#a lot of people really missed the point and setup of these shows and i felt like it is a disservice to both

[hyperfixated-unicorn]

Another sxf vs bd fandom war in Twitter 🙄 Worse, it seems like a lot of sxf fans and bd fans can't stop being homophobic or misogynistic in their takes. Seriously, just rest this shit already and enjoy both shows.

[thezombieprostitute]

Tech Tuesday - Introductions

A/N: Entirely written on my phone. Apologies for errors!

A/N2: This chapter is mainly an introduction to the setting and the majority of the characters. It'll be different readers for each character (give or take).

Ok, first day, very important to not make an idiot of yourself. That's been your internal mantra for the entire commute. You've been really hoping it'll help you out today.

You've gotten a ticket to take to IT for your new work laptop but you got lost trying to find your way there. You look around at the signs, trying to figure it out when someone gently coughs to get your attention. Turning you see a tall, lean man with short blondish brown hair and light blue eyes.

"Do you need some help?" His accent and soft tone help soothe your nerves.

"Um..." you hesitate. "I'm, I'm trying to find the IT department?"

His eyes widen as he smiles, "you must be the new hire." You nod and he holds out his hand, "I'm Jonathan, manager of the IT department. I'll show you the way."

He talks as he guides you to the one section of the building you hadn't been to yet.

"Here is our own little corner of the world," Jonathan gestures around the open area. "For a new employee you're going to want to talk to Jake." He points to a young man with spiky hair, glasses and a goatee who's talking on the phone.

"Ain't gonna happen for a while." A large bear of a man with a beard and a bald top, wearing a Lynyrd Skinner shirt steps towards you. "He's helping that little old lady on the third floor that never remembers her password."

"Ah, yes," Jonathan winces. "She is quite the talker." He looks to you and introduces the second man as Syverson. "We both run the department but Sy is better at managing the employees while I'm better at convincing the higher ups to give us a better budget."

"One of th' smoothest talkers I've ever worked with," Sy grins. "As far as your laptop, you wait right here an' I'll go get from Walter. He's our main hardware guy. Then we'll get...hmmm." He looks around as he ponders.

"Johnny is currently mid battle with that hacker he keeps toying with," Jonathan muses. "How is Ransom's mood today?"

Sy snorts, "same as always. Definitely don't wanna scare the lady away." He snaps his fingers, "Rogers!"

A head pops out of a cubicle, "you call?"

"Got a new employee," Sy explains. "Gonna need you to help her get her laptop setup." Sy turns and heads to where you're guessing Walter is with the hardware you'll need.

You turn back to where Steve was situated and almost jump at seeing him so close. He's huge but you didn't hear him at all! The big and tall blonde man's eyes are shining with enthusiasm.

He holds out his hand and you introduce yourself. "It's nice to meet you. Not a lot of new people around here lately. I work with the designs for our internal programs. Me and Bucky," he gestures back to his cubicle, "work together on the UX and accessibility stuff for the external website."

"That's impressive," you nod, practically hypnotized by his eyes. And his muscles, if you're being honest with yourself.

Sy returns and hands Steve the laptop. "Follow me," Steve smiles as he turns. You try your best to fight the urge to ogle his ass. It's your first day and you don't want to already make a fool of yourself! No matter how handsome these guys are.

Steve takes you through the setup. He's incredibly patient and kind. Plus his voice could keep your attention forever. He's going through some of the standard company security stuff when there's a knock. You both turn and you see a burly man with a beanie and a beard so full you almost miss the lip piercing.

"Hey, Curtis. What's up?"

"Bucky's out getting another coffee," Curtis starts. "Need you to tell him I've got the code worked out for the next update and need him to check the legacy compatibility."

"Sure thing," Steve nods and Curtis heads back to whenever he'd been.

"Don't you have an internal communications thing for this?" You're surprised that someone has to intervene in the communication.

Steve chuckles as he pulls out his phone. "Bucky never responds to work stuff while he's out, even just to a cafe. But there's a time crunch on this and I'm the only person he'll actually check his phone for."

"Oh," is all you can say.

Steve finishes his text and gets back to your training. When you're done you thank him for everything and he blushes a little.

"If you want I can help you with the physical setup at your desk?" He almost looks like he's pleading for you to say yes.

"It won't be a problem? I don't want to get you in trouble."

"Not at all," he assures. "Besides, I don't want to be here for the upcoming Bucky and Curtis debate."

You giggle nervously, "ok. And thank you!"

Tagging @alicedopey; @delicatebarness; @ellethespaceunicorn; @icefrozendeadlyqueen; @late-to-the-party-81; @lokislady82 ; @ronearoundblindly

Also tagging @jaqui-has-a-conspiracy-theory to test if this post is working!

Please let me know if you'd like to be tagged.

[otogariado]

only halfway thru the new frieren episode i was almost tearing up because the theme of protecting each other and caring about life more importantly than winning is so poignant. not all the characters are human in species but once again the humanity is blossoming in frieren's story. i was so afraid they'd actually get killed last ep but i mean it's so funny now what was i even thinking. this is frieren. they won't kill unless it was really necessary.

the reveal that richter raised the platform not to make his fight with lawline and kanne easier but actually to protect them from denken's attacks was so good. the "magic is nothing if you cannot imagine it" line is so wonderful because i'm a big fan of magic systems that revolve around that logical "science-y" aspect of like. understanding how it will work in order to do it. (same reason why i love the magic in "world's greatest assassin".) laufen getting caught by frieren even though she knows it's a trap just bc she didn't want denken to get hurt was also so good. the reveal that denken didn't have a grander motive to be a first class mage beyond "i wanna go back to my hometown and visit the cementary there but only first class mages are allowed to enter" was so painfully human and so reflective of real life. it also strikes you because he was introduced as a high-profile, politically influential mage.

i love what denken says about not going out without a fight. i love that the episode ends in a fistfight for him. i love it when media uses fistfights and punching in such an emotionally-charged human way, beyond the violence, instead depicting it as some sort of catharsis really. because sometimes all you need is a good rough n tumble. in denken's case, it's his way of not giving up without a fight. i like that. i also like that this was foreshadowed by denken telling laufen to cut the tree down instead of trying to cut the restraint. "we don't have any mana" "neither do they". sometimes all it takes is to find a differently way to approach your problems and sometimes the solution is simpler than you think.

i'm a big fan of frieren breaking the barrier because she thought it was unfair to cut kanna (and by extension lawline) out of her source of magic, giving her an unfair disadvantage and honestly a handicap. it's a short part of the episode but it's so important, because it shows that if people are given the right tools and the accessibility, they can do for themselves what they want and need to do. i love that frieren is like "can you imagine winning against a water manipulating mage with water around? i can't."

i'm a fan of how the "basic" combat and defensive magic are depicted and treated as in this show. yes, people more on from traditions, but traditions are there in the first place. richter's explanation of magic history in their world provides an insight to how modern magic evolved from the foundations. but the foundations were still foundations for a reason. they made it a point with fern saying "frieren doesn't restrict me from spells" (even tho it was the setup for a small joke) that the point isn't to pick a side between tradition vs modern, but rather to learn from both and decide for yourself what you want to apply to yourself. the depiction of fern and frieren winning with traditional magic and richter and kanne overwhelming each other with modern magic makes it clear that the show isn't trying to preach to either side.

i also like the theme of "pursuing magic out for the sake of magic is enough". it's nice to hear that denken shares this mindset with frieren, because again he was introduced as someone influential and you'd think he thinks like he could use magic as a source of power. and that's the impression i got of him too from previous episodes, but a lot of first impressions of mine were proven wrong later and i'm so happy for that bc these characters have so much depth packed into them in so little time.

what else have i missed...

