✶ hopelessly & helplessly ✶

they/xe/he. nonbinary transmasc genderthing whateverthefuck. consistently inconsistent. frequently incomprehensible. liker of things. salvador delaney has fallen down the steps at the met gala.

[eyesteeth]

📌 pinned 📌

eyeteeth

23 y/o

i don’t do sideblogs, this blog is Chunky Fandom Soup

(but i Do have a TSV au askblog)

my current hyperfixation is The Silt Verses

(but i post about a lot of things :])

if it's been out for over two weeks, spoilers are untagged. if you want specific spoilers tagged, shoot me an ask

please send me asks i love asks!!

[eyesteeth]

[cathackz]

ok then

[bulbasaur-propaganda]

Growing up with your starters

Artist:  esasi8794 / Twitter

[chabbit]

The captions are also really cute, although they mostly describe what’s in each photo:

Bulbasaur: Somehow, nomming on my clothes… has become a weird habit of theirs.

Venusaur: That hasn’t changed now that they’ve grown, but they’re very gentle.

Charmander: It’s my first attempt, but I made a plushie so that he wouldn’t get lonely.

Charizard: That plushie seems to be his favorite even now.

Squirtle: Squirtle’s a bit timid and hides behind me at the smallest things.

Blastoise: Looks like they’re scared of the first Pichu they’ve seen. You’re not really hiding!

[notsomerryerry]

@noelle217

[gale-gentlepenguin]

This is adorable

[arrghigiveup]

They just posted some more!

[source]

[kradeiz]

And some more!

[eeveelution-appreciation]

You forgot these!!!

[cubonepropoganda]

I’m disappointed that these were left out

[a-redharlequin]

SO MANY GOOD ONES AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

[jehovahhthickness]

Tell the truth.

Why are y'all single?

[taylor-titmouse]

on setting up audience expectations, and either satisfying or defying them

i told myself i wouldn't write an essay about tadc, because i should have got my fill of trying to argue with people on bluesky whose critical analysis starts and ends with 'the creator said so'. but i unfortunately do feel very strongly about storycraft, so i'm going to write an essay anyway, focusing mainly on one scene from the finale and how it creates an expectation it does not satisfy, nor meaningfully subvert.

i'm going to be discussing how tone, visuals, and familiar tropes work together to create an emotional expectation, and what could have been done differently to support what is the supposed intended read. while the essay is going to be taking the stance that this scene failed in what it was trying to do, my intent is not to diminish readings that it succeeded. if anything i'm only using tadc and the scene as an example to talk about the greater concepts of narrative catharsis. i'm not here to convince anybody how to feel about the work itself, just make a point. it's educational. i like talking about writing and visuals. it's not a review and there's no moral stance being taken about what is good or bad.

okay?

and to be clear, i'm not going to be referencing or including anything the creator has said, because i've not read any of it, i'm not going to, and i don't need to. 'the creator said so' is a rhetorical dead end that stops discussion in favor of a solid single answer. i'm not interested in fandom discourse surrounding the creator. that's not what this is about. my reading is based entirely and exclusively on the text of the work itself and my interpretation of it.

okay?

okay.

and obviously this will contain spoilers for the final episode

we're going to talk about jax's final scene, 31:30 up through 36ish, conveniently timestamped. for those of you that don't want to watch the whole six minutes again, i'm going to lay out the major beats. in pink, i'm going to point at the musical cues, visuals, and dialogue that i want you to pay attention to.

pomni confronts jax in the center of his psyche after reaching into his abstracted mind to find him. he pleads for her to leave, claiming nobody is supposed to care about him, or love him, and that she's making it harder by being there. gentle, insistent string music sweeps to a crescendo as pomni approaches.

pomni embraces him. jax claims it's too late, that there's no coming back from abstraction. pomni entreats him to talk to her, and he turns and kneels to hug her. the music remains soft, gentle, and sweet.

