So we all mocked the Minecraft movie and agreed to not give it money...only for y'all to immediately go see it?

It's lazy. It's ugly. They're banking on it being a huge money maker. They totally whitewashed Steve. Afaik there's a boycott on Microsoft rn (the company that Owns Minecraft). It has colonist undertones. Don't go see this pile of garbage. Yes even if they paid off your fave streamer to advertise it

i am crying i can't breathd

i know i already reblogged this today but this video has more emotion in it than my university-level acting classes

Someone give these two their Oscars.

🚨 Families in Gaza Are Homeless… and Our Story Is One of Thousands 💔

After 15months of war and destruction, the airstrikes have stopped, but the suffering continues. Thousands of families in Gaza have lost their homes, left stranded among the rubble, clinging to hope amid devastation.

My family's story is not unique…

Our home in northern Gaza is gone, completely destroyed by the occupation, along with our memories and sense of security. Today, we have only one wish: **to return to our land**, even if it means living in a tent beside the ruins. But we face one painful obstacle: **we cannot afford transportation** for my **family of 11 people.

🎯 Our Goal:

We need only €2500 to cover transportation costs and return to our land. A small amount, but for us, it means everything – **home, safety, and a fresh start.

🤲 Even a small donation of €20 can bring us one step closer to home. Every contribution, no matter how small, is a beacon of hope in this darkness.

Be our support… Help us return home.

✅Verified by:

📌 @90-ghost

📌 @gazavetters, #53)

📌 @gaza-eviction-funds (@el-shab-hussein - @nabuls).

Dear friends, talk about me

@buttercuparry @malcriada @palestinegenocide @sar-soor @akajustmerry @annoyingloudmicrowavecultist @feluka @sayruq @tortiefrancis @flower-tea-fairies @tsaricides @riding-with-the-wild-hunt @visenyasdragon @belleandsaintsebastian @ear-motif @kordeliiius @brutalia @raelyn-dreams @troythecatfish @theropoda @tamar @queerstudiesnatural@northgazaupdates2@skatezophrenic

Calling it now but all this AI Ghibli crap is gonna put Miyazaki in retirement again or worse, get him so depressed he cancels his upcoming films.

Still can't believe the entire campaign relied on people not googling "Tariff" and spending like a minute to read the definiton. "I'm going to introduce tariffs" as a campaign promise is LITERALLY saying "I'm going make the price of things even higher than they already are, for you (usamerican)"

He literally won by telling people to their faces that he's going to make inflation worse. Joke country.

'or throw them in prisons meant to quietly re-enslave them' but then they start studying law and activism to protest that too*

Personal space? Nope - never heard of it.

Is that…… them

YALL THERES MORE TO THE SERIES

sorry if this sounds mean, but I sincerely don't give a fuck if the negativity around nintendo rn is "killing your hype"; $80 for a video game is completely unacceptable and if sales figures don't reflect that and nintendo gets away with this, the industry will be completely unsalvageable and you can't possibly believe the new donkey kong is worth that

all these arguments about tariffs and inflation are pointless to me; even if it's all true and nintendo is just an innocent angel baby who has no choice but to charge $80 for a children's kart racing game, that doesn't change the reality that millions of people ain't paying that and there's no way this works out in their favor

"the switch 2 prices are fine actually, just look at the inflation compared to 2017"

oh well that's fine then.

I mean, everyone's wages have risen along with inflation, right?

the minimum wage went up, right?

everyone has lots of disposable income, right?

WerePapas Flashback Salt Part Two

Yesterday we discussed the first flashback in this episode, today let's talk about flashback two!

Flashback two comes at the end of the episode and features Gabriel and Nathalie arriving home from a trip to try to find a cure for Emilie. The fact that these trips occurred has always been a personal headcanon, so I like this lore, but that's the only positive thing I can say. From a story perspective, this flashback should have been cut. Gabriel is dead! His relationship with Adrien is over! The time to develop their backstory was when Gabriel was alive and an active character! Why are you padding the run time with this crap now? And why do it in an episode that's bloated as hell?

Of course, the point of this flashback isn't Gabriel and Adrien's relationship. It's about Nathalie, Adrien, and also Emilie for some reason. The flashback ends with Nathalie comforting Adrien while Emilie looks on from above, pleased by the relationship, giving her silent seal of approval to Nathalie being Adrien's new mother:

There are a lot of reasons this is pointless, so let's just go through those.

