#I didn't hit up either of those franchises

[sergle]

did you get whataburger? did you see dq and get the blizzard trick?

I didn't have the heart to tell you guys this while I was in texas but like.... we have both of those places in Oklahoma too

[kawa-goat]

General Thoughts on Buried Secrets (Hello Neighbor)

Not sure if I'd classify this as a rant post or not. Spoilers ahead, obviously.

If some of my points don't make sense, we can discuss it in the comments. It's 1AM by the time I'm writing this post, so forgive me if the text feels all slammered and not cohesive.

Took me a decade to finish it, but the secrets were unburied (like Jay would say).

And holy crap, I have pretty strong feelings about this book.

Okay, it's not that bad, but comparing to the previous two... it felt flat. I don't know how the explain it in more cohesive terms, but it didn't hit the same way the previous two did.

First, I like the ending. Though it ended on a pretty sad note, this is exactly what the Nicky trilogy (it feels surreal to actually type that) was leading up to.

The very prologue of Missing Pieces is a warning for Nicky to stop wandering, else he'd not make home some day. Nicky's character in general is centered around that: wandering.

"Oh, but what happened after he got kidnapped? What about Nicky's friends? How did he escape?"

Questions like this come from a misunderstanding. The books aren't meant to be your introduction to the lore. They're meant to be an additional piece of information, for those that were curious about the world of Hello Neighbor and wanted to know more about the past.

The true story is told in the games. Make no mistake—Hello Neighbor is a gaming franchise. The story originates from the games.

The ending of Buried Secrets is one-to-one with Act 1 for a reason. You're meant to read these books with the knowledge from the games. So that when you read the trilogy, you went: "Oh, so that's how it happened."

At least, this should be in theory. The sad reality is that games just fucking suck in storytelling and gameplay, to the point where the actual plot is shoved aside for other matters. That's why, in most cases for fans, the books act as an introduction to the story of the games, instead of how it should be in the other way around.

This is why Buried Secrets ends in this cliffhanger way. It's a prequel of the games, but it isn't meant to be an introduction. It's meant to be an additional explanation. You can blame the games' lack of quality for this.

Anyway, I liked the ending because it tied up Nicky's wandering arc in a pretty neat way.

... And that's it. That's literally the only thing that I like about this book. Everything else feels forced just to reach this specific ending.

I'm not sure if Carly was forced to make this a trilogy, but either way this definitely harmed the pacing and plot. Every character is written in a specific way that feels a little unrealistic based on the previous books.

See, Nicky is supposed to break into Peterson's house alone, without the help of his friends. Their method of justifying this is by having literally everyone in town suspecting that Nicky was the one behind the weird activities. No matter how illogical that seems.

My biggest complaint is Maritza.

Like, I won't lie that she isn't reasonable at first glance. Maritza is tired of fighting. She wants to move on. She thinks Nicky is changing for worse because of his obsession with the case. This is all understandable.

The problem is, instead of trying to convince him to move on, she would rather believe he did all of this to frame Peterson specifically? Despite knowing what Theodore's capable of, she'd rather believe that her closest friend would lie to everyone just to convince them of something they were already certain (that Theodore is fucking dangerous)?

I get they tried to apologize to Nicky by the end of the book, but it's too little and too late. Yeah, Peterson framed Nicky in an ill-timing, but would Nicky's only friends believe he'd actually do all of this ALONE?

It just doesn't feel natural.

The beginning and middle part of the book is literally Nicky getting kicked around like an abused puppy and being lonely again. The latter chapters, as well as Jay and Lu, kinda hard carries the entire book. Earthpro is not as interesting as it was in Waking Nightmare. And Buried Secrets tries really hard to get you to hate Trinity and Maritza with the "we are changing clubs" thing.

Overall, I wouldn't say It's a bad book, but definitely the weakest and most surreal among the three.

[liquidorcard]

Lily can't keep her own "Sympathetic" Villains rules Straight: Anthony Gramuglia edition

See Crim's edition for the rules and outlines. Here we go.

Lily's Response to Ant:

Lily's probably going to get a significantly worse score on this one because me and Ant I think have similar media diets. We begin:

1. In the book, 100% he is THE villain. The movie not as much. Still though, I think movie Hammond more than fit's Lily's criteria. -1 life found a way

2. We already went over this (yes I am still writing p.3 of my Magneto post.) -1 Anthro cow delivering your children

3. Kyubey's keeping the universe from ending Lily. How could you get closer to having a point than that? -1 timeline

4. See Crim's post. He does fail #2. Again though, by Lily's original parameters this was a valid entry. But I have to give her the point. +1 spider gets it's legs ripped off

5. I bet she thought this was clever. -1 gate keeper.

6.N/A

7. I don't even know what she's talking about here. -1

8. Del Toro sends his regards. -1 Nerdy fish man.

9. LILY HASN'T SEEN THE BROADWAY SMASH HIT PLANET OF THE APES THE MUSICAL, STARRING TROY MCCLURE!? For shame! -1 (has anyone else watched that movie recently? I'm not saying it's aged poorly, but like, it is profoundly unintentionally hilarious, watching it in the modern day. I know this was like, the whole thing back then-- leading men who were too cool for school, but Taylor is such a fucking asshole. Cornelius is the real hero of the film, and everyone bullies him for not matching their lunatic energy. #justiceforCornelius #GeorgeTaylorisoverparty)

10. N/A (Trekkies don't try me.)

11. N/a

12. N/A (I mean I feel like I've probably seen the whole Mummy franchise just through memes at this point but. Lily's reasoning here is fucking asinine though-- as per usually Ant us uniquely getting her goat.)

13. This is actually the first example that breaks rule #3. Sorry fam I love Elfen Lied too, but it's a bit of a hot mess. +1 dead puppy

14. Scar is a dead ringer to Lily's criteria. She straight up just didn't have a pot to piss in, so she just wrote "no." -1 Dwarf in a flask

15. For the record, my boomer mom has seen Ghost in the Shell. The movie anyway. -1 body on loan

16. I watched this as a kid but can't really remember anything about it, so, I gotta put it as N/A.

17. This might actually be the first time I've seen anyone else memtion this movie . . . But still. -1 burnt wheelchair

18. Not plus ultra. -1 for all

19. Oh fuck off Lily. Glass houses. -1 jutsu

20. Sai, Crim and Ant spoke pretty extensively about this one. -1 angry hair raise

21. This one too. -1 demon pig

22. Yes she is. -1 dad

23. See Crim's list. -1 Prisoner 24601

24. N/A

25. Read ANY book, Lily. -1 absent godly parent.

26. I've only read the first one. N/A

27. Lily's reason here is bullshit but I haven't seen Columbo either. N/A

28. Why not Lily? -1 Jimbo

29. YES SHE FUCKING IS LILY. Just because in a modern context her story is a lot more tragic doesn't mean she isn't intended to be a villain. Lily made up the rule "has a point," but if they have an iron clad one she just declares them not a villain. -1 head

30. OBJECTION! NOW YOU REMEMBER VILLAIN AND ANTAGONIST ARENT TRUE SYNONYMS FOR EACH OTHER!? -1 Lily if you could just ONCE try to engage with a media discussion honestly.

31. N/A. I'll get around to watching it.

32. Not in Dracula Untold. -1 Damn Luke Evans looks like he was cloned from Orlando Bloom. I can't tell those two apart.

33. DIFFERENT DRACULAS. HOLY SHIT. -1 Lily this rational is so piss poor it's embarrassing. Even for you.

34. N/A

35. Isn't he in Kingdom Hearts? -1 Ah Ha Ha Ha

36. Another non-surprise. -1 traveler on his way home.

37. I haven't played enough Kurby to know why Meta Knight is a sympathetic villain. N/A

38. I've played enough to know Lily's right on this one. +1 Deddeddeedeeededededeeedede

39. A) several characters on both Crim and Ants' lists have been protagonists. B) IT'S FUCKING COMMON POPCULTURE KNOWLEDGE DONKEY KONG WAS THE ANTAGONIST IN THE FIRST APPEARANCE OF BOTH MARIO AND DK. -1 Lily I'm fucking shocked you don't know this. Genuinely. That's saying something, considering it's you.

40. Solid Lily continues to be the worst one. -1 LIQUIDDDDDDDD

41. Yes she is. Her point is the magic is what keeps her fucking family safe. -1 gift

42. You'd probably like this movie actually, Lily. Not the book, but. Or maybe not, there's no incest lesbians I guess. -1 sexy tree

43. I'm going to give Lily the point to maintain consistency that mind-manipulation doesn't count as "a point." Before he put on the crown he's not really even an antagonist, so. He IS an example of a sympathetic villain, however. +1

44. THERE ARE OTHER ANIMALS ON THIS LIST. Another one who's spot on, so she can't figure out how to even pretend to argue against it. -1 Beauty who killed the beast

45. GODZILLA ISN'T LITERALLY A NUKE. -1 pop culture jokes don't substitute proper media analysis

46. The Kaiju Lily. Her name is the title of the film. It's not Ant's fault You're too lazy to Google shit. -1 Viking Relic

(Biollante would have been my personal pick for sympathetic Kaiju. And her dad. She would have broken Lily's first rule since she's probably not aware of exactly what's happened to her, but. Her father at least fits Lily's criteria. A lot of the Kaiju are sympathetic though.)

47. This is a perfect example as to why Lily's rules are ridiculous. John Kramer is, in my opinion, outrageously unjustified in what he does. He follows her rules though. Having a bad point is still having a point. How "well written" he is wildly different depending on the movie, but because he's at least well written sometimes I'm counting him. -1 foot

48. You haven't read Paradise Lost Lily. I know you haven't. -1 Satan crying for everything he's lost

49. God Lily I wish you'd actually read something for once because this is an even better example as to why your rules are a joke. -1 Facist Worm King

50. This is a specific example. -1 tears, it's a waist of good suffering.

LILY'S FINAL SCORE: 19/50

38% - F

Got wrong: 24

Got right: 2

Removing the ones I haven't seen:

19/39

48% - F

Removing the ones Lily hasn't seen:

15/37

40% - F

Removing the ones we both haven't seen:

2/26

7% - F

[askagamedev]

How do preorder numbers affect your side of production? I’ve seen people saying that high preordering numbers lead to less time/budget to make the next game, because higher ups see it as proof that a studio/series can ride on name recognition instead of quality; is that true to your experience? In general, for a given game you worked on, would you prefer that people preordered or waited to day 1 purchase? Or does it not make a meaningful difference either way? Thanks!

