#I remain cautiously optimistic

[heyclickadee]

Now that I’ve slept on it and gotten over some mild initial disappointment, I think there could be something to that. The three main things for which we get as of yet unresolved setup in The Bad Batch are: Rex and the larger clone agency story; Tech coming back and the bad batch as a family; and something I kind of admit I thought was just going to roll into the clone story, which is the criminal underground stuff. And while I personally feel like the criminal underground stuff is the least pressing, that does seem to be what we’re doing next. (Interestingly enough, TBB and the criminal underground gang war show is kind of reflected in the first two of the arcs we get in clone wars season seven: the bad batch arc, and then the Martez sisters arc where we get reintroduced to the pikes. So hopefully the third arc we get there is reflected, too.)

While I don’t think Tech would play a major role if he showed up in the Maul show, I do think there’s room for him there. Out of any of the clones he’s the one with the most direct connections to that criminal underworld (he’s still owed that favor by Cid and he’s got that connection with Phee, who runs in those spaces even if she’s doing it for good reasons). @drafthorsemath pointed out that while Rampart is trying to send info about project necromancer a symbol that looks a hell of a lot like the two innermost circles of the crimson dawn symbol pops up on the screen, so maybe Maul shows up and grabs what he can—funky necromancer pods included—before Tarkin shows up. If we’re looking at a CX-Tech scenario, which I’m not ruling out, maybe he Maul sees a half dead group of CXs and goes “free assassins!” Or, alternatively, maybe a very lost, previously CXd Tech finds his way off Tantiss himself and ends up temporarily working with one of Maul’s rival gangs.

It would be a way to follow up on what I’ve always thought was one of the most heavy handed foreshadowing lines, “Don’t run off with any pirates or smugglers while you’re gone.” Well, that would be running off with smugglers. Or smugglers running of with him. It would just be very easy to put Tech in there and do a minor subplot with him where he’s still separated from everyone, and potentially still not knowing who he is before maybe tying him back into the larger clone plot and bringing him home when we shift back that direction. Not definite, but there’s room there. Especially since this seems to be taking place in the same era as TBB. It actually wouldn’t surprise me if it overlaps a bit, since it’s early days for Crimson Dawn.

Plus, the thing that kind of gave me the biggest pause from the panel was probably Filoni talking about seeing how all the arcs work together and what they’re moving towards, which kind of tells me that the long or long-ish form animated shows aren’t really being thought of as fully separate entities and instead represent shifts in perspective as we move along some kind of interconnected plot that has a conclusion we haven’t yet reached but which I suspect is going to tie this whole era of animation together. That, basically, the largest unit of storytelling here isn’t the individual shows, it’s whatever overarching thing they’ve got happening.

Which is annoying on the one hand because it’s deeply unsatisfying in the short term (I like conclusions!), but it could potentially work in the long term. I’m willing to let it play out. Even if I’m going to be a little grumpy the whole time.

Okay, no, you know what? Here’s why I think Tech is alive and coming back at some point, and was always planned to be. It’s because even going through season three it’s the best damn set up for a character resurrection I’ve ever seen, and the most cleanly laid out fakeout. It’s remarkable set up. Same with further clone stories. And not in a, “They’ll think about revisiting it eventually,” way, but in a, “There’s some kind of structure here where it’s baked in.”

[violetreminder]

Re: Palworld and AI, pretty sure the designs were finalized before generative AI took off anyway. First trailer was years ago

See this is a really good point. The announcement trailer released in 2021 with most if not all the designs intact and while generative AI existed it wouldn't be very useful for making all the Pal designs.

Semi related I've looked into people's claims about the CEO being gung-ho on AI and NFTs and while their Jackbox-esque game about telling AI art from peoples drawings does raise my eyebrow a bit, from what I can tell it's all standard CEO speak where he's just talking about Popular (and possibly profitable) Thing and trend chasing in an attempt to follow hypothetical money. NFTs have since been cast as a pariah and any attempt at adding them in games has been shown to be an impossible task on a conceptual level so I'm not too concerned about Pocketpair adding them to Palworld

If anything I'm more concerned that they'll just abandon the game without refining anything but there's a lot more eyes and wallets on this than there were on Craftopia so I have hope.

tl;dr: yeah we should be critical of what the Pocketpair CEO says but in the same way we should be critical of anything that ANY CEO says.

[tau1tvec]

Official Fallout TV Series Poster and Teaser Trailer.

[cringecompanionapologist]

My Immediate Responses to Every Episode of This Season

Space Babies: Lol that was fine I guess

The Devil's Chord: Pretty good, though maybe it's a bit early in the season for the Evil God thing...

Boom: Yep Doctor Who is definitely good rn

73 Yards: I feel slightly traumatized but in a good way

Dot and Bubble: I love this but people are going to be so annoying about it.

Rogue: DOCTOR YOU HAD BETTER FUCKING FIND HIM-

The Legend of Ruby Sunday: We didn't learn much about Ruby but Sutekh's cool I guess

Empire of Death: Didn't quite stick the landing, but I liked the season overall, so I don't care.

[caramsels]

honestly i’ve been pretty.. worried about little nightmares 3 so i’m glad it’s been postponed so they can work on it’s quality

[princeyam]

good luck

[barkovsasha]

update on barky, ekky and luosty

[queenofbaws]

the new trailer for the ud remaster has had me thinking about self aware au again, specifically the supermassive version of the kids meeting the remaster versions and feeling like something is a little... off :]

"Hey, um, newsflash, assholes," Emily hissed as she forced her way into their huddle, her hands splayed out and patting at the air until she found a spot she could slide into, "someone failed a goddamn quicktime back there, so until one of you finds my eyeballs and pops them back in, I don't know why we're all whispering and shit!"