Reason One: Emilie's approval doesn't matter

Emilie is not a character that the audience has come to know and love. She's been a non-entity for the entire show so I doubt if anyone would have thought to ask what Emilie wanted without the episode prompting us to ask. Even with the prompt, I don't care! Emilie is dead! Her opinions do not matter especially since Nathalie clearly never took Emilie's opinion to heart:

Even though Emilie was pretty clear about her approval in those instructional videos that Nathalie was obsessed with back in season five:

So we the audience already knew that Emilie approved of Nathalie and Nathalie was canonically told about this already, so why did we need to rehash this topic? It would be one thing if Emilie's words swayed Nathalie during this episode, but they don't. No one in the episode discusses Emilie's thoughts on the matter and the only people who get to see the silent seal of approval moment are the audience members. It's so freaking pointless!

Since Emilie and Nathalie's relationship is never actually used for anything, Emilie has no reason to be in this episode. Nathalie and Adrien's feelings about mama Nathalie are the only feelings that matter and should have been the episode's focus. As is, Adrien's feelings are somewhat addressed but we are never told what is holding Nathalie back or what changes her mind. Is it grief? A general distaste for motherhood? What? I legitimately want to know! Why doesn't she think she's part of the family and what changes her mind? As is, it's really not clear!

Because Nathalie's feelings aren't really dug into, this arguably comes across like Nathalie doesn't actually want to be Adrien's mother, but is going with it because it will make Adrien happy. This episode would have been so much better if Nathalie was fighting for Adrien because she wanted this and knew that Emilie agreed, but Emilie's parents needed to be convinced of that. Then Johnny's claim that Nathalie loves Adrien would have actual weight. As is, I'm not sure why he thinks that. Nathalie does nothing all that loving in this episode.

Another idea would be to have Nathalie's hesitance come from the fact that she's lying to Adrien about his parents and also keeping the whole sentimonster thing from him. From a narrative perspective, it makes way more sense for Nathalie to be the one who is the source of those lies and secrets since she actually knows the whole story while Marinette knows almost nothing. The audience is better informed than she is!

Plus Nathalie played a major role in making everything happen and actually liked the Agrestes, giving her a much stronger motivation for these lies than Marinette who was on the good side and hated Gabriel's guts! This entire liar Marinette plot is yet another example of the Marinette obsession hurting the story. Let other characters get some focus and be a source of problems!!!

Of course, the only way to resolve that issue is to actually be honest with Adrien and that's just not happening. The fact that he picks Nathalie without knowing everything really bothers me. Does anyone believe that he'd want Nathalie in a position of power over him if he knew the truth?

Reason Two: The Nathalie Retcon

This is probably the worst instance of the writers trying to make redeemed Nathalie work because they're now saying that she always loved and cared for Adrien. In season five, it read more like new behavior spawning from her supposed change of heart. I didn't think that new behavior was properly developed, but it could have been so I can understand people giving it a pass because they like the idea of a good Nathalie. But saying that this is just who Nathalie always was?

Fuck. Off.

To be fair, I guess she has always protected Adrien from his father, putting her honorary son's safety above his father's wants:

And she was always incensed when Gabriel put Adrien at risk, demanding he never do that again with the same passion she usually reserved for blindly supporting Gabriel:

And of course we can't forget all her hard work to make Paris a safe and happy place for her honorary son to live in! All those scenes of her reminding Gabriel to not attack Adrien's friends, school, and fans were so heartwarming! I guess she really is the mother of the year! (That was all sarcasm, btw)

My cynical brain sees this tender moment between Nathalie and young Adrien and thinks, "Of course the writers had to add this. They couldn't flash back to something in the actual show because - outside of a few moments in season five - Nathalie has mostly been neutral or horrible to Adrien so the writers have to try to make people forget the character they actually wrote and replace her with this one that's popular in fanfic! Why did they write her so evil if the goal was always to make her Adrien's new mom? Oh, right, it wasn't. This is a retcon because they decided to not revive Emilie at the ninth hour!"

You had five season to make fetch happen. You didn't. Own that and give her a proper redemption.