Up until around 2014, preorder numbers were strongly correlated with financial success. They were used as the main metric for determining an upcoming game's chance of hitting its goals. Unfortunately, this caused a common feedback cycle problem with key performance indicators - the more you optimize for the metric itself, the less that metric continues to correlate to what you actually want to know. Publishers and retailers pushed various tactics to pressure customers to preorder, which did result in more preorders. However, the artificially-juiced preorder numbers didn't correlate as strongly with the success of the games. As lifestyle games grew into the biggest chunk of the market, preorder importance fell even more because it was the lifestyle game populations that were most strongly correlated with financial success.

The quality element you mention has nothing to do with preorders. Most games have two to four years of total development time before they ship. Preorders for those games often aren't available until a few months before the release date. By the time the preorders numbers actually come in, we're nearly finished with the development process. The timing doesn't line up at all, there is no way we can cheap out on quality in the last few months of development when the majority of that work is already complete.

As for whether I think players should preorder... I'll tell you what I do personally when it comes to purchasing games. I don't care much for preorder bonuses in general - they are almost always very small and won't affect the overall gameplay in any significant way. Preorder bonuses are generally limited to cosmetics at best, and the gameplay itself matters much more to me than having a particular outfit or weapon skin. There are some games I will preorder because I really like the game or franchise and I am concerned that the publisher has limited print runs of that game (Atlus, for example, is famous for having small print runs). Aside from that, I usually wait to see how the game does at launch before buying in. I don't feel much pressure to get in on day 1. Waiting a week or two won't kill me, and I've got plenty of other games to play and things to do in the meantime.

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[cartoonjessie]

Moana 2 - Spoiler-review part 2

Part 2 of my spoiler review gets even more spoilery! Part 1 is here so you can keep up

However, I was game for the adventures and shenanigans anyways - I'm quite easy to please in that regard. I enjoyed myself during this movie and I loved seeing Moana and Maui reunite, but it happened SO LATE in the movie. (second half) How it happened though, I thought was quite beautiful. He sees the crew (doesn't ring a bell), Pua (doesn't ring a bell), then suddenly Heihei and only THEN does he realize Moana is there, in danger, and his entire demeanor entirely changes. There might not be a lot of character development but they did keep the characters in-character at least! And sometimes there are these character moments that really make you remember why you fell in love with them in the first place. The vulnerability Maui shows in regards to keeping Moana safe is - chef's kiss - sorry that's something I just gobble up as a shipper. I didn't mind the new characters either though… I will say this… Simea, while cute, is so obviously just a little toddler they put in the movie so they can market more merchandise towards other little toddlers, just like little Moana was a good merchandise hit back in 2016. Damn you Disney stop being so evil and obvious and making these characters so damn cute!

Of the three characters that join Moana's crew, I thought Moni was such a sweetheart - and I really chuckled a few times at David Fane's character Kele. There was a bit of character development throughout the movie for him. Just a tiny bit. So maybe there was some character development after all! But Moni and Loto remained kind of static, though they seemed like fine additions to the crew.

The "villain" (should I even call her that?)… meh. Kind of bland for me. She's… there. But vague. Eh… I don't even think I wanna write anything about her.

Oh, coming back to Maui not recognizing Pua… Maui also doesn't know Simea (as showcased at the very end when he goes to Motunui and asks to speak to Simea) - which means… Maui hasn't visited Motunui once in all those years? Oof. I mean I predicted it in a fanfic once but man I thought I was just being dramatic, not realistic. XD

Let's also talk about the elephant in the room… what on earth happened during the big battle? It's left a little ambiguous and this is where I get really really really spoilery as opposed to mildly spoilery before… So… Maui loses his… tattoos. Which, honestly, bit weird seeing Maui without tattoos it's like seeing him without clothes. XD It's like "PUT ON A SWEATER MAN" Did he become human, fully, for that moment? (Yeah, moment, he somehow gets the magic and stuff back) Then Moana "dies" - Maui sings a sad mourning song (ok honestly I was quite moved by all this and dear lord the emotion the animators put in there, good job on that) - then Moana… is revived by… by spirits? And now… she gets a magical tattoo??? SHE GETS… POWERS??? DEMI GOD MOANA?

I mean… my shipper brain kind of exploded cause like - hey - two demi-gods together? Oh yes, more for me to gobble up, yum yum yum. I love what that means for the future for the both of them.

And then, the entire movie is about uniting other people and suddenly there's like a bazillion boats out there of other people on the ocean? Very interesting, very interesting… There's certainly going to be adventures in the future.

Honestly, I'm looking forward to Moana 3 but dear lord don't make it a Disney + series OR if you do, DO NOT rework it in a movie when you realize there's some good stuff in there.

There is some good stuff in Moana 2 - don't get me wrong - but moving an animated series into your Thanksgiving movie is not great… Not great, Disney. Dedicate yourself to the success of Moana 1 (and Moana 2) and make Moana 3 on-par with Moana 1 again. I'll come and watch Moana 3 for sure, you haven't lost me as a viewer yet. But it better be given the respect it deserves as a franchise!

[captmickey]

Out of curiosity, what game has your favorite writing for Guybrush? Personally I'd say probably Tales, I especially love how his and Elaine's relationship is handled there.

Oh my dear sweet Anon, I was in the midst of writing about just that for a different comment.... this one, to be exact:

So ah.... might as well merge that with your ask.

In a super duper condense nutshell, Tales is my absolutely favorite version of Guybrush (if we take Dadbrush and SoT out of the equation.... which that's a thought I've had in the past) because of what they decided to push for. Aside from no longer being a walking punch line and as you so rightfully pointed out in regards to his relationship with Elaine, Guybrush throughout the story learned the importance of opening up to people and knowing it's okay to ask for help. He also learned first hand that his actions had genuine consequences to them. And he grew to be selfless instead of selfish.

But in a longer format? This is now my "Welcome to Mickey's incoherent TED Talk why Tales of Monkey Island is amazing and I will not take any slander on my boy's character".

(Also I might forget a point or five so keep that in mind... I have a lot to say about this game haha)

So lets get to it: Tales!Guybrush is, in my humble opinion, the iteration with the most depth (if we don't take SoT!Guybrush into account).

Up until Tales, there wasn't much exploration about his character. Like, don't get me wrong, I'm not going to go about and say he had NO character (in fact I'd say the opposite). He has it, though we only see it either if we interact on things and he does/responds to the thing that's not 'nah' or 'no' or digging through the dialog tree.

For example, in MI2, after digging through multiple dialog trees, it lets us know that Guybrush still loves Elaine even after they broke up and that he felt pressured by the pirate community to do something grandeur and even adopt that meaner personality he sports in the game. In MI3, if you screw up the elevator puzzle two-three times on Skull Island, Guybrush shows he is still very petty and even mean by shoving LeFoot off of said cliff.

But in Tales, it's where we get SO much depth with him with both his interaction, dialog tree, and even his reaction to the adventure as the story continues. It's, to date, the only canonical MI game where Guybrush not only expresses more emotions aside from his usual light-hearted, somewhat carefree, and even snarky personality. It's also the one to force him to look at how his actions badly hurt not just those around close to him, but even himself.

With exception from SoT, Tales is also the first time we see Guybrush react in hurt, guilt and even genuine anger and not petty irritation.

Now mind you, I love Return dearly (Boybrush my beloved~). It's funny, the puzzles are challenging enough, my vindication is through the roof with that game (GUYBRUSH AND ELAINE ARE END GAME WITH CHILD, SUCK IT THOSE WHO SAID IT WOULDN'T HAPPEN!!) and it's the perfect send off to the franchise if there's to never be another Monkey Island with Guybrush getting his rightful and hard earned happily ever after (and I'd love for there to be more 'Guybrush narrating to his son' kind of games but that's a topic for another day).

But after thinking about it properly, as great as a send off as Return was, it didn't hit in the same way that Tales did - narratively and character speaking. Like I said, I love the jokes, I genuinely get a good laugh especially so from LeChuck of all characters, but Tales did something that I have grown to respect and admire it for. It gave us back the badass and loving Elaine, it gave us back a genuine threat that is LeChuck who even reached out to (demon) Godhood. But more importantly, Tales stood out because it had Guybrush grow up.

What was said about Guybrush is previous interviews, and it bleeds into my incoherent ramblings, is that he's more of an idealist than an optimist and can often times be considered one of the more dangerous people to be stuck in a room with (because he is smart and he can be very mean). And throughout the series until Tales, you can't entirely fault him for being like that.

He's so experienced in the pirate-y game that he reminds the players at any given opportunity that he knows what he's doing. He knows enough to not rely on others and is willing to push people away just to get to his goal. And because he's so experienced and knows what to do, he tries to keep doing things alone even though the game - repeatedly - says otherwise:

So within the context to Tales, Guybrush by then is no longer this naive, wide-eyed wanna-be pirate.

-He's established (if Morgan is anything to go by).

-He has his wits to him (if LeChuck's remark is anything to go by).

-He's seasoned in his usual adventuring antics ("I feel a pirate-y quest coming on" he says, not eagerly... almost like it's a Tuesday for him).

In Chapter 1, after he steals the Screaming Narwhal from Van Winslow, he tells tries to tell him how he doesn't need a crew (plot twist: Winslow ends up being the best crewmate he ever had in the series)

In Chapter 2, when LeChuck insists on solving the puzzle himself, Guybrush is annoyed (aside from it being, y'know, LeChuck) because he was so certain he could do the puzzle alone (plot twist: he couldn't)

In Chapter 3, how he told Morgan to basically sit down and let him do all the work via talking to a mutinous crew and an out-of-touch captain (plot twist: he needed to brute force the crew in the end).

At every single point when he tries to do things alone (and friendly reminder: he's trying to fix a situation he inadvertently caused via Pox), there was always someone that made the process easier... primarily Winslow and Morgan.

