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#the company i work for has these (more or less) mascots
moggleboggle · 2 years
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Since MMOs are to Korea as JRPGs to Japan, there's probably some 14 year old sucker out there like me long ago, playing Blade and Soul 2 or whatever cool mmo is out rn from Korea, thinking they wanna be an artist/game designer/Whatever in the industry when in reality, they're riding the high of a renaissance/an age long gone and don't quite understand that they most likely won't be working on anything they'd actually enjoy working on by the time they're in their 20s
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therobotmonster · 6 months
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Let's talk about Toys in Cereal
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This is a part of several posts of mine that have gotten big, but I figure it's best to address the phenomenon itself in a new post.
If you want to just browse a ton of cool old cereal toys once we're done, go to: www.cratercritters.com. It's a neat site.
Cereal toys are a long-standing American tradition. Some tag-questions asked if they went away because of greed or because of regulations, and that's complicated.
There are food regulations that complicate things. You may have heard that Kinder Eggs are not legal in the US.
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This is usually framed as a "fear the stupid American Kids will eat the toy" kind of thing. This is not the case.
The actual regulation that blocks the Kinder Egg is about food safety from bacterial and undisclosed allergen contamination. Inserting a baggie with a toy into that exposes everything in the cereal bag to the outside of the toy package, and that's a no-no in the US market. The rare thing we're more strict about than the EU.
But that doesn't affect cereal toys, because they can get around it by having it in a separate package outside the food bag, between the inner back and the cardboard box. Much easier on the parents to find when you open the box, too.
Kinder has, themselves, addressed the US Kinder Egg problem the same way, with the Kinder Joy.
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Splitting the package. into two sections that are individually sealed.
But a big blow to the practice was the end of the Australian R&L Toy Company.
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R&L made tons of simple pack-in Premium toys from the 60s through the 80s. They were the primary supplier to Kelloggs, and made everything from simple one-piece figurines to little build-yourself-action-toys.
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For instance, these "Wacky Walkers" worked by tying a string to the figure and the weight, then dropping the weight off a table. The figures would hobble forward on their feet, pulled by the weight. Neat-o!
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Then there's stuff like these Toolybirds. I'd sell any one of you to the goblin king for a set of these, because I sure can't afford them at $25 apiece or more. I'll probably just make some dinosaur-knockoff version or somesuch to 3d print, eventually.
R&L went out of business in the 80s and its molds were sold to a toy manufacturing company in Mexico that produced their stuff as bag toys for awhile, before everything just faded away.
Meanwhile, the cereal market was forced to contract elsewhere without a devoted company doing essentially just that.
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Liscenses came to the rescue. Fun fact, if you wanted toys from most of the Disney Afternoon, your only hope was Kellogg's.
As time went on, you started even getting software in cereal.
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Chex gave out a free, PG-version of DOOM for free. Not a couple of demo levels, a whole game, run on the doom engine, with aliens you zap with a spoon.
But as time went on, companies got less and less into the idea of enticing with freebies, and parents started objecting to the marketing of sugar cereals with toy surprises, because given the opportunity, most parents will blame the company for making something the kid wants for their unwillingness to say "No."
The eternal conflict:
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Cool thing the kid would enjoy that you might have to put your foot down over because enforcing moderation is a parent's job, verses unobjectionable conformist mush designed to increase your kids' "goodness levels."
I think the banning of cartoon mascots for snacks in certain countries is also ridiculous.
Thing is, any company could bring them back at any time.
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The Monster cereals did figurines of their mascots in cosplay in 2021. Of course, they did it as a limited edition bullshit thing where the actual monster cereal mascots were chase figures, but they made them, they could do them at any time if they wanted to.
They could bring the magic back. Nothing is stopping them.
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'cept there's no room for joy on the spreadsheet.
Gotta hit you with a little ennui. It's that ambergris stink that makes the perfume truly sweet.
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gaysheep · 3 months
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Touching is Good: A Retrospective
My trusty Nintendo 3DS, which has held out since I was gifted it for my 15th birthday, has turned one decade old with my 25th birthday this past November. Given new life with custom firmware and nds-bootstrap via TWiLightMenu, the 3DS is stellar for visiting any past handheld title or console title up to (and somewhat including) the N64. (Quick plug for the CFW/hacking community for the less popular PS Vita, too, which has accomplished some pretty crazy-cool stuff this last year.) I use my 3DS more often than I use my Nintendo Switch most weeks.
The Nintendo DS (minus the three) launched in late 2004. The second display and stylus support were novel tools for developers to experiment with, and the NDS is best remembered for its robust catalogue of RPGs and visual novels. Where it lacked in power, narrative-focused games flourished under its technical limitations.
That being said, while browsing the ROM archives on Vimm's Lair to pick up some titles, I was reminded of what an interesting era the mid-to-late 2000s were for games. While Sony and Microsoft were fighting over the "core gamer" demographic, who had outgrown Nintendo mascots, Nintendo led a series of wildly successful marketing campaigns for its hardware after the light failure of the Gamecube, where the Nintendo DS and then the Wii were targeted at...everyone else.
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[Image source. Image description in alt text.]
If you look at ads for the DS and the Wii, you'll see that adults are featured much more prominently than children, especially women and seniors. (This did not go unnoticed, as I found this ancient relic of misogyny while looking for images for this post.) A Nintendo handheld was already an easy sell to parents with small children (though I think it's also notable that ads which do focus on children often prominently feature girls. Munchlax is pretty hot...), but Nintendo's angle for the DS and Wii was that their hardware wasn't just for children. The Wii was a way to get up off the couch and to play board games with grandma. The DS was a great gadget for a working woman to keep in her pocketbook.
This worked. The Wii and DS were two of the best-selling consoles of all time. In particular, the DS's marketing campaign only worked because it came out in the perfect window of time. PDA-phone hybrids had been around since the 90s, and the Blackberry had been kicking around for a few years, but the iPhone wouldn't be introduced until 2007, and the 4G LTE standard wouldn't be released until 2009. While the Blackberry was popular with businesspeople and the PDA was out of style, smartphones were luxury toys for several years; they wouldn't become near-ubiquious until the mid-2010s. I didn't get my own smartphone until probably around the same time I got my 3DS, a full handheld generation later.
Browsing the software library for the Nintendo DS and DSi with that in mind is really interesting. Many titles released for the platform serve the same purposes that would be fulfilled by simple smartphone apps less than a decade later: planners and diaries, fitness trackers, calculators, language learning and SAT prep software, even a guide to the then-most-recent version of the driver's test in the UK. These proliferated with the release of the DSi's virtual store, but they existed even with the base model. You could go to a brick-and-mortar store and buy them on physical cartridges. (You might be wondering, "Why would you bother carrying those around over just buying a Blackberry?" You can't underestimate how expensive the service bills for a smartphone were before companies realized they were the most powerful spyware tool in history.)
There was never a time where every single businesswoman in New York carried a DS Lite, but adults did buy and use them, and a not insignificant portion of the DS's software library is aimed at a casual adult audience. Another niche covered mostly by smartphone games these days—games designed to be picked up and played in short sessions on-the-go, in places like waiting rooms and subway commutes.
Nintendo made crazy bank in the seventh console generation. Publications of the time talked about a console war between Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo, but the real battle was between the PS3 and the Xbox 360 over the gamer demographic. Nintendo was producing hardware for a niche who would quietly disappear once smartphone sales began ballooning by hundreds of millions per year over the course of the early 2010s.
