u/MissDeborah8060

Although I like the "Brighter" music video in itself, I always found the leadup to it a bit underwhelming. If it were up to me, I'd make the following change:

Before the song officially begins, when it's just Vox in his lair saying "Failure. I'll show you failure," instead of leading right into the song, his words would be punctuated by flashbacks showing Vincent as a young person, terrified of his father, who says some variant of "Get out of my sight, failure!" or "You're such a failure, I wish you'd never been born!" Maybe there'd also be a scene in there of Vincent killing his father in a fit of rage or something, I don't know. But either way, only then would it slide into the song.

The reason this would work so well is twofold. In the first place, it would show exactly why he's so obsessed with being this powerful person whom everyone worships and takes seriously. As it is, the "Brighter" video adds some interesting context to his plans to declare himself a god, but doesn't actually explain how or why he wants that in the first place. In the second place, there's the element of surprise. There's something about seeing a bad guy who's almost certain he's won flashing back to a younger, more vulnerable state that is super compelling for fans (myself included). If the show had managed to pull something like this off, I think Vox would be even more universally loved than he already is, and the show itself would get a massive boost in prestige for helping the audience see this character in a whole new light (as opposed to what we actually got, which for me at least is the sense that Vox COULD have been an amazing character if only the writers put more thought into how he was written).

Not so long ago, I was watching some YouTube videos that actively wondered why Vox is still alive after the end of Season 2, now that big arc is seemingly "over." One YouTuber in particular went into more detail about a proposed Disney villain-style death in which the laser cannon somehow detaches from Lucifer before exploding and taking Vox (and presumably the other Vee's) with it. Vox would then be dead, but he would make a spectacle of his death that would be permanently etched into the minds of everyone around him, and so retain some of the "fame" he so desperately wanted. And, the path would be clear for a new villain to emerge in Season 3.

I realize there are problems with this scenario (notably: less Vox), but I still can't help but think it sounds like a better ending for the last season than the one we ultimately got. At least a big, dramatic, spectacular death scene would allow him to exit with dignity, so to speak, and come across as a genuinely tragic character. As opposed to what we actually get, where Vox finds himself alive but humiliated and trapped while his two biggest abusers (Alastor and Valentino) get away with everything and are seen as heroes for helping to bring him down. Couple that with all the merch and fan art of Vox looking miserable surrounded by his happy abusers and it starts to get really uncomfortable in the way a simple, dignified death scene never would--almost like someone (or several someones) on the art team finds the idea of miserable Vox more gratifying than dead Vox. Because Vox is just that horrible, apparently.

Of course, the best-case scenario for future seasons is that Vox will recover, do some soul-searching, get his power back, and become a heroic character himself; but I just don't think that's ever going to happen. If he does get a "happy ending," it's probably going to involve him utterly submitting to Alastor or Valentino or both. I could be wrong, of course, but I'm not optimistic. And I honestly think that would be a fate worse than death, at least in relation to how Vox has been presented thus far. No one likes to see a beautiful wild animal locked in a cage or turned into a house pet, unless they themselves are exotic animal collectors who enjoy breaking them.

Although I like the "Brighter" music video in itself, I always found the leadup to it a bit underwhelming. If it were up to me, I'd make the following change:

Before the song officially begins, when it's just Vox in his lair saying "Failure. I'll show you failure," instead of leading right into the song, his words would be punctuated by flashbacks showing Vincent as a young person, terrified of his father, who says some variant of "Get out of my sight, failure!" or "You're such a failure, I wish you'd never been born!" Maybe there'd also be a scene in there of Vincent killing his father in a fit of rage or something, I don't know. But either way, only then would it slide into the song.

The reason this would work so well is twofold. In the first place, it would show exactly why he's so obsessed with being this powerful person whom everyone worships and takes seriously. As it is, the "Brighter" video adds some interesting context to his plans to declare himself a god, but doesn't actually explain how or why he wants that in the first place. In the second place, there's the element of surprise. There's something about seeing a bad guy who's almost certain he's won flashing back to a younger, more vulnerable state that is super compelling for fans (myself included). If the show had managed to pull something like this off, I think Vox would be even more universally loved than he already is, and the show itself would get a massive boost in prestige for helping the audience see this character in a whole new light (as opposed to what we actually got, which for me at least is the sense that Vox COULD have been an amazing character if only the writers put more thought into how he was written).

This is just a cute little reference that I, a science nerd, noticed as I was thinking about Daisuke's hibiscus shirt. Hibiscus is a member of the mallow family (Malvaceae), whose most famous member is the Marsh-Mallow plant. In historical times, this plant was used to make the sweet treats we call marshmallows, though nowadays they're mostly made with gelatin instead. In other words, the game is encouraging us to identify Daisuke with marshmallows! Whether the emphasis is on his being sweet or soft (or both) is, I suppose, a matter of interpretation. There's a lot of dialogue in the game about how much he likes sweets, too.

