That's Pretty Darn Cool

Leon: The Professional (1994) is a fine film (not a great one), until you learn it's based on writer and director Luc Besson's real life relationship between himself and Maïwenn Le Besco, when he was 32 and she was 15.

It gets even worse when you learn that they only dated when she was 15 because it was the legal age in the country they were in. He met her when she was 12. Besson also has other allegations against him regarding a former assistant.

There are so many nonces in cinema it actually kills it for me.

a reflection on MatPat's plagiarism

Hello, my name is Della, or micer2012, and 2 years ago Game Theory plagiarized three Tumblr posts of mine, making a video that now holds almost 6 million views.

My posts explaining his plagiarism made their rounds on Reddit, Tumblr and Twitter, but despite the Hermits and Pooka commenting on it (generally in support of me or saying they don’t know enough details about the situation to say either way), MatPat and his team have never owned up to anything, and no mention of my name is present on the video. The one Reddit post they made denying it (which was made before my detailed takedown, which they have never responded to (though the mods on the r/GameTheorists Reddit were kind and made sure it stayed up)) didn’t even mention me by name, just referring to me as “a tumblr user”. (Though one of the screenshotted comments in the body of the post does say my name)

This experience was baffling, but it’s overall had a positive impact on my life. r/Hermitcraft gave me a Golden Apple Award (post of the year, 2021). My inbox was filled with excited fans, wanting to ask me questions or pose their own theories, far more than the hate I got. (Though the hate I got from Game Theory fans was VERY funny. I wondered why none of them gave me shit about saying “MatPat misgendered Evil Xisuma” before realizing none of them read that far into the post.)

And getting on a more personal, and much more important note, I met most of my current online friends through this, including my partner. It helped me grow closer with my irl friends as well and gave me an entertaining story that I tell whenever I have the chance. It was one of the first things in my life that really made me feel like my talents, my autistic hyperfocusing and analyzing of things I love, could be valuable. Useful. Exploitable. It blew my mind that MatPat thought an autistic kid’s ramblings about a Minecraft Youtube joke character were good enough to steal. To put an audible sponsorship on. To get 6 million views off of.

And that’s why I’m writing this post, this update years later. As you might’ve been able to guess, Hbomberguy’s Youtube video on plagiarism reopened this wound. It was really hard for me to sit through, it took days of pausing and taking breaks, because I had experienced everything he was talking about firsthand. 

In my 10 page long takedown post, I wrote about how his rewording of my sentences made him say things that were incorrect, just like Filip did. The content farm production style that made big companies like Cinemassacre take one creator (AVGN/MatPat) and turn him and his content into a brand, a voice that reads out scripts by other people with other opinions/theories, is a history shared with Game Theory. What really hit me was Harris talking about how big creators only do this to people they think they can get away with doing it to. How they view their victims as lesser, as not deserving of their words, repackaging them as their own to give to an audience that can gain from hearing them, but deserves better than to have to listen to the original victim.

That’s the thing, I 100% think a video version of my theory to expose to a bigger community than “Evil Xisuma Fans on Tumblr” is a great idea!! Near the end of the video Harris talks about how video adaptations of things could be a great market, even an accessibility tool, and I completely feel that about my posts. I wrote them quickly assuming the reader was someone well versed on Evil Xisuma lore, after not even watching most of the CarnEvil series, and the diagrams I made to explain them are even less comprehensible. Harris makes a joke that I completely agree with, 

“I’m sure some of my videos would do very well if someone translated them into English.”

I don’t think I would’ve ever made my posts if I didn’t have autism, and a special fixation on Evil Xisuma and Hermitcraft. I made them because I felt the character was being done an injustice, and because I wanted to share with other superfans this theory that might explain it away. I do think that MatPat plagiarizing me was ableist. I used to wonder a lot if this would’ve happened if my posts were articulated better, if they had been peer reviewed, if the posts themselves had been spread to a wider audience before MatPat made his video. At one point when the discourse was fresh (before I had the time to write out my 10 page rebuttal), a bigger YouTuber (100k subs at the time) messaged me and started talking on Discord, interested in possibly making a video on the discourse, but I think my style of typing and general enthusiasm drove him away. You can tell by a single look at my blog (or my original 3 posts!) that I don’t usually type like this. This post you’re reading now has been peer reviewed and edited, and took me hours to format correctly. That video could’ve been huge, the entire outcome of this MatPat situation would probably be much different.

I also used to stress a lot about “being the one who ruined Evil Xisuma’s story”. If you didn’t know, to me S8 Evil Xisuma’s story got wrapped up pretty quickly and unsatisfying (in my personal autistic opinion). (though this might’ve been due to s8 being experimental and ending early with moon big) There was no real culmination of the plot points and arcs going on, and I don’t want to blame myself, but when Xisuma said on stream (when the MatPat thing was first going on) that he didn’t want to focus on the discourse or draw more attention to it, it makes a lot of sense to me that he just wanted to wrap it all up as quickly as possible. For a while I beat myself up about it, of ruining the story of this character I love, but it’s not my fault. If anyone’s, it’s MatPats, but I don’t think it’s useful to just blame someone else. That’s how the story ended up going, and that’s fine. This is Evil Xisuma we’re talking about, their inconsistent lore is what made them such an interesting character. And notably, Pooka made an animation with an awesome culmination of Jeff, the Dreamer, Evil Xisuma, and his own sona’s story, and it makes me so happy to watch. Whatever Pooka does is of course his own choice, but I’m glad he got to give this personal story his own ending (if it is an ending, and not just the start of a new chapter!). 