After the failure of the Wii U, Nintendo's marketing strategy pivoted again, though I doubt they'll ever completely abandon their family-friendly image. Currently beat out only by the PS2 and the DS, the Nintendo Switch may very well climb to a status as the best-selling console of all time before the end of its lifespan, but the "gamer" demographic is much bigger than it was two decades ago at the dawn of the DS. As more and more devices become consolidated into the Swiss army knife the smartphone has become, consoles can only carve out a role as dedicated gaming machines.
I'm not sure we'll ever see anything like the Nintendo DS or the Wii again. I think they're worth looking back on for their uniqueness in that way as much as they are for the more celebrated parts of their libraries.
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metalandmagi · 2 years
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I’m once again going to talk about the most insane Disney Channel Original Movie franchise
Hello, and welcome to me screaming about the latest movie in the most bizarre Disney Channel Original Movie franchise ever created, ZOMBIES 3. I’m a grown adult woman, and yet I can’t stop myself from going feral every time they announce a new one of these movies. Every time I think the last one was a fever dream, they make a new one that’s even more colorful and 10x crazier. 
Here are my thoughts with absolutely zero context:
Zed wants to be the first zombie to go to college when his best friend is a literal genius who works for a tech company who any real college would be begging to accept...what the fuck is this movie?
Not only is their school football team pro monsters, but they’re also co-ed!
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I’m calling it now, the town’s “most precious thing” is going to be Addison.
DON’T MAKE THE WEREWOLF GUY LIKE ELIZA, SHE’S CLEARLY A LESBIAN! 
We got 10 minutes into the movie before getting a song??! 
THIS MOVIE THAT RELIES ON SO MANY CHARACTERS WEARING WIGS HAS ABSOLUTELY NO BUDGET FOR GOOD WIGS!
I love that no adult in any DCOM knows how to act.
Is one of the aliens non-binary?
Is the alien mothership voiced by RuPaul?
EJ FROM HSMTMTS IS IN THIS MOVIE!? AND HE’S BASICALLY THE SAME CHARACTER?! And Meg Donnelly is going to be in the new season that airs on the 27th...this is begging for a crossover or a meta joke. Something, I’m begging you people!
Okay for real though, No Doubt About It is a bop.
There is a rival school whose mascot is an Eel named Eely and they have a...friendship...rivalry...romance(?) with the Seabrook shrimp?!
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Love that they imply that a teenage boy, (Jacey?), has had multiple nose jobs. Also the Aceys are definitely in a polyamorous relationship. 
They named the frozen yogurt place “Coach’s Froyo” 😆😆😆
I see we’re continuing the tradition of Addison punching Zed in the face whenever he surprises her.
I appreciate that we’re not dicking around and drawing out the realization that Addison is part alien. We all knew she was going to be after the second movie’s teaser.
I love that we get a song about aliens invading and a song about interviewing for college in the same movie.
We’ve gotten about 70% less Bucky, and Idk how to feel about that. Also his choice in hats has convinced me that he would be the ideal boyfriend for Ryan from High School Musical.
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Why do the judges for this high school cheer off seem so awkwardly horny? Also do they know the aliens are actual aliens...or do they just think that’s their team name? I’m assuming they know...in which case, they seem pretty chill about it.
How does Seabrook afford to have different cheerleading outfits for every competition?
Does this movie have a different choreographer? The cheerleading sequences have so much less energy than the first movie’s. I know the song Addison’s singing has a slower tempo...but the moves are so bland. I guess this is what happens when Bucky isn’t the team captain.
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If y’all thought Addison’s white hair wig was bad...get ready for her BLUE HAIR WIG.
Oh wow, Addison is the town’s “most precious thing” who would have guessed?
Addison’s dad is so chill with his wife and daughter being descended from aliens XD These adults went from being extremely racist/species-ist to just shrugging and accepting an alien invasion.
The werewolves in this movie can barely enunciate while wearing their fangs!
I literally don’t care about any of this alien finding utopia bullshit, I just want to see Zed and Addison in college together.
It’s not a ZOMBIES movie without a reprise of Someday.
Addison’s best friend sings literally one solo line in this movie and it’s enough to make me want a whole musical with her as the star. 
Seabrook must exist in a vacuum because these aliens would be real disappointed to find out that Earth sucks as much as it does. 
Werewolf leader and non-binary alien are going to be a thing!? I’m here for it!
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Omg Zed and Addison singing the last song around the lightbulbs as a callback to the first movie 😭
I don’t know whether to be happy at the expectation subversion of getting aliens in this town before vampires...or sad that I don’t get to see this universe’s take on vampires.
The message of this movie is that conflict doesn’t have to be bad. Love perseveres, conflict can make us stronger if we come together to face our problems. This makes sense in a vague, idealistic way, but the conflict that the town was facing originally was essentially racism. So...I feel like they might want to rethink that one a little bit. 
I also want to appreciate how non-binary alien’s (I should really remember their name by now) “feelings” for Zed were purely used for comedy and no real drama comes from this. Addison and Zed are a supportive power couple and have literally no conflict with each other throughout the entire movie, even when Addison believes she has to leave him behind.
Overall, the songs are better than the second one’s but still not as good as the first’s. And I wish we’d give up on these movies having a plot and focus on this crazy cheerleading obsessed town again. 
Anyway, I want a million more of these movies. But this one went straight to Disney+ so my fever dream might end here...
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Do you think the music video “Sleep Well” is canon to Poppy Playtime, and is it canon for your AU?
Also, I wish instead of including all this ARG (like Theodore’s tragic tale that had no reason to not be in the actual game) and extra stuff just for hype purposes and promoting their YouTube content, Mob Entertainment would instead make the game have a stronger story by just putting that stuff in there, either in the main plot or by making the player find it like the VHS tapes…I have many issues with them as a company…
I just hope the actual canon sticks to a morally gray conflict with no chickening out, and maybe even have our antagonist be somewhat sympathetic, no matter whether the ending is good or bad for all parties involved…I’m just kinda dreading/expecting that there will be huge open ends/dangling plot threads or even a sequel hook so the franchise can be milked even further than it has been, especially with that movie in the works…
I just saw that music video, and... Honestly it's a nice song, but I dont think any of it adds up to anything lore wise? And oh my God, I can't agree enough with you regarding all the ARG stuff.
As someone who's ALSO making a mascot horror game, and also as someone who had their brain rewired at age 11 thanks to FNaF's, I am SO tired of games pulling the mysterious/obtuse lore on us. Mob (as in, the company, not the poor probably overworked gamedevs) cannot deal with the idea of their game actually having cohesive lore and impactful moments that aren't shock value. Everyone loved chapter 3 not because it was a masterpiece, but because it's actually a decent horror fucking game. Of course chapter 3 is good, chapter 1 was a paid demo and chapter 2 was almost Hello Neighbour levels of fun! Of course chapter 3 is good, it's actually trying to be a horror game instead of a YouTube Kids content farm product!
Chapter 3 of Poppy Playtime lacks any impact that isn't shock value. That's it. And yes, I disliked chapter 3 so much it reverse engineered me into making an AU where everyone lives because fuck this awful shock content logic!
I want the canon to stick to a morally grey conflict as well. I WANT Prototype to have an actual point and for him to be a tragic character, I WANT the game to show us that maybe Poppy isn't as good as she wants us to believe, and I WANT the game to pick all of this and still go "but what the Prototype did was wrong, and we need to put an end to this carnage". But, c'mere, look at me.
I have no faith this will actually happen.
