As of January 19th, I can no longer access TikTok due to the United States ban on it. I'm sorry if you were trying to get in touch with me there, but the US is weird like that.
Warning to anyone not familiar with Caddicarus' work: the video above contains cussing/strong language and dark comedy in the form of on-screen hanging, so viewer discretion is advised.
Approximately one year ago, Caddicarus achieved one million subscribers for his YouTube channel. In celebration of his accomplishment, he followed through with something he claimed he would do for his followers: make a video centering around the main games of Spyro. Among such games, and the last he covers in the video he promised, was Skylanders.
Skylanders is an odd part of Spyro's original legacy. Just like how Caddy singing about a pink-poo bag took me out of a video I'm sure his fans were waiting on for a long time, so Skylanders probably took people out of the Spyro fandom to some capacity because it wasn't about him. However, just like how pink-poo bags have a unique use, and just like how recycling Skylanders' figurines being turned into sausage has some degree of use, I don't think the Skylanders series was devoid of potential, and it was Caddy's video that gave me that epiphany.
As far as I understand of the series, Skylanders and their selling pitch was pretty simple: using figurines to engage with the game, similar to what amiibo Smash Bros ended up doing, but instead of familiar characters we're already attached to... they're fantasy midgets.
I also understand that (in order to bring people into the series) both Spyro and Crash Bandicoot were brought into Skylanders... and this is where I think the series messed up.
From an outside perspective looking in, it seems to me that Skylanders can't make up its mind about what kind of game it wants to be: does it want fantasy midgets, or does it want to bring in older characters that have a fantasy element to their makeup, but too silly for the serious atmosphere that makes up Skylanders in the first place?
Here is where I see the potential: Skylanders either needs to fully embrace the fact that their new product is fantasy midgets... or go all in on the idea of bringing back older characters together in one location to explore them with a younger audience, and I personally find the later option to be far more interesting to think about.
I don't mean just bringing in Spyro and Crash Bandicoot - there are so many other characters that haven't been used in some time that I'm sure the company could buy the rights for and add them into the collection, unless they already had the rights to them, or at least negotiate something with to get a younger audience interested in them again: Rayman, Frogger, Conker, and/or other characters that either flopped or might have a better shot if handled better.
I'm not even suggesting that they all go in for a beat-em-up: bring them into Skylanders with some of their original gameplay into their own special boards. Have a few boards where they need another specific Skylander in order to play a unique board that requires both unique play styles of the characters that were brought in. Could you imagine making a board with Crash Bandicoot and Frogger? Frogger literally looks like a minor enemy from one of Crash's previous games, so seeing him needing to work around that would be a fun little Easter Egg.
And where would the term Skylander come from? It could come from the idea of worlds randomly colliding with each other and their new unique makeup could land them literally in the sky, so the term "Skylander" is used for the unfortunate souls who's worlds got mixed into this clusterfuck of already mixing worlds.
Anyway, I'm sure you can see that this idea got me thinking, but there's a chance it isn't going anywhere aside from just me writing it down and sharing it. I thought it would be entertaining to think about, at least.
It took what felt like forever, but after finally being allowed back into my account, changing my password, and setting up Steam's new Guard for authorization, I think I've got my Steam account back for good this time. It better stay that way.
Oh, and by the way...
In the process of getting my account back, I got this verification method with an e-mail I didn't fucking recognize.
To the asshole who owns this e-mail, I hope you're happy with yourself... actually, no, I hope you aren't happy with yourself. Ever since losing my Steam account in January, it's been a pain the ass, and I have reason to think that the person who owns this e-mail is responsible for it. I had to pay out the ass (with actual fucking money, by the way) to prove that I was the actual owner of this account. That's money I don't think I'll ever get back because the people who were connected to me on Discord neglected in their duties to pay me back for that even though they said that they would.
I don't know who you are and I don't care to know. You've made my life even more frustrating with your fucking stunt and I hope that (especially if you're actually responsible) God makes you pay out the ass.
I already have depression and suicide idealization on my worst days - I didn't need this additional stress and shit from you.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I'd like to get back to my life.
By the way, a good friend of mine is doing commissions for an emergency.
If anyone wants one, please hit her up.