[lilyginnyblackv2]

A Japanese video talking about Riku - Mentions the "Love Triangle."

I just found a video talking about Riku (in a sort of "10 Things You Didn't Know About This Character" kinda way). The creator of the video is Japanese and the video itself is in Japanese. Here is the full video:

They talk about 10 different things in regards to Riku, the full list of things they talk about can be seen in this image:

But the point I'm mostly going to be focusing on is #4 - 恋愛事情 or "The Romance Situation."

When the creator gets to point #4, they call it "The Sora and Kairi Love Triangle" (三角関係).

Then bring up the whole "eating (sharing) a paopu fruit with Kairi" stuff. But before jumping right into that, the creator compares Sora, Riku, and Kairi to other popular shonen trios of the time:

First mentioning Naruto with Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura.

Then Ash, Misty, and Brock. The creator notes that this kind group setup (a trio with two guys and one girl) was really popular around this time.

And that such a dynamic (two guys and one girl) has a lot of potential interest for a romance/romantic situation to come about. Which then brings up back to the whole "sharing a paopu fruit" with Kairi situation.

Specifically the scene in KH1 when Riku races Sora and says:

That whoever wins gets to eat (share) a paopu fruit with Kairi. But, then the creator of this video notes that the reading of this scene isn't necessarily clean cut:

Rather that it is unclear if this moment is just a moment meant to tease and embarrass Sora or if Riku was speaking honestly. Then they mention what Nomura says about Riku and his motives in KH1:

"Riku trying to return Kairi's heart to her wasn't about his feelings for her [Kairi], but rather his strong need to repent for the sins he committed." The Japanese word 罪 (tsumi) can also mean "wrongdoing," but I feel like Nomura is talking specifically about "sin" here, since he used the word 懴悔 (sange) as well. That word is shown to have strong connections to Christianity and Christ. The Japanese Wikipedia page for the word is specifically talking about the idea of repentance and sin in regards to Christ and the like.

(Personal little sidenote here, but this bit of info adds an extra layer to the conversation between Riku and Esmerelda in DDD, since that movie is steeped in Christianity).

Bringing this back to the video and what the creator had to say about this quote:

First, they note how there was no reference to Riku having romantic feelings for Kairi.

So, while knowing about Sora's feelings for Kairi,

It's reasonable to assume that Riku was simply teasing Sora in that scene.

Now, for most Soriku fans, this is old news. Many Soriku fans are aware of this quote in some way, shape, or form, and that interpretation is how we've viewed that scene for ages. But, I think it is important to have someone who is Japanese, speaking in Japanese, and talking about Nomura's quote in Japanese actually bringing up this line as well.

This is even more important, because this Japanese creator doesn't appear to be a Soriku shipper (he might agree with the idea of Riku having feelings for Sora, but he doesn't seem to ship Sora x Riku). After all, he does specifically note that, in KH3, Sora and Kairi are "completely in love with each other" (完全に両想い). So, to this Japanese individual, that paopu sharing scene is meant to be romantic.

The creator of this video also points out that "Riku picks up on that" with the "that" being "Sora and Kairi are completely in love with each other," and shows the scene of Riku on the beach not looking bothered by this. (In Japanese, they state that Riku is 空気が読む - reading the room).

Then they end the video by stating that they "wish people would stop saying that Riku might like Kairi."

I wanted to share this video, because while I do think that there are a number of poorly translated moments in KH (especially in KH3), which either just do the character dirty or causes certain parallels and context to be missed or miss placed in the English version...I don't necessarily agree that the Japanese text makes Soriku or Riku having romantic feelings for Sora more obvious nor do I think that it makes Sokai come off as less romantic than it is intended to be.

When I first played KH3, it was in Japanese when I was living in Japan. The Sokai stuff came off as romantic, poorly written and on the same level as the usual battle shonen stuff (of which this creator made a parallel/connection to with the trio dynamic in a way), but still meant to be read as romantic. Riku and Sora moments still made my eyebrows rise though, as per usual. (Edit: Also, to clarify, I do still think that there were aspects of drifting apart or feeling left behind, especially on Kairi's end, and there was still a lot of queer subtext in KH3, but whether Nomura actually ever does anything with that...).

But, yeah, I think there has been some misconceptions spread about Soriku and Japanese KH fans in general. There seems to be this feeling that like every KH fan in Japan ships Soriku or what have you...but that really is not the case. Soriku fans in Japan ship them, they likely also have queer readings of their bond and the text, but the regular, run-of-the-mill KH fan in Japan will see Sokai as romantic and the official/canon pairing, and view Sora and Riku's bond as friendship.

Though, Soriku is still an extremely popular pairing and I do think that, like in English speaking spaces of the fandom, there might be more of a general acceptance that Riku has feelings for Sora. But, not everyone in Japan holds these views, just like in English speaking KH spaces.

Let's just take a quick look at the comments:

One of the comments that has 14 upvotes notes the heartwarming nature of seeing Sora and Riku go from enemies in KH1 to fighting together "as friends" in KH2. Another comment notes how Sora and Riku are childhood friends. One commentator states that "Riku has Namine, so he'll be okay." Meanwhile, another comment talks about how they think that "Riku is definitely in love with Sora" they use 恋 (koi, which is used when talking about romantic love specifically). One of the replies to that comment notes how they find Soriku to be "hotter and more emotional" than Sokai. The creator responded with a laugh and a general sort of "no doubt (lol)" statement.

I'm going to check and see if there are any other Japanese videos talking about Riku in general. This video was a great little insight into a Japanese POV on Riku and general Japanese fandoms thoughts on Riku. Like with any fandom space, it's a mixed bag.

If you do decide to check out the video above or leave a comment, please be nice and kind. I just thought this was interesting and a good reference / source to point out when it comes to that Nomura comment about KH1 Riku and his motives and Riku's feelings (or lack there of) for Kairi.

[allwormdiet]

Extermination 8.3

Oh fucking boy

This isn't a really revelatory passage, it's just like. Even more reinforcement that Leviathan is a fucking beast. More dead, more downed.