That's it! Zero faith, nothing, nada! I was expecting nothing out of chapter 3 and STILL managed to be dissapointed. I doubt Poppy Playtime will ever try to have an interesting story inside the chapters, much less an actually compelling conflict. At this point I'm just seeing where Mob Youtube Kids Content Farm Entertainment will do to destroy any future opportunities of something compelling.
Also. I would have liked chapter 3 way more if we actually saw Theo go from being Theo into becoming Catnap, with his death scene being PAINFUL to watch after spending the entire chapter learning how he became Catnap.
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simulation-machine · 6 months
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Tuesday O. Wallace was the previous alpha mascot for my Tumblr, before I fully made the switch over to MM, which has since settled into a Maxis Mix vibe.
Anyways, more info on her below!
Like Wren, Tuesday is an older character concept, coming into my brain in the late fall of 2020. She was an affair baby, her mom slept with her very married boss when she worked as an office admin at a tech startup (that later became a hella successful company). She has a total of 6-half siblings, two older from her father's marriage (that somehow survived the blatant adultery) and four younger from her mother's later marriages.
She coped with her chaotic upbringing with chain-smoking, playing the guitar, daydreaming about moving to de-Mothered StrangerVille, and a close friendship with her elderly next-door neighbor Lorene.
Tuesday will also be a part of this little story idea that I've been calling Another Door.
Compared to Wren, I changed fairly little in Tuesday's appearance, just made her eyes bigger, made the irises a more golden brown, and made her mouth just a bit less frowny and angular. She's still one of my more gaunt-faced sims, still on the tall end, and still takes after her likewise curvy mom.
Tuesday and Wren have never lived in the same universe before, and it's interesting to write how they get along, something that others will hopefully get to see (assuming I don't get bored too fast).
Bi the sexual: Tuesday Maxis Mix makeover uses the Yuhum 2.0 preset by @windslar! Check it out by clicking right here!
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rambrandt-the-painter · 8 months
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I kind of think the ram in promotional stuff and on stream and ram in the story I've been working on are two different characters.
I think it's sort of like how the muppets are like celebrities but also play characters in the Christmas carol. One version of ram is laid back, has a normal life as a painter whos more representative of me and the other one kills people and gets into a bunch of drama.
They have similarities though. They both more or less know the same people and they are both still undead.
Just wanted to say that because I was starting to feel conflicted about the fact that she's a deeply flawed and violent character but also my fursona and the mascot of my company
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femgineerasolution · 2 years
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any tips on how a newbie could start learning about software engineering?
Hi Nonny! Oh gosh, I might go on a bit here. I got into software engineering in a really weird way, basically fell into it, and that was like over a decade ago so a lot of things might have changed! There's a lot of good online resources for getting started in programming and engineering, and the whole maker-space scene is brimming with really cool and interesting people you can learn a lot from. But, beyond the cut you'll find my not particularly well organised thoughts!
Try to pick up a few different programming languages, including different types (like interpretted/scripting, imperative, object-oriented, there's a lot!)
I highly recommend learning Python, it's really useful for a wide range of stuff, I often use it just to automate something that would otherwise be tedious to do
Remember that all languages are a bit different, and will differ in the kinds of problems they're better at solving. No language is a panacae to all problems, so the more languages you know the less time you'll spend hammering a square language into a round hole! I think all languages can teach you something about programming, even if you don't use them so much in the end
For how to learn? I can't direct you to good resources, beyond knowing that there's a lot of good tutorials online, and saying that looking at tutorials is usually better than jumping in the deep end (as you can fall into bad habits that way)
For the engineering side, a good place to start is learning about software lifecycles - how do you go from need to finished solution? Waterfall and V are easy to understand but a bit old-school now, I think agile has really taken over (though is not always implemented well)
Design and requirements capture is so, so important, and so difficult, they're really good things to look into for engineering
I can't find the right thing to call it, but a useful idea is writing tests for your code first, based on the requirements, and then writing the code to make those tests pass. Not always appropriate, but being exposed to that idea helped me change the way I did some things
Version control! Very important, I didn't use to think it was until I made an error in a script that ended up deleting all the code me and two others were working on. Now I use it even for small at-home projects, because it's great to be able to go "oh no, I've broken everything, let's revert back to something that worked". Git is probably the most popular, and github has a really good tutorial (featuring their adorable cat-octopus mascot)
Once you've got the hang of version control, you could try getting involved in some open source stuff, check out https://www.firsttimersonly.com/ for some guidance on that
For me, it was really important to get a degree in this stuff. Like, any job I would have been interested in required a degree. I don't know how much that's changed, but it's worth thinking about. Depending on where you are things like conversion courses and intercolated years (where you take a year out of a degree to do some stuff from a different degree) might be available? And maybe nowadays there might be more companies that will judge you based on a porfolio of previous work instead of just a degree
Final thought, it was a bit of a meme back in uni, but the engineers always used to say that the big different between a software engineer and a computer scientist was that an engineer would actually consider what their code was going to run on. It was a bit mean, but it really hammered in the importance of considering the environment your code will run in
Okay, that was a lot, I'm not sure how clear it was, but I hope it helps!
If anyone wants any other advice about particular stuff, shoot me an ask! Though I received this one in August so I can't guarantee how quickly I'll see it and reply, sorry.
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robthegoodfellow · 2 years
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Directly follows this snippet. Takes place in Spin Me Right Round universe, where Billy’s path deviates before he assaults Lucas in canon timeline (hence the vibe between them here is less fraught than you’d expect). Despite that, Billy still has to confront the lingering effects of being raised by a bigot (by which I mean, his own racism), and this snippet reflects on that process. Trigger warning for mention of racist stereotypes and past encounters with derogatory terms related to Latino community.
He and McKinney fell into a pseudo routine, heading to the community courts when practice let out and staying until either it got too cold or too late, and then Billy would drive him home. They figured out that if McKinney was wearing orange sweatbands on his wrists, Billy could more accurately aim for his hands without turning his way, and McKinney had taken to calling a stream of “B—B—B!” whenever he was coming up behind for an open shot.
Sinclair joined them one afternoon when Billy wanted to try a drill that only worked with three players—turned out the kid was more athletic than he looked, and way more into basketball than Billy realized. Apparently he and Sinclair, Sr. followed the Indiana teams religiously, college and pro, but Junior had been so desperate to talk ball with someone nearer his own age that he didn’t shut up for like half an hour, going on and on about their draft prospects, singing the praises of Stipo and Special K, bemoaning the Pacers’ shitty season—1 and 8 since New Year’s, which… yikes.
McKinney had tolerated the high-pitched chatter with good grace, not that Sinclair needed more than the odd grunt for fuel, and gave him some pointers to improve his stance, his shot. When Billy had asked later, en route to Maple after offloading McKinney, why he’d never mentioned even the slightest interest in basketball before, Sinclair had replied, with more hilarious vitriol than should be possible from the mouth of a literal child: “You’re a Lakers fan.”
“We’re not even in the same conference!” Billy had countered, indignant despite the amusement. “Hate on the Celtics, for Christ’s sake.”
“I can hate on both,” he declared.
“Whatever, dude,” Billy said, dismissive, deliberately provoking. “You just wish you had some of that magic—I get it.”
Sinclair had boiled for the rest of the ride, to Billy’s glee.
And look—he’d started all this with the goal of improvement, but it was a narrow, maybe selfish, maybe dickish kind of improvement: upping his game to antagonize some douchebag. But the more they practiced, just them two and with the team, the more he just… liked it. He really, really liked playing point guard. It felt… good?... to set the guys up for success, to tip into motion the dominos that put points on the board. Even though he wasn’t scoring as much, himself—it was a different kind of satisfying, knowing he’d made the right call when someone else made a bucket.