(I should note, this isn't me slandering Elaine.... I genuinely believe her when she says she was trying to break whatever connection Guybrush, LeChuck and the Voodoo Lady seem to have but that... that's another rant for another day).

Anyways! Speaking of my all time favorite first mate.... lets talk about how he was the one that actually got Guybrush to begin his growth. In chapter one, Guybrush had zero issues using a bomb to knock Winslow off the ship, he had zero issues of straight up stealing the literal only means of escaping the island and yet Winslow, though competitive and having his own fair share of snark, treated Guybrush as an equal... even though he was in every sense of the word a threat to stealing the ship. He welcomes Guybrush to the challenge, tells him how he could (and should) do better when his initial plans fail. Even when Winslow looses, he smiles and commends Guybrush, calling him by new title of Captain... there's nothing malicious in his words or tone - he's genuinely happy for Guybrush which throws him off since he's not used to it.

He's not used to people being a good sport or even nice to him (ESPECIALLY the nice thing). So when Winslow asks to join, Guybrush is (rightfully so) super hesitant on letting Winslow in on his crew of one. He's been hurt, he's been mutinied, even in the prologue he was betrayed by the crew we the players only see if we click on the hatch of his ship... but Winslow pushes through and makes himself a crewmate for Guybrush. And not just any ol' crewmate. Winslow decides and goes to be the BEST one by freaking MILES by being the only one to not even indulge in mutiny and genuinely respect Guybrush (I don't think he's ever called Guybrush by his first name now that I think about it), even going so far as to save him during chapter 5 and telling LeChuck, a DEMON GOD, to stay away from Guybrush.

I've made a mention that Guybrush is known to be mean, especially so to people who wronged him. But he's not an overall mean-spirited kind of a person (....excluding MI2 where he's just mean). He'll show concern every now and again with a snark dashed in, but with Winslow, we get to see Guybrush gradually view Winslow less as a crewmate and more as a genuine friend. And that's not to say Guybrush hasn't seen a crewmate as friends (looking at you, Barber Quartet and Carla), but his banter to Winslow is more akin to a friend than a crewmate.... especially so by Chapter 5 when saved.

And I can't talk about Guybrush opening up without mentioning Morgan LeFlay. The key person to Guybrush's growth. The one who put a mirror in front of him and had him really and truly comprehend that his actions have consequences. She's the first one that both us and Guybrush learn is an actual fan (yes I am refuting Planet Threepwood as that just monetized his image for tourists (and they utilize his image wrongfully at that)) and even outright says how she was inspired by him to not only learn how he fights, but how to hold her breath like him.

She really highlights all the cool parts about him, even if she got it wrong in some aspects (such as thinking he fights his way to victory instead of talking and using his wits.... which Guybrush outright says he's known for far more) and Guybrush, because he has that bit of an ego to him, just took it, he didn't really think much of it. He even makes a few jabs at her for being his fan. But all in all, he likes her.

Until the betrayal.

And that betrayal really is the light to the whole thing about Guybrush growing up and facing different aspects of his emotions and personality.

Up until the betrayal, through the entirety of Chapter 3, even when Morgan is irritated that he's not looking at her as an equal and he refutes her help for the good first half of the chapter (pretending to be his wife aside), the two eventually find common grounds and Guybrush, thanks to Winslow and learning to open up a bit more, starts to view her as a friend. Guybrush and Morgan even grow a bit of a banter between the two!

But she betrays him so thoroughly that it causes Guybrush to put back up those walls of his and push everyone away.

He is hurt and he is angry.

Two emotions he had not shown throughout Monkey Island. Irritation? Sure. Aggravation? Absolutely! But hurt and genuinely angry?

Not. Once.

And it wasn't LeChuck that pushed him to show it... it was a supposed friend! And that's so incredibly wild to me! You'd think Guybrush would show some form of anger towards LeChuck for constantly being his nemesis, constantly trying to kill him and steal Elaine, but no... no it was a fan who betrayed his trust (that he RARELY gives, I should stress) that got him absolutely angry.

And it's because of that betrayal arc that actually made me adore Tales!Guybrush. Because it really only gets worse for Guybrush and he's really pushed to a limit.

Throughout Chapter 4, he is constantly refuting help from anyone, it's really the Guybrush we're used to of being essentially a loner and doing things by himself (not that he could push Winslow away anyways.... he was stuck on the Narwhal). He even makes a very snide and very mean remarks that boils down to how her betrayal is essentially what messed up his plan to save Elaine AND the Caribbean, and he even angrily tells her how HE (not him and Winslow, not him and the Voodoo Lady - JUST Guybrush) needs to save his wife and cure the Caribbean. Not WE.

(and something I thought of as I type this and I have no idea how to shoehorn this into the rambling but worth noting - at the start of the quest, he always focused on just curing himself and Elaine. The Caribbean was a bonus but it was really an adventure driven to save his wife.... and then Winslow gets Pox'd and he changes that tone from 'saving Elaine' to 'Elaine AND the Caribbean')

It goes from bad to worse during the courtroom when Guybrush gets a one-two combo of hurt: Elaine is so far gone Pox'd that he and the sponge can't reach her, LeChuck (his arch-nemesis that he was, until this point, the ONLY ONE to openly say he did not trust while everyone else did) comes in to be the only one on the island to defend him, the reveal that the Voodoo Lady had been behind essentially everything in Guybrush's life and kept throwing him in harms way (though that is also a rambling for another day)... all forms of trust, new and old, is shattering for him.

As I've said, this chapter is where we see Guybrush - not Poxed - genuinely hurt and angry, and aside from Morgan, he shows it on the Voodoo Lady by losing his cool with her, angrily saying that he no longer trusts her.

Yet he still, somehow, reels back that anger. Somehow. Not entirely.

Because it reaches to a head when he goes to DeSinge and finds a dying Morgan, who is apologizing to him because she was trying to make right to him after hurting him. A gesture Guybrush had never been given before: he never had anyone try to do right by him... and it cost them.

Someone is dying because he made them feel bad. They're not seeking revenge, they're not trying to hurt him... they're trying to say sorry.

And failed.

And there.... THERE we see for the first time Guybrush genuinely and unapologetically Angry. Granted, his anger, initially, was thinking DeSinge killed her, but he's not entirely wrong to blame DeSinge. If DeSinge had never gone after Guybrush, if DeSinge had just let him be to cure the Caribbean, if DeSinge had not been so villainous, Morgan would still very much be alive.

Guybrush could have, under different circumstances, met Morgan and maybe their friendship wouldn't have been so tarnished because of gold or silver.

And while Guybrush is angry and blaming DeSinge... he decides on something that he hasn't done in the franchise: getting revenge.

And not just comedic revenge as he's shown in the past, he's genuinely after DeSinge for killing Morgan and wants to strike him down in return.

And I. Adore. Tales. For. That!

He shows his anger again when LeChuck mocks Guybrush while he's a ghost, but it's not NEARLY as furious as when he looks out the window and bitterly says DeSinge's name. Not even when he declares how he's going to take down LeChuck is he that enraged.

His foundation of trust and genuine friends is shaken and shattered and bruised, but this is the only game where Guybrush takes action. He never really outright bemoans or says out loud "it's my fault", but he lets his actions do the talking.

And before it's pointed out "But it's still for his own gain", I'm gonna have to put one huge giant asterisk to that:

He needed the locket, but he cheers up Anemone by reuniting them with Winslow (and silly remarks aside, he genuinely is happy for their relationship).

He couldn't touch physical items, but he speaks rather warmly towards Winslow and asking if Winslow would still willingly help him as well as seek out advice.

He cheers Morgan up and offers her way back to the realm of the living... and that one had no ulterior motive. It was the least he could do after mis-hearing her dying words and it was his own way of apologizing to her.

I've also said in the beginning of this ramble that this is the only game to let Guybrush feel hurt. And again, not in that comedic kind of way.

In previous games, when he's discouraged or feeling some form of despair, it's always followed up with some kind of joke or laugh. Something at Guybrush's expense. And it would make sense considering whenever he felt that despair horizon of sorts, he was always (shocker) alone.

As mentioned before, he is incredibly used to doing things alone and without help. Tales changed that.

When Elaine "agrees" to being a Demon Bride (which, side tangent, she clearly began plotting on how to use it against LeChuck with her very loud and very apparent 'Hmmmmm' alley-ooped with "Yeeeeesss.....!" Like something clicked for her as an improved plan), Guybrush (RIGHTFULLY) feels discouraged: again, he's been betrayed by one too many people, the world is ending, LeChuck is a GOD, he's dead, and Elaine (as far as he knew) agreed to being a Demon Bride. After having four (well, three) whole chapters of opening up and relying on people to going back to being alone... no one can fault him for giving up.

And it's not the "Ah well, sucks to suck" like he does in Escape, he genuinely sits on the floor of Crossroads and sounds like he's just about ready to cry (Mickey where-- "C'mon Morgan, I just lost my *wife*" he says with the last part having his voice wavering, come freaking at me).

It takes Morgan... MORGAN, the one who brought out ANGER out of him, to not even cheer him up, but to tell him to give it one more go to try and save Elaine and the world. She even says how she admires his dedication since it never ever wavered... both in his memoirs and as she witnessed first hand, so he has to get back up.

But!! The biggest kicker was that he was not quickly bouncing back going "Yeah, you're right lets go save the world" and proceeds to make a fourth wall joke-- he looks away! He has a brief moment on his expression of feeling hurt and betrayed at his supposed dedication (again, he genuinely believed Elaine's lie and I'll get back at that in just a minute). He tries to think of a plan but he's so incredibly hurt that he quickly finds flaws within his own plans and I just....! He's the guy that always think of something. Whether it's a coherent plan or a Guybrush plan, he always has some kind of a plan.... maybe not Elaine-level, but he's not dimwitted to not be able to think of SOMETHING.

He is, frankly, too hurt to think of a solid enough plan and to think back on the adventure. It takes Morgan to suggest he finds some shield to block the attack (his body against voodoo root beer) for him to finally click a plan and perk just a little bit back up.