Yehaa! When you get a bill that is half of your networth as you need to take dog to a vet, EMERGENCY COMMISSIONS ๐ cell shading, two characters in a price of one! Dm with the code "2112iseeyourescrewed" to get yours today! ๐ ❣️❣️ I'll frikking draw furry porn if I have to.
I've got too many accounts, and I think it's about time I did something about that. There's too much I've been putting off, but I think it's about time to address updates related to certain accounts.
Any dead accounts that I have that I do not immediately delete will be indicated with the following avatar:
This is probably the account that most people either know me by or were introduced to me through some capacity or the other. Here's the thing though: DeviantArt just isn't what it used to be. The only reason why I haven't outright deleted it yet narrows down to the fact there's still artwork up there I might move out, probably to Instagram. We'll see.
I decided to outright terminate this account, so if there is anyone else there by the name Moonspirit, please understand that it's not me. The reason why I deleted this account is akin to DeviantArt: I'm just not as active up there as I could be. I decided to leave whatever comments I had up there, but aside from that, the account itself is gone.
Before you ask, Brie is the name of a cheese and it was tied to a character I tried to develop, but didn't do anything with.
On top of not being as invested into the MLP fandom as I used to be, there was an individual who had a strong influence in both how I felt about fandom and shipping, or at least was a big factor in changing my mind about certain things. The name of the individual is Lily Orchard. While Lily might have had points, where those points fall flat for me is Lily's continued behavior, sometimes in complete hypocrisy in relation to what is said.
Add Lily's continuous disgusting behavior towards other people, and add onto the fact that foalcon is still allowed on FimFiction (it's basically pedophilia, if you're wondering), and I just cannot keep an account up there, at least not with a clear conscious.
This particular account is not an account I want to get rid of. The only reason why this account is going onto the block is because it won't let me log back in. I've tried contacting them about this, but I didn't get any kind of response back, much less a fix about the matter. When I think about it, I admit to being disappointed, but I've got enough going on in my life, and don't need negative emotions to an unresponsive account adding onto my problems.
I think the reason why I had an account here at all was because I was trying to get responses from people through surveys. To put it plainly, it didn't work.
By the way, in case any of you don't know who Lily Orchard is, Lily is a trans-woman on YouTube, known for mainly talking about cartoons to some capacity, but in my case, the Glass of Water series.
I originally got into the series shortly after having to part ways with someone who had been abusing me (she's dead now, so God have mercy on her soul), and it was through the series Lily had made where I felt like I got permission to be angry about shit, especially that.
Looking back, that's probably the reason why I didn't see the signs ahead of time.
You'd think after being indirectly disrespected (for example, Lily's shitting on Americans, white people, and Asians, specifically the Japanese, to some degree), that would be enough of a sign to fuck off from someone's work. However, I still found Lily's content engaging, so I just kept going.
After all, given everything else Lily was saying, I wanted to engage with Lily because the Glass of Water series gave off the impression Lily was an intelligent individual who would welcome different opinions. Pfft, what a joke that was - the few times I did try to engage was ignored to some capacity or just got snapped back at.
Maybe I should've fucked off after that livestream where I actually did get a response from Lily. While I don't remember what I said, I sure as fuck remember how I felt: hurt and disrespected, like I wasn't dealing with an intellectual, but rather one of many Karens I had to deal with at work, and I was too chicken-shit to say anything about it then because "what if Lily gets so upset with me that things escalate?" That should've been enough of a sign that Lily was engaging in the same behavior my abuser was (God have mercy on her soul), and left then.
Maybe I should've fucked off when I made a casual remark on Lily's Twitter... well, when Lily still actually had one. The point I made was simple: it doesn't matter who was doing the raunchy shit, whether they were straight as a ruler or someone who identified as LGBTQIA+ in some way - this was something you should never present to children! Now, I went to bed after the fact, so I didn't see the damage, or the fact Lily blocked me, until long after it being too late to do anything about it. Thanks for not explaining in what way that was annoying, I guess.
