#to say im disappointed is putting it very

[indigosfindings]

updates having beaten the game

i also mentioned in my ttyd liveblog that that game's Big Interactive Set Pieces (like the punis and the glitz pit) drastically reduce in number after chapter 3, but spm keeps them through almost every chapter--the underchomp, the dorguys, etc appear pretty late in the game! tbh i get the sense that in terms of structure spm was designed a lot more holistically than ttyd was--hence the insane degree of foreshadowing

i know ive said this like twice already but i really really wish that more exploration stuff was unlocked by the acquisition of new pixls & characters. like, they consistently allow you to access things to complete their respective chapter, & they let you reach the next heart pillar, & that's basically it. it's particularly disappointing considering that it would take very little--toss a block cudge can break somewhere in chapter 3, or have a treasure room in flipside that you cant enter until you have carrie, or even put a peach-related thing in 7-1. then again, in the absence of badges & proper sidequests, what would the rewards even be? more catch cards???

the Chapter Padding/Imposed Backtracking continues to exist, & as i said about ttyd i think that it works best when theres a sufficiently charming framing (eg the overthere stair fruit thing) as opposed to when there's a more flimsy & perfunctory justification (like the hags essentially telling you "redo (part of) this level twice")--it's the difference between feeling like a genuine Quest vs like filling a clunky quota. the dimentio tag thing is like halfway between these two points

the underchomp is kind of fascinating. it's shockingly in-depth (there's interactions for every pixl???) for being essentially a one-off set piece that railroads you to victory

catch cards are mildly interesting but theyre the kind of collection task that's just too herculean to undertake--like, i can only do completionism up to a certain point, & if completing the list is going to rely on a LOT of chance-based rolls then i might as well just install genshin

women really are written in Some Kind Of Way (the hags, luvbi getting in verbal slapfights with tippi & peach, etc)

it would have been really easy to just make the 3d environments be the 2d environments With Extras, so im really glad that they pretty consistently make you lose access to 2d objects and/or add additional hazards

i have found it beneficial to the game experience to just actively Never use hp plus or power plus

"block meal" is so fucking funny

the overthere levels might be the ones where my attention wanders most--tbh ive never really cared for heaven, just like from an aesthetic standpoint

i will say though, the overthere has what might be my favourite background in the game (and that's saying something lol)...... the many, many parallax layers of interlocking circles function almost as an interactive study in adaptive composition

the bonechill fight is a bit of a letdown in contrast to the buildup

i said this before, but i really think all of the "doubled atk" effects ahouldve been +1 or +2 instead, or otherwise all the enemies & bosses shouldve had 1.5 or 2x the hp

the scene where luvbi "dies" was surprisingly heartfelt--her spat with grambi & jaydes produces a sense of emotional authenticity that really elevates the scene beyond the sum of its parts in a way that i dont think any mario game has even really attempted since. yesterday i watched it 2017 for the first time and throughout all the hollow, vapid dead-brother scenes i was struck by how comical that movie's failure to illustrate earnest grief & family dynamics was in comparison to a ~3 minute cutscene from super paper mario

on that note, i really like how after that heartfelt scene when grambi is like "please...... take care of the pure heart............" luigi is like "okeydokey." girl read the room

i LOOOOVVVEEE when dimentio is like "oh btw count, have you ever heard the name 'blumiere'~?" like he didnt gain anything from that it was just pure cattiness, im obsessed with him

i like how the subchapters of castle bleck are themed around their respective bosses--o'chunks's level is a gauntlet, mimi's level is full of tricks & traps, dimentio's level has puzzles & illusions, and bleck's level is like a final labyrinth

castle bleck is pretty similar to the palace of shadow insofar as theyre both largely linear gauntlets rather than "true" dungeons, yet for the most part i like castle bleck a lot better.... i think it's probably a mix of the platformer style being better suited to that kind of level design + the strength of the aesthetic

the final bosses are fun, especially super dimentio. the theme is great, and i LOVE the idea that luigi is like The Ultimate Darkness In Universe & that's just something we're not going to examine further or ever talk about again