That hurt continues strong when he faces off against Elaine after reclaiming his body and pleads desperately that it's him, to please stop. There is no quips during that moment, he's just desperate for the one person he unapologetically and whole heartedly loves that just describing her has him swooning in love, flaws and all.

But my favorite favorite FAVORITE thing, since this is Guybrush finally expressing his anger and hurt, is how he shows it towards Elaine. When the control over her disappears and she's conscious again, if going through the dialog tree, Guybrush makes her promise him one thing and one thing only - To not give up and become LeChuck's bride again.

Not find a way to save Guybrush, not for revenge.... but to not give up.

It's the first time we see him be selfless. He's not asking her to use that mind of her's to find a way to save him, all that's on his mind is keeping Elaine safe and destroying LeChuck.

So he makes Elaine swear to not give up and is genuinely stern and demanding with her when she asks him to not talk like he's going to die again (which... is a hard promise since he's a ghost controlling a literal corpse at this point) but he stops her, and very very VERY sternly and nearly shouting at her to promise him just that. He would never raise his voice to her in ALL of Monkey Island!! He would sass every now and again, sure, but he would never ask her of nearly anything.

And that's how you see the lesson of asking for help had finally set in! He makes her promise him, he tells her to light the cannon, to attack LeChuck while the Undead Pirate was between realms, Guybrush had finally FINALLY started to ask for help and it's not for himself!

And the final act Guybrush does in tales is, hands down, the most selfless thing he had ever done in the entirety of ALL of Monkey Island: He sacrificed himself.

This is the same man who would saw off a peg leg, nail shut a person into a coffin, steal a monocle, destroy a ship with a boulder, steal artifacts for his own gains, mock, jab, and embarrass anyone that would cross him.... and he sacrificed his only means back to the realm of the living for Elaine and everyone else.

Tales, in that moment, became hands down my all time favorite iteration of Guybrush. He had shown an immense level of growth, he showed he was open to having friends, asking for help, understanding when things are bigger than him, letting himself feel such strong emotions like anger and hurt... Tales!Guybrush has easily the grandest and greatest character growth and one of the main reasons why I refute anytime someone say he's just a bumbling moron who is needlessly mean.

I'm sure I'm missing something or a detail or another reason why Tales is my favorite iteration (note: iteration, not game.... that one is in perpetual cycle with Curse), but for now I'll end it on this note:

He can be mean, he is definitely a goof with his own quips, and at times even selfish... but Guybrush Threepwood at his core is cunning, hilarious, and he is unapologetically loving to those that matter in his life. He just picks who gets to see that side of him.

[4th-make-quail]

Big Bang anon here! I was just looking for some challenging event to participate this winter, and wanted to know your opinion because you have a lot of fandom experience! And YES I also noticed that a lot of Big Bang challenges currently are like "minimum word count is 5k words", and no shade to mods but that's not a challenge skdjdhdjl

Do you have a favorite fandom event type? Care to share your best fandom event experience?

Good morning nonny! Ahhh I see, okay I getcha!! There are quite a few longer word count fandom exchanges if you're into those, but the winter ones are already well in progress iirc!

One good place to check for events like this is fandom calendar on dreamwidth - people advertise their stuff on there regularly (no need to make a dw account to look at it either).

If you want a longer event, I have a few friends who do the three longer minimum word count exchanges and they have fun, so here they are;

- Fic in a Box (fiab): a fanwork exchange with a large minimum gifting requirement and several unique features - this one is complicated, so check out the comm link! Unfortunately this one is well and truly over now, but it's there for next year - schedule is around August to September!

- Five Figure Fandom Exchange (fffx or fandom 5k): a multifandom gift exchange for fanfic of 10,000+ words, and for comics of least 10 pages or at least 40 panels. Currently ongoing, but there are pinch hits in need of picking up! Deadline is January 18th, so if you can write a pinch hit fandom, you could try that!

- High Adrenaline (previously Heart Attack): two weeks to write 10k (or draw a 25-panel, 10-page comic) and one week to edit. Noms open in January!

Completing all three of these makes you eligible for Triple Crown, which is a prize raffle for all three of these 10k exchanges.

For the next few months, most people will be doing Yuletide which I've talked about a bit here before, but it has a 1000 word minimum so might be of less interest to you if you wanted a challenge. Pinch hits for yuletide are being posted here this year, but there aren't any available rn, and as yuletide is for rare fandoms, ymmv as to how possible this is for you anyway.

The next thing I will personally be participating in is Candy Hearts, which is a valentines day themed low word count (300 words) exchange, schedule usually starting with noms in December. This replaces chocolate box which used to run at the same time, and it's really fun!

Others I usually do regularly:

- Seasons of Drabbles: new to me but very fun, has a new round every season! For strict drabbles specifically, currently in its autumn round so there will be a winter one to come I imagine!

- Goreswap: an exchange for gore etc, with genre type tags to pick. Schedule starts with noms in January usually! Not one I've done, but I have friends who love it and do it every year.

- Phoenix Down Exchange: my own full Final Fantasy franchise exchange, set to start noms in Feb as last year

- Rarepair Exchange: as it sounds, for rarepairs! Check the comm for definition of minimum fics required to be eligible. Usually starts around April

- Rare Male Slash Exchange: as rarepair ex above, but for m/m ships only and again with specific minimum fic number eligibility. This is older than rpe, but as it tends to run on a similar schedule (noms in May last year) I've not done it for the last two years

- Relationshipping: for incest ships! The last round was July to August, but it conflicted with other fan stuff for me so I didn't do this for a bit as well. Run by some very good people

Some others I know about from my exchange crew participing but have never personally done: kids come first (underage themed), consent issues (dub/noncon themed), trauma exchange (as the name suggests), trick or treat (complicated, I think halloween theme?? Unsure), nonconathon (dub/noncon, but with very fun freeform tags to pick and nominate), and then there are usually a hell of a lot of flash exchanges around as well, which run on quick turnarounds - you could try joining the Exchanges After Dark discord server, which is an 18+ nsfw server for exchanges. It's very big and has a channel for every exchange, so the best thing to do is mute them all apart from what ur interested in ime! It also has a fandomcalendar rss feed channel which could be relevant if u wanna see what's coming up!

As for your second question, my favourite fandom event experience is probably Unconventional Fanworks Exchange, which is unfortunately didn't run last year and I'm not sure if it will again 😭😭 its an exchange for, well, unconventional fanwork mediums, and I've had so much fun challenging myself in the two rounds I've participated in! They had things like newspaper articles, in universe academic documents, blueprints, paper dolls, all sorts! I'm hoping someone might take it over tbh, if the mod can't run it again.

Also, this year I did Small Web September for the first time and had sooo much fun! It's for working on any smallweb projects you might have; personal sites, neocities, coding etc. and it had a really great vibe, plus it was super fun seeing everyone's smallweb projects! Very inspiring!!

This ended up very long, but as u can see I am very passionate about these things! I run my entire fannish calendar around exchanges mixed with event weeks and I find it very rewarding - I'm always happy to introduce anyone to exchanges and talk through how to participate etc. so anyone can ask me about this at any time!

[m34gs]

Another Saw AU ask!

This time it is the housewardens (and the dorms) up for evaluation as Saw Apprentices! Please tell me on a scale from 1 star (lowest) to 5 stars (most) where the dorms rank on the following categories:

1. Professional Conduct/Mannerisms

2. Organization/Punctuality

3. How well they uphold the Ideals of the Job

4. How they contribute to a positive work environment

Hi friend!!! Another Saw AU ask! Thank you! This will be so fun to answer, I am putting so much thought into it!!! For those unfamiliar, my friend @kimium and I have a Twisted Wonderland Sort of Saw Franchise AU. See my pinned post for links to other posts regarding it and our AO3 series!

I'm so excited for this ask! Sorry it took so long, I've had a lot going on this week...but I'm here now! (Answers under a cut because this will be LONG lol!)

Heartslaybul

1. Professional Conduct/Mannerisms: 4 stars. Riddle, of course, is always on top of his game and courteous. Cater is no slouch either, when it comes to actually impressing other people with his manners. He's pretty good at putting on masks, after all. It's Ace and Deuce who need a little *reminder* once in a while on how to act and conduct themselves.

2. Organization/Punctuality: 5 stars. Mostly because of Riddle. He is always on time and his traps tend to run closest to their estimated run times. The rest of Heartslaybul is also punctual, lest they be hit with Riddle's signature spell.

3. How well they uphold the Ideals of the Job: 3 stars. While Riddle is definitely here for the Justice aspect of it, the others are a little...less good at upholding the ideals. Deuce is really just there because the boss (Riddle) is, and because he likes being able to work closely with Ace. Cater...well Cater's true ideals are as of yet undiscussed but you *know* he probably doesn't fully buy into the "appreciate your life and change for the better" lesson John says they're giving people.

4. How they contribute to a positive work environment: 4 stars. Riddle would obviously do his best to ensure rules are followed but also that appropriate break times/measures are also instated. Cater is picking up the rest with his bubbly persona and making an effort to make sure everyone has something at the workplace to smile about. It may be a dusty old warehouse or abandoned workshop, or any other number of derelict places, but Cater's gonna make sure his friends have a little happiness in their days. Ace mostly complains, rather than trying to make the workplace better (Ace would like to point out he should not be blamed for this as they are literally murdering people and so he does not think putting up decorations and eating fancy dinners together completely offsets that vibe) and his whining often gets him in a scuffle with Deuce (they may be dating but they fight like an old married couple) which does bring down the workplace vibe a little bit and thus keeps them from achieving 5 stars.

Savanaclaw

1. Professional Conduct/Mannerisms: 3 stars. Leona's attitude and outward demeanor detract from the rating. However, Ruggie works his ass off to get the job done and get it done *right*, and Jack doesn't like acting what he views as rude. The efforts of the two of them earn them the 3 stars.

2. Organization/Punctuality: 5 stars. Despite how he often skips classes to nap and doesn't seem to really care about meeting deadlines or being on time, I believe Leona can be pretty punctual when he needs to. He wouldn't be so good at Spell Drive if he didn't have at least some sense of timing and punctuality. I also think that, despite him still thinking John is bat-shit fucking crazy, Leona prioritizes punctuality for the trap because it CANNOT interfere with his daily life and responsibilities as a prince, so as to not garner suspicion. Ruggie is also very punctual, since he often works many jobs and would never allow himself to be docked pay for being late if he could help it. And Jack would consider showing up late to be rude and disrespectful, so of course you know he would strive to be on time. John doesn't really have an issue with any of them regarding punctuality, and the traps are pretty organized in order to ensure they don't mess with Leona's life.