Maybe I should've fucked off when I realized that despite being a Patreon to Lily for sometime, I didn't fit in. Lolo was really fucking great to be around, but that was pretty much it: if I wasn't interacting with Lolo or the other people engaging with Lolo, I wasn't sure of what to say because I got no engagement outside of that. This really didn't help the fact that I was beginning to question my political leanings, because I was also hoping that (in a more left-leaning space) I'd get those discussions to help me get a better understanding of what it really means to be left-leaning. What a joke that was for me to think that was possible in Lily's Discord server - there's so much shit that you can't talk about in there, mainly the topics of videos that made Lily fucking popular in the first place!
So if not these things, why did I finally decide to fuck off?
It was one of Lily's Glass of Water videos, the one about Star vs the Forces of Evil.
How was that a problem? Simple - Lily put two cartoon porn/hentai games in that video with no warning ahead of time that such problematic material was going to show up... nevermind the fact that (after some research) both games in question involve rape and underage characters you interact with...personally. See, if you're going to talk about a children's cartoons, it's probably not a good idea to present rape material in front of them (even if you're using it as bad examples of anime) because... well, let's just say there's more than one way to use Google to look up shit, even nasty shit like this.
If I didn't leave then, then I'm pretty sure I would've left when Lily claimed to have cancer, skin cancer if I'm not mistaken. I said it on Zena & Poppy's livestream when they brought Courtney on, and I'll say it again: I don't buy the idea that Lily had cancer. If what Lily says is true, and that it was minimal in fees and so easily dodged outside of chemotherapy by pills, I'd sooner believe that it was a pre-cancer that was caught early rather than a later stage variant. If there's anyone out there who knows more about this, and I could be wrong, please do let me know. I'm not an expert on this, I'm just going off my own personal experience with pre-cancer and what I've seen Lily say about the matter.
In any case, compound the livestream that I saw where Zena & Poppy brought on Courtney to talk about stuff (warning, the material they go through is some seriously dark shit), and I can accept that Lily was abused. Hell, I'd even say that the livestream actually did Lily a service, because if what Courtney says is true, then Lily looks more human in my eyes rather than the needlessly cruel, raging asshole that I saw before.
Nevertheless, I'm done with Lily Orchard. I'm in a Discord where it's safe for me to talk about Lily when I need to, because I do get frustrated with some of Lily's shit from time to time, but as a general rule, I'd rather not see Lily again on this account. I'll more than likely catch videos Zena & Poppy do about Lily, but I think that's about it.
By the time you see this, I'm going to be getting rid of the playlists and posts that I have affiliated with Lily with exception to a few. While Lily has lost my respect, that doesn't mean I have any desire to see Lily get hurt. I'd much rather see Lily get some kind of help, like a therapist, or rehabilitation for adults, I don't know what's out there, especially in Canada.
All the same... you probably won't care about any of this, Lily, because at the end of the day, I'm just a neurodivergent white woman (technically 1/4rth Korean), and it wouldn't surprise me too much if you had three reasons already to throw me under the buss or belittle what you did to me because of the evidence compiled against you that you've done this to too many other people.
Anyway, I'm dodging this clusterfuck of a mess, and I'll see you later.
I didn't know I needed to hear this until I heard it. It's also really cool to know that I'm not the only person who remembers #StaticShock fondly.#racismhttps://t.co/5TYif69Vmi
— ๐ธ Moonspirit๐ ๐ธ (@Moonspirit_X) May 22, 2023
Okay, so I stumbled across a video in my recommendations that I didn't think I needed to hear until I heard it.
— ๐ธ Moonspirit๐ ๐ธ (@Moonspirit_X) May 22, 2023
As the title suggests, it's about racism, and holy fucking shit was it hard for me to talk about that until now. Actually, now that I'm thinking about it, it still is, because there's always that concern in the back of my mind that someone was going to think that I was racist and I end up being vilified.
And I think part of my childhood has a play into this fucked-up degree of thinking that goes on in my brain. You see, I was bullied and abused growing up, so on top of walking on eggshells every day and having my feelings invalidated by my family because of how extremely fucked up it was, I also had to deal with that same shit in public in a black-dominated school. Keep in mind that I wasn't aware of my neurodivergency at the time, and that probably made things a lot worse, giving my bullies and abusers a wider open door to do what they wanted against me for whatever fucking petty reason they were doing it at the time.
I bring this up because I wonder how many other people have a similar background as my own: being white (or white-passing enough) who both had a shit childhood and has had the world tell them that there is something wrong with them over something they had no control over to begin with - both the idea that they owe black people reparations in something they never participated in and the reason they're obligated to do so has something has to do with a physical trait they didn't ask for.