between that and negative zone the nintendo wii really was just spoonfeeding luigi to matpat huh

the ending still makes me emotional as an adult! i cant rule out that nostalgia/carrying over the sentiments & attachments that i formed as a kid plays a large part in that, but i dont want to downplay the execution of the scene itself--it's sincere & evocative, it pays off a LOT of buildup, it plays to the attachments you form to the cast, and the music that plays in the wedding scene is gorgeous

nastasia is probably the saddest character. if only she couldve fixed him,,,

replaying super paper mario, sporadic thoughts post-chapter 2:

very easy so far--& although ttyd was also easy, spm's gameplay is sadly substantially less rich thab ttyd's was

having said that the game design in spm is! unrelentingly charming!! the use of platforming as a framework for a varied stream of stage styles (straightforward levels, dungeons, towns, the entire 2-3 Situation) is creative in a way that imo predicts the sort of things the mario maker community later ended up making. chapter 2's set pieces in particular are extremely quirky (the rooms with traps, the rubee thing, the mazelike basement, the merlee game show lmao)

few platformers have boss fights that feel like genuine Combat, so that's pretty cool

i will confess that as a First Dungeon, yold ruins doesnt have half the sauce of hooktail castle--it's much more linear in layout, with far less of that zelda-y "explore & comprehend the space" principle that made ttyd's dungeons hit

in a similar vein, it's kind of crazy how tippi has like a fraction of the personality that goombella had. it's a bit sad for the character doing the vast majority of the talking to just.... not really have any opinions on anything

the momentum of the chapters likewise means very few npcs ever get to stick out. like, even the "first town crotchety old mayor" character was a total one-and-done, one dialogue and you never have a reason to speak to him again (mostly just speaks to the game structure, which is as mentioned a bold enough exercise that i feel i cant really fault it for that)

bringing up a menu to use items In A Platforming Context is not at all natural to me, so im finding myself just not really using them

this game is a masterclass in visual design imo. the npcs & enemies & pixls being made of primitives that reconfigure themselves into different shapes really elevates the interplay of 2d & 3d, the backgrounds/environments are extremely aesthetically satisfying (the Mathmosphere in lineland, the optical illusion in the sky in gloam valley, all of castle bleck), & i love how the constant "digital/tech" motif (eg the "dragging selection boxes to flip/teleport", the trees & shrubs looking like something youd make in ms paint, etc) is an ingenious progression of paper mario's core aesthetic design

dimentio is so fun

the inter-chapter dialogue flashbacks are surprisingly earnest? for such a tongue-in-cheek game where almost every line of dialogue contains a joke of some kind, those exchanges feel humourless & sincere. that probably contributes to the Space the game occupies in all of our memories lol

i ADOOOORE nastasia

likewise it was really interesting how peach's "escape" sequence after chapter 1 was (while, again, still extremely sardonic) aesthetically & narratively framed with such a sense of Hopelessness. that's not to say like "woahh this mario game is 10x darker than you thought!!!!", more that it's just not a space the series commonly ventures into

the Ancients stuff is being leaned into extremely hard lol. ttyd mostly teases at that kind of "mysterious rpg lore" thing peripherally (the riddle tower inscriptions, grifty, etc) so it's interesting how spm puts it front & centre in contrast, without ever sacrificing the sense of mystique

this game really highlights how interesting the wiimote is as a controller--pressing the A button while holding it sideways (ie removing your left thumb from the direction input to press a button) is something that i cant think of any other controller doing, & it projects onto that button a really interesting sense of, like, Valence

it's the kind of game that seems to beg for one of thsoe posts like "things that ACTUALLY HAPPEN in _____"

[doomreed]

I've never expressed it here, to the best of my knowledge, but my family was Sinti Romani. Originally Jewish, but mostly secular by my grandmother's generation--we came here from Germany between the first and second world wars and the branch that stayed behind didn't survive. This is something I've been coming to terms with throughout my life, growing up American Romani is very isolating and I turned to my older brother's comics to sort of cope with those feelings.