jax says he doesn't want to go, and starts breathing heavily. pomni tells him to stay with her. he begins glowing bright white.

we cut to a montage of jax scenes, set to a cover of stevie wonder's Isn't She Lovely, a song about the birth of his beautiful baby girl.

pomni keeps holding on to the glowing white body of jax as the music continues, ending on the lyrics isn't she lovely, made of love. the screen goes entirely white.

zooble and the others pull pomni out of the glowing white body of jax. they lean over her and say "you weren't going to try and take care of him all by yourself, were you?" and "i'm glad we weren't too late" and "like you guys keep saying, we're all in this together."

the song continues without the lyrics as they put jax in a pillow fort tent.

those are the basic facts of the scene and the musical cues. yes, there are more details, but these are still The Basic Beats between pomni finding jax, and the end of the scene. two characters emotionally embrace, the music swells with hope, one of them starts glowing white, the most joyful, loving song of all time starts playing, and the whole cast shows up, eager to help, happy they weren't too late, reminding us that they're all in this together.

how is the scene setting your expectation for what comes next? what sort of feelings do the music choices lead you to? where have you seen similar scenes play out, and how did they end? the music is hopeful and positive. the characters smile tearfully, and speak words of encouragement. the character in crisis glows white when embraced by a friend who refuses to give up. obviously the answers to my questions are subjective, maybe you hear isn't she lovely kick in and you come to the immediate conclusion jax is dead forever and get sad. but the answer i'm trying to lead you to, and that i would argue all of these elements combined are leading you to, is a positive resolution. you're led to believe something good will happen to jax. that the power of love will overcome the abstraction, and jax will come back from the brink knowing that he--or she, as the case may be--is loved. isn't she lovely, made of love?

but that's not what happens. we leave this scene and move to a montage of building a pillow fort tent, into which the abstracted jax is dragged like an animal and left. nobody joins pomni in her attempt to pull jax out of abstraction, seemingly all they're glad to have done is not lost pomni in an explosion: "i'm glad we weren't too late." but they were too late--for jax. the character we've spent the past two episodes and thirty minutes examining under a microscope, the character who was in crisis, the character who needed help, and never ultimately got it until it was, factually, too late. the world state of "jax is abstracted" did not change. we, and pomni, understand him better for having insight into his mind. but no change occurred. if you're standing outside of all this, pomni went into a room, turned off the lights, and then was pulled away from an abstraction that glowed white and then...never stopped being an abstraction. nothing has changed. there is no positive resolution beyond "nobody else got hurt worse".

this is tragic. it is a tragedy! and i do sincerely believe it's meant to be tragic. but everything outside of the literal facts of the scene, the music, the tone, the way the characters talk, directly contradicts that. it is not presented as a tragedy. an instrumental of isn't she lovely continues playing as they build the tent and put jax away, but it's an entirely straightforward cover, still upbeat, still positively coded. there's no contrast between the use of the song and the way the scene is presented that would make it "bittersweet", nothing in the way it's shot tells me this is sad. the situation is only logically sad--if i feel sad, it's because i know i'm supposed to. i'm not being made sad.

and that's where the issue is. if the scene is supposed to be sad, if it's not supposed to make you think 'the power of love and friendship can save you', then it's not using the tools at its disposal effectively. it can still make you sad, but is it doing it the best way that it could? everyone's familiar with the old sarah machlachlan ASPCA commercials. images of sad cats and dogs in shelters, while she mournfully sings in the arms of the angels, to make you think about the fact that many of these animals will be put down without finding a home. the imagery and the music cues are working together to make you feel sad. now go mute that commercial and play grover washington jr's just the two of us overtop it. how does that combination make you feel? maybe it evokes hope, maybe it makes you want to adopt a pet. just the two of us, we can make it if we try. adopt a dog, you can make it if you try! it's a far cry from sarah's plea.