Reason Three: The flashback doesn't actually make Nathalie a good mom

Both flashbacks seem to imply that Gabriel was a bad dad because he was too focused on finding a cure for Emilie. They also directly state that Nathalie was by Gabriel's side for the entirety of that quest:

Hey, writers, if Gabriel's actions were bad then so were Nathalie's! Her taking a moment to comfort Adrien is surface level effort at best! It is not meaningful parenting! If you want her to be a good mom, then show her forcing Gabriel to spend time with his son! Have her take over research so Gabriel can go to dinner with the family! Something, anything, to meaningful improve Adrien's life!!!

As is, this scene is perfectly in line with the ultimately meaningless things she did in season five like her undoing Gabriel's worst senticommands while also doing nothing to stop Gabriel from issuing the same commands in the future! None of that actually makes Adrien's life better! You are not solving his actual issues! This is like wrapping up a fatal wound to slow the bleeding and leaving the person to the hands of fate. I'll admit that you did something, but that person has not been saved. You need to get them to a doctor for a blood transfusion ASAP!

Then again, I'm not 100% sure if the message of this episode even was that Gabriel was bad. These writers are terrible at presenting Gabriel in a way that conveys the message that they actually want to convey so the message may very well have been "Emilie's sickness hurt this wonderful family" and not "Gabriel = Bad." Either way, this flashback was pointless.

Final Verdict

Much like flashback one, this isn't a terrible scene, but it does nothing to make the episode work. Emilie's opinions and wants do not come into play outside of the flashbacks so her opinions and wants should not have been addressed in this episode. Same goes for Gabriel playing Indiana Jones. Why bring that up in an episode that has nothing to do with him?

All of that is extra true because the episode is a bloated, unfocused mess that desperately needed a longer run time. The two minutes or so that went to these flashbacks should have gone to fleshing out the episode's actual plot OR the episode's plot should have been reworked so that Emilie and/or Gabriel's quest actually mattered outside of the flashbacks.

As is, just take the two minutes the flashbacks ate up and use them to let Ladybug have a mini freak-out before smashing the rings! Or use them to let the akuma make it back up to the boxing ring, forcing Ladybug to smash the rings! Or let Nathalie have a good mom moment in the main episode to show that she actually IS the best choice for Adrien's new guardian! Or even just show us why Nathalie feels inferior to Emilie! Is it something specific to Emilie, grief, the ongoing lies, or just a general concern about being a mother? You know, things that meaningfully improve the episode? When you're dealing with complex plots and emotions in super limited run times, every second counts.

I'll also note that the flashbacks imply that Gabriel wasn't around much and that Adrien thought his father didn't love him, but that is yet another massive retcon and plot hole so I'm actually going to save that for another post about the timeline of Emilie's illness. The timeline breakdown will post tomorrow.

Regarding Nathalie as Adrien's new mom, something that will always come to mind when I see people defending her or saying that she is a good mother figure is the scene you mention in Chat Blanc.

Like, I'm sorry, but if the fandom loves to bring up this episode to justify that Adrien never finding out the truth is good and how he can't know LB's identity because that caused Chat Blanc, then I get to bring up that horrendous episode to point out how Nathalie IS NOT A GOOD MOTHER FIGURE.

IN FACT, if the fandom wants to actually use that episode for whatever bs justification, then they'll have to agree that the real catalyst for Chat Blanc to happen WASN'T Adrien knowing Ladybug's identity. It was Nathalie telling Gabriel his son was Chat Noir.

Nathalie was the reason the whole thing happened in the first place.

And that, for me, explains fully why Nathalie is the worst choice as Adrien's mother figure, and that Nathalie actually doesn't care that much for him for that matter. Because not only was she on board with akumatizing Marinette, Adrien's girlfriend, but also didn't even try to stop Gabriel's plans once she found out he was Chat Noir.

And yes, its true that Nathalie hesitated for at least a second to tell the truth to Gabriel, but at the end of the day she still chose to tell him. She chose Gabriel over Adrien. She chose to put Adrien in danger to get the miraculous.

And if you look at the whole lie situation, she is still putting other people (Gabriel and Marinette's wishes orders) over him. Adrien deserves a parent that puts him first and actively cares and fight for his well being, not someone that, for whole months and to this day, is lying and manipulating him in order to "protect him".

So about those prices