Doctor Doom being a Romani character and something of an anti-hero, it spoke to me immediately. I understood he wasn't a "good guy," but to non-Romani, none of us were anyway, so that aspect never bothered me. Victor was fearless and unashamed of his origins, he was brilliant and capable and as a kid who struggled with anxiety and poor health, kind of inspiring to me, on some level?

Being Roma is as central to Victor’s character as being Jewish is to Magneto's. To disregard that for a blatant cash grab, like... my expectations from the MCU were already low, but they somehow went even lower.

[daily-hanamura]

[jfkisonthemoon]

they honestly couldve done so much with junpei beheaded/dismembered and im disappointed that it ended up just being mira. so much of his character and his relationship with akane is characterized by his lack of bodily autonomy, and him being openly beheaded during the nonary games would be the ultimate example of this. its perhaps the most brutal death in the game, and it never really gets explained or developed beyond the one puzzle that we get with it. junpei has been shown repeatedly to be subject to akane's plans or follow her blindly and i just think that would have been a really interesting angle to approach his beheading from. junpei has willingly signed up for nonary games in two different timelines just because he knew he would see her. he was infected with a deadly virus trying to find her. he grew desensitized to death as he took underground jobs to try and find her. his safety always comes second when shes in the picture, and his beheading wouldve been a prime opportunity to 1. exploit his willingness to let himself die/be injured for her and 2. make akane confront the fact that her confidence that junpei will always follow after her is not necessarily a positive thing.

[skitskatdacat63]

My favorite Nando radios from this Quali:

E: "Currently P1"

F: "Good man, I'm pushing like an animal!"

F: "Well done guys, a bit disappointed, this is magic."

E: "yeah, well done mate, it is magic!"

F: "magic."

[scientologyblows]

okay but lets be very serious here right now, when they release a statement what exactly is that gonna change? don admitted to him and lex having intercourse (which shows that he coerced her) and matt and ryans texts show that the situation was handled VERY poorly. an apology isnt enough for the trauma they both have caused

[thanatika]

low-coherency rambling in the tags

[cloudbends]

I wasn't ready for it to be so sad and gentle.... Ohhhhhhfhchhfhcd

[camels-pen]

(i haven't read Whole Cake in a while, and i never really watched it, so bear with me)

I'd love to write a fic with Usopp on Whole Cake. it'd be sooo fucking long and i'd need to refresh myself on the entire arc, but god i'd probably be so satisfied when it's done. specifically for having brought a single moment in my head to life, but we'll get to that.

On Zou, he insists to be taken along on the Sanji rescue team and has worked himself up with a whole bunch of very good reasons as to why he should go there instead of helping in Wano, but of course Luffy just immediately accepts with a "yeah sure"

With Whole Cake, I think he'd be flipping between having fun as part of the idiot trio/quartet (Luffy, Chopper, Carrot), and being terrified with Nami. There wouldn't be that many differences in the arc as a whole, though; some things would be easier/better and some things would be worse- I don't necessarily think Usopp's presence would be overall an advantage or disadvantage, just different. Like, major events would stay mostly the same, but little details would change and maybe those little details would build to a far more drastic change-

for example, maybe one of Big Mom's kids considers themself a great sniper and wants a match with Usopp, or is motivated to work harder because Usopp is around and they want to take him out and boast about it. Maybe it means Sunny takes more damage than canon, or maybe Usopp's help means less damage to Sunny. (idk if i'd really do smth like this, but it's just an example)

skjdhf fuck i'm really not equipped to try and figure this out when i don't remember shit from Whole Cake aaaa

I do know that, despite his penchant for talking and rambling, I'd probably have Usopp be dead silent after his initial shock when Sanji fights Luffy. Everything about that is the same, except Usopp is just watching Sanji the whole time- not panicking, not moving, and not speaking. He doesn't say a word the entire time, doesn't even make a sound, and that, along with Luffy's words and Nami's begging, stick with Sanji.