Typing this all out and getting it off my chest has made me feel a lot better. For a while I wanted to make my OWN video essay about Evil Xisuma’s lore and CarnEvil’s lore, actually going episode by episode to explain it instead of just assuming you knew as much about Evil Xisuma as I did. That idea is still not off the table, but MCYT isn’t something I’m that into right now. Maybe if something else comes out about Evil Xisuma I’ll get back on it, but for now I’m fine with letting that go. But I want to make other videos, share other theories and analysis… if I have the freetime I’d love to make YouTube videos, and if I don’t have the time I’ll continue posting to my tumblr and infodumping to my friends. Apparently my infodumping is valuable enough “content” to steal! Writing this out has made me feel a lot better though, I’m really glad I got it out.

If anyone ever wants to talk to me about the things I’m obsessed with, or reach out to me as a source in a bigger discussion about Game Theory or other channels, my inbox is more than welcome :] Thank you for reading! 

Sincerely, a tumblr user.

They ruined everything

Electric State what have they done to you

God bless Todd Philips for making a movie that takes a gigantic steaming shit on the Joker IP and all the edge lord freaks that identify with it. They wanted a vessel for their revenge fantasies at the expense of Arthur's humanity. He did not give the people what they wanted, he gave them what they fucking deserved, and for that, I respect the fuck out of him!!

ok but please tell me I'm not the only one who wants an actual exploration of Stella's character in the show. yes, I know she's a bad person, yes, I know she abused Stolas, but the way she's portrayed is just a kind of caricature of dumb and abusive, exactly like Valentino, when I feel like she has the potential to be way more interesting. Not, to be clear, as a way of excusing her abuse, but as a way of explaining it. Yes, it's possible that Stella's just a bad person, but there could definitely be more to it. For instance, think about this photo we see of her as a kid:

this is obviously incredibly violent and not ok at all. what I want to point out is how Vivzie chose to show that Stella has always been violent and angry, even as a child. in this picture she's what, eight to thirteen? almost definitely around the adolescent age range. if someone is committing animal abuse when they're a literal child, it almost always indicates that they either have anger issues from some type of mental disorder or they had a very bad childhood and home environment. either of those explanation would be fascinating to explore in the show. Stella having an extreme mental illness and never getting treatment would explain both her violence and her seeming stupidity (I use these terms lightly. Obviously not all neurodivergent people have anger or intelligence issues, I'm just saying it can be a cause of those issues). Likewise, her having a bad childhood would explain her defensiveness, childlike impulse control, and how she lashes out easily. People who were abused or mistreated as children often act less mature as adults because they were never given the chance to be a child, and this would account for much of Stella's personality. It would also be interesting if it turned out her family had groomed/manipulated her in some way, since that would make the way Anderalphus treats her make more sense (seriously, he calls her a "fiery vixen," and says she's attractive, wtf??)

anway...yeah. those are my annoying ramblings. I know Stella is canonically abusive, I'm not saying she isn't, or that there's any excuse for hurting your partner, but I would like to see more of her backstory and her become a nuanced character.

not all male mcyts but somehow always a male mcyt

The reviews are out and... Fucking hell.

I expected it would be like this. What a damn disappointment.

At least the reviews are rightfully ripping into this travesty of a film.

It's what it deserves for butchering one of my favorite books with a $320M budget.

a reminder from yours truly:

JKR is a terf

scott Cawthon donated to republicans, including trump, while claiming to love his trans fans

yandere dev/exaxphanon groomed a teenage fan

I promise you there is better media out there than Harry Potter, fnaf, and yandere simulator. if you didn’t know, you didn’t know, and that’s okay.

but they are not worth your time and attention, much less your money. Cawthon and JKR still make money off their franchises. please stop supporting them.

Haha what the fuck do you mean that allegedly the Philippine government's no longer recognizing medicated ADHD people as a "Person with Disability" and are now barring them from getting disability cards what the fuck

English translation under the image

Original Tweet: Apparently medicated people with ADHD are allegedly no longer allowed to get PWD (Persons with Disability) cards especially since they can cope. Is it really like that it's like if you said "you don't really have diabetes because you have insulin" Reddit Screenshot: i went to the pdao (Persons with Disability Affairs Office) then i gave them my medical certificate. then the staff asked if i can cope [with my ADHD]. i wasn't able to answer quickly then they said that medicated people with adhd who can cope weren't entitled to pwd cards. that's apparently the new rule when applying for pwd cards. i wasn't able to answer anything because what else could i do, right. after that they said to still ask the doctor, it's a good thing the doctor allowed it and the staff even told me that "you're not really entitled to it but we'll allow it for now." i said thank you even passive-aggressively hahahah but in my opinion even if you're medicated, you should still be entitled to get a card. because adhd medication still has a shortage. and symptoms of depression would start manifesting when you don't have medication. it's like they're downplaying the hardships of people with adhd

Like this is just straight up appalling. and to have the GOVERNMENT [allegedly] be the ones doing this kind of shit is disgusting. They're basically saying that if you have medication, that means you don't have the condition anymore which is absurd. It also makes me fear that a lot of people with ADHD who may want to at least try if they could perform better with medication would refuse to take them specifically because they might lose their government benefits. This is disgusting.

A lawyer's advice regarding this issue:

Please keep this in mind and don't let them trample on your rights!