3. How well they uphold the Ideals of the Job: 1 star. Leona doesn't give a shit about John's ideology, he thinks he's fucking crazy. The main motivation for him is to go along with it to protect his own (Ruggie, Jack, Yuu, Grim, himself, etc.). We all know Ruggie would do anything for money, but John isn't paying them. Leona is (as per the murder fic for their dorm) but he's only doing that to make sure Ruggie is on board and therefore safe from John. I also think Ruggie would get a bit too vindictive at times, which is again not the ideology John is trying to "teach". Jack tries but he has a hard time stomaching a lot of things.

4. How they contribute to a positive work environment: 2 stars. Let's face it, they're not exactly enthused to be doing these little projects. The 2 stars comes from Jack's attitude and respect. Ruggie and Leona do not contribute. (Ruggie would like to argue he makes the environment very positive. Jack tells him they are being evaluated on the actual work, not the sex afterward...)

Octavinelle

1. Professional Conduct/Mannerisms: 5 stars. If there's one thing these boys know from running a restaurant chain, it's professionalism. Even Floyd can play along, if he feels it suits his interests. And he finds this work very interesting.

2. Organization/Punctuality: 4 stars. Jade and Azul are always on time and ready to go. And, let's be real, Azul has his traps planned to death and back again, with multiple back-up plans for any possible issues he can think of. Floyd is hit-or-miss, depending on his moods. He shows up relatively punctually the majority of the time, but if something grabs his attention...good luck getting him to show up at all.

3. How well they uphold the Ideals of the Job: 3 stars. See, for the most part they do it right, targeting people who "deserve" it and using it to protect their restaurant and staff; an arguably noble cause. But then, there's the fact that Jade's motivations also stem from wanting to see what would happen. He's the type of person to put someone in a death trap just to see what would happen. While that curiousity is not completely out of line with John's teachings, Jade's sadistic enjoyment from it is. Everyone knows Floyd just does what he finds interesting and fun. He doesn't feel overly attached to making the victims have a "change of heart" or "learn something". He prefers when they suffer and die. (this is why he's not allowed to do traps by himself. Azul and Jade both know he'd likely get bored or angry and just kill the person himself. And that would land them in a little bit of hot water with John, which they'd rather avoid).

4. How they contribute to a positive work environment: 4 stars. Overall, Jade and Floyd have a pretty positive attitude when working on traps. Once in a while, Floyd gets restless and distressed or distracted and starts messing with things or throwing fits. However, given the nature of the work, it doesn't take much to pull him out of that mood. Azul is really the one where they lose points here. As much as he makes sure proper body mechanics are being used so as not to wreck their backs and cause injury, and puts in all sorts of safeties for their group to make sure they don't get injured while on the job, his work habits follow him even here. He doesn't take breaks when he should, worries and stresses over every little piece of the plan, and basically continues to be a workaholic.

Scarabia

1. Professional Conduct/Mannerisms: 5 stars. Kalim is the oldest son of a wealthy merchant. You better believe he knows how to be professional and cordial in a work environment. His attitude may be described as "casual" by some, but in reality it's more "welcoming", which bodes very well for professionalism. Jamil is professional in a different way. He would lean more toward the formal and polite side of it. Neither way is necessarily wrong. John enjoys talking with both of them and discussing their traps with them.

2. Organization/Punctuality: 3 stars. Kalim's downfall is that he can be a bit scatter-brained. I do think he'd be a bit more organized after having graduated, but I don't think his old habits would go away entirely. Jamil is the one who keeps their plans neatly documented in folders and binders and makes sure they have all the supplies they need. I would also like to point out that it is harder for Kalim to participate in this part because he really doesn't enjoy the murder part, so he tries as much as possible not to think about it ahead of time.

3. How well they uphold the Ideals of the Job: 3 stars again. This time, it's Kalim pulling the weight. Kalim is the one who sees this less as something he wants to do and more as something he needs to do. It's a responsibility. He wants the world to be a better place and if this is a way to make that happen, he will try. Jamil is where they lose points. Jamil is the one who would create the inescapable traps. He sees it more as a way to hand down judgement and punishment on "deserving" people, rather than a way to teach them.

4. How they contribute to a positive work environment: 4 stars. As solemn as the job is for Kalim, and as vindictive as Jamil can be, the two of them try to have a rather positive workplace. Kalim always makes sure they take lots of breaks, so as not to get exhausted emotionally or physically, and Jamil always has many snacks prepared. The one star they get removed is because Jamil can get a little self-righteous and go on rants at times, which kind of detracts from the atmosphere.

Pomefiore

1. Professional Conduct/Mannerisms: 5 stars. Vil is the epitome of professionalism. He will allow nothing less in all that he does. Epel sometimes grumbles about needing to be so concerned over how they conduct themselves when putting people in murder traps, but he begrudgingly goes with it, dress code and all. (Vil makes them wear clothes suited to the job. He has issues with the robes and masks, but he understands the logic behind the disguise and agrees that it is not something anyone would expect Vil Schoenheit to be caught dead in, and so it makes a very good part of his alibi).

2. Organization/Punctuality: 5 stars. They are never late. Vil will not hear of it. Epel came close One(1) time, and Vil lectured for a full thirty minutes after they finished with the trap. In all honesty, Vil really can't afford to have things running late. He has a very busy, very public life. He can't afford any suspicions. His traps are planned down to the minute, with a small window of cushion time to allow if things go wrong.

3. How well they uphold the Ideals of the Job: 4 stars. Vil, much like Kalim, sees this less as something he really wants to do and more as a solemn responsibility. Rook finds there to be beauty in giving people a chance to change, and there is beauty in desperation and what people are willing to do to live. Epel sits in the corner and questions if Vil and Rook are actually ok or if they need some therapy (they do, but like so does all of the Twisted Wonderland cast). Epel is the one who doesn't fully buy John's ideology. However, he is respectful to John (his granny would kill him if she heard otherwise) and they have many discussions about right and wrong, so John finds he cannot dock too many points based on Epel's attitude.

4. How they contribute to a positive work environment: 4 stars. Vil does his best to make sure they have scheduled breaks and enough time to complete the traps without causing injury to themselves. Rook tends to light up the workplace with his mannerisms, and I like to think he brings in art to their various workplaces because a beautiful workplace can be inspiring and good for the soul, or so he says. He would also be the type to come up with all sorts of activities and exercises for team-building in the workplace. Epel is the one most likely to be pouty or moody or be an unwilling participant in whatever workplace bonding activities Rook comes up with.

Ignihyde

1. Professional Conduct/Mannerisms: 1 star. Listen. Idia's idea of "professionalism" for this job is wearing pants when he monitors the trap from the comfort of his basement, with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders as he chews on some gummy worms. The 1 star is because Ortho is always polite and well-polished when he interacts with John and when the trap is running.

2. Organization/Punctuality: 5 stars. Idia isn't playing around. He would never let a trap interfere with the important things in his life (playing video games, defeating bosses, participating in limited-time events for his mobile games, etc.). He's gonna make sure his traps are set up and start and end on time. And, he's more organized than he looks when it comes to tech. His workrooms and everything may seem chaotic, but he knows where everything is and has his traps planned out to every little detail. Each trap is like a challenge, and he does like showing off.

3. How well they uphold the Ideals of the Job: 2 stars. While Idia and Ortho do make sure to trap people who follow John's criteria for victims, Idia is more in it for the challenge of building the traps and Ortho is mostly in it because his brother is (though he doesn't mind getting revenge on people who piss them off...)

4. How they contribute to a positive work environment: 3 stars. Ortho is very positive and charismatic and charming in the work environment. Idia doesn't talk to anyone aside from Ortho unless he absolutely has to contact John, and even then it's usually via emails and rarely in person. Idia's also not exactly known for scheduling appropriate break times. He tends to get very wrapped up in watching his tech and making notes on what to improve and seeing if the victim can beat them...he often doesn't take breaks for hours at a time, depending on the trap's runtime. (Idia would like to point out in response to this evaluation that the workplace is VERY positive for him. "Nii-san. Please leave your computer, it's been six hours," Ortho begs in response.)

Diasomnia

1. Professional Conduct/Mannerisms: 5 stars. Malleus is a prince. He has been taught manners and how to conduct himself in a regal way since he was young. Lilia used to be a general. He knows how to behave professionally in the workplace. Sebek and Silver both feel they should maintain professional demeanor, as retainers to Malleus. John doesn't always understand all their mannerisms, but he does chalk most of that up to them being Fae and likely having different rules than humans, and he finds they are always polite and cordial so he really has no problem with their conduct.

2. Organization/Punctuality: 4 stars. Sometimes, Malleus gets lost in his own world (he is a Fae, after all, so his concept of time is very different at times). However, Lilia can find him most times and with his teleportation it is easy to be there relatively close to on-time. The rest of them are usually on time.

3. How well they uphold the Ideals of the Job: 3 stars. While Malleus does see this as an opportunity to make the world a safer place for Yuu, he also sees this as a way to sate some of his curiousity about humans. That's not *exactly* what John was going for, but he'll take what he can get. The rest of Diasomnia is basically there because Malleus is. They're not as interested in the actual work. Sebek tries to understand and follow John's teachings because Malleus seems to find them interesting, but I think his main motivation is still more about Malleus than the actual ideals John is trying to impart. Lilia is mostly there to be a bit of impulse control for Malleus, let's face it. And Silver feels he should be there out of duty to Malleus. So, really, Malleus (and sometimes Sebek) is the only one who sort of tries to follow John's ideals.

4. How they contribute to a positive work environment: 4 stars. They do their best. Lilia brings a lot of positivity and fun to the workplace to keep it stress-free. However, when Silver tests out parts for the traps, it drives him a little up the wall and he has to leave the workplace. The rest of the time, though, the workplace is rather positive and relatively relaxed as they plan the trap and set it up.