(Usopp is thinking of his own fight with Luffy in Water 7, he's partially wondering if this was what it was like- if it was this painful to watch from the sidelines- and partially knowing he doesn't have to say a word, because he knew, like he knew back then, that it didn't matter what was said. It wasn't quite the same, but he could tell in the way Sanji moved, in the way he spoke and held himself, that he was putting on a front, trying to be brave in all the wrong ways. Usopp didn't say a word to Sanji because there was nothing he could say that Sanji himself didn't already know. Should've known. And his quiet, direct stare, was more than enough.)

the singular moment i really wanna write, is a scene where Sanji is apologizing for dragging them into his mess- either during the big meeting in Bege's castle or some other time- and Usopp's like "I'll do what you can't, you do what I can't, right?" and Sanji pauses, a little confused, until he remembers Enies Lobby and a stupid mask and cape and-

and tears are gathering in his eyes now, fuck, but he laughs a little. It sounds wet and his face is itchy and they're surrounded by tentative allies, but he- he laughs again and he says, "Fuck, you remembered that?"

Usopp shrugs, a little smile on his face. "They were some wise words from a wise man."

Sanji laughs a third time. "You think I'm wise?"

And they banter a little more before Bege tells them to quit it since they're on a time constraint or something. Quietly, Usopp will ask, "It-it helps. On bad days. And I figured, 'what's a worse day than this?' Ah, not that you getting married would ever be bad per se-"

"Usopp," Sanji says, looking more relaxed and settled. He smiles fondly and grabs his friend in a one armed hug, crushing him to his side. "Thanks."

And yeah, don't remember much beyond that, except the whole "hiding and then busting out of the cake" bit, which would mean Usopp in a cute little tuxedo or smth- maybe with a fedora aaaaaa <- loves fedoras- helping out with the fighting and eventually sailing with everyone to Wano.

He would be so distressed about fixing up Sunny now that the whole thing with Whole Cake is over. Maybe there'd be a gag about him promising Franky to take good care of Sunny while they were gone and being confident, after being Franky's tinkering partner and learning from him over time, that he could handle minor repair work much better than he did the first time around with Merry. And so when he finally takes in all the very-not-minor repairs he has to do, he's certain Franky is gonna strangle him for not keeping his promise. Probably also try to write in some nostalgic 'repairman Usopp' vibes from pre-Water 7.

Also something something, Sanji, wanting to do more for the crew bc he still feels guilty about Whole Cake, decides to take it upon himself to help Usopp not fall into a whole anxiety spiral about the ship. In turn, Usopp ends up helping Sanji not feel so guilty- usually by handing his own words back to him on a silver platter. And, yknow, having the two of them bonding and being buddies again like they so rarely get to be in canon nowadays qwq

[biblicalhorror]

"This guy is my favorite character so it's triggering for me to see him going through hardships this season, idk if I can keep watching this season and I'm disappointed" I don't wanna be like. Mean. But stories involve conflict. Idk what you expected

[cherrirui-official]

Still not over the fact that they added Adventurer Cookie in the Golden Cheese update, infantilized him, used him for shipping fanservice and then killed him

[olive-evilo]

Here is some doodles of my vtmb fledgeling, Wisena!!! I recently finished my first playthrough of Vtmb and it is such a good game. It’s been pretty much the only thing on my mind as of late.

[nomaishuttle]

left a 10 dollar tip bc i felt rly bad abt being late 4 the pickup.. sry man

[coridallasmultipass]

If it's okay for me to add something related because I first saw this on Tumblr: In the mid-2010s, I heard about there being a gay Filipino deity romance (from one culture in the Philippines - there are many different cultures and beliefs) here on Tumblr. It wasn't until years later when researching Philippine deities for fun while trying to broadly connect with my culture that I found a deep dive where someone found that the Bulan and Sidapa love story originated from the same fictional blog source, and had been circulating from new sources and fan art claiming it was historical for years before the author tried to find a non-modern historical source for the rumour, creating a kind of Berenstain/Berenstein effect on the people he asked, claiming they'd heard about the love story from a forgotten source much earlier than the 2010s, but unable to give a specific name, or the source cited claimed they didn't actually know about the romance.