Which was great—maybe his heart had grown a couple sizes or whatever—but… there was another unintended side-effect. One that he was simultaneously so reluctant to confront directly and yet so desperately glad for that… he could hardly have explained it if asked.
He recognized it now because it had happened to him before, back home. It was—it was like this: So, Neil was… fucking racist, right? Billy’s whole life, the bastard had spewed all kinds of vicious, vile shit, and more subtle, insidious shit. Like, it took Billy ages to figure out, when he was little, what his dad meant whenever he mockingly referred to Frito Banditos, even long after the chip company discontinued the mascot. Another one: in third grade, Billy learned the meaning of greenback a couple weeks before he heard Neil rant about a seemingly similar term, and it took a mortifying mix-up at school for him to realize his dad hadn’t meant skyrocketing rates of soggy dollar bills.
Even as a kid, a part of him knew Neil was off-base—knew he was wrong—but as the years wore on, and all that garbage piled up in his ears, it… it poisoned the well water. Billy didn’t mean to, but for a while, an invisible finger pressed Play on the tape recorder in his brain whenever he crossed paths with any Latino—and he’d tense, get all awkward, precisely because he’d be trying to act normal despite the foul phantom torrent reminding him on a loop that they were all gang bangers, drug dealers, lazy freeloaders, illegal aliens, on and on and on.
And Billy’d had this paranoia, that somehow… they knew? That one look in his eyes and his thoughts would be manifest, even though he didn’t believe those things, even though he would press Stop if he could, bash the tapes to smithereens if he knew how. He’d been polluted—felt it intensely—how Neil’s ugliness had become his ugliness.
It wasn’t until middle school, when he started surfing sometimes with this kid Joaquin, who’d then introduced him to Manny and Luis, that he realized he could filter out the mental contaminants through… well, meaningful interaction with people—with the targets of Neil’s bullish bigotry. He’d started recording new stuff, true stuff, over the old.
Like… how Joaquin’s family had been in California long before it was even a state, and still visited relatives just over the arbitrary line in Baja; how Luis was living proof that everything Neil had sneered about the Sanctuary movement was bullshit, because there was a genocide going on in Guatemala and the US was backing the slaughter—had a hand in all the bloodshed plaguing the region, in fact; how Manny’s uncle had been one of the artists who’d transformed the concrete pylons of Coronado Bridge into a towering medley of murals, remaking Chicano Park into something beautiful rather a bleak reminder of the wholesale destruction of a neighborhood in favor of a motorway.
How Joaquin could make him laugh harder than anyone else with his lightning-fast, brutal quips, but Luis showed him the value of just sitting on his board, legs dangling, and feel the rise and fall of the surge like a pair of lungs beneath him; how Mexican food was hands-down the best thing Billy had ever tasted—not that there’d been much competition, considering his Ma’s favorite dish involved pickled fish and Susan’s most adventurous seasoning was salt; how as soon as Billy mentioned wanting a tattoo, Manny had brought him badass sketches of skulls… and when Billy’s mom had passed, had dropped off this little painting of some lilies, which he’d only been able to look at once and then put it away in the shoebox—safekeeping, not safe for opening.
It wasn’t like they were constantly hanging out or baring their souls—and Billy bared almost nothing—but you spend enough time with people over the years and you can piece stuff together. He missed them—wished he’d let them in, let them see more of him than the laid-back, wise-cracking beach bum. Hadn’t seen them since last March, when he’d gone off the rails. Hadn’t even said goodbye before leaving town.
Anyway. Went without saying, but Neil’s myriad prejudices hadn’t been limited to Latinos, and so—yeah, sometimes with Sinclair, with Jeff, and McKinney and other guys on the team… same playback problem, different tape. It wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been when he was a kid, probably because of the groundwork he’d already done thanks to his surfer buddies, and because he wasn’t an idiot child anymore who only had his parents to go off of—he read shit, and he had eyes.
Yet he couldn’t ignore—and was secretly relieved—that another round of re-recording was afoot, because just knowing abstractly, academically, that Neil was full of shit and racism was, you know, bad… it couldn’t compare to actually getting to know a person. First, there’d been Sinclair, and Jeff, to a limited degree—and now…
He was pretty sure he and Patrick McKinney were… friends? Guys didn’t exchange bracelets, or whatever, so unless they were Labradors in human form like Eddie, it was sometimes hard to tell when you’d crossed from the neutral status of “teammates” to something chummier. On Billy’s end, nicknames meant you were in—and he didn’t seem to mind Billy trimming his first and last—but maybe for Pat, the “B” was just… expedient?
It was more than that, though, because… like, he knew that Patrick had two older brothers—one about to graduate from Purdue and one living in Chicago who worked in advertising and had been involved in the Coke Adds Life campaign his first year in the business. That his father had died of cancer five ago, so his uncle, his mom’s brother, had moved in to help keep the household afloat. That he didn’t like his uncle much, for reasons Billy could guess.
Pat was shy—he tended to clam up in group settings, preferred to quietly observe, only piping in when he felt strongly about something—but once you got him alone, he had a mega puckish streak. Laughed easily, ragged on Billy nonstop, always in good fun, and could take it as well as dish it. Which was fortunate, because: ABBA. And just in general, the dude’s musical tastes were weird as fuck. He showed up at the community courts with a boombox one afternoon and started blasting a disco mix, for crying out loud. Claimed he played better when he had some groovy tune stuck in his head.
So, yeah. Friends, or… getting there.
The results of all their extracurricular practice were—pretty immediate, and pretty obvious. Both of them got more minutes with every game, the team started winning more than losing. Billy pretended not to notice how Carver was increasingly ornery about it—real waspish, pun definitely intended. When Coach announced the starting line-up ahead of a Friday match toward the end of January with Hargrove and McKinney at one and two, Carver flushed to the roots of his lame accountant haircut, but waited until the team had been dismissed to the showers to unleash on a poor innocent locker—the clanging kick carried over the hiss of water and booming chatter, and even when most of the team had finished getting dressed, Carver’s every movement was imbued with a violent flourish.
It was honestly delicious to witness, though Billy made a point not to glance at him directly, monitoring instead with his—by now, very well-honed—peripheral vision. On the way out, trailed stoically by Baker and Copeland, the little pissant muttered, just loudly enough for everyone to hear, how the sport was clearly turning toward cheap tricks and theatrics, and wasn’t it a shame.
The door had barely swung closed when Billy keeled over, hands on knees, cackling like a fiend. Harrington, who’d been apprised of the plan since day one, playfully kneed him in the side and Billy flopped to the gross tile floor, still laughing, arms raised in a reclining Rocky victory pose. There was a smattering of chuckles around the room.
“Watch your back, B,” murmured Pat, leaning over him from his perch on the bench, his voice laden with amusement. “First it’s cheap tricks, then magic tricks, then…” He raised his brows.
“Turning tricks,” Billy finished, as though doomed to his fate, and Patrick snorted. “Don’t worry, man.” He accepted the offered hand and pulled himself upright. “No one’s gonna see me with the devil.”
They won that Friday at home against Jefferson High—a real nail-biter to the final minute, when Billy somehow managed a devious no-look bounce pass to Patrick in the paint for a jump shot so picture perfect that the bench rioted.
“That was some Showtime shit!” Pat hollered over the chaos of mobbing teammates at the final buzzer. He launched himself atop Billy in a semi-hug from behind, then bounded over to his mom in the stands, who was still in her scrubs under her winter coat.  