Actually, going off of this, if you look closely at the ingredients used to make the cake in the game (water, gelatin, and sweetener), they're the same ingredients used to make marshmallows. The characters are eating a marshmallow cake. All these marshmallow connections go deeper than I thought!

For those of you who don't know or weren't around at the time, The Room is an independent film from 2003, which is often included in lists of the "worst films ever made." What's even more interesting is that Tommy Wiseau, who created the film, reminds me a little of Gooseworx: a difficult personality; a decision to go indie to avoid dealing with unsympathetic gatekeepers; and a finished project that miraculously blew up and became a big hit despite not being "good" in any true sense of the term. Even the storytelling beats are kind of similar, since both stories feature a self-insert character who believes he is a victim despite all his faults, and who is ultimately driven to suicide after his friends are (ostensibly) insufficiently caring and deferential to him.

On the balcony to my apartment are several paper wasp nests, some of which have been there since last summer and others of which are new. I almost never use the balcony, so I rarely interact with them in any way, but the few times I have opened the door they've paid me no mind. I obviously don't want to hurt the wasps, so I haven't called an exterminator or anything and mostly just let them be. That being said, because I rent the apartment, I'm a little worried that if the nests get too numerous, I might get in trouble with the complex, especially if/when I move out. My current plan is to leave them for now, and then, when there's a cold winter night (it does get cold in this part of Florida, just not very frequently), find a way to knock the nests down to the ground (at least the inactive ones). That way, I'll get rid of the nests while limiting damage to the actual wasps (since they presumably would be hibernating somewhere more sheltered), and minimize my chances of getting stung. However, I wanted to run it by you all first, in case you have any better ideas. To be clear, the wasps don't bother me, I'm just concerned because I live in a rental.

Wawa is a North American convenience store/gas station chain. Apparently, they now sell red-and-blue smoothies (sound familiar?) with an option to add GUMMY SHARKS!

This is something that occurred to me in light of the discourse about Christopher Nolan's new Odyssey movie. Back in 2000, Nolan made a film called Memento, which seems to have prefigured Mouthwashing in some very interesting ways. Both are told from the perspective of a bad man who is trying to construct a narrative of himself as a hero, and both have non-linear narratives that confuse and disorient the audience. There's even a minor character in Memento named Jimmy, who is a drug dealer. Then, by the end of the story, we learn that the bad man has killed (or as good as killed, in Jimmy's case) the one person who genuinely seemed to have his best interests at heart. I don't actually think any of these parallels are deliberate, but they're still pretty fun to think about.

To me, they're kind of a wash, because Vox is often the butt of the joke, but so is everyone else. The fact that Vox isn't taken seriously matters less to me if nobody else is taken seriously either.

Headcanon 1: Vox spent most of his teenage years in, effectively, foster care. What happened was that, after he lost his father at about age twelve, he was sent to an orphanage. However, because his epilepsy made him difficult for the poor orphanage staff to care for, he was eventually taken in by a family in the city of Fargo, so that he could have proper medical care. He resisted all attempts to be adopted by them, however, and moved out as soon as he became a legal adult.

Headcanon 2: During World War 2, he was a radio operator on a US Air Force plane. Eventually, his plane was shot down over the open ocean, and he was the only survivor. That evening, a whole bunch of Blue Sharks (one of the most widespread and in-your-face shark species) swarmed around him while he clung to a piece of floating debris. At first he thought they were going to eat him, but in fact, they turned out to be friendly, and kept him company all night long until he could be rescued by a patrol boat. This led to an epiphany about sharks being more than just mindless killing machines.

To me, both of these characters have essentially the same basic problem. They both choose to be cruel to others, either discounting or reveling in their victims' suffering, only for the series to pull a 180 and insist that they actually deserve sympathy after all. Yet, even as more and more people come around to the idea that Jax really is as awful as he first appeared, I still see a lot of people (often the same people) making excuses for Caine: that he was pushed, that he doesn't want to act like this but some force compelled him, that he doesn't know any better because he's not human (ahem, then why did he figure out Kinger's absence meant the others were plotting something?), that he's somehow "more human" than Jax or "earned" a redemption that Jax didn't, and so on. And I just don't buy it. He's nothing but uncaring to the other characters for the first 7-8 episodes, spending all his time trying to get THEM to go on the adventures HE wants, steamrolling their own preferences, and generally making everything all about himself. Even if you make allowances for the fact that he's not supposed to be human, in practice, how is he not every bit as toxic as Jax? On the flip side, there are those who dislike Caine because he's mean to Jax, even though Jax clearly causes most if not all his own problems. I feel like there's pressure to "pick a side," when I mostly just find them BOTH to be toxic, shallow, uninteresting, and annoying. What about the actual LIKABLE characters?