While I think in this instance, a shift in narrative is obviously okay when you consider it is still a living Filipino culture, and people from that clearly find identity with this modern take (which should be asked of people from the cultures directly affected by misinfo), it should also be important not to rewrite it as 'historical fact' particularly when it has a fictional modern source that someone can directly point to as the origin when they question and search down the telephone line (like the game).

(I use the word 'fictional' only in reference to the originating blog, because the blog was unable or unwilling to provide any sources that mentioned that relationship to the deep dive author. I'm not implying said gods can't be/aren't gay. I'm not from that specific Philippine culture, and I don't have enough background knowledge to make any claims of my own. There's also no like, singular religious text/'bible' that pre-Hispanic Philippine beliefs followed as a rule/that can be consulted about this - it's not like a translation debate. There's just no textual source pre-dating the blog making the claim of the romance, and historians/oral historians aren't making the claim either.)

I get variations on this comment on my post about history misinformation all the time: "why does it matter?" Why does it matter that people believe falsehoods about history? Why does it matter if people spread history misinformation? Why does it matter if people on tumblr believe that those bronze dodecahedra were used for knitting, or that Persephone had a daughter named Mespyrian? It's not the kind of misinformation that actually hurts people, like anti-vaxx propaganda or climate change denial. It doesn't hurt anyone to believe something false about the past.

Which, one, thanks for letting me know on my post that you think my job doesn't matter and what I do is pointless, if it doesn't really matter if we know the truth or make up lies about history because lies don't hurt anyone. But two, there are lots of reasons that it matters.

It encourages us to distrust historians when they talk about other aspects of history. You might think it's harmless to believe that Pharaoh Hatshepsut was trans. It's less harmless when you're espousing that the Holocaust wasn't really about Jews because the Nazis "came for trans people first." You might think it's harmless to believe that the French royalty of Versailles pooped and urinated on the floor of the palace all the time, because they were asshole rich people anyway, who cares, we hate the rich here; it's rather less harmless when you decide that the USSR was the communist ideal and Good, Actually, and that reports of its genocidal oppression are actually lies.

It encourages anti-intellectualism in other areas of scholarship. Deciding based on your own gut that the experts don't know what they're talking about and are either too stupid to realize the truth, or maliciously hiding the truth, is how you get to anti-vaxxers and climate change denial. It is also how you come to discount housing-first solutions for homelessness or the idea that long-term sustained weight loss is both biologically unlikely and health-wise unnecessary for the majority of fat people - because they conflict with what you feel should be true. Believing what you want to be true about history, because you want to believe it, and discounting fact-based corrections because you don't want them to be true, can then bleed over into how you approach other sociological and scientific topics.

How we think about history informs how we think about the present. A lot of people want certain things to be true - this famous person from history was gay or trans, this sexist story was actually feminist in its origin - because we want proof that gay people, trans people, and women deserve to be respected, and this gives evidence to prove we once were and deserve to be. But let me tell you a different story: on Thanksgiving of 2016, I was at a family friend's house and listening to their drunk conservative relative rant, and he told me, confidently, that the Roman Empire fell because they instituted universal healthcare, which was proof that Obama was destroying America. Of course that's nonsense. But projecting what we think is true about the world back onto history, and then using that as recursive proof that that is how the world is... is shoddy scholarship, and gets used for topics you don't agree with just as much as the ones you do. We should not be encouraging this, because our politics should be informed by the truth and material reality, not how we wish the past proved us right.