Taylor the fact that you even bothered to show up is above and beyond what should ever be asked of you, you are fifteen for fuck's sake, staking your life against the defeat of a hateful animate Splash Mountain is not your fucking purview! You should be playing Minecraft or something!

"Sorry I wasn't traumatized in a way that lets me save your life" Hello??

I can't imagine Taylor gets to feel like a part of most communities, honestly. Also I'm not sure that the cape community is any kind of monolith, so whether she "fits in" with them all is kind of moot.

Byyyye, Iron Falcon.

That's such a funny thing to ask somebody, honestly.

And then this is a crazy hardcore thing to ask somebody. This arc does a lot to establish that Skitter is just straight up on another level when it comes to comfort on the battlefield compared to even veteran capes, girl will nearly get pulped by Neptune's fucking wrath and then wonder why other people died while she's still conscious

Oh, Taylor. I'm so sorry, he only gets worse the more layers you get into him.

Also. Okay so Gregor the Snail felt like a pretty sympathetic perspective on how fatphobia stings people, but the life and death of Chubster in the realm of this story... kinda sucks. Like oh no, he's too heavy for Skitter to save him, have to leave him to drown I guess. I'm not saying it's an impossible circumstance, it just feels crass to have it in.

Hey Flechette, keep up the good work girl

The thing I keep coming back to with the Endbringers is that. Okay. These things have been causing horrific damage, mass death, and world-changing devastation for decades, and they've never been killed, and only one cape has ever meaningfully made the things fuck off in the history of ever. They are considered to be the most likely cause of extinction for humanity. Every time it seems like they're winning, even in the short-term, it's just the setup for another knockdown. It's giving them hope just so the despair hits deeper. What are the odds that's on purpose? What are the odds that everything the Endbringers suffer except Scion is just play-acting for them? Selling the capes' moves like it's a wrestling match, even as they don't feel a goddamn thing.

What if it's all just a sick game to an alien god?

This is so cool and so, so fucking dire.

God that's dark

Sacrifice play. Some desperate attempt to redeem himself in the public view maybe? A genuine belief that he can make this stick? I dunno. It doesn't matter, unfortunately.

What a way to sell the fucking outrageous devastation that this monster unleashes in the span of. What, an hour? Less?

Also hey what good is all the missiles and lasers and forcefields if Leviathan is just gonna pick the whole PHQ up and smash it onto the shoreline

So many goddamn downed, it's crazy. And y'know, knowing the rest of the arc we know Tattletale's still standing but of course Skitter is fucked up over losing Tattletale, that's the last person she's got who's willing to extend a hand towards her.

Most powers are dead useless here let's be real

Hey, good job Eidolon

Fucking brave of y'all to be shooting Bakuda bombs anywhere in the same ZIP code as someone you care about, but also god it would be so cool if this had actually worked. Just fucking lock Leviathan down in time out for a hundred years or so, buy that much time? Shame it fails.

Well. I'm not gonna miss the fucking Nazis, but rip in peace Dauntless, we hardly knew ye.

Triumvirate member tagged out. Alexandria was already down for the count, wasn't she? Or she at least stopped showing up at some point, so now it's just Eidolon repping the Big Three

although I guess if you asked Eidolon he'd call it "just Big Me"

First dead kid out of the lot, I think, if we don't count Falcon dying off the battlefield. Sorry, Shielder. I think Leviathan knew you were strong enough to keep being a problem. Gotta be fucking awful for Laserdream though, watching your brother die violently in front of you is. I actually can't imagine, thank fuck.

And then Sundancer down but not out. Honestly if anyone was gonna have decent odds of doing damage I'd have given it to The Fucking Sun, but that doesn't do much for defense does it.

Fucking outrageously brutal, god.

Man. I didn't even think about the fact that this thing is silent the entire time. No Godzilla roars or shit the entire time, nothing except for the rush of water.

Clockblocker keeps coming in clutch to save the day against citywide threats... Someone please for the love of god stop putting these children in the line of fire.

Also interesting that Taylor might be the only one here whose first response is to get him out of the water, for all that he's been her enemy.

Clever.

Taylor can be really harshly judgmental at times but I'm gonna be real I'm with her on this one, Trickster what the actual fuck is your problem. Like good job I guess but what the hell.

Y'know, the fucked up thing is that Armsmaster actually isn't wrong here, and his plan could've worked if he was, uhh. Genuine about it.

Does everybody's ability to give a speech go down the fucking toilet when an Endbringer is within half a mile of them? Is that what it is?

Current Thoughts

Wildbow really fucking knows how to put a battle together. Our POV character isn't actually fighting through 95% of this entire arc (and maybe shouldn't have been fighting in that 5% but we'll get there) but you feel just totally surrounded by the death and devastation that's raining down on all sides.

Unfortunately, I think it's about time for Armsmaster's big reveal on how to lose an arm and a shitload of credibility in record timing.

[mister-eve]

things i wish the sonic franchise brought back or implement.

.

Dark Sonic

seriously, i love imagining a fight between Dark Sonic and Eggman inspired by Korra vs. Zaheer ( when she was poisoned ). where he loses the cool attitude, the smile, everything, and goes in with full power, charging himself left and right at Eggman. it'd be even more fascinating to still have Dark Sonic lose. not because of his lack of power, not because of lack of skill, even when blinded by rage, but because of Eggman's ingenuity.

a lot of people, to this day, misinterpret Dark Sonic as a murderous, rampaging monster, but that completely misses the purpose of why he exists to begin with. i believe this is a case of people not exactly knowing where he comes from, or just a lot of fans drawing a murderous Sonic and it took the internet by storm one day, but just in case you don't know:

Dark Sonic is from Sonic X, a TV show that is sort of an expansion on Sonic Adventure 2, adding more lore, character arcs, and overall meaning to the game's original plot. Dark Sonic was revealed in the episode "Teasing Time" in s3, and the reason he appeared is because he discovered his friends ( Cosmo and Chris ) were injured and that one of them ( Chris ) was unconscious.

the whole reason this form exists is Sonic's love for his friends essentially fueling his rage. it's like Darkspine Sonic from SATSR, or has similar formula. Dark Sonic isn't inspired by any bloodlust or desire to kill, but rather by burning anger at seeing his friends be put in harm's way.

Dark Sonic is made from the strong desire to protect his friends.