Now, if someone (who happens to be white or white-passing) wants to alleviate the troubles of people who happen to be black, then I don't really see how that's an issue, because that's the only part that choosing to help other people (regardless of skin color) has in common with bigotry - it's a choice.
So please, stop telling me that I owe a demographic of people something I didn't even do in the first place. On top of not technically being a fully white person (despite being very white-passing), I also never participated in slavery to any capacity...
For the fact that personal boundaries were violated for doing this, I decided to stop watching Glass of Water to any benefit for Lily as of April 10, 2023.
Before I get into the meat of this, two confessions first:
First, this week (technically March 18, 2023), marks a three year anniversary of something really horrible that happened to me. I was kicked out of the house of somebody who meant a lot to me, who also happened to be my abuser: the final straw after three months of emotional and physical abuse. I bring it up because the nature of this post (on reflection) is probably why my brain connected it to The Owl House, my current hyperfixation, if you will.
Second, this is basically an extended version of various tweets that I had made hours before time of writing. Figured it make sense to try to bring it all together... try.
Anyway, if you've been following me on Tumblr recently, you're probably seeing some stuff being liked and shared relating back to Hunter (a comfort character for me in some capacity or the other), usually either with Willow as girlfriend or Darius as a father. I'm going to be focusing on the latter relationship of Darius and Hunter in a father/son-like relationship, which is common among the internet as either Wovengold or it's more popular name, Dadrius.
I want to take a step back and recap the scene in Any Sport in A Storm.
Let me make something else clear: I understand the intention of the scene. At its core, it's supposed to be akin to a joke, or to break the ice between Darius and Hunter, but after recent events, I feel the need to ask... was this scene appropriate?
If you've never experienced abuse, then maybe you've experienced another form of really painful memories? Maybe after that event, small things remind you of that (a smell, a sight, a certain thing, etc.), and even though it's illogical, it still upsets you when this "small thing" sets you off?
Unless your therapist and/or psychologist tells you otherwise, chances are what you're experiencing is called a trigger.
This is a very real thing and shouldn't be used as a synonym of somebody getting offended and that they need to grow up. That kind of attitude is abelist and people need to just use the word "offense" when somebody is actually offended. Zena & Poppydid a video a while back relating to Offense vs Harm, and I think people need to understand the differences.
Getting back on the topic of actual triggers, allow me to use myself as an example. After leaving the house of my abuser three years ago, there were certain things I couldn't hear or say without it igniting something in me, usually a strong negative emotion or my chest hurting. There was a ringtone I only used for the person who was my abuser: I can't hear that ringtone anymore without being upset. The individual in question also has a very common name, and I thank God that despite its commonality, I don't run into people very often who share my abuser's name.
This doesn't help the fact that in Hunting Palismmn, Hunter literally had blades thrown in his face!
And for what? Disagreeing with Belos, his abuser!
To make matters infinitely worse, Hunter was so groomed by this point, I'm convinced that if Belos actually aimed for his face, he wouldn't move and let him run him through. Anything to please Belos, even death... remember Eclipse Lake?
Now, with that in mind, if you're an adult and you've made up your mind at this point that a child proved you wrong about something, is it really okay to raise your hand at them, like Darius does in Any Sport in A Storm?
Seriously, think about this from a real-life scenario for a bit: if there was a child who's had a history of abuse in their lives, is it really okay to do anything that might resurface those unpleasant memories, especially if they are still in that abusive relationship?
Now, there's a chance that Darius may not know the full extent of the abuse that Hunter was going through, I'll give him that... but he's still a Coven Head, and given the cut-throat nature of the Coven Heads even against each other, you'd think that this detail would be both more obvious to Darius and imply something to the Emperor's Coven Head.
And look, if you want to insist that maybe I'm over-thinking this, that's fine. It's just that in the process of thinking about both my personal experience with abuse and The Owl House, it just doesn't sit right with me when someone is very likely to know that somebody has experienced pain a certain way and do something that's counterproductive to that.
And I also get that Darius was trying to be intimidating so Hunter would prove his willingness to rebel, but at that point in the story, the Emerald Entrails were already leaving: there was no further use for Darius to be intimidating once it was just himself and Hunter.
