Starting To Really Like The Idea Of Transformers Not Understanding A Lot Of Their Own Technology

brieuc talks comics

The Fall of X, or the legacy of Krakoa

Hellfire Gala 2023, Phil Noto Krakoa has been a fascinating thing to watch play out. I got into comics proper shortly after the new mutant n

We will kill the most diverse X-Men team this era has ever seen, but don’t worry, self-described genetic absolutist White Queen will avenge their deaths. The character whose first scene in this project was announcing her intention to act as the capitalist colonial arm of the mutant nation is never criticised or analysed properly for this, and in fact is rewarded with being the revolutionary leader, organising what needs to be done in the fight against the terrorist Orchis. We will show any critics of Krakoa to be nothing more than racist Nazi scum who die horrifying and darkly comedic deaths, to canonise our great and beautiful paradise ethnostate as the dream we all shared, that was ripped apart from us by jealous fools. Both powerful enough to pull off that feat, but not powerful enough to stop Kitty-now-Kate Pryde from going through a goddamn door. Simultaneously strong enough to defeat mutantkind at their strongest and proudest, and weak enough that they grovel for forgiveness the moment they’re defeated. These depictions are not unique to superhero comics–but ethnostates are. Using these tricks when you’re writing an era that’s opening moment sets up the direct comparison to Israel is, bluntly, disgusting, and shameful. It is disgusting if it is intentional, and it is still disgusting if it is accidental. The promise of an interesting story with a harrowing fallout is gone, and all that remains are the lies of fascists put in the mouths of characters whose revenge we are supposed to root for.

Wrote an essay discussing my feelings on the fallout and legacy of Krakoa. I also have a substack ver if wordpress doesn't work for everyone.

Fascism sells a synthetic nostalgia.

My name is mahmoud mohammed jaafar jaafar i studied computer engineering and graduated from university in 2023 i worked as a software engineer in a local company here in gaza unit the war started, then the company got destroyed and became unemployed and our house is destroyed partially and became inhabitant to live in but nevertheless we stayed in it because we do not else to go i currently live in north gaza where is a scarcity of food and i have 3 brothers and 4 sister one of them died while he was trying to find food for the family so i am the eldest in my family now i have to provide a living for them

Any amount you give me will help me a lot in supporting my family in Gaza in light of the fear and lack of food, medicine and drink

Chuffed

Help Mahmoud Support His Family

My name is Mahmoud Mohammed Jaafar Jaafar. I studied computer engineering and graduated from university in 2023 i worked as a software engin

Any amount you give me will help me a lot, even if it is $10.

— the official hawkmates (hawkman/hawkgirl/hawkwoman) relationship chart

Found family that’s made up of celebrity/mayor equivalents and everyone’s always busy (Click for better resolution)

Why I am not a fan of the interns from psychonauts 2 in terms of writing

spoilers for most of the game. please play this game it is very good. spoilers begin after the cut. Disclaimer 1: I love this game. If I hated it then I wouldn't be talking about it. I criticize the things i love because I believe in improvement from fair criticism. Disclaimer 2: If you are personally attached to said characters and feel as though you are being attacked by reading this, politely piss off. I don't know you personally, and if you think my opinion on fictional characters is some slight against a random stranger, then you need to touch grass instead of spamming my feed. With this in mind, this is my PERSONAL OPINION as to why i dislike these characters from a writer's standpoint

1- they are pricks. i have been told "hazing is just a normal rite of passage!" hazing is a dick move created as an excuse to prank newbies. I don't care how many fond memories you have of your frat house: hazing is something only assholes contribute to. and you know what else is a dick move? bullying a 10 year old kid for no reason. it is very normal for teenagers to group together with people that are the same as them, so i can believe this is a group of snobby little shits. If being bullies was the intended purpose of their characters I would be fine, but it conflicts with the story the writers want to tell. which brings me to my next point

2- We barely get any time for them to develop at the beginning of the game they are introduced as a group of little shits who bully kids for no reason. not great but i can forgive giving characters flaws so they progress. People like that do indeed exist. the problem: they don't seem to learn anything and they just randomly decide Raz is their friend during the casino mission. (and then later randomly shown up to save the day at the end even though they were missing most of the game) "don't forget how i taught you how to grind rail raz!" what???? you didn't teach us anything! you barely talk to us skateboard kid! Raz knew how to do that at the summer camp! and like, this scene is very cool. the artistic style and the characters popping up like comic book panels but none of that matters cus i have no reason to like any of these kids. "but Raz proved himself that he is capable during the lady luctopus fight so they respect him!" thank you for pointing that out obvious straw man I created to make up for my shitty argument skills. but the thing is: just because these kids were proven wrong does not equal character development. They didn't learn anything other than to not mess with Raz specifically. Which:

