#I personally hope maybe Atlas or Prometheus shows up

[semi-good-artist]

I thought i might just put this out here.

I had some theories/ideas on the aspects we haven't seen their character for, so thats

Momus (Descura), the god of being a little hater

Pan (Lim and Oros), god of the wild

Eos (Ygnium), goddess of the dawn

Thanatos (Zorophet)

Persephone (Ravaal)

Why do I think these people show up? Hecate, I think, mentions that Melinoe will meet them

I imagine Than and Persephone to be encounterend in the House of Hades. I don't think this is such a great stretch, so yea.

Pan, I think would fit as a random encounter in the third area on the way above, which i assume is the plains of thessaly or maybe the foot of olympus (see the next segment why i think that). I imagine he could either give boon like Artemis or maybe just another reward maybe relating to plants? since hes a fertility god.

Heres a map showcasing my theory of the route Melinoe takes to the Olymp. to address my choice of Ephyra, I chose Ephyra (Cichyrus) since that one has the closest mythological ties to the underworld (as far as my knowledge goes), since both Heracles and Odysseus passed it on their journeys. of course the distance in game gets smushed so take this with a grain of salt. Anyways geography lesson over.

Momus and eos could both show up in the crossroads since all the children of Nyx are welcome there, but Eos could also be met on Olympus i think as the reason why Mel gets sent back. this is because each attempt takes place in one Night, and the end of a night is the dawn. I have no theories what Momus could do other than criticise everyone, maybe give tips/run reviews but we already got Odysseus and Schelemeus for that.

[cardboard-aliens]

I REALLY hope they don’t remake Bioshock 1 since the remastered version is as good as it’s going to get (in my eyes at least), but if they did remake it whats something you’d like to see changed?

ME NEITHER- They're not just gonna repackage the game and update the graphics and mechanics, if they're gonna remake it, it'll end up being a whole new game in a BioShock skin.

There are small tweaks to the base game I wouldn't mind tho: - bring back the ethnic little sisters cowards

- less serious note but let me carry the girls to the vents 2K!!!!

- All named characters getting their own unique models (yeah like Tenenbaum and Atlas- BUT ALSO Jasmine and Diane, if they've got a name they should have their own model. I think it would be really good if characters like the Lutz family and Anya Andersdotter had their own models so we could follow minor characters better)

- a REAL neutral ending (harvest pre-reveal, rescue post-reveal) so when Tenenbaum beckons Bad End!Jack to change he can.

- also if you harvest there are less sisters in the sanctuary- and if you go full bad end the sisters don't show up to finish Fontaine and Jack would take care of it on his own.

- Model Jack some legs and feet- so i can see his fancy shoes

- Add in some extra accuvoxs: give us more Jasmine and Anna Culpepper logs they are GREAT and Jasmine is so important she deserves to have more than one log and a ghost. Also I'd like some more logs post reveal from Tenenbaum and Fontaine's perspective on working on Project WYK instead of just Suchong's- I REALLY want to hear some of Tenenabaum's thoughts and eventual guilt over Jack.

- TBH if we lived in a timeline where we got Anna Culpepper running the fort frolic level instead of Cohen I would not complain

- make the game PLAYABLE so it doesn't CRASH EVERYTIME I TRY TO SAV-

- I actually don't hate the final boss fight and it has a lot of good narrative meaning for the story and character arcs- but the fight 100% need to be balanced and reworked to make it more challenge, along with some better pacing in Point Prometheus to build up to seeing Fontaine all big and blue

- Redo the pacing on the ending scene, the stuff there is 10/10 but you can blink and miss it.

- Maybe lay down a nod on why Sisters got left behind for BS2 (This is the only thing that trips me up about BS2- I can't picture Tenenbaum leaving Rapture for 8 years if there was a chance there were still girls left, ESP if its Good End and she knows she has a place she could send girls too on the surface- and I think Jack would be more than willing to stick around in the city to pick up any children that got missed [personal HC is that when Lamb took over Persephone her and her followers also abducted some little sisters in the chaos of the riots and then locked down the prison- so they'd have their own stable source of ADAM while being safely disconnected from the city, and then those girls grow up into the big sisters- and that's why Tenenbaum leaves, because she thinks they got all the girls and the one's lamb took are dead after all this time])

- Never acknowledge BaS, don't even touch that stuff with a 10 yard pole unless its to subtly retcon it with Atlas being like "we were only ever cooped up in Apollo Square- What department store"

- tweaking Tenenbaum's character so the holocaust survivor isn't also a Nazi Scientist- I'd have her pick up science after the fact as a way to cope with what she saw in the camps.