So at the end of the day, I get how this scene is funny, I really do, and it's easier on my brain when I don't think about the implications of it. However, when I do take into account the context, what Hunter has to deal with, and what that means for someone who's been abused, it's a careless writing decision at best, and potentially malice at worst.
I like the concept of Dadrius, I really do, but like everything else, it has its flaws. Given season three being screwed over by Disney, I can't see Dadrius becoming canon. Thankfully, we have fan-fiction to explore certain ideas that will likely never be touched, such as Darius actually apologizing to Hunter for not being able to do more for him during the time he was abused by Belos, or even exploring what it means to have a real trigger, and how that effects somebody.
Anyway, what do you think? Am I overthinking this, or is there some merit to this, and in what way? I'd love to hear your thoughts.
— ๐ธ Moonspirit๐ ๐ธ (@Moonspirit_X) March 18, 2023
Like, think about it for a minute: how would you feel about a real life adult looking as if he's about to physically assault an abused child, only to turn around and it be a a joke? Trauma has a way of fucking people over.#TheOwlHouse#abusehttps://t.co/IqCM979vIY
— ๐ธ Moonspirit๐ ๐ธ (@Moonspirit_X) March 19, 2023
While we don't see how much Darius knows of the #abuse Hunter went through, you'd think as a Coven Head, he would have had enough sense to know better, at the very least.#TheOwlHousehttps://t.co/KOrCg4RIdC
— ๐ธ Moonspirit๐ ๐ธ (@Moonspirit_X) March 19, 2023
I guess what I'm trying to say is that this scene that made #Dadrius so popular in #TheOwlHouse was cute at first, but after reflecting on the #abuse Hunter has gone through, it changes the implication of a joke to something careless at best and troubling at worst. https://t.co/sQgko4wx6r
— ๐ธ Moonspirit๐ ๐ธ (@Moonspirit_X) March 19, 2023
It's interesting that this would come back to my mind on Valentine's Day of all days, but if you're willing to sit this one in and hear me out, then please do so.
Apparently my darker streak has come back when contemplating about this idea, because unfortunately, upon thinking it over, it's pretty fucked up.
So while I don't have any names for these respective characters, I did have the basic premise of this being an Owl House future sort of gig, where it's more about the children of the previous gang than anything else, mainly revolving around a daughter of Hunter and Willow.
And before you ask: yes, I imagined that she'd have a wolf palisman... his name is Waffles.
What's so fucked up about it? The simple fact that it goes more into just the Huntlow kid being bullied for being part Grimwalker: she is elected as Grom Queen as a pity vote, kind of like what they did to Chris Griffin in Family Guy.
While people, especially the bullies, figured that the Huntlow daughter's fear was related to her bullies in some way... what they don't take into account is the full nature of that fear and it's true implications: becoming the monster they insist that she is.
Upon facing this part about herself, she begins to believe that if the world is going to think that she's a monster no matter what she does, then there's no point in trying to be anything else. This permits Grometheus the Fear Bringer to merge with her (or take possession of her, similar to what Belos did to Hunter) and bring about the havoc that he intended to do so long ago, fueled by the Huntlow daughter's anger, frustration, and helplessness. Thankfully, she is rescued by her family and friends, mainly the work of her grandfather, Darius, as as Grometheus (as a head-canon) has natural elements to himself that are similar to the abomination goo.
After being saved, she takes out her anger out on her bullies, especially the leader to it all: I always imagine said main-bully was the daughter of Boscha. She ends up saying a lot of things she ends up regretting, including (but not limited to) that the bullies should not only inflict harm to themselves, but also end their own lives for targeting somebody who did nothing to them.
The end result is a quiet awkwardness whenever Huntlow's daughter is brought up.
For sometime, they don't see her, and rumors fly around that she had done to herself what she said she wanted her bullies to do so long ago. After some investigating, it turns out that Huntlow's daughter has been attending her classes, but wearing a very powerful version of concealment stones, but with a unique enchantment on it that makes the wearer of it invisible to whoever they wish to avoid - in the case of Huntlow's daughter, everybody except the teachers.