There was talk of a celebratory bonfire at the quarry, and as he and Harrington were leaving the locker room, intending to at least swing by, have a couple beers, Billy paused.
“Hey, Mickey!” he called. “You need a lift?”
Patrick scrunched his nose, caught up with them as they headed for the parking lot. “Ma’s gonna want me home.”
“We’re not planning to stay long,” Billy tried. “Could ya talk her into an hour?”
“You made the winning shot,” Harrington pointed out. “That’s gotta earn you something.”
Pat shook his head wryly. “No one talks her into anything, but I’ll ask. Wait up?”
They hung back while he jogged to his mother in the lobby, winced when his beseeching look was met with an unimpressed flat stare. When her gaze flicked their way, they both startled, then simultaneously raised an awkward hand. She bit her lips, repressing a smile—the same way Pat often did—turned back to her son, and let him plead his case a bit more. Uttered a few stern words that had Patrick alternately shaking and nodding his head, then shooed him away.
“Home by eleven thirty,” he said, and waved his arm in an after you toward the winter night.
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s0lar-ch3ri · 1 year
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SO MATPAT IS COVERING ROBLOX GAMES
i never thought mat pat would do roblox theories but since he did ima do my own theory before i watch the vid (spoilers for the game ig?)
right so yall remember the tube where it says they were made? yeah, thats basically a big part of the theory, but as well as something else.
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yes i went onto fucking youtube and looked this video up. its from the intro scene, but theres an odd part in it.
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there is a motherfucking bio hazard sign right there. id have to say this and tube are probably highly correlated. and ill tie it in with the crash as well, dont worry, but let me start from the beginning of the story/the earliest part of lore i got theories for, and i'll do evidence for each part as i go. first off, the school bus driver. that man had to either work with red or be heavily affected by the chemicals to drive that way. its obvious by the lobby area looking like a school, the words "Going on a field trip...", and the school bus that we're school students on a field trip (weird how its at night but i wont talk about that) to oddworld, a theme park. (image below for what we see of oddworld)
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its quite obviously that way and even if the sign changed the driver should have a gps to show where. not to mention the big ferris wheel should light the way to go and biohazard sign should light where to not. yet the driver still fucking turns the other way. its hard to believe the chemicals would be able to affect them up there (if im wrong do correct me idfk how chemicals work really) so the only logical answer was this character worked with red. either the driver purposefully crashed or they breathed in chemicals and shit happened. either way, they crashed the end. just kidding, lets get into my next intro theory! oddworld is owned by the same company that made the rainbow friends. they look a lot like mascots of a theme park, plus no theme park would willingly build by biohazards unless wanting to do some crazy experiment which requires luring kids out to kidnap them for tests, right? (yep, this another theory) not to mention, it ties in with the driver working for red idea. if they used the theme park as a codework, itd be less sussy (im sorry) if they were caught and searched. now, lets move onto the actual gameplay for theories!
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(credits to @arcadianxanadus for placing themselfs there for this image as my stupid ass died to fucking green) the chemicals did shit to the rainbow friends for sure, and by the image shows, the company was knowingly keeping them inside the building. not to mention, these bitches are fucking color coded. do note this: theyre kept in the same room as all the items needed to be collected. im mainly concerned how they fucking eat here and the chemicals are still there. another thing to note, everyone but purple has 2 chemical containers. purple only has one. oh, and dont forget, PURPLE IS THE ONLY ONE WE NEVER SEE FULLY. is it possible that hes had so many chemical shit hes too horrified to let himself be seen fully, implying these bitches have sentience for their existence and have a brain that can worry what others think of him? yep, bingo. will i get into purple more? for sure, but lets back track tooooo...
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TUBE! (most to all images will be taken because of my trooper arcadian) its quite obvious this tube did experiment shit with the rainbow friends. the machine seems to have rusted from being fucking old (l bozo /j) and thus probably wouldn't even work now. the chemical containers i believe powered this thing but when something went wrong, they stopped. so what could have gone wrong? i have two guesses. purple, or red. purple is the most advanced of the ones found during game play, actually following the closest player and hiding in vents to catch you, however he seems to also be the most wild (get more into him later). red, however, is most intelligent of the rainbow friends seemingly, since he can actually function technology, set up a sleeping quarters, plan out events, identify objects, speak english, and other things. but enough on red and purple, lets say good bye to the tube! finally, we start with characters (no more images because 1. its been days since i started this post, 2. i dont have the energy to actually live in rainbow friends to take ss for this kinda stupid post thing, and 3. i wanna get into the vid soon so yeah)! lets get into blue. so what i believe happened to all the rainbow friends is either they were puppets turned alive or humans turned to monsters, so ill go with the human one. i have looked way too much into bot patterns so deal with it. blue commonly hangs out around wider areas and ive seen goes into the theater a lot, more than the other bots im sure. he also enters some of the locations (if not all locations) of the blocks we look for on night 1. ive seen him stop while walking out of nowhere then turn around multiple times so theres also that. i feel blue was a small child before who was the main star of the show (i mean hes got the crown and stuff so id assume) that got lured into the tube and blah blah. itd explain why hed walk around in the theater the most (to me at least). it would also make sense to not suspecting the boxes, people on a set would have boxes filled with items like props or costumes or whatever.
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next up: green! this celery stick is blind and has a pattern of mainly sticking to hallways, but will once of twice enter the theater only to block a door. like blue (i forgot to mention this in blues part but oh well), green can start below and climb the ladder (image above). i believe green could have possibly been a worker at the place who was tricked into going inside the tube. it'd make sense as to why a box would be unusual for him to find, he knows a box wouldnt be there originally.
next rainbow friend on the list is orange. orange has a visible pattern but is the only one who you can make not hunt you by feeding him food. i believe orange was a dog before being orange, seeing how hes fed something that looks like dog food and has a den like wolves would. FINALLY WE GET INTO HIM!!! PURPLE, THE VENT GOBLIN!!! i only found his pattern through how my friend got in a server alone. purple doesnt have a certain area he goes, but he does go to the closest player. hes also the only one that we never see fully. what he actually is can confuse me. that means i sadly cant fully say what he could be without an idea of what more than his arms and eyes and mouth look like. however, there is something i want to go back to (which obvi connects to purple). remember tube? theres writing on the walls talking about where "they" (the rainbow friends) were made and a picture of the tube. this couldnt have been there originally, so someone had to have written it. i suspect purple, and heres why. blues design is like a marshmellow (all images below). green's fingers wouldnt work for holding chalk, plus hes blind. orange seems to wild to be able to write words that neat, and again his hands are pinchers. purple has four fingers which could grip, and seems like he could write similar to that. not to mention its next to a vent. its also a bit ironic that purple isn't there (ik orange isnt there i was tryna be silly). also i know that there are images on google on what purple looks like normally, but i dont know for sure if those are right so for now i wont take a chance.
