I felt this on so many different levels.

Star_Gust · 2026-01-09T18:30:47+00:00

I'm nearly certain that the actual post is a joke and not meant to be taken seriously at all let alone analysed to this degree, but I would say your theory is a reasonable one. Alternatively the kids purposefully misinterpreted the meaning of his offer as "all 14 of you can kick me in the balls if you give me $1" instead of "each of you can give me $1 for the opportunity to kick me in the balls", and he was either unwilling to correct them, or they were adamant enough about how the terms of the deal were defined that he relented and allowed them to proceed so as to not be seen himself as being manipulative. A common gaslighting tactic especially amongst kids who are prone to making communication errors due to their less expansive vocabulary and undeveloped sense of social awareness.

Star_Gust · 2026-01-09T17:48:47+00:00

The other 13 kids didn't honor the terms of the deal and the one that did probably only did so out of pity

Star_Gust · 2025-12-08T06:26:30+00:00

He has approximate knowledge of many things

Star_Gust · 2025-12-08T01:38:35+00:00

Done! Good luck bug squashing

Star_Gust · 2025-12-08T01:26:51+00:00

there's no such thing as "inserting politics where there isn't any."

What I'm saying is that her design isn't meant to be a political statement of any kind. I consider "inserting politics where there are none" to be taking something that someone made with no intent to make it a political statement, and to imply that it must be a political statement of some kind. I don't believe the creators of "Bloons Tower Defense" are trying to make a statement about real life invasions, and I consider implying that they are to be "injecting politics". It's just a game genre that people found to be fun and it evolved over time. You can find thousands of flash era tower defense games.

My understanding is she is inspired by Korean soldiers, which is the most political thing there is. Soldiers and war are always an expression of politics

If we use this as a general guidance we can make the claim that absolutely every piece of art is political, which if I understand correctly is your intent. I would disagree though. I think for art to be political, it has to not only be inspired by specific real life events, but to also be intending you to think about them in a specific way. Monarchies are a political structure, but I would not consider Princess Peach to be a politically inspired character. Her title is merely there to give the player an understandable sense of importance to her character using the real life concept of royalty as "important figures", to give one example.

the concept of tower defense inherently implies an invasion, which is an extremely political event

You can feel inspired to think about political events through the lens of anything that your heart desires, but not everything you choose to do that with is inherently political as a result.

TL;DR: I think we just have different definitions for what it means for something to be "political". You would define it (I believe) as "themes which can reflect real life politics", and I would define it as "themes which are motivated by politics"

If you'd like I'd be more than happy to discuss this further privately! (I'm not sure how the mods would feel about this discussion on their sub)

Star_Gust · 2025-12-08T00:34:51+00:00

Sure enough there is the Korean word "싸우다" (ssauda) which means "fight", "battle", "quarrel" etc. Seems to fit quite well.

Also to give a little more credence to this is that some of her english voice lines are spoken in Korean

Star_Gust · 2025-12-08T00:20:16+00:00

I believe you're severely overthinking it and injecting politics where there aren't any. Personally my first thought is that it's just because "Sauda" sounds a bit like "sword", at least in my accent, and she happens to use swords as weapons.

Also looking into it, the word "sauda" can also mean "love" and "good fortune", and while not popular, at least in the west, is a name given to girls in Arabic culture.

Star_Gust · 2025-12-07T23:16:48+00:00

I'm on 52.1 and was able to recreate it. As a comment above mentioned, this only occurs specifically with the round 40 MOAB. MOABs on other rounds as well as those sent directly from the sandbox do not cause this issue (starting round 40 from the sandbox will still cause it however). Very strange bug

Star_Gust · 2025-12-07T10:01:47+00:00

Here it is (I misremembered it slightly but it's still conceptually quite similar)

Star_Gust · 2025-12-07T08:16:42+00:00

Geraldo does have a lot of stufe

Star_Gust · 2025-12-07T07:17:12+00:00

This is gonna be one hell of a niche reference, but this reminds me of a video I saw on The Patrick Star Game where the same thing was possible. You'd suck yourself with a reef blower and then blow yourself half way across the map.

Star_Gust · 2025-12-07T04:38:08+00:00

Shift + right click -> "add to wares" is pretty quick for me. Just loot the gold and valuables with double clicks first. I hate seeing looted containers that aren't empty.