obviously this is a commercial, it's trying to sell you on an idea (however noble an idea it is), but that's not really any different from a story. the story is trying to sell you on the idea it wants to convey, and how it wants you to feel, and it's using music, visuals, and dialogue to achieve that. by the way, if you intend to respond to this essay in a reblog to argue with me, turn one word blue, otherwise i'll know you didn't read it closely all the way through and just wanted to fight. anyway if the scene is meant to make us go "oh my god i thought it was going to work out but it didn't" then it needs to convince us it believes it didn't work out. because as it is, it presents putting jax in the pillow fort forever as the positive resolution, because that's what the music is telling us.

so what do we do about this, if we want to ensure the audience comes to the "correct" conclusion? number one is, of course, the music. isn't she lovely is a great pick if you want to lead us to a trans girl jax ending, but if it's supposed to be tragic... you have to change the tone. you have to make it sad. jax doesn't get to live as a girl, make me sad about it! bring down the tempo, change the key. if it's meant to be mournful, it has to sound like it. and the music surrounding it, the music in the void as pomni and jax embrace--that too should not be so hopeful. bring in the cello, bring in the piano, take out the steven universe plinky synths. we know what sad music sounds like. make it sound sad! or at least contrast it with the visuals. if you want to use an upbeat song for dramatic irony, that's fine, but irony requires going against expectations. i expect an upbeat song to be accompanied by happy hopeful visuals. make pomni scream and reach for jax and be held back while the song plays, make her suffer. make it contrast.

then there's the visuals. the glowing white light. embracing somebody who's glowing white can be considered neutral, but, in tandem with the music, it leads to a reading of a coming transformation, a rebirth. something new is going to come out of that white light. rewatching the scene, i guess it's supposed to be a literal explosion triggered by the abstraction creature stepping on the grenade, but like... c'mon? c'mon. it's not ABOUT the grenade. it's about jax falling apart and losing himself fully and pomni trying to hold on.

and if that's what it's supposed to be, make his model start going abstract when he enters his panic attack. make it absolutely clear that we're losing this last piece of jax and can't get it back. turn the model black, make it warble, make it grow the eyes. the fact that we don't see jax abstract on screen originally, that it's just something that happened elsewhere, is another problem i have with the finale, but is not the point of this post. if the story doesn't want to show it the first time, that's fine! but if it wants this to be the moment when jax goes to the point of no return, it should make sure we know that's what's happening. a glowing white light is hopeful. a growing black shape is not.

and finally, the dialogue/the way the characters behave. i am not convinced by jax saying "there's no coming back from this" because i'm not convinced he knows that. of course he would say that! of course he would believe it! but that line is a band-aid over the problem of WE don't actually know that. we've never seen it tried. we don't KNOW that all of your friends coming together and genuinely caring about you isn't enough to bring you back. much like we don't KNOW exactly what causes it or makes it so irreversible, because we don't see it happen. i'm absolutely on board for abstraction being a metaphor for this or that, but because it is still a literal event in a world that isn't built exclusively on metaphor, we still need literal information about it and its rules. this is a problem with science fiction. you can do plenty with metaphor and analogy in the genre, but you can't metaphor the hard facts that make up the world. those of you who've been here long enough know how much chobits makes me insane because it acts like the reset button being in her pussy is happenstance in service of a metaphor for sex changing you and not a choice her freak roboticist father had to make in the lab when he built her. some things you do have to address.

anyway. i'm getting off track. if the story wants me to think jax really can't come back, i need to know that's impossible in order to be sad about it. and if i don't get to know that until this exact moment in the story (which is fine!) then i need to know it through failure. if everyone is going to walk up like thank god we're all here! we're not gonna let you try alone! i... need the group to actually try, and i need them to fail. otherwise, everything else being exactly as it is, hopeful music and all, i'm led to believe friendship could've save the day--if they'd just tried. but for some reason, they don't try. they just put jax in the tent and i'm left questioning why nobody else tried to hug him better. the expectation that something could be done was set up, and then not followed through on, nor subverted. if they failed, that would have been a subversion, the narrative playing on my expectation that love conquers all in order to make it more impactful when it says 'no, it doesn't.'