2. An Actual Arc For Shadow

you guys might be confused, especially if you consider some of my previous posts, but lemme explain.

for a long time, it's never felt like Shadow has actually recovered from his trauma, atone for his actions ( yes, i understand he saved Earth ), or live life really at all. it doesn't help that, to this day, SEGA continues to make Shadow relive the past.

i don't consider the movies to be a part of the problem, as Shadow being introduced to the plot was basically a given, and you can't introduce him in your own take without his general backstory ( unless you're Boom or Prime, i guess ). i believe the movie will be doing taking some creative liberties to his story, as they did so with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, and i see no reason that they should stop.

the reason why i have an issue with this is because it's an ongoing issue within the games, specifically. Shadow the Hedgehog ( 2005 ) was a disservice to his setup and the 'first arc' ( considering he's still alive after the fans demanded his return ) to his story.

aside from it just giving 'early 2010s deviantart edge', it's just so...

childishly handled.

for one, you're immediately given a Hero or Dark route, like in SA2, which i feel completely misses the point of SA2's true ending. Shadow has redeemed himself ( or began to ), so to give him complete reign to just become an antagonist all over again defeats the whole purpose of a redemption.

it's like what Prime did with Dread, giving him an already established redemption arc ( sort of ), but then corrupting him again for no real reason other than just because.

another issue i have is Shadow's amnesia and attitude in general within the game. technically speaking, yes, it does make sense for him to suffer memory and // or physical issues from his fall from space, but to completely wipe out every single thing he did just to give him the opportunity to relearn his past, do some fucked up shit, do some less fucked up shit, then throw away everything in the past, Maria and her wish included, is...

amazingly obtuse, for lack of a better word.

again, while it's technically not out of bounds, i feel like giving Shadow complete and total amnesia just disrespects SA2's vision and execution of the story. it's redundant, it's lazy, and overall just really damn frustrating to watch.

Shadow deserves to have a story that allows him to heal from his trauma, discover who he is, and respecting Maria's wish along the way. a lot of people seem to think it's either he forgets about his past ( or buries it ) or full-on dedicates his entire life and doesn't bother picking up a life lesson or two, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Shadow can heal, grow, and change. SEGA just won't let him.

3. The Echidna Tribe & Knuckles' Story

Knuckles is one of my favorite characters in the entire franchise as a whole, but his character and story is sorely dismissed. while Shadow has the issue of repetition, Knuckles suffers from being dropped on the head multiple times and played for a joke ( i think Frontiers is one of the more recent games that didn't do this, but i might be wrong ).

one of the reasons why i love Knuckles is how straightforward, yet reluctant he was about finding out his past. at the end of Sonic Adventure 1, he says something to the extent of:

"maybe i'm better off not knowing the meaning behind all of this. because i feel something terrible will happen if i do."

he is content being ignorant for the sake of his own peace of mind.

but in SA2, he's more or less forced to start facing his fear and learn more about the past. unfortunately, though, we don't actually get to see much after this game, because the tribe is almost entirely forgotten. instead, it's brought up in comics that are more or less canon ( i think ), but not fully aligning with the games. i think it's safe to say the comics are their own canon?

like with Shadow, i would've loved to see an actual conclusion on this arc of Knuckles' story. to see more of the tribe in the past, of their wrongdoings, character moments, more of Tikal or Chaos or the little Chao, and how it all ties together.

but instead, we have lots of media repeatedly insulting Knuckles' intelligence, ignoring his tribe and // or his job entirely ( i guess they forget the Master Emerald is portable? ), and just generally dumbing him down to be a hotheaded moron that apparently doesn't care about being the Guardian!

Knuckles is one of the most relatable characters in this series for me, as there's a lot of things i would rather not know and stay ignorant to, but have to face head on in order to fully move past it and grow to be better.

he was completely isolated on Angel Island for so long, yet people still make fun of him to this day for being manipulated by Eggman in SA1 ( even though he didn't even fully believe Eggman, it was just a precaution, but who cares about the details- ). he's not just a hothead, he's strong, he's kind, he's pretty blunt and, honestly, really fucking adorable, i love this echidna.

look at him, just standing there. i love him.

anyway, Knuckles deserves a proper story surrounding his tribe, his identity as the Guardian of Angel Island, his relationships, and to have a satisfying conclusion. or, at the very least, more games or media in general not dumbing him down to an angry hothead with nothing better to do but to yell and ignore his responsibilities.

3. Sonic

"what're you talking about, ashe? sonic's meant to be a flat character! what could be wrong with him?"

yeah, but after frontiers, i want more mentally ill sonic that needs to be concerned for by his friends, okay, that's all i want-

4. Storybook Era

now, now, i know a lot of people don't like the storybook games because of their shoddy gameplay and all that, but i genuinely love these games, their flaws included.

i do believe satbk has a better story than satsr, but i still have an attachment to the latter game, so suck it.

it'd be really nice to see a storybook game with switch, xbox, ps, or similar controls. as the era has Sonic diving into different worlds, maybe a world like Alice and Wonderland could be an interesting game. several elements to work with, locations turning into creative levels or even hub worlds. this is sort of a long shot dream that will probably never exist, but i wanna see an adventure-style storybook game one day.

i'll probably die before that idea is even considered, but it's a fun thought and that's all that matters at the end of the day.

there's no real big reason as to why these matter or anything, as i don't believe you need a storybook in order to send off the messages these games try to give, but they're just really charming to me and i love to see how this type of game could be implemented into video games today, with all the new engines and whatnot.

5. Teams

oof, okay, um-

there's a few games that have teams in them, and i guess you can count sonic forces as one of those games, so i should be more specific here.

i like SA1's flexibility with the roulette-like system, where you could play as any character you wished, but i also like SA2's team system, where they all had a close-knit role within the story from a similar perspective ( hero vs. dark ).

SA1 served multiple perspectives, all giving you pieces of the same puzzle that you have to figure out as you go. by the final story, all of the characters ( except Big, but idc, i love him ) have their character arcs and it's with their changes that the story is fully complete.

SA2 served the entirety of two perspectives and merged them together for the final story, heroes and villains having to work together to fight off the greater evil at hand.

overall, i want more games having the characters work together, having different details // information or even moral differences ( it depends on which system they go with, though ) on the situation at large, but maybe still having to come together.

whether or not they use official teams, i want the sonic franchise to bring back using other characters as necessary plot points with their own individual arcs.

it may not be needed, per say, as there's still a few games that work and don't have either of these systems, but i really miss the adventure games and wish for more of their elements to be implemented in future games.

6. CHAO!!!

BRING THESE LITTLE CREATURES BACK, GODDAMN, WHY ONLY TWO GAMES?!

.

anyway, that's all i can currently think of. i think these would serve either character or charm to the franchise, but maybe you have some other ideas of what the games could give! maybe proper returns of characters, other forgotten stories, or even new ideas!

lemme know what you think.

[crossdressingdeath]

DAI does that with a lot of things. Morrigan gets to claim to be a Elven expert, even though you know that is far from the truth if you've played Origins where she didn't know shit. Cullen gets final say in his dialogue options despite you knowing that he's lying. Grey Wardens gets shit on and the Inquisitor can wildly overstep.

DAI has this weird mix of a) expecting you to have read all the books/comics so that they don't have to explain anything and b) assuming that you haven't played the previous games so they can try to rewrite what happened.