There you go! The evaluations of the dorms as Jigsaw Apprentices!! Hope you enjoyed my answers, this was a very fun ask!

[pet-cemetery-emotes]

you look like you had a tma phase

O_O

>_>

<_<

What do you mean I Look like. *adds another layer of tape to my webcam.*

Also I did not. People love confidently dropping stuff like this into my inbox, dripping with smirk energy, trying to hit a fuckor vein.

I still haven't watched TMA (the Magnus Archives, right? If there's another TMA, then I definitely haven't seen it) I also haven't seen Homestuck or read the Scott Pilgrim comic. I didn't really get into anime, either, barring a stint with some I could find on YouTube in the fifth grade. Those are the main ones I get... I was going to say asked about, but no one asks me, they just point at me and assign me these traits, like this.

Growing up I liked less than 20 franchises (for those of you at home following along with cork boards and yarn, Night Vale and Pokemon were two of them) and until I was almost out of high school I didn't even listen to music. I'm serious. I liked Hollywood Undead and Mindless Self Indulgence in sophomore year, but refused to listen to them once I discovered them (City and This Hurts respectively were the songs I stumbled across, I never tried to find more), because I could tell that was a bad sign. And I was right :D

And yeah, before anyone asks, I'm autistic.

[fostersffff]

Visions of Mana: An Underbaked Anniversary Cake

Going into 2024, Visions of Mana was far and away my most anticipated game of the year. Following the Trials of Mana remake from 2020, it appeared to be everything I was hoping for: a game not inherently bound by being a warts-and-all remake of a 1995 Super Famicom game, with the same visual style as that remake, and (seemingly) budgeted scale/scope-wise in accordance with how insanely well the remake sold. From the reveal, I also got the sense it was meant to be an anniversary game, which I thought made perfect sense: make a big game that pays homage to Adventures, Secret, Trials, Legend, and whatever other Mana games they'd care to reference, and determine a new direction for the franchise!

As we got closer to the release, I got a little apprehensive. I think at some point I learned that this was not actually being made by the developers of the remake, who instead have been working on the Romancing SaGa 2 remake. Instead, this was being handled by a NetEase subsidiary, Ouka Studio, who hadn't seem to have made anything before this; not necessarily a red flag, but definitely an odd choice. Then the demo came out, and while it didn't sour me on the game, I noticed that I had a lot of the same kinds problems with it that I had with Trials of Mana back when that demo came out. Of course, I ultimately loved Trials, and even if the worst came to worst, they make this, and then if it does well, the them gets to make a sequel and iterate!

Then Ouka Studio was literally shuttered the day Visions of Mana came out, so that won't be happening either. And sales have reportedly been underwhelming.

In addition to my standard inability to focus in on anything, I felt like I was kind of pushing off playing Visions because I was worried about being disappointed. Streamers I watch whose opinions I generally line up weren't hostile, but even at best the reception seemed lukewarm. And of course, that only applies to the streamers who actually played it, because they like the Mana series as much as or even more than me. In the course of less than a single year I literally went from WE'RE SO BACK to IT'S SO OVER with regard to the Mana series. But I've now rolled the credits, and drank in as much of it as I care to experience, which is mostly everything.

Visions of Mana is a good game with good ideas that was made by a studio that either didn't have the time, money, experience, or any combination of those three things to bring all of those good idea to fruition. They hit on a lot of what I (and I imagine other people) broadly love about the Mana series, but a lot of the experience is brought down by whatever it is they were missing. And, to be blunt, it feels like they were missing a lot.

But what Visions of Mana was not missing, was a bratty disabled dragon girl with a Southwestern U.S. accent who travels with a baby version of the franchise's iconic sparkledragon, and who also gets to be the party's pugilist.

So that's a feather in the game's cap!

(Spoilers for Visions of Mana, as well as Adventures of Mana (Final Fantasy Adventure), Trials of Mana... the Mana series in general, beneath the break)

The Good:

The game looks absolutely gorgeous. HACCAN's character designs combined with some really stunning and complementary environmental design make this game just incredibly pretty, top to bottom.

One of the things I was most concerned about whether or not they'd land was the story. It's not perfect- the only thing in this game that's perfect is Careena- but I felt that it falls in line with what I consider the be The Tone of the Mana series, which is a kind of gentle melancholy (that has admittedly gotten more diluted with each new entry).

The biggest strength of the story for me, and what I was worried about right up until the end, was that they didn't undermine Hinna's death. Basically everything surrounding that was handled exactly how I would've wanted it, from the party not really absolving Val of responsibility for Hinna's death but trying to be sympathetic, to the game actually making a point of Val having to talk to Hinna's parents about the fact that she died, and most importantly, not letting her (and Eoren and Lyza) come back at the end to do a quaint little Happily Ever After (even though there is a happy ending on a longer timescale).

I actually thought the party came together pretty nicely as a group! This is something I've noticed ever since I replayed Chrono Trigger a few years ago, where after your RPG party hits a certain size incidental dialogue among characters just falls out (because it would be a lot to write), but this game has a fucking ton of unique incidental dialogue for every area in the game. It's actually kind of staggering how often your party will just banter amongst themselves.

Careena is obviously my big favorite, but really the whole party is pretty charming. Special nod to Palamena's endearing but often awkward affinity for alliteration that no one ever points out.

I like all the things that make this feel like an anniversary game! Bringing back iconic bosses like the Mantis Ant and Fullmetal Hugger, having a little plot dedicated to Vuscav, the ships being named Primm and Dyluck, and even trying (not necessarily succeeding) at tying the franchise together by having Visions's world of Qi'Diel be a result of the fracturing of Fa'Diel.

The developers knew enough to allow you to snap the game over your knee if so inclined via powerleveling. I think once I unlocked the class that allowed Careena's Class Strike to ignore a percentage of defense, I made a beeline for the high level ruins and then managed to get myself to like Level 54 while the story was still at Level 30, which trivialized every encounter from then on. I'm Love Avatar Strength.

The Bad:

The music is just... nothing. "Generic" is such a shitty way to describe the work of the composer and so many talented musicians, but I don't think there's a single song in this OST that sticks with me except maybe the Nemesis (open world mini-boss) battle theme, because it's the only one that feels like it has any energy to it. The thing I honed in on the most was the difference between the Sanctuary of Mana theme: in this game, it sounds like music you would hear in "A Jungle Area", which is kinda what it is, but it is quite literally The Most Important Place Ever, so just having the music be "A Jungle Area" is odd. Compare it with the music for the same kind of area in Trials of Mana, where the song "Decision Bell" really immediately strikes you with the fact that this is The Most Important Place Ever, with the choir and heavy ringing bells.

Complimentary to the nothing music is the fact that this game is actively harmed by having the big "open world areas" that are not "open world" in any meaningful way and are instead just very large with very little in them. For as cute as the pikuls are, they didn't really make exploring those areas more fun, and I found myself often just not using them because the animation for summoning them and dismounting took too long. I'd actually argue this game would go up a whole point if those areas were cut down while maintaining the illusion of being huge with good environmental design.

For as much as I like the story's overall tone and how the characters interact, the biggest problem with the story is the entire concept of the Alms. It's revealed once you make it to the Sanctuary of Mana that the sacrifice of the Alms is necessary to give the Goddess and the Elementals enough energy to stave of Daelophos's curse. But there's not really any implication that there's anything special about the chosen Alms in terms of how much energy their corestone provides, it's largely just the elementals going "hey I vibe with this person, let's go with them". Considering how many character stories are precipitated on "well I'm honored to be chosen for this duty, but…", and how many NPCs are like "YO IT'S SO BASED TO BE THE ALM, I HOPE I GET TO BE THE ALM!!!", you'd think it would either be A.) voluntary or B.) they'd lean into the idea that by and large people aren't comfortable with the Alms, and maybe all the people talking about how cool it is to be an Alm are lying through their teeth (like Careena's beau Shiriu seemed to be (but wasn't actually)).

The only characters who really sincerely object to the idea of the Alms sacrifice are Eoren and Passar, and while there's significantly more nuance to Eoren's bad deeds than Passar's, he's dispatched immediately once Daelophos shows up. A lot of this could've been handwaved with a few extra lines here and there about how only the corestones of specific people can actually resonate enough with the Elementals to sustain them, which is kinda sorta implied, but as it's written it's just like "it has to be this character for Story Conflict"

Last note on the Alms: it's very strange to open the game with Eoren and Lyza, and end the game with Val abolishing the need for Alms, and have the emotional centerpiece of the game be Hinna's death being brought about by not wanting to be an Alm, only for the game to either not square the circle or play dumb about how horrible it is all the previous Alms had to sacrifice themselves. Like, the game has a lot of major "Alms bad" points but doesn't really make a push for how bad it was all those years.

The Rest:

The gameplay goes here, because it's not bad, but more than anything else I feel it's best described as "underbaked". See, they honed in on the fact that something that everyone liked about Trials was all the classes, and all the different costumes (originally just recolors) characters got as they got new classes, which is clearly what led to the Elemental Plot system. All five characters have eight unique classes that have a special power tied to them, and to spice things up further, three different weapons that are divided among the classes, per character. But this is where the time/money/experience issue really rears its head: there's maybe three or four attack strings per weapon, so even though Val's sword, greatsword, and lance movesets feel totally different, none have very much depth to them. And then, even if I didn't like how the lance felt, was I just going to not use the special ability that creates a time bubble?

Also, on that note: kinda get the sense Aesh was meant to be a party member, but they couldn't whip up eight more classes and three more weapon movesets, and meaningfully differentiate the classes' abilities from the other 40 classes in the game. So he's just around sometimes!

One last nit to pick with the story: the post-credits scene is a homage to Final Fantasy Adventure/Adventures of Mana, where Fuji has to become the new Mana Tree/Goddess of Mana, and Sumo vows to be her guardian for all time. This is the dynamic between Visions's Goddess and Khoda, and so once Val dies of old age, he takes up Khoda's vigil and becomes Hinna's guardian, as she becomes the new Goddess of Mana. But... why? During the entire final boss fight I was waiting for Daelophos to destroy or otherwise critically injure the Mana Tree, like what happens Adventures and Trials, and they again could have hand waved it as "since Daelophos used Hinna's corestone, she was able to integrate herself into the Tree to help it stay alive", or something. Literally anything!