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alright now we finish up (finally, ik) characters with red! red seems to have the most lore connected to him and the most intelligence as well. he can actually talk and kidnap children on field trips and see his surroundings (/hj). to me, it seems like a classic "testing on (insert thing) but something went wrong) type deal. i feel though, it went wrong twice. purple seems the closest to matching red's intelligence and red could have written the message as well, if he were helping us. before someone thinks he is, he literally kidnapped us. what i think of red? hes a scientist doing illegal tests on children without moral problems it seems. what the results are and why he needs them, there could be multiple reasons. now we move onto other details, starting with ourselves! we're obviously a school kid, but since im an overthinker, im getting an age range. the image(s) below is taken from this video. lets ignore the tall people and focus on black haired girl in the front (first image). now, i went ahead and got a picture of her in the other scene when the bus crashes just for another size reference. i picked her since she seems to be average height in game. with a google search, i found a roblox character is about '5"1 (or 154 cm). i went in and the joined the game so i could get a school reference (3rd and 4th pic is of school) and see what grade area it may be (elementary, middle, high school, or beyond). the school didnt provide much help, so i took focus on the playground. to me, it seems as though this is an elementary school, seeing how only an elementary would have a playground from what i know. i tried to look up a fifth grader's average height, which is 56 for a male and 57 for a female, the 57 equaling 4.75 feet. yeah, not gonna work. then i remembered before that some elementaries have 6th grade. i checked it out, around 5 foot. bingo! now onto age. the age range i found is 11-12 years old. yay, we know around how old the players are possibly! now, theres a big part here ive overlooked: its fucking nighttime. the only way for this to actually be a regular field trip at night would be if a;its a multi day trip or b;this is a boarding school. this couldnt be a multi day trip since thats only for camps and shit, not a fucking theme park. so boarding school? nope. assuming this takes place in the us, kids dont normally go to boarding school until 9th or 10th grade. plus, the building doesnt seem to be a boarding school. so whats happening? i suspect that this experiment process was a sort of deal with the school to borrow kids from an after school program id guess seeing how little the amount of kids there are and how ive seen no signs of searching for these missing kids. basically, kids getting experimented on. next theory!
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this is gonna be the last im sure, but it has to do with each nights quests. night 1 is the blocks, night 2 is the food packets, night 3 is the batteries, and night 4 is the fuses. i feel theres symbolization in the quests so lets buckle into it (if ya get the reference, nice). the blocks i feel represent how blue acts like a baby whos still developing their brain. the food packets obvi are for orange and the batteries are supposed to mean our escape, the fuses coming after meaning not as well planned. however, they also could mean something else. both times we get something electrical, purple is out. not to mention, the fuse night/night 4 feels more like purples night while night 3/battery night seems to be more suited to orange as in an intro to him. the tube seems like it wouldnt use batteries if you look at its design. however, something like fuses would seem to work. what am i implying? purple broke the machine. yep, i came to a conclusion! i would go over details, but you can read through and peace together shit so i dont have to keep repeating myself over and over. and thats basically all the theories ive had on rainbow friends before watching mat pat! this has taken me a while and im tired but am whiling to write more on the theory thing! bye now!
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fairytalequeer · 1 year
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3, 7, 12, and 13 for the ask game ‼️💥💥 (im not typing out the titles for this LMAO) —@cephalophoricboyfriend
YIPPEE!! THANKS!! @cephalophoricboyfriend
ok i went off on this so im making it a read more bc. wow
3: "Dance, Dance" - Are there any songs you strongly associate with you and your f/o? Any specific lyrics from them that really gets you thinking of you two?
yes hahahahaha and i have a full playlist. of these. i will not be sharing that but im going to copy u and shuffle it and then share the song.
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thats funny. literally shared this with friends the other day.
so im cheating here a bit but this is kind of paired with his other song in my playlist
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i like to imagine "underground" is from the perspective of creature (s/i) whereas "i hear a symphony" is from the perspective of p/ardoes. lol. <- gay
Underground is definitely less clear with what it's about but to ME it's about falling in love- but the feeling is sudden and confusing and even scary with love hitting u like a god damn train. but in the end it's something precious and finally found
I Hear a Symphony is much more (traditionally) romantic. but yknow how it is im all about that cheesy shit. and listen. the person clearly has this. sense of wonder and treats this love like magic he's never experienced before ohhhhh my god
(this whole ask is already long as hell so if you WANT to see the lyrics i feel like just hearing the song/looking up the lyrics is enough to see what i mean. and how. they fit. and makes me think of them)
7: "7 Minutes in Heaven (Atavan Halen)" - Do you have any physical items (preferably something other than merch of them) that remind you of your f/o? What are they?
COOL: i have an f/o that DOES have merch
NOT COOL: He Is A Netherlands Themepark Mascot Meaning Me, A Californian, Has Little Access To It
COOL: ive made FRIENDS who have been able to give me THINGS. official merch i have now: a plush of him, a plush of a fishy from his ride, AND gay ass slippers that are like his jester shoes. i also have a lego of him ;w; it's not official but it's super cute and my friend built it for me
i also have fabric tulips i bought bc he's dutch lol. stuff with stars reminds me of him too. which works bc i love stars anyway,,
12: "Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying (Do Your Part to Save the Scene and Stop Going to Shows)" - Are there any interests of yours that your f/o just doesn’t seem to be able to get into? Are there any that they weren’t originally interested in but later came around to it?
yeah i think so! even though im a little bitch with scary stuff i think i am more open to horror than he is. i really love movies and i doubt some of the movies i like would be ones he would ever want to watch or enjoy. which is fine LOL he just has to like the ones im insane about (lotr, for example)
other than that i think most of my interests are something he'd at least enjoy. like maybe he's not as familiar with pet care/animals as i am (i have a Lot of different pets) but he's definitely not someone who is bad with animals either. AND there's gardening, which i really love and would. find his company during it really nice. i think he'd like it too (though not as consistently gardening as i would be doing)
13: "XO" - In what ways do you and your f/o don't exactly mesh well together?
a hard question since i am a creature of self indulgence and like to believe we mesh Very well all the time always. but the closest i can say is that he is much more extroverted and kind in general whereas i Am Not Those Things. he's a performer and i super am not. he's also very smart and devotes a lot of time to study and learning which i dont think i could do.
and on the flip side: he's not as aggressive and blunt with certain things. i think he CAN be very blunt (he IS an honest person and not exactly known to always be polite- mischievous jester and all that) but immediate aggression towards someone is not something i imagine him doing. and while he is also impulsive i think our impulsive natures can manifest in different ways. he probably wouldnt run head first into danger or assume the worst about someone who was being an ass. i (and creature, s/i) do these things lol
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300iqprower · 2 years
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Oh and tell me about the Bunyan!
So, dyk that the Paul Bunyan most people are familiar with is not a folklore figure? The Bunyan most people think of is a thing called Fakelore, the mythology equivalent of astroturfing. The original Pual Bunyan myth was a sort of ubiquitous mountain man figure told in tall tales to try and pretty much make shit up and see if you could get away with it (though there are some examples believed to be based on real events) and was a giant in the sense of being 7 to 9 feet tall, not in the sense of literally taller than the trees they cut down. They had no special axe and no blue ox, that was all the result of an advertising campaign launched in 1916, which might have been as much as 50 years after the proper version cropped up in local myth.
Note the words “advertising campaign.” This may be surprising, but the supposed mythology figure synonymous with the glorification of deforestation and a symbol of exploiting the land we live on, was born of capitalism!
See it’s not a good look when corporations from across the country are mowing down forests they dont rightfully own and will never have to worry about the local environmental repercussions of. In the mid 1910s advertiser William Laughead marketed Paul Bunyan to companies as a solution to their desire for a “local ma and pa lumber mill” image that would make people find their ravenous lumberjacking less objectionable by fabricating this idea they were entitled to the land they were mowing down. To give full context, the company in question who ‘adopted’ Paul Bunyan as their mascot was rooted in West Virginia but marketed Paul Bunyan as being from freaking California on the exact opposite side of the country.  From this the modern idea of Paul Bunyan was born of a jolly giant who did good deeds and fostered the American dream. If that sounds like a vague description of American Folklore in general, that’s because Paul Bunyan is not the only figure used this way, but is by far the biggest example. (Side note: this is a good read if you’re weird like me and would skim through a multi-hundred-page scholarly article on this sort of thing)
If you know the first thing about me you can probably guess where I’m going with all this.