that's what i think it wants to say, anyway. that is the logical conclusion, based entirely on the events, and ignoring all the narrative devices surrounding them. but i'm unsatisfied by the logical conclusion. i don't want to have to examine cold facts when trying to deduce a story's conclusion. i want the catharsis of having my expectations raised, and then either met--which is still good storytelling--or subverted. a story doing exactly what you think it's doing is not inherently bad, it means you heard what it was saying. i don't think tadc would be worse if pomni and the gang loved jax back from the brink and she was reborn into an avatar with a cute bow on her head and started making an effort to be better. and i don't think i'd be unsatisfied by a narrative that said no, you can't save everyone no matter how hard you love them, if it said it clearly and confidently.

it just doesn't successfully do that.

phew. did you make it all the way down here? do you understand what i'm trying to get at, even if you don't necessarily agree with it? i hope so. if you read all that and want to yell at me for saying the cartoon clown show could have been better, please consider: nobody would spend their sunday writing an essay about a cartoon clown show if they completely hated it. i must have liked it well enough. i just want it to be better. you should always want better from the work you take in, and for the work you make. tadc already exists and can't be changed, so this essay is ultimately for YOU 🫵 to think about your own work and how you can use the tools you have to elicit the feeling you want in your audience.

that's one of the reasons for critical analysis. if you can identify what doesn't work in somebody else's story, and can identify how it would improve, you will be better at identifying these things in your own work, and your work will be better.

i want you to make good work.

please make good work.

[eyesteeth]

non-spoiler mermaid mask thoughts

i liked how this case was more challenging than the last one. granted, this may have been because i attempted to play the game in one go and spent 11 hours with minimal breaks going through it, but i felt it took more thought. to me, Tangle Tower was a game where you knew the culprit but not the motive, while Mermaid Mask was a case where you knew the motive but not the culprit, and that change in thinking was very fun.

i'm really curious as to why the game was renamed from The Mermaid's Tongue to The Mermaid Mask. much like how Tangle Tower had its dramatic title drop at multiple points, The Mermaid's Tongue could have had that too. i don't think anyone ever says "the mermaid mask" in the game, ever.

i really liked this game's culprit. they have a lot of different elements that make them very pleasing to my brain and i look forward to rubbing them back and forth between my palms like a marble.

i do not currently think this game's culprit can compare to the previous game's, however. quite honestly they're in such different ballparks i don't know if i really can compare them. one's meat and potatoes and the other's a salad with a sharp dressing. i'm letting TT's culprit wine and dine me before announcing there's poison in my cup while MM's culprit is some kind of creature i'm watching slink across my bedroom floor. you understand.

the art and animation was lovely, as always. i'm unsure if some of the physicality between characters was intentionally drawing on Tangle Tower parallels or those are just part of Velvet V.'s toolbox. and it goes without saying that i want to eat Catherine Unger's concept art. i want to draw like that. the use of color especially - mwah.

Raphael Benjamin Meyer once again pulled out a fantastic soundtrack. i've yet to really let the music percolate in my mind so i can't yet say how it compares to Tangle Tower's - especially because TT has been a sountrack of choice for me for years - but off the cuff i can say i'm particularly fond of Wirman and Tadpole's themes. Moon's began to grate on me after a bit, but i think this was due to me entering the "show the culprit everything and see what happens" phase of desperation in her room.

the puzzles were nice. they felt as if they ramped up in difficulty as the game progressed, which worked well. there was one particular puzzle near the end that i wish had a little more leeway though - i spent a very long time aligning and slightly rotating pieces until it let me through.

a small touch i really liked was Sally and Grimoire saying "this is close, but not quite what i'm thinking of" or "we're gonna circle back to that" when presenting evidence that was related to the segment but not yet needed. i know Ace Attorney gets kind of memed on for having punishments for presenting the wrong evidence slightly too early, and that's something i've frequently been frustrated by playing that series, so having this game respond and go "you're on the right track, you're just a bit early" was really nice. taking lessons from where your inspiration failed and working off of it. very nice.

