You Could Always Go Back To Your Roots

It’s Not a Plot Hole, It’s Foreshadowing

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It’s Not a Plot Hole, It’s Just Something That They Opted Not to Spoon-feed You Because It Would Be Obvious If You Thought About It For 20 Seconds

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It May Be a Plot Hole, But It Still Works In Terms of the Story’s Themes and Character Logic

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Okay, It Is a Plot Hole, What Are You Going to Do, Cry about It?

"Stop saying 15 year olds with weird interests are cringe, they're 15" this is true however you should also stop saying adults with weird interests are cringe because who gives a shit

hi mechs fans long time no see

the low quality of this is canon-accurate actually

Happy Fuck You And Fuck Your Train Friday Everybody

happy birthday miku binder!!!

Not to be an English major, but my genuine favorite part of Malevolent is how it handles its themes. Overall Malevolent tackles such profound and interesting ideas to chew on, but it's specifically the approach it takes to those ideas that really gets me going.

For example, one of the major themes across several seasons and characters is identity. The podcast asks pretty standard questions like "How do you define yourself?" and "How do others define you?" But it doesn't choose to stop there! It constantly expands on that idea, and it also asks things like "Which of those definitions is the 'real' you?" and "Are any of them right, are any of them wrong?" and "Is there even a singular definitive version of you?"

Malevolent works out from one idea and poses all these rich lines of discussion and questioning, and then just. Doesn't provide an answer! Or, at least, not a single, one-size-fits-all answer. Instead, it gives us multiple possibilities:

John's arc tells us that your identity is what you make— what you say, what you decide— and no one else's definition of you matters. Arthur's arc tells us that you can get stuck in a rigid, self-deprecating personal identity, so you need others' perspectives to help you see and love the real "you." Larson's story tells us that you do not have the right to selectively accept/deny parts of your identity and actions, and that others can see the whole of "you" whether or not you take accountability for it. Noel's story tells us that you can choose what parts of your past define you, and that leaving behind all the other versions of yourself can be beautiful and empowering. Kayne's story tells us that leaving behind other versions of yourself is akin to murder, killing off the pieces that you don't like and pretending like you've evolved past your own self. Yellow's arc tells us that your identity is fluid and can easily be influenced or manipulated by what others tell you, and by that point you've changed your own self-definition to something entirely new that can be just as true or untrue as the old you.

With all of these characters and with every other character throughout the show, we get a unique answer to the question "What is identity?" And if you look further at all the characters, you can break down their different arcs over the seasons and find even more answers just within that one character's development and story. And some of the answers we get correspond, and some of them contradict, and none of them are the right answer, and all of them are the right answer.

Malevolent takes one idea, and then it crafts an incredibly nuanced and humanistic exploration of said idea that adapts with respect to whatever situation or character it is applied to. And it uses this approach with all of its themes: identity, morality, guilt, grief, love, hope, etc.

Malevolent knows that life is messy, that people are complicated and contradictory and diverse and ever-changing, that no part of the universe or humanity can ever be explained or defined in a simple manner. Malevolent knows all that, and it wants to help us understand that too.

Malevolent shows us that nothing can ever be easily understood or answered, and it shows us that that fact is beautiful.

The muppet archives

this too shall bass

Because HNOC is based a bit on fallout, i thought i’d make Brian a gen 3 synth for a fallout ttrpg.

i have never played fallout, but my girlfriend made me do this.