The version of Bunyan I’m using is not related to the Fate version and barely reflective of even the “””real””” version. They’re a quiet, lonely person who has watched the world burn in their name, forgotten by humanity for the sake of a more easily swallowed narrative, yet choosing to fight for them all the same. They possess many of their fakelore’s abilities but their Ithax (greek equivalent of Volund) is something else entirely, revolving around the ability to surpass any limit they believe can be broken. They were one of the last people to make the cut, actually, because I was having a super hard time figuring out who worked for their opponent. I have yet to do Fate Bunyan’s event so I can’t say for certain if there are no similarities but my friend has told me about them and I can say with certainty there’s been no influence taken and (so far) very little overlap. 
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heartshapedthneed · 2 years
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10. Gush pass! Feel free to talk about whatever regarding your f/o!
(I'm going to gush about my version of him rather than the character himself, so warning for that JAKNDJKA) there is just so much I don't even know where to start.... Well... There is so much about him to love just from seeing him or hearing him say about just anything. He is charming in almost every way... there are reasons he gains the popularity he does outside of just his product alone. After all he is the face and mascot of his own company.
Although I love those things about him, its the face he wants to show the world. Not in a way of being a liar or tricking people, but in the same way anyone would act differently when it came to work or meeting strangers. When you spend so much time with someone and share so many loving and intimate moments with someone you no longer get that version of them. For some people it ruins a relationship but for us it strengthened it, there is no better honor than being someone you love's comfort. Under everything is a guy who does deal with insecurity and self doubt, someone who pushes himself to the breaking point to make sure something goes completely perfectly. He tends to be a workaholic and accidently puts so much of himself into his work rather than himself or those he loves. He puts these expectations on himself before anyone else could even think to. When he can relax and not feel that pressure on him, he is still as dedicated and passionate! He is truly a very "soft" man in the sense of being so caring, loving, and gentle.
What is most important to him besides his company is music, cooking, and family. He really enjoys sweet things and hates spicy things, so he likes to bake pretty often and even though its so much work it relaxes him to do that. His attention to detail and experience leads to him even making him own recipes, he likes to experiment even if the food does get messed up sometimes! He actually has binders full of recipes or recipe revisions he's made since he started cooking. If you ask him to see them he right away knows which ones he wants to show off, for sure one being his favorite pancake recipe. (he says there's a secret ingredient for that one that he doesn't write down, I have yet to learn what it is). He is the same when it comes to music, he even had taught himself to play guitar when he was younger. He is less confident in his musical ability though, even if he claims he isn't. He especially likes to write up more funny not serious music in an effort to make others smile, which is super cute. He likes to make his own playlists organized by moods or genre. Its actually pretty interesting seeing the wide range of music types he likes, I think if you put all his playlists together on shuffle you'd probably find something you'd like. His dedication to his family is something that I do find myself liking but also disliking. For example I dislike the fact that he really loves his mom and seeks her approval even if he knows she doesn't care the same way about him. He is constantly trying to make her happy and its hard to see her tear him down and manipulate him. On the other hand, though, he is really close to his father-in-law and is very dedicated and loving to Finn. I could go into so much more about him... but this is pretty long now AJKNDSSJKN thank you :)
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9w1ft · 2 years
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Hey so..... What's Kayda for? Do we know? Did I miss it? Was she made to be the mascot of some AI thing Karlie promotes? Or is she some weird NFT merch line?
so kayda is an AR (augmented reality) character created by a company who also did something for serena williams’s daughter (karlie and serena are longtime friends and business partners). AR is when you have a character that appears against a real-time background (so for example, pokemon go. i think that the nintendo DS also had some AR stuff you could do with the camera)
pre-pandemic, there was this trend of influencer families using AR characters with their kids. so you’d get instagram videos or photos of kids “playing” with the character. i think this was how it was originally marketed. now the company has a few more celebrity tie ins and some stuff about the dreaded metaverse, but i think the web3 aspect of anything the company has come up with was tacked on later, once web3 became a trend.
kayda appeared before we knew karlie was pregnant. afterwards i had sorta wondered if kayda might be used with karlie’s kid in some capacity (there was a post that showed kayda being ‘assigned’ karlie’s baby at one point) but that never panned out. personal opinion but i think that was for the best.
kayda also used to have an instagram, but that got vacated and operations moved solely to tiktok. kayda seemed to have made some appearances during kode with klossy camps. overall, some of the kayda posts have felt a little easter eggy, but it’s never been building up to anything.
i think kayda may have been used more if the pandemic didn’t happen, because i get the sense karlie probably downsized her office operations during quarantine and there were likely less employees/budget to work on making content. for example the original voice actors have been switched out.
just in general i think it’s an example of karlie putting out feelers in the tech world, trying out trends and seeing how they might applicable to things she does.
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sadisweetomi · 2 years
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Executive ImpactPuroland director maps out a future for 'kawaii' culture
TOKYO
Established in 1990, Sanrio’s now 30-year-old theme park Puroland has led the global kawaii culture scene side by side with its parent company for over decades.
In 2019, when their theme park business was facing a downturn, Aya Komaki, 60, became the first female director of Puroland, as well as president and CEO of Sanrio Entertainment. Having successfully reestablished the business in less than two years, it was once again faced with another challenge – the coronavirus pandemic.
Puroland took the lead in the industry to temporarily close its facilities on Feb 22 – a full month prior to the Japanese government’s declaration of the state of emergency.
After closing for almost five full months, the theme park had a pre-opening on July 13 and resumed all facilities the following week, altering its operations to comply with COVID-19 guidelines and protocols.
How did you become the president and CEO of Sanrio Entertainment?
I started working for Sanrio as a new university graduate. After working for about a year, I got married and became a stay-at-home mom for over 10 years. In my 30s, I lost my son in an accident, got treated for cancer, and went through a divorce – all these events really pushed me to become more independent, and encouraged me to go back to working full-time again.
Soon after I started working for a different company, I was called back into Sanrio to work for one of their corporate groups. I was involved in the development of skincare products for adults and explored what it truly meant for a woman to “live beautifully.” At one point, I realized that it wasn’t about the cosmetics, but more about mental health. From there on, I began studying psychology, career counseling, and coaching. In 2008, I launched an internal corporate venture in hopes to provide more mental support for women.
In 2014, I started working for Puroland. By 2019, I was promoted to director of Puroland and the president and CEO of Sanrio Entertainment. There was always a part of me that wanted to support the theme park in some way or another, but I never imagined I would become part of it. In the beginning I was confused, worried, and conflicted – it was like a bolt out of the blue.
Puroland made a full V-shaped recovery within the two years of you becoming the head of the company. What do you think was the primary factor that brought the business back on track?
I believe there are two distinct factors: external and internal.
The external factors were that it was a time when the Japanese “kawaii culture” was shifting its target consumers from children to adults, and more Japanese pop culture was being introduced around the world. Most importantly, social networking services was at its peak, where our own audiences had become our own promoters, too.
The internal factors were that our employees had so many unexpressed ideas and were too shy to say them out loud. What I did was to ask questions like "What do you like about Puroland that makes you want to stay?"which eventually made them feel more confident to express their love for our company. They gradually began to inspire and have more positive conversations with each other.