Yeah, the required reading for DAI was ridiculous. WEaWH is always the big one because most of the others you can get by without it (even Cole's backstory isn't necessary to appreciate and understand the character, and enough of it comes up in-game to get by), but knowing what Celene and Gaspard did is kind of fucking important, Bioware. And then even when Celene purging the alienage comes up it's used as a mark against Briala for being in a relationship with her at the time even though if I'm understanding the excerpts I've seen of TME Briala breaks it off as a direct result of the purge and (as Dorian rightly points out) that'd be more Celene's scandal than Briala's anyway. Like, they try to make Celene purging the alienage into Briala's crime because she was sleeping with the empress at the time and that's just... ugh. But it's like, I would argue that it would be fair and honestly best practice to assume that people playing the third game in a series have played the first two games? DA has an overarching narrative even if the connections aren't particularly close, if someone wants to start partway through they can but the writing should expect people to be familiar with the games' stories. Maybe have some codex entries summarizing the previous games or a little intro cutscene, but... I don't know, I'm worried about the fact that apparently DAV doesn't need you to have played the first three games when literally all the setup for it is in DAI. Expecting people to have played all the games in a narrative-driven RPG series and not to have jumped in partway through is fair! Expecting people to have read five supplementary novels and two coffee table lore books to understand the plot is ridiculous. At least Tevinter Nights and The Missing so far seem to only be relevant to DAV in that they show some glimpses of what's been going on between games and give us a point of reference for some of the new characters...

The thing that gets me with DAI is that the game really wants you to side with the Templars whether it makes sense or not. Like... let's take the choice between mages and Templars as an example. The game wants you to side with the Templars. It really does, it tries its best to dissuade the player from siding with the mages if you go that route (Cullen's little "Oh... it's so dangerous... we shouldn't do it..." routine is notable when compared to Leliana and Josie, both of whom favour the mages, being very professional about you picking the Templars), it does its utmost to claim that the rebellion was unwarranted when it absolutely was not, the rebels are constantly framed as weak or mean or evil or stupid while the Templars were just misled (by... a guy who told them he'd let them murder all the mages and left out the "in service to Corypheus" bit, they still joined his little walkout to murder people, but the game doesn't get into that), it even lets you switch quests well past what should've been the point of no return if you're on the mage route (WHY CAN YOU SWITCH AFTER LEARNING THERE'S A FUCKING MAGISTER IN FERELDEN TRYING TO ENSLAVE A BUNCH OF MAGES, BIOWARE, WHY THE FUCK IS THAT AN OPTION) whereas with the Templars you can't even learn what your advisors' plan for getting you in alive is until you're locked in. And I'm not going to lie, CotJ is legitimately the better quest. I did it once to see and god damn it is quality, I don't dislike IHW but... yeah CotJ is definitely stronger.

But then you actually look at the story and... why the fuck would you side with the Templars? They left the Chantry because the Divine told them not to murder people. That's explicit, people tell you that repeatedly. They're making excuses for it, but there's always an acknowledgement that... yep, that's why the Templars left, they wanted to kill people and were mad about being told no. Leliana (the most familiar face among the advisors and given Cassandra's previous appearance was threatening Varric and Cullen's was playing yes man to Meredith for nine years and only changing sides once she became a threat to him/because not doing so would mean fighting Hawke Leliana's the one people are most likely to want to side with) is pro-mage and dismisses Cullen's claims that the Templars could help close the Breach as speculation. Which... it is. This situation is completely unprecedented, no one knows what's going to happen. But given mages are incredibly powerful and Templars are repeatedly portrayed as mostly useless in any sort of real danger that doesn't involve children or indoctrinated Circle mages (it is not a coincidence that the only people locked in the tower in Broken Circle who survive with their minds and bodies intact without the demons actively choosing to let them live for funsies are mages; the only Templar who's alive and unpossessed is Cullen, and the demons very obviously could've killed him at any time and just chose not to because they were having fun toying with him) I'm gonna say the mages are a safer bet. Also because... they invited Quiz. That could be a trap, but you know what's definitely a trap? Walking into a fortress full of heavily-armed mage killers who openly want you dead. Meeting with the Templars is really, really stupid (especially if you're a mage) and you don't even learn the plan for getting you inside unharmed until you actually select the quest. Also that plan is basically just "if there are witnesses with societal power the Templars can't murder you unprovoked" because reminder: the Templars are the absolute worst. Why would you ever want these people around. And then if you meet with the mages first like "Well I'll figure it out once I've heard what they have to say, I don't have to commit if I do things this way so I might as well" you learn that there's a Tevinter magister serving an evil Tevinter cult just chilling in Redcliffe and why the fuck would you go to the Templars at that point this needs to be dealt with. The game wants you to side with the Templars but it gives you no reason to do so, I really wonder sometimes if the writers weren't talking to each other at all.

[twoa-plus]

dissecting stanford pines and finding organs that don’t exist but like in a metaphorical way

that’s it that’s the title i’m going with. this is a long one folks o7

most of this isn’t sourced or canon at all it’s just personal interpretation/headcanon/whatever else u wanna call it, but!! since more people are seeing my deranged gravity falls ramblings now i figure i should probably give some perspective as to why i like/defend ford as much as i do

(in my other gf posts i do try to stick to canon to back up whatever point i’m making - this is just about my personal opinion of ford as a character, and should be able to be thrown out in regards to my other posts)

so for some background/setup/whatever (it’s important i promise bear with me), different people have different instinctual responses to anxiety/stress. i come from a family (genetics are fun) where the default response is to start (metaphorically ofc) biting and hissing like a cornered animal. this doesn’t necessarily mean there’s any actual hatred or malice or anything towards the people that end up getting scratched - they might just be at the wrong place at the wrong time, they might’ve done something super minor and insignificant that added on to a preexisting pile of stress, etc etc

i cannot stress enough that i am not saying this is ok. you dont need me to tell you that hurting people who don’t deserve it is a bad thing, lol. what i am saying though is that sometimes people can kind of suck for reasons other than just genuinely wanting everyone around them to be miserable

this is the last “background” part i swear BUT another thing thats less genetic and more just me being weird is that i’m the type of person where like. any minor environmental change can really stress me out lol. like even just reorganizing my desk can be pretty emotionally taxing