There were a few other ideas after this, but it got too dark...
such as a magic beast or something getting a hold of Boscha's daughter who had a kind of magic to make her do something crazy (like going through with killing herself) that she's rescued from, mainly by the involvement of Huntlow's daughter because while she meant what she said in a fit of anger, she regretted it so much that she'd never actually wanted anybody to do such a thing...
Boscha herself being responsible for the information of Hunter being a Grimwalker going public, even though he was not ready for that information to be public at the time...
And Boscha's daughter and Huntlow's daughter becoming friends at some later point, but after some seriously awkward shit, such as Huntlow's daughter's PTSD regarding physical contact from her bullies (Boscha's daughter included), and Boscha's daughter standing up for Huntlow's daughter in such a way that she not only openly regrets bullying, but cuts off ties from the group who are insistent that bullying is still fine because Boscha's daughter used to insist that Huntlow's daughter's info dumping about random shit was annoying, which compelled them to bully her in the first place...
And before you ask, yes, I was thinking of giving Huntlow's daughter a form of neurodivergency, explicitly a form of ADHD. As part Grimwalker, I would think such an origin story would open the possibility of that having what I can only describe as side-effects, and they just happen to match what the human world would call ADHD. In fact, the only way to help her focus on her school work (on top of meditation training) is with a plant she can turn into a potion, but the plant has weird regulations because it can be used to brew an illegal drug... a sad reality regarding how Adderall can help ADHD individuals, but still be dangerous in the wrong hands.
The biggest thing stopping me from doing this is the possibility of being seen as racist for actually going through with writing this. Yes, Huntlow's daughter would technically be half-Korean (as Willow is Asian-coded) being of Hunter's blood would also make her White in some respect, or at the very least white-passing. Despite being partly-Korean myself, and the fact that ADHD can technically be inherited from one of your parents' gene pools, I don't think the implication that the origins of her being different was the result of her mixed blood would sit well with people. Even if I were to establish that the way her brain works is explicitly a Grimwalker thing, I still don't think I can write such a characterization without being branded as racist.
So yeah, thanks for hearing one of my weird rants on one of the strangest days to have it. Love ya.
Prologue Being able to get me to not like something to the point of being disgusted with it is something that can arguably be an achievement, even if that achievement isn't exactly a good one, because it usually takes a lot for me to get to that point. Itazura na Kiss is one of those things, and I'm afraid my disgust for this particular anime, in my opinion, was well earned. Sure, there are things that naturally earn their status due to just how terrible they are, such as Chargeman Ken, but there are other shows that earn their status over time once people have had time to consume the material off of it's hype, such as The Legend of Korra. Itazura na Kiss slightly falls more into the latter of this medium, but that's mainly due to the credit of the animators that did a decent job on the anime adaptation in 2008.
Defining & Disclaimers For those unfamiliar with it, Itazura na Kiss is a Japanese shojo anime series written and illustrated by Kaoru Tada in 1990, which got an anime adaptation in 2008. It goes by other names as well, such as Playful Kiss or Mischievous Kiss - for the sake of consistency, I'm going to stick to the original name.
Allow me to preface that, at time of writing, I will only be covering the manga and the anime adaptation. Please don't ask me to cover the other adaptations, as how terrible both of these versions were has turned me off from ever picking up this series again except maybe to tear it apart a bit more.
What I Liked
Let me make something clear - there were a few things that I liked, but I'm afraid that as time has gone on, it's tolerant at best for some of these things.
For starters, the animation: the anime was fine, and my untrained eye didn't see any blatant errors like I saw in Sailor Moon Crystal. However, I cannot say the same for the manga: the manga was so ugly that I'm surprised it got an adaptation, much less multiple. To be fair, if One Punch Man could get out of this manga-ugly-rut and become the popular anime that it did, surely it's not the biggest deal breaker in the world. Design complains mainly go to the main character, but that's for another time.
I'm also willing to give the music some leeway here. I don't care for the starting song, but the end credits song is pretty. Seriously, what is up with shitty anime getting the prettier songs in some cases?
The only other thing I can think of fondly to any extent is the relationship between Kinnosuke and Chris. While I don't like how they got together, their shown to be a healthier couple than the leading couple we see more on screen, which sucks as far as storytelling goes.
Sooo... what exactly about it makes it garbage? Another time, my dear, another time.