Thats most of the stuff I can think of atm- i wouldn't mind them adding variety to the skin tones of the cast though I can already hear people complaining about 'forcing politics into my video games'- same with LGBT characters to balance out Cohen.

REALLY tho I'd want to keep most of the story beats and characters the same because thats what creates the narrative i enjoy from this game.

[electronicyarn]

REALLY Not Live Blogging RWBY Vol. 8

Yes, I’ve FINALLY finished watching Volume 8. I’m only months late to the party. Well, for the sake of tradition here are my thoughts. The short version is thus. What an awful start. What a spectacular finish.

I’m not going to lie. For a while there I thought we might have another Volume 4 on our hands. Although I guess that’s not entirely fair. Volume 4’s big crime was being aggressively mediocre, something RWBY should never be. The first five episodes of Volume 8 were really bad. Not any-scene-with-Caroline-in-it-in-Volume-6 bad, but still pretty bad. The opening in particular I found to be forced and artificial. The disagreement between Ruby and Yang didn’t really come from anywhere, and half the team seemed to be divvied up based purely on the needs of the narrative rather than any proper character motivations.

Other highlights (lowlights?) include them twice using “falling from a great height” as a shorthand for danger (something that the principal cast proved they could handle early in Volume 1 with the landing strategies scene) and The Hound’s introduction where he kidnapped Oscar. I get what they were going for with The Hound’s big debut, but Team Yang really didn’t fight back. At all. They just kind of stood there with their mouths hanging open. It wasn’t a good way to credibly establish The Hound as a threat. For point of contrast, see The Neo vs. Yang fight way back in Volume 2. There was no doubt after that was over that Neo was a very real threat.

I also found everything surrounding the first Penny vs. Cinder fight (Neo vs. Maria, Emerald, etc.) to be distinctly underwhelming. It’s a problem that RWBY’s had for a while now. The less important fights in a volume are rather poorly thought out and animated. But maybe I shouldn’t complain. They do still do a great job on the primary battles. Maybe RWBY needs fewer fight scenes? Feels weird to even suggest that.

But now that I’ve ragged on Volume 8 for three paragraphs…. Wow, what a turnaround. Everything from about Episode 6 on was spectacular. Oscar and Ozpin’s relationship. Everything involving Hazel. The reveal that, yes Cinder had a horrible childhood, but she was always evil. Establishing a more personal connection between Salem and Yang, mirroring the one that Salem and Ruby already have. The destruction of Atlas. I could go on and on. And I will. But there are several things I want to talk about more specifically.

I guess first up is Nora and Ren. They’re now fully-fledged characters, having completed their slow transition from caricatures. I’ve got to be honest. I’m kind of neutral on Nora and Ren. I’m not really invested in their story, but it doesn’t annoy me either. I did however find it amusing that they simultaneously confirmed and shut down Ren/Nora being canon. Two characters in an official relationship? In our RWBY? No way! Leave it for the fanfic writers. But they did say I love you. That’s more than any other potential pairing’s gotten. (I think? I could be forgetting something.) So there’s that.

As an aside, I’m pleased that we got our requisite dose of Bumbleby subtext but also frustrated that they don’t have the stones to do more than that. I’m not surprised however. This is exactly what I predicted would happen.

Also as an aside, when Team RWBY was summoning Ambrosius, I literally said out loud something to the effect of, “Alright, Rooster Teeth. Let me see the sexy man counterpart to Jinn.” I was not disappointed. Good job, Rooster Teeth.

The next topic is Penny’s and Ironwood’s character arcs for this season. I loved both of these. Ironwood’s was one of pure tragedy. Plus it had the side effect of clearing out extraneous characters, something I always approve of as RWBY has precious little running time for what it’s trying to do. And Penny got to complete her more-literal-than-I-expected Pinocchio story. I have no doubt that some people were upset with her death, but while probably not strictly necessary, I think it was done well. It was the culmination of her self-actualization as a person. I’m not going to lie though. I thought the Winter Maiden power was going to go to Weiss (since Ruby had been conveniently dropped out of reality by that point). Way back in Volume 3 when we first learned about the Maidens my second thought was, “Four Maidens, four main characters. Hmm.” It’s pretty obvious now that’s not going to happen. Or if it does, it’ll be in the last volume.

