maligns two innocent and very fashionable girls. Is Anna a                           shady, basic bitch, or the shadiest, basic-est bitch?"                                       .."Anna makes a lot of bad decisions. Can you think of a time when                                 you've made a bad decision? Oh wow, really? We're gonna pretend                                   you can't think of a single example? YOU THINK YOU'RE BETTER                             THAN ME?!"             And thus there are the books of Dana Perino and Anna Kendrick, the former being a greatly stylish, consistently witty, always loving paean to a dog who is not only a beloved pet but, as Perino very convincingly limns, one of the most well-known and well-regarded personalities in America (easily, happily, well above and beyond any yammering about "animal rights"); the latter being an engagingly lively, undeniably honest, unrelievedly funny self-portrait of a celebrity gal who is obviously on the sides of life and living, whose unflinchingly upbeat, never-say-die attitude comes through in literally every paragraph.                 In the much-lauded theatrical film The Magic of Belle Isle, the single Mom Charlotte O'Neill (Virginia Madsen), during an evening dinner with her daughters and that evening's guest, the renowned Western novelist Monte Wildhorn (Morgan Freeman), asserted: "I've always felt that a book does something no friend could: Stay quiet when you want to think." To partake of the Perino and Kendrick tomes as they "[s]tay quiet" is to have you "wanting to think" about them--always favorably and, very often, with unsheathed laughter.