I was weirded out by the choice to have new Benevodons except for Zable Fahr. This is fine, since a lot of them as introduced in Trials were pretty whatever design-wise, (except, of course, for Zable Fahr), but my understanding was every Mana game after Trials that referenced them were consistent that those specific entities were THE Benevodons. Selaphia is a more interesting Benevodon of Light than Lightgazer the Giant Eyeball, but Tor Mane the Giant Frog seems like a weird replacement for Dolan, especially since the you once again fight the Benevodon of the Moon in an ancient castle that was populated by beastfolk.

Putting Kaiji Tang on notice for his performance as Morley, because I just could not get a sense for whether or not he was trying to do an Inigo Montoya thing. That's honestly probably more on the voice director because I know Mr. Ichiban Kasuga does good work, but Morley was the roughest voice in the game.

I feel like I wrote a lot to not say much, which is maybe appropriate for Visions (also because I didn't take notes/pictures so I'm flying by the seat of my pants). It's in the miserable "mid" range where I can't bring myself to come down on it too hard, because it doesn't do anything unforgivably wrong, but it rarely achieves any great heights. It's also difficult to recommend Visions of Mana to anyone who isn't a fan of the Mana series already, especially in a year that's been as packed with other good video games- especially with so many RPGs, and especially Action RPGs like Granblue Fantasy: Relink, which based on the bit I've played of that seems to do everything Visions of Mana wanted to do.

At least I'll always have Trials.

[hopeymchope]

Hey. There was a new Raincode interview written a few days ago and in that interview, Halara’s gender was brought up. I made a post about that question on my blog and I am curious your thoughts about it. I also linked the interview in my post.

(This is the post in question, for anyone interested. Which I think you probably should be, but... )

My thoughts are mostly that Kodaka's quote/response feels frustratingly uninformative and devoid of any value, but also sadly unsurprising. I know it's just a machine translation, so maybe this isn't capturing the exact nuance of the statement... but the sentence "I didn't specifically intend a social message" is just exactly the kind of vague, wishy-washy, "I really don't want to be in trouble with or offend anyone on any side of any possible argument" language that I've LONG gotten used to in promotional interviews about movies, TV, books, games, etc. Because god forbid you possibly appear to be either for or against anything that might be considered controversial in any possible market! Having STANCES on THINGS could damage your profit margin with some potential demographic.

I suppose this could be all there is to it. Maybe Kodaka legitimately means what he says here and put no greater thought into Halara's lack of gender identity. But I also think it'd be weird if the implications of leaving their gender unknown didn't at least occur to him at some point, particularly as there's been a growing awareness of so-called "X-gender" people in Japan over the last year and a half.

But ultimately, "Master Detective Archives: Rain Code" is Japanese media, and that leaves this kind of question-dodging not only expected, but arguably maybe even necessary. Take a look at the recent of the recent controversy over The Witch From Mercury, the Gundham anime that is over-the-top mega-gay. Bandai Namco still felt the need to declare that the relationship between Suletta and Miorine is "open to interpretation" despite the fact that the two get FUCKED MARRIED.

In fact, this Kotaku article does a good job digging into not only that anime's particular can of worms, but also how queer-friendly media in Japan continues to be suppressed and censored from the dominant conservatives behind the media companies and government even while those works enjoy massive popularity with younger consumers. Get a load of what they say about Yuri! on Ice:

Look no further than the fate of 2016’s smash hit Yuri! On Ice, which tells the tale of a struggling figure skater, Yuri Katsuki, who is coached back to success by the charismatic and undeniably handsome Victor Nikiforov. Similar to The Witch From Mercury, the pair’s relationship is explicitly laid out in the story, and the characters also exchange rings. It was, and still is, celebrated as a landmark anime for LGBTQ+ representation. It received acclaim in Japan, winning Animation of the Year at the Tokyo Anime Awards as well as a number of fan-voted awards. It has consistently been named as one of the top anime of the 2010s by IGN, Anime News Network, and here at Kotaku. In what seemed like an obvious move to capitalize on the success of the show, a feature-length Yuri! On Ice movie was greenlit almost immediately. But six years later, a statement from Studio MAPPA CEO Manabu Otsuka said that despite the show being a hit, the company didn’t make a lot of money off of Yuri! On Ice, and as such, the movie likely won’t happen. Back when Blu-ray sales mattered to the anime industry, Yuri! On Ice torched the competition, selling nearly double the amount of discs of its nearest competitor, the juggernaut franchise Love Live. The runaway success of Yuri! On Ice led to MAPPA’s heightened profile in the industry, which helped it secure the rights to produce Attack on Titan’s never-ending final season, the massively popular Jujutsu Kaisen, and the second season of Makoto Yukimura’s viking masterpiece, Vinland Saga. For MAPPA to claim that the Yuri! On Ice movie isn’t financially viable is disingenuous and contradicts standard industry metrics for success. MAPPA could release the Yuri! On Ice movie tomorrow, and it would be a guaranteed hit. Which begs the question, what is the hold up? It's a reminder that speaking out against the anime production committees that dole out the work to animation studios is a dangerous game. In most of her press for Yuri! On Ice, creator and director Sayo Yamamoto played nice, answering softball questions that never directly addressed the very obvious love playing out on screen between Yuki and Victor. But, in the Yuri! On Ice fanbook “Go Yuri Go!” from 2017, Yamamoto claimed that the series had been censored outside of her control, and she had to fight to keep a kiss between Yuri and Victor in the final cut of the show. Since then, Yamamoto has not gotten any other projects. To have arguably the biggest hit of 2016, receive critical acclaim from your own industry, and then not be given any work? It doesn’t add up. MAPPA has tied Yamamoto to the Yuri! On Ice movie project and essentially strung her out for six years now, leaving her in a kind of professional purgatory. In an industry where the slightest scandal can lead to blacklisting, the idea that Yamamoto is being punished for wanting to go all-in on a queer narrative is not far-fetched.

So. Yeah. This is all a very long way of me saying "I don't know whether what Kodaka said here really tells us much about his intentions/thoughts, nor do I expect we'll ever hear much more on the topic." A lot of Japanese creators have gone the way of just letting the work speak for itself and vaguely denying anything else in public, because it's just safer that way... even if it leaves the rest of us clueless as to where the legit allies are.

Either way, Halara is a pretty awesome representation regardless. I'll just take that as a positive sign.

[m00nj3w3l]

Well here I am (ONS chapter 128)

Ok I'm finally writing out my thoughts about ONS' 128. Idk how long it'll come out (extremely long as I'm writing it it seems...) and also as always I want to hear others' opinions on this, but as a warning it will be mostly negative. I actually did a similar post back at the start of the year with BSD, but BSD at least managed to bounce back full force and do what it needed to do while ONS shows no signs of that.

I'll break it down into the following points:

>I'm also getting tired of the flashbacks (as many already did)

>I miss the Shinoa squad (will touch upon Mitsuba specifically and y'all probably know why)

>The belief that MikaYuu fans are getting much better content and why I think that's bs (will probably mention my theorem of "Mika, along with literally all the women of the franchise, got hit with the mysoginy stick")

So let's go I guess, under the cut so I don't clutter my non-ONS followers' dash.

>The flashbacks: I... Did not mind them up unti now, if I've got to be honest. Let's be serious here everyone probably expected a batshit crazy backstory for the characters, ESPECIALLY Yuu and Mika, and that's what made me not really complain. Now it has been like? 8 chapters of ONLY flashbacks??? Only things of the past with NO break and NO POV switches to at least let us know wtf is going on in the outside world. Christ. The fact that irritates me the most is that all of this adds nothing to the plot either!!! What are the MCs supposed to do now that they've seen one of them (WHO HAS BEEN 4 DIFFERENT SPECIES TOO SINCE THE START OF THE SERIES???) sacrifice for the 3rd time!!!! AND IN THE PAST AT THAT!!!! HOW IS THIS USEFUL FOR THEM OR ANY OF US AGHHFHGHHG. We got other gays going at it tho and that's just funny to me. This is just a BL masked as a battle shonen lmaoooo.

>The Shinoa squad: I feel like this is obvious. Where tf are they? They obviously are looking out for where Mika and Yuu are, how did we not see them again yet??? Some progress in their hunt (let's call it that) for those two??? Shinoa literally threatened to kill Mika (and, for a number of reasons, let me say this: ew.) I'd at least like to see her and how she's doing. And didn't Kagami promise us Mitsuba would get more screentime soon? THIS IS LITERALLY A PERFECT SETTING. SHOW ME HER AND SHINOA BEING IN CONFLICT CUS SHE WORRIES ABOUT HER FRIEND AND WANTS HER TO COME TO HER SENSES!!! SHOW ME HOW THEE LITERAL KIDS ARE DOING AFTER BEING ASKED BY A FULL ON 24 Y.O TO CHOOSE THEIR FAMILIES OR THE WORLD LIKE BE SO SERIOUS THE SETTING WAS *DECENT* (wouldn't say perfect cus I'm not the biggest fan of the "bring everyone back" plot but ok) FOR IT ALL I'M *explodes*

>MikaYuu: Oh boy ok here we go. So since I came back after my rewatch and catch up to this manga which resulted in hyperfixation again I noticed that the narrative of MikaYuu shippers getting better content cus a lot of the chapters now focus on them is... common. And for a while I just thought "ok" and moved on but now I'm fully on convinced it's just. Not true. Not because the content isn't there, I would be lying if I said that, but because it's... Not good. Good content, for me (as someone who clearly loves these two if you scroll for even 2 minutes down my fucking tag), would be seeing actual growth between them, some actual substance in what they are doing as of rn, and we are not getting any of that. Since when did we see them actually DO something? Last time we saw Yuu in his actual body and actually saying something was last chapter and he was EATING. Then we went back to them just passively staring at everything that went on. And to add onto this, I dislike demon Mika as a plot IN GENERAL because it recessed any development both for HIM and for Yuu himself. Yuu acts stupid (wtf happened to him after Nagoya I'm being so serious Nagoya Yuu I miss you so much) as shit cus anyway Mika IS strong enough to let him get away with it but not enough to oppose Yuu at some point and this was addressed as a problem for like 2 seconds and then nothing. Oh my God. And not only that but this fucking thing also shows that Mika did, indeed, also get hit with a mysoginy beam, but that's another topic I want to talk about in another post if anyone even really cares about it.

