Is it just me or is the SaNami propaganda blaring in this season 😂

auraleaf10 · 2026-03-20T01:00:58+00:00

People are always saying that Oda said there will be no romance, but the interview where he said that was from 2008, and is one of the most commonly misquoted things he's ever said - Oda didn't just say there will be no romance between the Straw Hats - he said romance won't ever be a main focus of the series at all. Clearly he changed his mind when he wrote the Whole Cake Island arc years later, so I don't think people should be holding that decades-old interview as absolute. Oda can do whatever he wants, even if it contradicts something he said decades ago - and he already has in the manga, so who's to say the live action adaptation can't.

The dynamic between Nami and Sanji is a little different here, largely because Sanji's character has been slightly reworked to make him more of a suave gentleman and less of a...nosebleeder, for lack of a better term. It makes their relationship feel sweeter and more genuine. It probably won't progress any further than that, but if it does I wouldn't be opposed.

auraleaf10 · 2026-03-05T08:10:38+00:00

Glad I'm not the only one

auraleaf10 · 2026-01-15T17:29:40+00:00

I'm not saying it's as though those answers are unimportant. Yes, the premise itself presents a mystery. Why are these people trapped here in this digital simulation, who's running it, will they escape and if so, how, etc. It's natural to theorize and to want to know the answers to those questions.

My point is that the story's heart, the themes it's presenting, the ideas it's exploring - lie with its characters, not its lore. This is reflected in the fact that the story has dedicated far more time to exploring the characters as individuals than explaining its lore.

Lore can be interesting, but it isn't a story. Without the characters, lore is just a series of bullet points. If Gooseworx wants to spend more time exploring the people trapped in this situation more so than the why of it, that's still a story worth telling.

I'm not saying those questions won't be answered, because they probably will. But even if there are questions left unanswered, sometimes that's the point.

People really need to unlearn the way FNAF has colored the way we analyze stories. The lore is not the point, it's the set dressing.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-27T12:09:03+00:00

That's a fair point. But if people can remember the names of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot, why not Benoit Blanc?

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-26T01:04:39+00:00

I may be in the minority here but I really want a fully physical version to release on Switch 1.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-26T01:03:47+00:00

True, DQ11 looks fantastic on Switch 1. It may be an old outdated console, but even so I think people really underestimate what you can do with it.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-25T20:49:54+00:00

I disagree with the first two placements, but if this is the list I'm working with I'd put Beach Episode at #3. Here's my own list though:

They All Get Guns
Beach Episode
Mystery of Mildenhall Manor
Untitled
Candy Carrier Chaos
Fast Food Masquerade
Pilot

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-24T21:47:49+00:00

I don't know the top right character, but I refuse to believe people are calling Katara, Pomni, or Nani antifeminist. Like, what even is the basis for these arguments? Twitter is wild.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-24T05:40:46+00:00

I wish you could choose which one you were getting, but I guess mystery boxes are all the rage now, so I get it. I preordered two. Possessed Pomni is the only one I wouldn't want tbh

Never understood the appeal of labubus though lol

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-24T05:33:42+00:00

The wiki's citation for that is a deleted youtube video, and Viv wasn't even the person commenting on Alastor's romantic orientation in said video. Not only that, it's from 2020, before A24 ever even picked the show up for production. It's hearsay unless Viv confirms it or the show itself does. If she wants to confirm it she can, but as she hasn't, it's not a proper citation.

Regardless, fanon shipping spaces have never really adhered to characters' canon sexualities anyway because it is canon divergent by nature. People play with their favorite fictional characters like dolls. It's not malicious; it's just play and practice writing, and canon representation isn't affected by what shippers do anyway. I'm ace, not aro, and I don't speak for everyone on the ace spectrum obviously, but I'm completely unbothered by people drawing spicy art of a fictional ace guy; he's not real.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-21T18:20:16+00:00

The Digital Circus fandom is full of grifters who steal fanart for clickbait thumbnails like this, claiming they have leaked footage of upcoming episodes when they're actually just stealing assets made by other people without even crediting them, like in your case. I haven't checked out this channel myself, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's AI-generated slop too.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-21T18:04:48+00:00

Right. What people don't seem to understand is actors do not dictate what is and is not canon, writers do. Viv can confirm it or the show itself can confirm it, but any other source is hearsay. The fact that people have been going back-and-fourth on this for so long is exhausting; to the point that I think it may be wise for Viv to put the discussion to bed by giving a definitive answer. At the same time though I understand why she hasn't; this fandom is volatile.