I do realize that none of these stories were aimed at young people, but of course that hasn't stopped young people from getting into them anyway. The thing is, Mouthwashing, to me, has a more consistent moral vision than some of these other works. There aren't any characters who are allowed to get away with stuff or easily forgiven just because they're the writers' favorite. If they do something wrong, there are always consequences. Sure, we play from the perspective of the villain; but it's a deliberate stylistic choice, rather than the writers suddenly deciding that they liked said villain more than anyone else and wanted to give them the biggest role or the most screen time. Mouthwashing is great at depicting realistic evil, and how awful it is, whereas something like Hazbin Hotel relies more on an idealized, glamorized vision of evil, almost like it doesn't actually see evil as being all that bad in itself.

I also like the fact that there's basically no sex in Mouthwashing beyond some lines of dialogue that vaguely allude to it having taken place. It shows a level of awareness that you don't have to rely on explicit sex scenes or jokes in order to feel "mature," and that there's more to being a grown-up (if that's what teen audience members want) than just sex.

Is he part of the Wrong Organ team (either as a developer or promoter), or just a big-name fan? I feel like I'm getting conflicting information about exactly who he is and what his role in the fandom is. I know he does a lot of fandom-style videos and artwork, but he also seems to have access to the actual models used by the game (judging by his videos), and he made his own advertisement for the YouTooz Anya plushie. It isn't a product review, either, because the ad is designed to make people aware of the pre-order dates for the plush. That's a LOT of privileged information for a fan to have access to, unless Wrong Organ are unusually open and collaborative with their fans (or even if they are).

This is a rant, if that's not obvious from the title.

It seems to me that, whenever I post to this community anything about criticizing or not liking Valentino, it gets downvoted at least once. I just don't get it. I understand that a lot of people here like StaticMoth, but is it really that surprising that someone in a community dedicated to woobifying Vox would dislike a notorious abuser who makes Vox look bad and drags him into his drama constantly? People have no problem pointing out that Alastor is bad for Vox, but somehow the idea that Valentino could also be equally bad for Vox (and therefore subject to the same criticism) gets ignored or downplayed constantly even here. If the idea is that "Vox should only be surrounded by people who truly love and care for him," then how does that square with him being with Valentino? Keep in mind: this is the guy who has a habit of throwing things at Vox for extremely petty reasons, and recently ripped his head off and was PRAISED for it by the narrative. By all appearances, he is abusive toward Vox, whether his fans like it or not.

I just don't understand why the people who like Valentino and/or StaticMoth can't just content themselves with the Valentino Cult and the StaticMoth sections of the regular Vox Cult. Or just ignore comments from people here who don't like Valentino and/or StaticMoth (I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one). It's already hard enough to be on the regular Vox Cult as someone who ONLY likes Vox and NOT the other Vee's (especially Valentino), without the same attitude bleeding into a community that exists to woobify Vox specifically and no one else.

Think about it: at the beginning of the show we're introduced to a grand total of six people who seem to be positioned as main characters. This is before we consider Caine and Bubble (who are arguably the main villains of the story) and the various NPC's who come and go. A lot of viewers complain about how some characters get way more screentime than others, but I actually think it was sort of inevitable based on how the series is structured. A main cast of six is unusually large by pretty much any metric. In my experience, most stories that feature more than one main character have two or three, with five being the absolute max. The main example of a show I can think of with the same or more main characters as TADC is Digimon, but that show had dozens of episodes per season AND multiple sequels and spin-offs. There is simply no way that a series of only nine episodes could meaningfully develop six entire lead characters and still have time left over to explain the lore in a satisfying way.

All of this sort of goes back to my previous point, that the series would have been better if it was open and honest about the fact that Jax was going to be the main POV character from the beginning. Above and beyond that, though, a main cast of six is simply not compatible with a series of just nine episodes. It would have been way more logical for Goose to have decided in advance which was more important--nine episodes or a large ensemble cast--and then tailored the rest of the story according to that vision (whether that meant a smaller cast or a longer runtime). In other words, the problem is not so much that the series actually lacked time to tell a cohesive story, but rather that the writer/s couldn't manage the time properly.