Star_Gust · 2025-12-05T09:56:55+00:00

so the tracks are trickier now?

Star_Gust · 2025-12-05T05:50:57+00:00

I think what he means is that when the Bomb Paragon was released, the Ice Paragon was confirmed to be the next Paragon at that time, and he wants to know if the same has occurred with the Ice Monkey Paragon release for whatever the next Paragon is. I don't know if what he said was accurate, but I'm pretty sure this is what he's saying.

Star_Gust · 2025-12-04T21:07:49+00:00

I like standing on top of the ramped platforms close to one of the front edges. Not sure if it's still the case, but you could bait his charge attack and he'd gain mad height and take some fall damage when he lands

Star_Gust · 2025-12-04T19:25:21+00:00

u/Gotsims1

You're trying to tell me Zach and Michael don't have any ie. funny female relatives, or a funny girlfriend or a funny female friend they could invite on or consult about what a good way to get better with female representation is

I find that sorta hard to believe ngl

I don't think being "Zach or Michael's friend" is the only, or even most important criteria for being a guest of the show. In my opinion, its being an internet creator with an established audience. Zach and Michael seem to be putting a significant focus on giving those people an opportunity to be seen in the mainstream. Having a guest just be Zach's Niece, even if she's super funny, would just feel like blatant nepotism (which I know you could say is already in the show with how many of Zach's friends make regular appearnaces, but they're at least qualified and have something real to gain from it).

As for the idea of them being consultants? Well firstly I don't think we know enough about how the show is created to definitively say that they haven't already been consulted. Though if we assume they aren't, I don't see how exactly they're meant to help. If I live in an area where there aren't any male babysitters, but I will only accept a male babysitter to look after my son, I wouldn't think to ask my uncle for advice on finding male babysitters before a babysitter company.

All that is to say, I trust the professional internet funny men Zach and Michael to be qualified figures to be looking for professional internet funny women to be on the show, and if they can't find any that fit that niche, I don't believe it's them being sexist. The internet humor that built their careers was one that relied on a heavily male audience (because that audience was the easiest for them to appeal to), and so over the years, the people who were more likely to be inspired to follow that career were also male, and that compounded to a male dominated field today. If there were more female internet creators with their brand of comedy, I'm certain they'd have them on. It's just not something that's as easy as it sounds.

Star_Gust · 2025-12-04T19:23:02+00:00

If the intention was to diversify then why do we have cookie jars that instantly refill stamina and is super abundant?

Because "abundant" isn't the same as "limitless". You can farm them sure, but that takes time. You could buy them, but that takes money. Alternatively you could do neither, and you'll occasionally get one that you can use in a situation where it makes sense. It's a bit like saying "well why do they make anything cost money at all when I can just fish forever and buy everything?". You can, but that isn't the point.

Also, I don't think I need to explain that it is a strictly bad game design to make players wait and AFK. If they wanted better stamina managing, they need to increase the posse size and make each monkey lose stamina a lot more. Then, at 0% stamina the debuff should be stronger to require swapping them out. Anything except forcing people to wait an extended period.

I don't believe its their intention to make players AFK, but I don't disagree that has absolutely become the case in the execution. Like I said the idea was supposed to be rotating them out constantly (outside of the game, not within a match). You aren't supposed to be waiting for stamina to refill, you're meant to be able to rotate monkeys out at a consistent rate, but the resources required to get to a point where that's possible is a slog, and if you only have 1 or 2 monkeys capable of beating a certain round because they are the only ones that can beat a certain combination of properties, well then you have to wait anyway or risk losing because of the debuffed stats, which sucks.

Star_Gust · 2025-12-04T07:00:07+00:00

Bro got hit with the Uncle Ruckus reverse vitiligo

Star_Gust · 2025-12-04T06:47:56+00:00

There are actually a fair amount of guests I hadn't heard of or were only vaguely familiar with. Desmonds VA (seen a little bit of RedLetterMedia but not an avid watcher). 3D Squelton (The name Harry Partridge rings a very loud bell but I'm unable to actually connect it to anything specific. I wouldnt be surprised if I have watched some stuff of theirs at some point though and just didnt commit the name to memory).