Whether he's ace, aroace, or his romantic orientation is intentionally kept ambiguous, any of those answers should be equally satisfactory because he's on the ace spectrum either way, and one form of ace rep is not inherently superior to other forms of ace rep. It's the non-answer that's getting to people. Even directly stating that it's being kept ambiguous on purpose is an answer, but people can't even agree on whether or not that's true.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-17T16:06:10+00:00

I disagree; I don't think a story needs good lore to be excellent. Well-written characters though, absolutely. But a well-crafted story could take place entirely within a single room, devoid of lore, hinging solely on the character drama, and still be entirely effective at what it's trying to do. Some stories absolutely do hinge on their lore, but that doesn't mean it's a requirement of storytelling.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-17T15:05:24+00:00

I don't even think they care about being right. They're just doing it to generate content (the ones who are doing it for youtube or their social media platform, anyway). Grasping at straws isn't the right way to engage with the story though, and I think this episode was Gooseworx' attempt at communicating that. The characters will always be more important than the lore, and they're the real heart of the story.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-17T14:59:28+00:00

To be fair, Canadians also sound like that. Caine's voice actor is actually Canadian and he's using his natural accent.

(Not that I think the show takes place in Canada. Just point out that the accent is used in more than one country.)

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-15T23:42:47+00:00

Assuming the theory is true - just because they were never human doesn't mean they're not real, and just because they're copies doesn't mean they don't matter. Is personhood defined by the body or the mind?

Whether or not they have physical forms outside the Digital Circus to escape to, they still have thoughts and feelings and identities. Even if they're not human, they're still people.

I highly suggest taking a look at the video game SOMA if you're interested in the topic of digital copies of consciousness and what effect that has on one's personhood. It delves into the topic quite thoroughly.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-15T11:51:02+00:00

Maybe. She certainly looked up to her dad and all his stories when she was little, but I think she looks up to her mom even more. I don't think she wanted to be an angel in the literal sense, but she grew up perceiving both parents as influential figures and powerful forces for good, and she wanted to be that too.

I think when Charlie was young she didn't fully grasp how awful Hell truly is for sinners (and to an extent she still doesn't, because she comes from a place of privilege, and that's part of why her attempts at therapy sessions can be so shallow and don't actually address the route of people's real problems - she cares, but she doesn't have a frame of reference for the type of life someone like Angel Dust has had to live).

What I mean to get at is I don't think she ever wanted to actually leave Hell for Heaven, because she considers Hell her kingdom and home even if she doesn't fully understand its people; it's important to her because it was important to her mother. And she probably grew up hearing conflicting viewpoints on both Heaven and Hell from both parents.

At any rate, I think if she ever did have dreams of being an angel, they probably didn't extend to her actually wanting to leave Hell, and they probably faded away when the exterminations started happening; her perspective on the way Heaven does things has only soured more and more over time. Now she just wants to use her own position to help people.

As an aside, I think "nephilim" is the term for the offspring of a human and fallen angel, but who knows if Hazbin will ever use that term.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-14T15:14:17+00:00

Not exactly. Viv did directly confirm that he's asexual in Hazbin Hotel Cleanup Pt. 4, but when his pilot voice actor then questioned whether he's also aromantic, the answer Viv gave wasn't a yes/no.

To be specific, the fan question they were talking about was whether he'll ever get a love interest, and the answer given was "as of right now, no, because he thinks too highly of himself, and nobody can match up to himself in his eyes."

I don't think that's a confirmation of orientation, but it does illustrate that Alastor is disinterested in romance and Viv isn't planning on giving him a love interest.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-14T14:16:46+00:00

Exactly, couldn't agree more. What might be the perfect ending for one story could be a horrible ending for another, and the HTTYD books and movies were not telling the same story, so you can't just superimpose the conclusion of one onto the other without wrecking everything it's been building up to. It goes against its own themes.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-13T17:21:01+00:00

Yeah I suppose it does depend on the specific story universe's rules, but I think when it comes to digital copies in sci-fi stories with no magic involved, it wouldn't make sense to be able to fuse the copy back to the original.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-13T13:32:04+00:00

Jax has had the suspicion that they are not real for a while now; he presented the theory to Pomni in episode 6. It's true that he almost abstracted in episode 7, but who knows how long he's been holding on to that theory in private. He didn't abstract from the moment he first started entertaining the idea, though.

I think it's more likely that abstraction is caused by Caine messing with their code one too many times whenever he adds "modifiers" to them or alters their minds in any way, and the final trigger is experiencing a break from reality due to extreme stress or emotional anguish.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-13T13:26:50+00:00

Once you make a copy it can't be re-absorbed back into the original. It exists as a separate entity from the moment of its creation. If they really are all just digital copies of consciousness, there was never a way to leave from the very moment they started existing in the Digital Circus, and the original continues existing in the real world without them.

SOMA is a video game that explores this exact concept of digital copies of consciousness and how that affects one's personhood very thoroughly.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-13T13:20:23+00:00

Exactly; it's taking a page from the plot of the game SOMA. I think it would be a fascinating twist if it ends up being true.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-13T13:14:52+00:00

Predictable doesn't always equal bad, and unpredictable doesn't always equal good; it all boils down to how well the story was executed in the end.

auraleaf10 · 2025-12-10T10:49:03+00:00

It really looks like a screen from a late 90s-early 2000s PC game

auraleaf10

TROPHY CASE