Just make Jax the main POV character and show the whole thing from his perspective. Sure, that might not be everyone's cup of tea, but at least we would know what we were getting. There's nothing intrinsically bad about having a bad or unlikable person as a main character. At its best, the story could have looked like, say, Mouthwashing, a game where the audience plays the role of a deranged ex-convict. The reason Mouthwashing works is that the game uses the opportunity to explore what the thought processes of someone like that would be, without actually justifying or excusing any of them. TADC could have done something similar if the writers made intelligent decisions. Heck, even Hazbin Hotel, for all its faults, at least establishes right away that it's set in Hell and, therefore, a large chunk of the cast are going to be terrible people by definition.

As it is, we're stuck with a bait-and-switch, where the likable characters are introduced first only to be shoved aside in favor of the single worst member of the main cast. I'm not sure whether this was intentional (because Goose knew that people wouldn't watch the show if someone as unlikable as Jax was the lead) or whether it just happened as result of the fannish desire to have the self-insert be at the center of everything, but either way, it doesn't work and it's deeply dishonest. And I suspect part of the backlash is that fans feel cheated, because they thought they were getting one kind of story and got something else instead.

Stay with me.

The premise here is that Jimmy does in fact get rescued, and subsequently undergoes a battery of medical tests that reveal him to be hopelessly insane and out of touch with reality. He spends the rest of his life in a group home for people with severe mental illness, drugged to the gills (and suffering all the side effects that come with antipsychotics, like severe weight gain and movement disorders), still blaming everyone and everything but himself for his predicament.

This AU was inspired by the post I saw about whether Jimmy could benefit from therapy. In my view, not only is he someone who would never seek therapy, he's also probably someone who believes that inpatient psychiatric care is always worse and more abusive than whatever behaviors led up to it in the first place (a trend I've actually observed in real-life people, mostly creatives, who remind me of Jimmy). By this logic, the thought of being locked up in a psychiatric institution for the rest of his life might actually be a fate worse than death in his eyes!

There's this one person on social media who writes a lot about how to raise children with a range of different temperaments. The advice itself actually seems pretty sound, but what I can't get past is the way she constantly compares children to dogs. Agreeable, laid-back, cool children are "Golden Retriever" children, while spunkier ones are either "Bloodhound" or "German Shepherd" children (depending on how strongly she's trying to make her point). I get that she's not actually describing dogs, but was there no other analogy she could have used? Could she not have compared them to flowers like everyone else ("Daisy" vs "Orchid" children, anyone)? Or, better yet, just used terminology that already exists, like "spirited child" or "highly sensitive person?" It's all the same thing, after all!

I realize that it's a minor point in light of everything else to do with dog culture, and I feel kind of petty for even being annoyed at it, but COME ON! Does EVERYTHING have to be made about dogs?!

I mean, granted, he's no Jimmy, but I don't think it's fair to call him a good person either. Apart from (again) not being Jimmy, the main evidence people cite in favor of his being a "good person" is that he was saving the cryopod for Daisuke. Which is all well and good, except...why not communicate that to Daisuke? Why does it take Jimmy drugging him and forcing his way into the utility room for anyone to realize that Swansea was saving a cryopod (let alone that it was Daisuke he was saving it for)? I suppose it's possible that Swansea simply didn't trust Daisuke not to spill the secret to Jimmy, but does Swansea really have such a low opinion of Daisuke that he can't trust him to keep a simple secret from a guy Swansea KNOWS is dangerous and untrustworthy? And if he does, is that fair?

There are other things Swansea does that harm Daisuke too, most notably when he actively encourages Daisuke to drink the mouthwash despite KNOWING how destructive an alcohol use disorder can be. And, when he finally decides to mercy-kill Daisuke, he does so by SLAMMING AN AXE THROUGH HIS FACE, something that I can only imagine would be extremely painful and frightening even if Daisuke followed his advice to "close his eyes". I get the sense that he thinks of Daisuke more as a symbol--of either the naivety and arrogance of youth or pure innocence and optimism, depending on which part of the game you're in--than an actual person.

He also doesn't do anything to protect Anya, either from Jimmy or just in general. For instance, I think there was a statement from someone on the dev team about how Jimmy broke the motion-activated Polle statue that Anya had been using to alert her to his presence, and Swansea just watched and laughed. He also seems totally unconcerned when Daisuke and Jimmy are frantically trying to get into utility so they can make contact with Anya in the med bay, and doesn't even bother to ask what's going on or why they're so upset. I get that Jimmy and Daisuke don't tell him much, but he doesn't even seem to want to know. Oh, and when they bring him a mysterious cocktail, he accepts it seemingly without any hesitation, even though it's coming from Jimmy of all people.

So...yeah. Swansea really doesn't seem like that great of a guy when you think about it hard enough. He might have good intentions, but one of the points of the game is that those only get you so far.