SO. finally back on topic. stanford pines. i see a lot of the behavior/patterns i just described in him. like i’ve spent my entire life around people like this, and while i understand why a lot of people see him as just some asshole, i can’t help but see him as a guy who’s just kinda going through it lol

just talking about the more recent events as of the series, he’s just spent 30 years god knows where doing and seeing god knows what, he has an abusive ex who wants to murder him and his entire family (plus the whole dimension, really), and in the three decades he’s been gone the entire world - including his own house - has changed and left him behind. add onto that that he went missing in 1982, way before we had all of the emotional/mental health resources we have now, we all saw what the stans’ childhood was like, and that ford is terrible with people - including, imo, himself. if there’s anybody out there who would have Feelings and not understand what they are or where they’re coming from or what to do about them, it’s this guy

this entire setup is the perfect circumstance for fear and anxiety and stress and uncertainty to all get translated into anger. a really big example of this, to me, is how he talks about dipper in journal 3. i’ve talked about this before somewhere so i’ll try to summarize as fast as i can lol

reading his initial entry about dipper would make u think he like. hates this kid lol. but i really don’t think he ever did - he was really excited to meet the kids in the show and already seemed to care about them just by virtue of existing, and his opinion on dipper in journal 3 seems to do a complete 180 pretty quickly which ,,, doesn’t really fit ford as a character. like i love the man but that guy can hold a GRUDGE

here’s how it reads to me:

ford gets back to his home dimension after 30 years and everything is different

he’s subconsciously kind of struggling with the fact that he doesn’t really have a “home” anymore - the sense of familiarity and comfort that would normally come with the word is gone. (i specify that it’s subconscious because, like i said earlier, i do not get the vibe that he’s particularly aware of his own emotions)

he finds out that journal 3 - something he made with his own two hands and considers part of his life’s work - has also changed in the decades he’s been gone. this adds to the feeling of unfamiliarity with the world around him

it’s easier to blame that “final straw” and say that he’s just upset about his work being tampered with rather than address the actual root of the problem, so that’s exactly what he does. this still doesn’t mean that there’s any genuine hatred towards dipper. anger in the moment, yeah, but not hatred

again, this is entirely personal interpretation, and i completely understand if u don’t see it like this!! this is just a pattern of thoughts/behavior that i’m very familiar with, so it’s easy for me to apply it to situations like this even if it’s not really part of the canon

i also think there’s a big problem in this fandom with just ,, not seeing ford as a Person with Emotions? idk how to explain it but it feels like people expect him to always know exactly what to do in every situation just bc he’s old and academically smart. like whenever another character does something objectively bad it’s “well there were extenuating circumstances,” (which is usually true and i agree !!) but ford never really seems to get that treatment. if he does something bad it’s just because he sucks

a big example of this i think is the fight between him and stan (y’know the “you ruined my life”/“you ruined your own life”). you cannot look me dead in the eyes and, in full seriousness, with the context of everything ford was going through with bill at the time, say that he was fully mentally/emotionally stable during that conversation. “oh so you’re blaming stan-“ NO!!! stan was also going through it!!! that’s the entire point - they’re both people with their own lives and emotions and everything else that comes with that, they had very human reactions to their respective situations, and they both ended up hurt!! hopefully i’m explaining this right but i just don’t like it when people pin everything on ford, like there was a lot going on and at the end of the day he’s just a human

wasn’t really sure how to work this in so i’ll just put it here - i don’t think ford ever truly hated stan, either. familial bonds are complicated, and there can be a whole lot of anger towards someone without true hatred being present. i briefly mentioned the stans’ childhood sucking earlier, and i don’t just mean stanley - it’s easier to pinpoint him as a victim of abuse/neglect, but that doesn’t mean ford had it great either. their parents (specifically filbrick, but caryn didn’t exactly do a fantastic job with them either) expected nothing of stan and the world of ford, both of which would weigh heavily on any child. plus, ford being the favorite doesn’t mean all of his emotional needs were met - filbrick seeing him as an opportunity to make money doesn’t mean he was suddenly an emotionally present and caring father towards him. WCT wasn’t just an opportunity for ford to go be a famous scientist or whatever - it was a chance for his father to love him, something both of the stans desperately wanted. (WCT was also on the opposite side of the country from where they lived but i’m sure that’s completely unrelated !!!)

do i think stan deserved anything that happened to him after the science fair incident? no, absolutely not, he was a child. do i think it was right of ford to just stand there as his brother got thrown out? no, absolutely not - but he was a child too. as for them not speaking for a decade after that, like i mentioned earlier ford can hold a grudge like no other. (this doesn’t just apply to stan, either, ford dedicated half of his life to trying to kill his ex lmao.) i think ford’s ability to hold on to anger like that is actually a pretty major part of/flaw in his personality, but again, anger - even the strongest, most long-lived of it - is not synonymous with hatred. stan, who ford has always gone to for help when he truly needed it, it not what ford’s hatred looks like. bill, who ford actively wants to die, is

anyways!! i never know how to close these things lol. ig in summary i just see ford’s behavior (in the show at least) as more of a sign of internal struggle rather than like ,, genuinely hating the people around him and wanting their lives to suck. did/does he have an ego problem? absolutely. is he incapable of love and human connection? no. is he immune to manipulation/abuse/neglect/etc and everything that comes with that? also no

he’s an interdimensional criminal why can’t he go to the theraprism. i think he should

[thefloatingstone]

Not to be like "haha I'm better than you guys!!!" or elitist or anything because that very sincerely is NOT the point of this post.... but I never really understood people extremely love for Harry Potter.

I read them as they were coming out. Most of the time they came out soon enough that I was the same age as Harry. I liked them. They were cool. Goblet of Fire was my favourite and I was always happy to see what story the next book would bring but that's all it was. Interest to see the next story whenever it came out. Like a sitcom you enjoy but you didn't set your tv to record for you in case you missed it.

And then the word "Chosen one" was uttered and, just like that, I fucking lost all interest. Honestly there was "Chosen one" talk in the 4th book and already I was like

Honestly I think I liked Goblet of Fire the most because there was no friggen Quidditch. And there was less focus on the SCHOOL part of Harry Potter and more this weird Video game Quest setup which just appealed to me more.

In retrospect, I think that might be a big part of why I enjoyed it but never LOVED it like other people.

Like

"Oh boy my absolute biggest most favourite fantasy! THE BRITISH EDUCATION SYSTEM!!!!"

The fact that the books take place in a school seemed like a default to me because, well, most teenage focused cartoons and shows I watched had the main characters at school. Because they're teenagers. But the school wasn't why I enjoyed the books. The school was just a location. No I didn't want to go to Hogwarts. No I didn't want to get attached to a specific school house (although I feel it worth mentioning that when I was 13 I did the online house quiz thing on the official site and it said I was Hufflepuff so make of that what you will).

I really disliked whatever the one was that came after Goblet of Fire. So much so that it completely killed any and all enjoyment I had in the series. Which, considering I was only mildly entertained by them wasn't a massive loss or anything.

I know I read whichever book it was where Dumbledore died but I very genuinely cannot remember one single thing that happens in that book whatsoever. I read half of the Deathly Hallows after coming back from College and gave up because I wasn't enjoying any of it and I never picked the book up again.

I saw the first movie in theaters when I was 13 and I did not like it. It was visually very very dark and gloomy and just... extremely uninteresting to me. Idk how to explain it. The first book just felt so much more vibrant than what I was watching on screen.