3- If you asked me their names, I can't tell you who is who other than sam (and we will get to her later) let me describe these characters to you -skateboard kid -kid who is in a really cool lawn chair hover thing -kid who got all of her clothing by stealing from construction workers and rodeo cowboys -the other bitchy one but with a beanie. - darius rucker with a yoyo -and sam. this shit is all i know from these characters. At best I know traffic stop clothing kid and the other one are sisters, but i literally only know that because Raz randomly pointed it out. (and personally, i think those two are the most unlikable of them all) "ah you probably hate them because they are teenagers" listen man. I am an original homestuck fan back when the main cast consisted of 13 year olds. The characters ages do not matter to me, but rather how interesting they are. in Psy 1 the campers were full of personality and depth, BUT they didn't shoehorn them in expecting them to suddenly be all buddy buddy with raz. They were designed as fun background characters, and they served their purpose. The interns problem is that they have the personality of very boring background characters, but they are not given enough time to develop as characters and are expected to be treated like a main characters. We spend all of our time with the Psychic 6 and not them (and i fucking love those guys!) the Psychic 6 are the ones we spent our time with. THEY are the real main characters because we understood their struggles and got to learn about them. I was closet to THEM because i spent time with them. I feel as though most of the interns were shoehorned in to appeal to a younger audience ok now we can talk about sam

4- I think sam is only interesting because she is attached to Dogan (please don't kill me i promise i am going somewhere with this) If you don't know, sam is basically the explodey head kid's sister. She has personality because she is attached to the most wholesome man of all time, and the weird kid from the first game with murderous tendencies. As a result of this, Sam has to be just as weird as her family members to make sense. I guess her character wouldent change if you removed her familial status with the Boole family, but also consider sam is basically pinkie pie. and Mable pines. And Molly McGee and basically every single quirkyyyyyy overly energetic female character in media with animal abuse sprinkled on top for comedy. there is nothing wrong with this. I think sam is fun too. But also she stands out like a real person in a room full of mannequins, mostly because her friends have the personality of mannequins. The poor writing of the rest of the interns essentially makes sam worse by the law of association because sam is grouped with these losers. in case you are curious, the "where did you get the milk" line cracks me up every time. poor Raz needs a hug.

5-They overplayed agent Forsythe a little bit too much and that does not help the interns in contrast. first: i love Raz's arch about learning not to affect peoples brains like it's nothing. It gave me emotional whiplash because i played the first game right before this game, but the games have a 16 year gap between each other and times have changed. I won't blame the game for that, AND the whole "mental health is a serious issue" grew on me. very good story this game has. Point is: Raz's consent arch was a really good thing for his character. but also agent Forsythe is kind of a bitch. first: your two agents brought you a kid who is enthusiastic about the psychonauts and your immediate instinct is to put him up with the mailroom clerk as his mentor? really? Thinking Cruller is a fucking nut and not validating Raz's honorary psychonaut status? yeah fair. she has no reason to think Ford isn't batshit insane. Getting on Raz for being late to class? also fair. She is a very strict teacher and needs to instill onto her kids that punctuality is important. but then some things rub me the wrong way. like you are an adult, how come you are letting these kids bully Raz? surely you saw the footage on the security cams? Or how come Raz got blamed for invading her thoughts when it was the interns that shoved him into it? How come you are targeting the kid for this and not everyone else who was involved in this? lets give her the benefit of the doubt and assume she didn't know about those things. Raz's story about him apologizing and learning from his mistake was still very good. Then sasha and Raz have a very charming fatherly moment about learning when to bail from a dangerous situation. made me smile. but then after all that emotional drama, you then talk to her and raz apologizes AGAIN and the emotional drama tries to continue. Lady you already had a talk to Raz about consent, why are you making him explain himself again out in the open? He is 10 years old and already learned his lesson, chill the fuck out.

and then later on she implies that she thinks Raz is the mole just because his family is from a fallen country related to the current issue. I understand not liking Raz, but is the racist remarks necessary? Do you seriously think some random kid kidnapped the head of the psychonauts? I know it is a serious issue but come the fuck on the kid barely knows how shapes work. i know this is about the interns, but Forsythe rubs me the wrong way and i feel like she is the reason why these brats are the way they are. I feel like she makes my distaste for the interns worse because she comes off to me as a sad fuck who targets kids to fuel her fragile power tripping ego. her level was good, and her arc with Raz was good, but she could use a bit of retooling. I feel as though I can forgive her nastier flaws if she acted more like an adult and gave the teenagers the same amount of lip she gave Raz. Perhaps if she had stepped up the interns would be more likeable because they and raz could have a nice bonding moment over their mistake. Tldr: Forsythe needed to act like an ADULT and discipline the interns just as much as she did raz instead of enabling them.