It was clear at once that, while they didn't want to peel their own eyes away from the newcomers, neither did Matt or Jess particularly want to keep looking at them; they traded a wordless nod (mostly due to their, uh, compromised jaws), then began scouring the great room's floor for any sign of said eyeballs.

The others were less inclined to help.

"Do you think this is what pumas feel like when they, y'know, spot a house cat wandering around outside - like, hey, you kind of look like me, but also eugh, what the fuck are you?" Mike asked, then quickly popped out of the huddle to wave across the room in a horrible, horrible bid to appear casual.

"What the fuck is going on?!" Emily hissed again, but before she could pull in another breath to continue grilling him, Ashley sighed, resigned, and begrudgingly popped one of her own eyeballs out, pushing it roughly into Emily's open socket. "I - " and then she saw them, " - what in God's name did they do to my face?!"

six sentence sat(or)sunday!!!

[razzadoop]

...

[ofmermaidstories]

everytime i see the My Hero Academia poster/whatever on netflix im violently reminded of the live action adaptation they’ve got in the works lmao.

[ratasum]

Ugh okay. Some thoughts. I have specifically tagged this as soto critical so that if you enjoyed it, you know what you're getting into. These are my opinions. If you enjoyed it I genuinely am thrilled for you, no sarcasm at all, but my usual disclaimer remains that I did not. I'm not gonna come at you or attack you for enjoying it, I promise; we all have different opinions and that is good and valid.

(Not that I hated it entirely; I actually love a lot about it. I just was not thrilled with everything in the end.)

I've also specifically censored names so they don't show up in those characters tags to the best of my ability.

First I'd like to go over what I actually really did enjoy:

The new maps are visually stunning. I'm on the fence about the heavy reliance on Skyscales, but they're creative and interesting to look at and fun to explore.

Love P*itha (though not like that I just think she's Neat I need to clarify that) and the Krypt*s. Really wish we could've spent a lot more time digging into the power structure there but I like that they think WE'RE the ugly ones.

I've been gnawing on the shadiness and cult-like nature of the Astr*l Ward since the jump and am really hopeful their behavior gets treated with the gravity it genuinely deserves.

It was nice to see Z*jja again, even if my opinion of how she was handled is... well. We'll get to that below.

The W*zard Vault is a HUGE improvement over the daily system, don't @ me. Love being able to spend my fun bucks on whatever I want whenever I want without being bogged down in "ugh it's x days until I can get clovers or a tome."

I'm keeping R'tch*kk, Glade, and Z*zel. Fr*de too. And L*hr. No one can stop me.

All that being said...

Glad they admitted they bit off FAR too much. SotO felt too big for its britches after the first drop, and what could've been really interesting things got shoved into closets and out windows to make way to hurry along to the next beat. Everything was equal parts rushed and a slog, lore buried in journal and hidden text over and over and over. The pacing was absurd.

To say nothing about how miserably they flubbed Z*jja's story. What could've been a really interesting dive into what she went through as she maybe journeyed into and through Nay*s with us, her going through a will she won't she until deciding in the end that maybe ascension was the best option? Nothing. Hurriedly mind wiped off screen before the second drop even hit and shoved completely out of the narrative with barely any relevance to the story as it stood, despite how loudly anet banged the pots and pans of how super big and important her arc was.

You literally could replace her with a lamp and it would change practically nothing about the story. She wasn't even relevant to the greater story at all. Why was she even there?

To say nothing about those really juicy drops of how shady the Astral Ward was, between the bits in the fractals, G*lrath's threat, the "something has gone wrong" status effect at the end of the third drop, and none of that was followed through on.

And I say this as someone who loved the first drop immensely, liked what we were seeing, was genuinely intrigued... and then nothing.

I really wish we could've either stuck with the ward, or had the ward be barely introduced before being tossed into Nay*s and spending most of our time there so that we didn't have all this setup that felt like it dangled.

I'm glad to see they took the criticisms on the pacing and story content to heart, though, and maybe it'll improve. Still feeling a bit stung, and there's a LOT I'm still planning on rewriting (gonna tweak some stuff with the knowledge we'll be addressing the ward again... hopefully. Z*jja's still not there though sorry not sorry anet).

I'll remain cautiously optimistic in the meantime.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

I may be laying on the floor staring into the void, merely vibrating as my brain rots about Veilguard, Rook, the companions, and Solas.

...this is the perfect excuse to replay my canon route.

Apologies in advance: I'm about to make my brainrot replay a problem for everyone and everything in my vicinity.

[raincandy-u]

senpai is an otokonoko has made me cry several times while watching through it and the last episode cemented its 10/10 score for me as well as its top spot on my anilist faves. this anime is truly something special

[talonpaw]

we could have had SUCH an interesting setup with sunbeam living in riverclan full time immediately after getting dumped by nightheart, but nooooooo. sunbeam has to immediately move to thunderclan. 😑

[tacitusauxilium]

So I saw the Persona 3 Reload panel on YouTube.

Can I just say I cried when people saw the new Fuuka concept art and they were all chanting her name?! My husband even grabbed my arm cause he was so happy for me.

God she looks so good!

[akkivee]

woke up feeling excited for their possibilities!!!!!!!!!!!