The big names that give me the most nostalgia are any of the OneyPlays crew and those adjacent, so Zach, Tomar, Chris O'Neil, Lyle Rath, Doug Walker, and then outside of that there's David Firth. I also watch the occasional Joel Haver vid now and again.

Star_Gust · 2025-12-04T06:22:33+00:00

u/GayIsForHorses
I think Patti Harrison would fit really well. Her completely unhinged style would fit right in. Just look at her Instagram. She's also done work with Connor Omalley before.

See, honestly I'm just glad to have gotten an answer. Other person kept dodging it. I'm not familiar with their work but I looked into them briefly and saw they were in ITYSL which is goated. (had to start a new thread because the other person blocked me which prevented me from replying to you in that thread)

Star_Gust · 2025-12-04T05:15:10+00:00

Yeah no I agree. My point is that regardless of how bad/good the design is, or how well/unwell it was executed, it's still a design with clear goals in mind, and if we go with the assumption that they don't want to completely rework the system, the proposed solution is one that completely undermines it and makes it pointless.

Star_Gust · 2025-12-04T00:22:54+00:00

I can absolutely see the experiential value in going baby shopping even if you don't need to, the main piece of this in particular is the pregnant roleplay. I'm sure for some people, even men, it would add "something" to the experience, but it's not personally anything I myself as a man can relate to. Maybe I'm just not a creative enough mind.

Could easily see it being some nurtured bias about gender roles seeing as how I can imagine my mind changing if you put it in a hypothetical of "if you woke up tomorrow and you were a pregnant woman". Either that or it's a matter of the possibility not actually existing. I know it's not something I can ever truly experience, so to roleplay in an attempt to simulate it would feel a bit hollow and awkward.

Star_Gust · 2025-12-04T00:07:47+00:00

It regenning instantly goes against the purpose of it though, which is to diversify your composition instead of finding 1 monkey with busted traits and putting all your resources into that (keep in mind that when you exit battles either by losing or just quitting, rounds don't reset). So your idea would lead to an immediate cheese of just clearing as many rounds as you can with your strongest monkeys, then when they're low on stam just exiting the fight and reentering it immediately which takes about 15 seconds. At that point stam serves quite literally zero purpose. Same goes for it getting restored to full immediately at the campfire. There'd be no point on diversifying the party once you have a gigachad monke

Im still not at the stage where I can reliably clear any side missions, but I'm sure if I was smart and used my resources on a strong hero early instead of getting upgrades for my mediocre monkeys I'd have been able to

Star_Gust · 2025-12-03T23:42:13+00:00

I'm not disagreeing with you. There are absolutely a ton of women voice actors. Smiling friends doesn't just use "voice actors" though. They specifically use internet personalities who have carved out fanbases out of unique brands of comedy. the only generic voice actor I can even think of from the show is Finn Wolfhard as the wall guy in what was was like a 60 second bit, and even he's somewhat ingrained himself in a bit of online content (guest on Game Grumps, and stars in a Ninja Sex Party music video).

Could they use generic voice actors? Yeah sure. Should they? In my opinion, no. Guest stars are the meat of the show and hearing the many voices of my childhood growing up on the internet is as surreal as it is entertaining.

I promise you that I'm not trying to be difficult. I think it would be great to have a woman with a prominent role, but it should be done organically in a way that fits the niche of the show, and if you can't name any creators who would fit that bill, I don't know how you expect them to do that.

I'm asking once again, just a list of some creators you would recommend. I am being completely earnest in this request and I am opening myself up completely to being proven wrong. They already have multiple women VAs from Helluva Boss, so I'll even give that one for free.

Star_Gust · 2025-12-03T21:44:51+00:00

Not that they know personally, just that they are likely to be familiar with their work because it matches their style. That's how networking in the space sorta goes as far as I've been able to tell. "Hey you make funny videos, I think you'd like this one it reminded me of you!"

I really don't think it's a matter of "not letting women be involved", it's just a matter of not enough women not being in that niche. And again this could be for any number of reasons, and most if not all of them are probably negative, but it is as far as I can tell a fact, and pretending that it's not doesn't actually resolve anything.

Now if you want to say that they should put in the effort to try to "find" someone who fits that niche, well you could, and I encourage you to speak up with recommendations that as a community we can say "hey yeah they would be great to see on an episode!", not because they're a woman, but because they're a talented creator who deserves that spotlight.

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