I know I saw the 2nd movie although I have no memory of where or why. And I... THINK I saw the third one??? I think??? I'm actually not sure. But that's about where I just stopped and completely lost interest.

Because it wasn't very good.

They just weren't very good books.

They weren't TERRIBLE or anything like that but they were just so.... blah. The earlier ones 13 year old me enjoyed the one time I read each of them but I don't think 13 year old me had the best taste considering I also disliked the Princess Bride at this age.

But I was reading other books because I was a kid with ADHD in high school who desperately needed something stimulating to stop myself from going insane. And frankly, there were just far better books out there. Books I actually re-read. Books I borrowed from friends which ere just... so much better and more interesting.

So I just don't understand this insane appeal so many people have for it, even if they have severed that connection due to Jowling Kowling Rowling's bufoonery and showing herself to be a withered old crone with a shrivled heart and mind every time she opens her mouth.

I grew up with these books the same way as a lot of people. I was the exact age to go through the series' highest popularity and I just did not click with them despite reading them.

So seeing so many people my age or a little younger try and do their best to re-analyse and de-tangle what the books actually are and that... maybe.... just maybe.... they might not have been very good?? Maybe?? is very weird to me because I'm just like.

"Yeah they're overrated as hell and not that interesting."

It's a very weird thing to live through because it's like looking into a bizarro version of the world you remember living through... but not like THAT. I remember the Pokemon craze and yes, it was like that. I remember when anime started to become big and yes, it was like that. I remember DBZ airing and yes, it was like that.

But this insanity around Harry Potter while it was releasing?

Yeah I don't remember it being like that at all.

They were just mediocre books I read because I needed something to occupy my attention and eventually they got worse and worse and I just stopped reading them. That's all.

[acourtofthought]

Giving gifts to Gwyn while supposedly in love with Elain and also feeling a spark in his chest for Gwyn feels a lot like emotional cheating and that's triggering to me because I was cheated on by my first boyfriend.

Therefore I request no e/riel artwork during ElainWeek because of it especially not of her wearing said necklace.

See how that goes? It's very easy to play this game, using our past experiences as a way to police what others can share.

Also, Sarah doesn't need to like Tamlin for others to create Tamlain content, that's literally not how fandom works 😂

Sarah also clearly doesn't like the idea of e/riel either considering she had Rhys (someone she loves) hand Az his ass in the bonus, shutting that shit down like a Spirit Store in December yet that doesn't seem to stop Elain Week from turning into another e/riel week.

Sarah once made people believe in Tamlin and Feyre then later told us Tamlin's behavior wasn't appropriate. It seems clear some are still stuck on e/riel in exactly the way many of us thought Feyre and Tamlin were happy in book 1. They're missing how Sarah spoke of Tamlin being the bad guy after Feyre ended up leaving with Rhys, how she revealed the true issues with his behavior in the book which had Feyre's endgame romantic arc. Therefore trying to claim Az's actions towards Elain and Tamlin's towards Feyre's are different doesn't hold any weight because they're at a different point in their setup, Elain hasn't had her romantic arc book yet. The foundations are identical though. Now that we see the path Tamlin went down in book 2 it's really strange how some miss the similarities with what she's doing with the e/riel ship. Feyre and Tamlin had cute moments until she later showed us how toxic they were together. We didn't notice those issues in ACOTAR but she really delved into them in the book after.

Just because Az will not end up written to be a bad guy like Tamlin doesn't mean he wasn't starting to demonstrate the same behavior towards Elain, something he was in CANON called out for by Rhys and Amren. Sarah halted Az turning into Tamlin by pulling the plug on e/riel on Solstice. She halted Az turning into Tamlin by pulling the plug on Moriel. But we saw her write Az as getting into physical fights (or willing to) over these two females, not giving credit to these two females for what they're capable of, getting into fights with their friends over a female (just like the Tamlin and Lucien situation). Of course Az isn't as bad as Tamlin, but the key word to that is yet. Tamlin's rage caused him to explode a room. Rhys knocked Az from his rage before Az did something he regretted. He was on the exact same path that Tamlin was before his behavior escalated and that's why Sarah introduced a new possible love interest for Az. One we see him finally have a healthy and natural reaction too. One he's not overly fixated on being protective of (a major issue for Az just as it was for Tamlin).

Gwyn doesn't have to change Az, she hasn't even done anything but be herself. Az is just different around her all on his own.

Tamlin with Feyre:

Az, Az with Mor, and Az with Elain:

Az with Gwyn:

Just because Bloomsbury added a number for the Domestic Abuse Hotline it doesn't mean that domestic abuse is the only thing that triggers people while reading these books, we all have different experiences so we view the characters a certain way. (Bloomsbury is not a Board Certified Mental Health Professional, correct?). For some of us we do see Az acting a lot like Tamlin at times and time will tell if Sarah agrees, that she purposely wrote him as coming close to falling victim to the same issues but pulled him back just in time.

Therefore any group claiming their trigger is more valid than someone else's, claiming one trigger is more serious than another, is making themselves more important than the rest and is not an all inclusive group no matter what you're trying to convince yourselves of. To gaslight they'll say we're making light of domestic abuse while in reality they're the ones carelessly using abuse as a way to promote their fictional ship by tearing down others (i.e. Gwyn can't have a kinky sexual relationship because of her SA sending the message that SA survivors can't enjoy certain forms of sex).

Someone is always going to be triggered by something, even if it's something you personally enjoy so who is anyone to elevate themselves to judge and jury?

Shaming an actual person by saying they're gross for liking the idea of something in a make believe world, that they're not welcome because of their "disgusting" fantasy is you creating actual abuse to an actual person versus something that only happened to a make believe character of a make believe species in a make believe world.

And yes, horrible things happen to people in real life but Fantasy Books are not real life therefore your real life morals need not apply.

So basically a good tagging system / Master List would be a good way for all to enjoy without people having to be left out because of someone's trauma.

[jess-the-vampire]

Wanna add more insight as to why people are as bothered by not revealing the wittebane story more from a fan perspective, i’ve already talked about why it bothers people in regards to belos’s character, but here’s partially why i think fans feel the sense of lacking they do:

I think what especially bothers people about not getting the complete answers on the caleb/evelyn/philip story is compared to other stories within the series, this one not being explained is a big outlier, because the show is actually decent at setting up stuff that they’ll answer afterwards.

Hollow Mind works as well as it does because all of the reveals in it are stuff you could of figured out beforehand due to all the clues being thrown around, there are hints to the grimwalkers, to caleb and evelyn, to flapjack being caleb’s, it rewards the viewers for paying attention to the stuff they were showing us.

Like “Here’s an open grimwalker page” and “Here’s the statues, doesn’t the faces on them look familiar?”

But then they still dangle some key elements, leaving some for later after hollow mind. No full answers to the door, what exactly happened between caleb and philip during the fight, ect ect

Which is fine, because you expect answers later.