The Big Thing At The End - no notes. incredible work.

The Thing After The Credits - pointed at the screen and went "YEAHHJHH"

i hope to do a second playthrough after a week or so. get what i missed, fill out the achievements, look for more foreshadowing, etc. many thoughts in my brain right now. need to let them settle. i may do a more spoilerly analysis once i've done that second playthrough and taken notes through its duration.

good game

[cottoncandylesbo]

[greseadraws]

dungeon meshi but they end up in the back rooms, a cursed idea that was eating away at my brain

[nitewrighter]

Peer-reviewing @monikoishi's tags because they're banger.

[eyesteeth]

im almost done with mermaid mask but its almost 8am and i havent slept so i will be leaving the very very end for tomorrow

[eyesteeth]

ok i finished it yippee

[hotvampireadjacent]

https://twitter.com/birdtickler/status/1552657242909904897?s=21&t=q4JEDIALmV-cAjcoEOypdw

[littlemisspipebomb]

ok so I looked it up, and it turns out they made a track out of PVC pipes, down a hill. The owner didn't realise PVC expanded in the heat, so on a turn the track just fell apart and the dude inside went over a fucking free way and into a swamp.

[aspiringwarriorlibrarian]

The funniest part is that the inspector was watching the whole time, and once the ball stopped he left without saying anything. Park management just shut it down then and there.

[baronfulmen]

"The ball cleared a small hill, briefly going airborne, then zipped right across Route 94, the two-lane road splitting the park. Cars honked and slammed on their brakes. If there had been opposing traffic, Frank would have become part of a real-life game of Pong, volleying from one bumper to another.

Still in pursuit, we followed the ball toward a small lake in Motor World that had been earmarked for a fleet of tiny bumper boats for children. The area wasn’t open yet, but the empty boats were being tested and floated on the surface. The ball soared over the grass and smashed into several of them, scattering the others with rippling waves from the impact, which launched some of the boats several feet in the air.

Charlie and Ken waded into the water looking for the hatch. After some difficulty, they got it open. Charlie pulled Frank out by grabbing him under his armpits like a baby. Frank crawled up the bank, coughing and sputtering. He splayed across the grass as we all stared at the ball, which bobbed in the water like it was attached to a fishing lure.

We did not ask for the inspector’s report, nor did we ever hear of one being filed. Ken Bailey returned to Canada. The snow-makers cleared away the PVC. Told to dispose of the Bailey Ball, they rolled it into the woods, where it remained for many years."

I don't know that this beats the teeth story, but it's pretty great.

[eyesteeth]

im almost done with mermaid mask but its almost 8am and i havent slept so i will be leaving the very very end for tomorrow

[elliewilliams]

whats yalls ultimate fave character. like years have passed, interests have come and gone, yet theyre still here. mines ellie williams

[mogblin]

the thing about job searching is i see all these job postings and im like i dont wanna do any of this for any of you

[ot3]

why does it feel like so often artists newer albums are worse. i'm not talking about stuff i listened to when it released and have loved for years compared to contemporary music i have no nostalgia for i just mean i feel like straight up whenever i start combing around a new artist's discography to see what's what it almost always feels like the newer shit is always way more boring

[eyesteeth]

no spoilers but as someone anywhere from a third to half of the way through mermaid mask multiple things have happened that have made me pull this exact expression

[ooliecat]

here's some grim fandango fanart. most of these are from november/december. which is when i finished the game

it didnt really fit with the other images but here's meche in an outfit