It was not that I had introduced some type of marketing system, but if I had ever been helpful, it was to create that environment where our employees felt more comfortable to share their thoughts.
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How did it feel to have Puroland finally pre-open on July 13 after it had been closed for five months?
It was truly depressing to see it closed for such a long period that it almost made me cry a few times. Puroland without music or lights and no mascots walking around was just very sad. Especially with the absence of our visitors, it was so empty that it almost felt like it wasn’t breathing anymore. Although we still have a few restrictions, I’m extremely happy that we have everything back and it is full of energy again.
Has the pandemic impacted your business policy?
It certainly has. Before the pandemic, our overall performance was doing very well and everyone’s motivation was superb, to a point where we were able to reassure each other that what we had been doing up until now was leading us all in the right direction.
There is a project we had been working on prior to the outbreak, which involved taking our business outside of our closed-space facility. Assuming the numbers of our visitors would continue to increase over the course of the years, we had to find a solution to make it less crowded before it reached its capacity, and we expected it to happen sometime soon. Now we’re having to accelerate the process, as the pandemic brought what we had expected to be “soon” sooner than we had ever anticipated.
Given the circumstances, it is no longer realistic to think a business would continue to do well by solely relying on mobility. Having said that, I think it is necessary to shift toward online and virtual businesses as fast and thoroughly as we can.
What is the ideal way for Puroland to operate in the post-pandemic "new normal?"
Since shifts in consumer behavior are a given, we must think about the different ways in which we can offer our values, especially during this challenging time. We cannot exactly encourage people to move around, and because we have restrictions on the total number of visitors we are admitting per day, to make up to those who don’t have access to our facilities as much as they used to, we are currently in the process of creating new ways to bring Puroland closer to our fans through digitalization. I cannot give out the details yet, but we are also working on a project that involves social activities rooted in the community and supporting women that we are hoping to release in the fall.
Sanrio characters have led the “kawaii culture” for decades. Why do you think they have attracted people from all around the world for so many years?
Actually that is something I have been trying to figure out for myself for many years now. I don’t think it is just about design, and part of it might have to do with Hello Kitty and the world surrounding her. It provides that feeling of comfort; comfort that comes from the idea that it is appreciated across generations, comfort that it is always close to your heart and makes you want to keep it closer – that sense of affinity that is essentially shared by people from all around the world.
Even if we don’t speak each other’s language, our characters have the power to bring people closer. Especially Hello Kitty – I think she has a magic ribbon that allows her to bring people together.
What are your thoughts on “kawaii culture” and how do you think it will progress from here onwards?
It won’t disappear, that is for sure. The culture itself brings nostalgia and an opportunity for people to relive their childhood. It is essential to humanity, as it brings comfort upon people regardless of whether you are female, male, or LGBTQ.
The pandemic has made traveling very difficult, which has impacted our business that heavily relied on inbound marketing. I highly doubt the traveling situation will ever return to how they were before the outbreak, raising the question of whether this will cause pop culture to die out – I think it is rather the opposite. Pop culture and the digital get along very well, so I am hoping that they would essentially help each other to blur borders by allowing us to deliver content faster and to a larger audience. My further take on it is that it will start to speak to people’s sentiments and lifestyles.
Do you personally have a favorite Sanrio character?
I used to say “Wish me mell” because at the time we were trying to promote her, and I wanted our audiences to get to know her better. But the truth is, from Hello Kitty to My Melody to Pom Pom Purin to Cinnamoroll – I love them all. So, my answer to your question is everyone.
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Is there anything in particular you keep in mind as a female executive – a combination that is still very rare in Japanese businesses?
I want to keep track of the experiences that made me feel like there was a wall, and I also want to try to do my best to break those walls. Not necessarily for myself, but so that it hopefully helps to improve future work environments for women in the workforce.
I do sometimes wonder what it would be like to have the majority and minority flipped around. Although at the same time, I do not exactly feel I am a minority, at least at our company. In the end, I don’t think gender matters. What is more important is diversity and the flexibility to bring in people that offer different perspectives in order to build a strong team.
Is there anything you wish that the readers knew more about Sanrio?
Many might have the impression that we are a character business company. We do work with characters, but we are not a company that is strictly for characters.
Sanrio’s ideologies are based on the essence of uniting people, which originates to Shintaro Tsuji, the founder of the company, and his experiences of the war. To achieve world peace, we need to get along with each other. To get along with each other, we need to be able to fully express our apologies and gratitude, and having something cute to accompany it with would make it a lot easier. The creation of characters was a result of the company’s philosophy to promote better social communication.
Those legacies and spirits have also been applied onto every project we do at Puroland.
Yukari Tanaka is a freelance writer. Follow her at Twitter: @YukariAT or Instagram: yukariwrites
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Nothing says, “Fine-crafted whiskey for $39” like beaver puppets
This is not a new ad, but it is a new question: Can an ad that does an excellent job with memorable branding and emotional connection still be the wrong ad for the product?
I wrote in an earlier post that this ad proves the answer is YES. 
I said that however charming and memorable, the puppets infantilize a grown-up product and make the product feel less premium and therefore not worth the price. I said that while Bulgari, Coach, Patron, Ritz-Carlton, Apple, or Rolls Royce could boost to their ad recall with brand mascots, doing so would come at too high a cost for a premium brand.
I took that post down. Because I was wrong.
The client and creative director tell their story on this episode of Jon Evan’s Uncensored CMO.
I’ll give you the highlights. 
The product has no provenance or history. The corporate conglomerate distiller was simply looking for a new product to sell. 
Research showed that there was a large market of people who were intimidated by all the pretension surrounding drinking scotch and bourbon straight. They prefer mixed drinks. So to lure cocktail drinkers to add this whiskey to their liquor cabinet, The Woodsman marketing claims that it’s “The perfect whisky for mixing – bold but balanced – rather than a subtly-nuanced or overly-complex taste which is either lost in a mixer or overpowers the drink.”
So it’s not intended to be a premium product. It’s aimed at bringing new buyers into the category. Given that, the lighthearted approach makes a lot of sense. 
At $39, it’s not an everyday product. It’s for special – but not THAT special – times. That’s why these beaver buds are celebrating with mixed drinks after building a hot tub. The “what men drink after working hard” is an old trope in the ethanol beverage world that goes back at least 50 years to Miller Time.
But there are a lot of other things going on here that are right:
• Branding up front
• Catchy music
• Something to catch your attention at the start (the sound and motion of the falling tree)
• Fun beaver puppets providing a link to the brandname, The Woodsman
• The fun, ear-tickling copy (originally a jingle, but regulators said the song would appeal to much to kids): “The Woodsman Whiskey loves a doer. So don’t dilly dally, do. And do what those that do do when they’re done doing. The Woodsman Whiskey. Well-earned.” 
• The beaver puppets are metaphors for manly men working with their hands
System 1, a company that tests ads for branding and emotion says this ad is the highest-scoring whiskey ad they’ve ever tested. It gets a 4.8. That ties the Michelob Ultra ad that got a 4.8, the highest score of all the ads in the 2024 Super Bowl.
And did it work? It worked. Particularly with the important audience of liquor retailers. They loved this approach and made room on their shelves for this newcomer. And while the client didn’t give hard figures, she said that sales exceeded their goals and they’re making more ads with these beaver characters.
Advertising creative direction involves using experience to predict future results. Sometimes we’re wrong like I was here. (Shrug emoji.)
Agency: Mr. President, London. Director: John Riche. Fun behind the scenes video here.
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