Overall, the interns are poorly written and I dread seeing them on screen. I am not attached to them in the way i am attached to the Psy 6. The story of Helmet and Bob touched my heart, Agent Boole's mission about social anxiety related to me personally, the story of Cassiopea coming to terms with her past and identity issues, Learning about ford's mistakes and the trauma he collected, everything! I love these characters! I guess the lesson is that just because a character is superficially the same as you, does not mean they are relatable. I am in my 20's. I am not a teenager anymore, but I am not elderly either. I am actually closer to the interns in age than i am to the Psy 6. And yet I relate to the Psy 6 more because these are human beings that i have grown to know and learn about. I am a girl who plays videogames. Shocker I know. and I have seen debates about "we need this and this and this or else i can't relate to the character!". There is not a lot of female characters in media and i agree that it would be nice to be represented more. but a character being the exact SAME as you does not equal relatability. I am not a grandfather with a tendency to make people explode, but i relate to Bool because we both share in our self judgement issues and the struggle to not want to hurt people with your personal problems. We have nothing in common physically, but we share in our struggles. and that is why the interns failed as characters when the Psy 6 succeeded. please don't spam my inbox about how much you disagree with me and how much you actually like the interns. this is just my opinion with writing advice sprinkled in it, much like Sam's personality.

New zine that's free for anyone to print and distribute! Read the whole thing at newlevant.com/COVIDzine or in the rest of this post.

Brawl Tier List (Based On The Relevance of What They Were Doing When We Meet Them In Subspace Emissary)

I'll explain some of my choices under the cut

So a lot of these choices are pretty obvious, although some are a bit iffy or require explanation of the Subspace story which can be found in trophy descriptions & The Dojo.

The first category was for characters who were engaged in the Subspace plot from the get-go and were the "good guys". In case you didn't know, King Dedede is the hero of Subspace, and if it weren't for him, Tabuu would have won, since he made the "reset badges", and his initial plan was to hold onto some people and give them the reset badges in case Tabuu used his Off Waves. Meta Knight is considered to be a good guy, even though he mostly just wanted to get the Halberd back. Fox I put into this category as well since he's first seen giving chase to the Halberd in his Arwing, so I consider that pretty engaged, even if we don't know the exact reasoning.

The second category is open and shut. They're the Bad Guys. Ganon, Bowser, and everyone's favorite winner, Wario. Technically Wario kinda defected from Tabuu and wanted to just steal all the trophies, but I'm counting him here.

Next was the "Used by Tabuu" tier. According to the lore, the entire Subspace Army is made from the power of Game and Watch (although it says the Game & Watch are unaware of this). Pikachu's electricity was being used to power a lot of the operations (most notably the Subspace Bomb Factory iirc). And it's implied that R.O.B was coerced into helping Tabuu, feeling so ashamed that he put on the Ancient Minister garb to hide himself out of shame.

The "Was Doing What You Expect" Tier is a tricky one, since some characters like Mario & Kirby weren't doing what you'd expect in their normal games, but they were fighting, which is something you'd expect in Smash, but I was kinda lenient. Pit was watching from Skyworld, which is in character. It's shown that Pokemon Trainer was looking for Ivysaur and Charizard, so we can assume he was on that journey when we found him in the Ruined Zoo. ZSS's motivations are kind of unclear about whether she knew about the Subspace Bombs and tried to stop them or if she just knew her Power Suit was there and wanted to get to it. I always figured it was the latter, so I'm putting it in this tier. Marth was defending a castle, which sounds right (I haven't played Fire Emblem). Ice Climbers were climbing ice. Monkeys were getting their bananas. Link was getting Master Sword. Yoshi was sleeping (which only gets him out of "Just Standing There" tier because he is Yoshi).

Next are the ones who just kinda showed up. And it so happens that all five of them make a pretty grand entrance. Sonic is the obvious example here. Ness also counts since there's no implication that either he or Lucas actually live in or even near the Ruined Zoo, but then again in the dialogue-less cutscenes tying together over 30 characters, I don't think that detail was important. Falco makes a grand entrance, although you could argue that he was meant to be Fox's backup. Ike makes a grand entrance with this Great Aether. Captain Falcon literally shows up to jump out of his car, punch a robot and kill approximately 50 aliens in one fell swoop, so either there was an F-Zero track around the Island of the Ancients that we don't see and he quit in the middle of his race to do that, or he just did that. Either way there's something wrong with him.

And then finally we have the characters who were Just Standing There. Luigi obviously was minding his own business when he got got by Dedede. Peach and Zelda I almost put in the "Doing What You Expect Tier" (or at LEAST Peach since she knew Mario at least), but honestly? They were just standing there. No hate, obviously. Sometimes you just gotta Stand There. Olimar was minding his own business letting his Pikmin eat a robot before they were murdered. Lucario was vibing on top of a mountain (as you do). Lucas was just being sad. And Snake? We don't see any sign that he's on a mission. We just see that he's been on the Halberd for an undisclosed period of time before dramatically revealing himself way way later. I like to imagine he accidentally fell asleep.

And then the last tier are for the 3 characters that are unlocked after Subspace, so I don't really count them.

Anyway in case you can't tell I am back on my ADHD meds! Hope you enjoyed this. See you all for the Nuzlocke stream later.