So... Yeah. I'm not tired (I only started catching up in March after my rewatch, so I'm still curios about how this will go), but I AM sad. I really miss the earlier arcs and the potential they all had that now seems like a long lost memory. Can we all collectevely just go back to the Nagoya one like if the series stuck to that path I would be able to excuse its flaws up until a point because GOD. The eyeball with its Seraph shit or whatever the hell it was doing was cool tho.

As always y'all can tell me what y'all think, but I'm mostly expecting this to get lost in the void given how dead the fandom is. So yeah, see ya.

[rindemption]

I finished Veilguard....

(Vague mentions of major spoilers, read at your own risk)

Not gonna lie I'm kinda pissed. Really? Really? The guy you met for 10 minutes at the end of an optional DLC two games ago?? That's your big reveal? That's the lead in to the next game? I thought this was supposed to be our closure, I thought this was supposed to be the last chapter of the story. You can't keep bringing this guy up at the end of credits and expect me to give a shit, I have no stakes, no skin in the game.

Also I'm still convinced Varric was just a shoe-in to pull old fans, so that "twist" was just to hand wave him out of any plot importance or an active roll in the game. He could have been replaced by any kind of mentor/faction-tie-in and it would have hit the same for Rook. It was shock value for old players and that was it.

This whole game feels like a first draft that never got revised, characters that never got fleshed out beyond "three interests, one goal, one flaw".

I did enjoy parts of it, sure. I'm disappointed in bioware (or really EA, I think they're the big culprits in this), but I didn't hate it. I just think this was not 10 years worth of work. It feels more like some fan's attempt at their own ending to the story, rather than the original game company and writers and directors wrapping up the story they wanted to tell. That's the only way I can really enjoy it, separating it from the other games in the franchise.

Like, it didn't even feel like there was much chance to really connect with the companions. Companion quests were two dimensional when it came to things like personality and goals and motivations. You never even get to talk to them outside of predetermined moments. There isn't even any kind of real relationship established until the end of the game. I remember when bioware used to have the balls to have you in a full on romance (bedroom scene included) in the middle of the game.

The characters are barely more than building blocks, and if you want to know anything about them you have to either hope there's some tie in media, or dig through tweets. Mostly you just have to make it up yourself.

The politics, and flaws of the country and the people, and the issues going on the world feel defanged, like they suddenly got scared to get too dark and too gritty. Where's the blatant classism between Teventer mages and non-mages and and elves outside of ambiant dialog? Where's the slavery outside of the Venatori? Where's the mistreatment of the dalish and qunari outside of... codex? Where's the daily struggle of the elves trying to hold on to the scraps of their past in a world that wants to treat them like shit, outside of Bellara vaguely mentioning it? So much of this game and the world's lore was fumbled so badly. Corruption among Templars is barely even touched on and that's been a huge point in all the other games.

Supposedly doing things to make those issues better, to put someone in power to end slavery, to help raise the dalish up, to help people be less racist, to remove corruption among the powerful, to help, it doesn't have the same punch to it when those things don't even seem to be happening. In any noticeable capacity. At all. Not even in conversation with your own companions outside of possibly one or two lines.

Also anyone calling the game "woke" is just a shut-in whose too online, honestly their one commentary on anything "woke" related was done so horribly it was kind of embarrassing. Like they were trying too hard to show off how good of allies they were, they made it that character's only personality trait or point of conversation (and anything not directly related was in some capacity a metaphor).

I have so many more thoughts but it's all jumbled up right now. I do still plan on doing a second canon playthrough knowing how things work now but I need to go sit and stew for a bit

[thekaijudude]

What do you think about Tsburaya and Bandai literally not giving any Fuck about Ultraman's 55th and Jack's 50th during Trigger's run only in favor to celebrate tiga with a awful show?

They could easily used Ultraman to help Trigger against Banila and Aboras instead of created a fucking trigger Dark out of nowhere

As well they could easily used Jack instead of Ribut who didn't make any sense there with those absolutians

Plus Jiro Dan was still alive and well back at that time and they could at least give him his last appearence in the franchise considering what would eventually happen to him......

Like The Original Ultraman was the begin of everything and without him I don't think it would not even had other franchise such as Rider and Sentai

Jack's sucess helped Tsburaya to creat many other Ultras after him and without him the Ultra series could had died with Eiji

I don't really liked how they were ignored during 2021 only to celebrate tiga and they failed anyway

They did run commemorative stageshows tho

But they went with pushing the TDG's 25th Anniversary as the overarching commemoration agenda, and you can't say they failed either as Trigger and Decker were the most profitable series of all time (see the financial reports for 2021 and 2022 fiscal years I posted)

Trigger Dark's appearance in the Banila episode was crucial as it set up a turning point for Ignis' character development

While Ribut was basically the mascot for UGF3 at the time as well, not to mention it was also part of their "canonization" of Ribut

It was incredibly unfortunate with what happened to Jiro Dan's actor but TsuPro has been trying to move on from the Ultra Brothers ever since Mebius, which is why the powerscaling have been toned down massively and the appearance of the Ultra Brothers have been reduced to one-off cameos in the main series (even the Heisei Ultras are getting the same treatment, even Zero as well from Trigger onwards), only really given time to shine in UGF installments nowadays (which is one of the reasons why I love UGF)

Not to mention i suspect TsuPro has also started to take an even more drastic turn with creating a brand new "multiverse" starting with Blazar. As Blazar and Arc are no longer successors (spiritual or otherwise) of previous seasons

And I suspect this is gonna be TsuPro's modus operandi going forward, especially with regards to the anniversaries of the Showa Ultras especially

Unless they hit the u turn with the 2025 series which may be likely due to how bad Blazar and Arc did financially.

Tbh, I'm fine with all of this because it's evident that TsuPro wants to rebrand themselves, which is understandable given that it's nearly a 60 year old franchise, such rebrandings are bound to occur. Imo, I prefer it if they at least keep crossover episodes a thing so we can link up back every single ultra somehow. Plus of course the continuation of the UGF series to bring everyone back together

Thanks for the question!

[blackbirdsnonsense]

So I watched the Monster High season two finale today and I loved as usual! Lot of great character moments in there, more world building, Clankie bits and just overall fun this version of the franchise has become known for.

As a season finale it's great! As a series finale...well I guess it was better than the way MLP G5 ended. Less abrupt at least.

But still I can't help but feel mad about the whole situation! Nickelodeon definitely mishandled this show by making a seasonal thing. As I said before, I get what they were going for but that just doesn't work for a series! Movies, yes! Series, no!

I also can't help but feel that the inclusiveness & representation is a BIG part of what might have gotten it cancelled. We saw that happen with The Owl House over on Disney. It doesn't matter how popular the show is or how much money it's making, if some bigoted executive doesn't like it, it's gone.

And that's a damn shame cause we NEED cartoons like this right now. To show all the queer kids and the outcasts that they're not alone. That they are loved and have people who will love them. It's a damn shame so many dumbfucks are against that.

It hits hard for me personally though because not only did G3 quickly become my comfort show but it's what got me into Monster High in the first place. I had always been aware of Monster High & was curious to check it out but never really got around to it. I did buy one DVD collection of the shorts back in 2017 & I liked it. But for whatever reason I just never felt the need to really watch it.

Then G3 came along with it's RELENTLESS advertising for the live action movies on Pluto TV! I'm pretty sure half of why I checked it out is cause "The Three of Us" got stuck in my head thanks to those commercials!

So, yeah, the live action stuff is what finally got me interested in it and before I watched that I watch Adventures of the Ghoul Squad on Amazon Prime. So if you ever wonder why I defend G2 so much, that's why. It was really my first one. Then after watching the movie I found a 6 hour compilation of the G1 shorts on YouTube & said, "Screw it, let's do this!"

And I just fell down the rabbit. After watching the shorts I tried to watch the movies but of course now they were all paywalled. At the time, I didn't think I cared enough to buy them all & now I own them all on either digital or DVD. Some both!

So, yeah, I hyperfixated. As I am want to do. To the point where I watched Ever After High well and like that one too!

All because of Monster High G3. Which, by the way, is why old timers in fandoms REALLY need to lighten up about the current version of their franchise. New versions and changes ARE good cause they can bring in new fans! Everything can't be the same all the time! If the whole franchise is good enough, people WILL go back & watch the older stuff! So calm the fuck down!

Now as for what's gonna happen to G3, I can't say. I REALLY hope some miracle happens and it gets renew for a third season here real soon. But if not I hope it can continue in the form of either web shorts on YouTube, DVD movie releases or a comic from IDW. Or all of that ideally! Either way, these ghouls have worked their way into my heart & I will be here for the next step in the journey for whatever that may be.

As for the G3 TV series, all I can say is thank you and...

[kariohki]

often now since mygo anime ended, i think about morfonica's introduction to and place in the franchise and how differently they land with the fandom (mainly from EN view but they didn't really resonate with JP as much either)

coming out of almost nowhere with very little buildup put into garupa immediately before RAS, a band that had existed IRL for over a year their first song wasn't super interesting and to some, outright bad sounding their story writing has generally been on the mid to poor side with character development feeling backtracked or nonexistent

and i think what could've been done differently that isn't "give them a wholeass anime as intro" because that doesn't really fix three of those points? imagine a different timeline where morfonica had a dedicated season for band story 1 presumably directly after S3 ended, still got added into the game (which would've been pushed back to 3.5th or 4th anniversary) before RAS, still had initial songs that didn't hit well, and still had poor game writing after the anime...

so not sure what could've really worked. more lead up to their introduction via the main story other than just Mashiro appearing a few times? pushing them back to 3.5th anniversary anyway so RAS could've gotten in first at 3rd or shortly after when S3 finished? better writing post-addition so that they don't feel just kind of there?

thoughts appreciated if anyone has any