(For the record, my first thought was, “Did you come up with the idea of the Maidens before or after you named one character ‘Summer’ and another one ‘Winter’.” And hey look. You saw what happened this volume.)

And that brings us to Neo. Neo-mother-effing-politan. Neo- “I’m going to steal from the literal devil because I know I’m going to get away with it” -politan. Yang may be my favorite character, but Neo is the best character. If she wasn’t before, this volume has sealed the deal. I loved everything about her this volume. From her meeting Salem and obviously thinking “Oh hell no.” to her skipping through a field of death showing Prometheus how stealing fire from the gods is supposed to be done. She is the most strongly characterized character in the whole show (barring possibly Torchwick himself) and she doesn’t even speak. Aaand now she’s left Remanent along with Team RWBY. I did predict back before Volume 4 started that Neo would ultimately end up teaming up with Ruby and company. It was really a just-for-fun prediction. Buuut….

Well I guess there’s nothing left to talk about except the ending. I do admit, I was a little panicked when Yang took the plunge. I don’t pay attention to any of the official social media or news surrounding RWBY. Stuff like that usually ruins a show for me. So I was worried that maybe Barbara had decided to leave the cast. But then Ruby and Blake fell off too, and I was like, “Ah. This is what we’re doing.”

But what’s going to happen to Team RWBY? I can tell you what I hope’s going to happen. I think it’s time for Team RWBY to get a power up. Maybe it’s time for some intense training in a world removed from Remanent à la the Hyperbolic Time Chamber from Dragon Ball Z? My dream scenario is they spend a year or two or three doing something and then make it back to Remnant to find only a few days have passed. But we’ll see. All I know is I’m excited. In my opinion, the second half of Volume 8 was just the shot in the arm RWBY needed. I’m really looking forward to whatever comes next in a way that I haven’t in quite a while.

[pahrak-the-sinnoh-slizer]

Notes on the Ending of Mega Man ZX Termination

Maybe I’m just being anxious but there’s one or two things I just feel like I should elaborate on.  Obviously contains spoilers for Part 17!

So, my original plan was for this story to have multiple endings.  According to that plan, after the Pseudoroids were dealt with and Thomas went to finish Model T, there would be sightings of the enemy Mega Men testing out their new Biometals, and Aile would need to decide if she wanted to go deal with them first, or go straight for Thomas.  First I was going to show what happened if she went to fight Thomas immediately, and like in the final product, Grey would get possessed and all four other Mega Men would show up, except this iteration would involve Aile being fatally wounded in the process.  While I didn’t get the hard details worked out, Aile would manage to slip away and find some way to influence the programming of the Carbons (or maybe just one), planting the idea of a hero named Mega Man before succumbing to her wounds; Thomas would win, the world would end, everyone would die, and we’d be set up for Mega Man Legends, our only solace being the implicit hope that Aile’s final act would eventually give rise to Trigger/Volnutt who will, one day, finally destroy Master Thomas’s System.  After that I’d cut back and have Aile instead hunt down the Mega Men one by one, while Fleuve found a way to extract Prometheus and Pandora from Grey, and then they go and fight the true final boss for a happy ending.

It wasn’t long before I decided to just do this one ending.

While I’m all for terrible things happening throughout a story, writing an ending where the villain completely wins and causes untold devastation with all our heroes deader than dead and the only glimmer of hope being something we’ll never actually see come to fruition would’ve really…really gotten me down.  Besides, Mega Man ZX is about fighting and changing destiny, and Termination specifically became about forming your own identity by eschewing the expectations put upon you.  Defying the canon timeline (and perhaps also audience expectations) is really the most thematically appropriate way to end it.

I’ve got plenty of questions about the timeline, sure, but setting up for Mega Man Legends wasn’t what really drove me to write this story—I wrote it because I love Mega Man ZX and want closure for it.  Besides, I’m sure the Legends timeline is still out there.  Maybe there’s a universe where Aile did give up, or where Atlas didn’t save her, or where Grey couldn’t break free.  Hell, maybe Vent and Ashe are the ones who fail to defeat Thomas.

And this doesn’t mean everything’s perfect now: Aile’s never going to be the person she really wishes she could be, and while she has accepted that, it’s not like it’ll never bother her ever again.  But!  She and the people she love are alive, and with their help she can find a way to cope with that.  And ultimately that’s just the ending I needed to write.

Also I swear “noumenon” is a real word, here’s proof.