It frequently reinforces "Good vs. Bad" dichotomies that are at best unhelpful and at worst victim-blaming. A very common thread of historical misinformation on tumblr is about the innocence or benevolence of oppressed groups, slandered by oppressors who were far worse. This very frequently has truth to it - but makes the lies hard to separate out. It often simplifies the narrative, and implies that the reason that colonialism and oppression were bad was because the victims were Good and didn't deserve it... not because colonialism and oppression are bad. You see this sometimes with radical feminist mother goddess Neolithic feminist utopia stuff, but you also see it a lot regarding Native American and African history. I have seen people earnestly argue that Aztecs did not practice human sacrifice, that that was a lie made up by the Spanish to slander them. That is not true. Human sacrifice was part of Aztec, Maya, and many Central American war/religious practices. They are significantly more complex than often presented, and came from a captive-based system of warfare that significantly reduced the number of people who got killed in war compared to European styles of war that primarily killed people on the battlefield rather than taking them captive for sacrifice... but the human sacrifice was real and did happen. This can often come off with the implications of a 'noble savage' or an 'innocent victim' that implies that the bad things the Spanish conquistadors did were bad because the victims were innocent or good. This is a very easy trap to fall into; if the victims were good, they didn't deserve it. Right? This logic is dangerous when you are presented with a person or group who did something bad... you're caught in a bind. Did they deserve their injustice or oppression because they did something bad? This kind of logic drives a lot of transphobia, homophobia, racism, and defenses of Kyle Rittenhouse today. The answer to a colonialist logic of "The Aztecs deserved to be conquered because they did human sacrifice and that's bad" is not "The Aztecs didn't do human sacrifice actually, that's just Spanish propaganda" (which is a lie) it should be "We Americans do human sacrifice all the god damn time with our forever wars in the Middle East, we just don't call it that. We use bullets and bombs rather than obsidian knives but we kill way, way more people in the name of our country. What does that make us? Maybe genocide is not okay regardless of if you think the people are weird and scary." It becomes hard to square your ethics of the Innocent Victim and Lying Perpetrator when you see real, complicated, individual-level and group-level interactions, where no group is made up of members who are all completely pure and good, and they don't deserve to be oppressed anyway.

It makes you an unwitting tool of the oppressor. The favorite, favorite allegation transphobes level at trans people, and conservatives at queer people, is that we're lying to push the Gay Agenda. We're liars or deluded fools. If you say something about queer or trans history that's easy to debunk as false, you have permanently hurt your credibility - and the cause of queer history. It makes you easy to write off as a liar or a deluded fool who needs misinformation to make your case. If you say Louisa May Alcott was trans, that's easy to counter with "there is literally no evidence of that, and lots of evidence that she was fine being a woman," and instantly tanks your credibility going forward, so when you then say James Barry was trans and push back against a novel or biopic that treats James Barry as a woman, you get "you don't know what you're talking about, didn't you say Louisa May Alcott was trans too?" TERFs love to call trans people liars - do not hand them ammunition, not even a single bullet. Make sure you can back up what you say with facts and evidence. This is true of homophobes, of racists, of sexists. Be confident of your facts, and have facts to give to the hopeful and questioning learners who you are relating this story to, or the bigots who you are telling off, because misinformation can only hurt you and your cause.

It makes the queer, female, POC, or other marginalized listeners hurt, sad, and betrayed when something they thought was a reflection of their own experiences turns out not to be real. This is a good response to a performance art piece purporting to tell a real story of gay WWI soldiers, until the author revealed it as fiction. Why would you want to set yourself up for disappointment like that? Why would you want to risk inflicting that disappointment and betrayal on anyone else?

It makes it harder to learn the actual truth.

Historical misinformation has consequences, and those consequences are best avoided - by checking your facts, citing your sources, and taking the time and effort to make sure you are actually telling the truth.

[greatbridge]

Guess who got sick of ppl liking and not reblogging my art!!! Me :)

[tiamathh]

Hated cody and noel since they were talking about how being a mom means you can't have an only fans or some shit. They never gave me good vibes to begin with. I used to enjoy watching them but stopped few years ago. And now this came out,I felt disappointed despite not being a fan anymore.

WAIT WHAT I DIDNT KNOW THIS LORE?? THEY SAID WHAT I used to watch them when I was like a child the whole that's cringe thing but now I realise it was v mean spirited and the kinda of ppl they were making fun of are the kinds of people they ARE tbh like ugh ew WORST takes just the whole mom's can't have an onlyfans thing is just so ...?? Like can you shut up this in no way relates to you God ew I have my own thoughts on onlyfans but like let people do what they want being a mother or not is not related to that at all jfc