And this continues with a lot of the other mysteries too, collector’s backstory gets foreshadowing before it’s reveal, lilith cursing eda has foreshadowing before it’s reveal, even manny having passed away is something you might pick up on before we’re told.

The show is actively showing you evidence and then rewarding you for paying attention by giving answers to the setups without many loose threads.

the show loves to show you the audience “Hey look at this thing, this will be important later”, and then have to come back with the answers it promised.

Though the show was cut, so not everything it wanted to resolve was, the story of evelyn, caleb and philip kept going post cut and kept ramping up, most of s2b involves caleb hints in every single episode.

And when you are making him sound important and then then continuing to make him and evelyn both relevant in s3, the audience is waiting for the promised reward for putting all the pieces together, and then...nothing happens.

the show asks you to pay attention to the door eda finds with a scratch on it, to the tale of the brothers, to the ghost of caleb, to flapjack knowing caleb and knowing about the blood, and there’s no answers to most of it.

You can’t even say most of the stuff missing were small either, like we don’t need the holes in collector’s story answered too much, but there’s almost too much in the wittebane story to really breeze over.

When jacob shows you a picture of a burning building and says “Tragedy struck” before explaining the brothers were lost, you think “Oh, i can't wait to understand what this means”....and to this day we don’t have any idea what that tragedy was.

Why was evelyn on earth? no clue. Was caleb even planning to see philip again? no idea. Why didn’t the door work for luz who used philip’s notes correctly and completely? who knows.

Like there are things brought up, that not even small details in the show can answer,

There could be something really neat about having this whole story in the bg that fans figure out mind you, the problem is there’s too many large gaps that can’t really be filled in by what we get.

So while you can pick up on a lot and put a lot together from what we get, there’s still not enough, heck, people who have looked into this lore still have very different ideas on a lot of stuff because the gaps are so wide.

And while the show was cut, it also put most of this out there, after the cut, we know this because the cut happened during ER and collector was added post cut, so KKKOHD was a point where we can confirm everything was being written with the cut in mind.

So a lot of this stuff about the wittebanes being implied, was written to fans to notice and draw their attention to, while not planning to fully answer it seems.

The ghost haunting the narrative is a neat idea, but it feels less like ghosts and more like half finished set ups.

I think manny works better as a ghost in the narrative because there’s no gaps with him, you get everything you need to understand what he means to the characters and story and there’s no lingering mysteries about him, At best you can just pick out stuff about him from the bg which are more like bonus stuff then anything. There’s no expectations that we’ll meet him or see him, or that we need more then we get.

They set him him up, and they pay him off in the story, we get what we need and we don’t need more.

While with evelyn and caleb, while they do haunt the story and everything ties back to them, not only does the show leave so much about them in the dark that the only reason people figure this out is through theories and going online for the information, but even the show won’t acknowledge how important they are to the main story, they’re almost treated as if their story doesn’t matter to the main one even tho the main story wouldn’t have happened without theirs.

When philip’s reasons for his actions are explained, we aren’t even told caleb had anything to do with it, or even evelyn for that matter. You almost don’t even need caleb or evelyn in the story at all for most of the plot to happen given the show ends almost acting like they meant nothing in regards to what happens.

it’s even more unusual because the main characters never mention them either, gus knows the story more because he saw philip’s memories but he never mentions anything about what he saw outside of the grimwalker thing.

You would kinda think seeing the memories would imply gus could tell hunter who caleb was, which given hunter was worried about that would kinda be important, but it never comes up.

The kids are told about caleb, told about evelyn, but they never talk about it or bring it up. Hunter sees his own palisman be recognized by philip, that it was aware of the rebus, which he finds out later was caleb and evelyn’s, but again....has nothing much to say about his own ortet knowing flap at all.

it is as if the show is going out of it’s way to have the main cast ignore them, even tho there’s no reason why they should, especially not hunter or gus.

again, there is a lot to wrap up, and tbh even i doubted they would explain everything about this, but given they gave it the time they did, even despite the cut, it’s more baffling the show ended almost making it out to be irrelevant.

even if they couldn’t explain everything, we still needed something 

because as is, it almost feels like a waste of time to even focus on that story at all.

and even if we do get a spinoff for this, this was written with the idea the show would not get one, so it ended expecting what we were given to be good enough for fans.

And for some, it was.

But in a show where it went out of it’s way to set up a lot of stuff it paid off, to keep setting up stuff for this particular plot and leave with very little actually answered is something people are gonna find frustrating.

They clearly wanted people to care, to want answers, and then didn’t even give them anything and then kinda told them it wasn’t even relevant to the main story or to the cast at all.

it sorta leaves people wondering why they were told to be invested in the first place.

[spnj2fanlw]

I might be into Wincest these days but first and foremost I am a supernatural fan. I loved the show before shipping ever became part of my life and I just don't understand people who skip the first 4 seasons to get to Cas. (Plus I know wincest is fanon not Canon unlike others...) I'm not trying to say anything bad about Cas, I actually love him, or destiel but to skip the first three seasons is crazy and you aren't a real fan of the show in my opinion. Without the setup from the first 3 seasons you aren't anywhere near as invested in the whole story. You don't understand what brought them to this point, and you miss the delicious details. If destieland Cas are as big as those fans say, then it can wait. Heck I would think Castiels arrival has a lot more significance when you are already invested. But basically these people that actually tell newbies to skip ahead are saying no other characters, including Sam and Dean, are important enough to watch from the beginning. And as a fan of the actual show that is really... upsetting. I find it worse than telling people to stop after season 5 which is also difficult for me because while yes overall its not as tight as 1-5 and has some definite low points, there is also SO much great stuff and awesome new characters after 5. Anyway that my rant that isn't even worth 2 cents but needed to get that out. Shipping is fun but my obsession with the show starts with the actual show.

[that-ari-blogger]

No Thoughts, Head Empty, Evil (Hell Is Forever)

Hazbin Hotel doesn’t have time for subtlety, so it takes the most direct approach to any plot point. I want to stress that this is the fault of management insisting on an eight-episode runtime and not the writers and directors. Everyone who cared about this series put in a lot of effort and skill and that needs to be commended.

Notably, one rout taken to negate some of the pacing effects brought on by management was the first episode being as overt as possible. Here are two songs, one says what the hero thinks, one says what the villain thinks, they cannot coexist.

And Adam is a really good villain for this type of setup, because he isn’t particularly complicated. He’s a misogynist who has made narcissism his entire personality, and that’s about it. He doesn’t need to be complex, he needs to be bad.

Hell Is Forever then only needs to get across the most important parts of Adam’s character: Hypocrisy, bigotry, and unoriginality.

Let me explain.

CONTENT WARNING: Foul language.

SPOILERS AHEAD (Hazbin Hotel)

In this context, the unoriginality insult is levied at Adam as a person and not as a character. Adam is a really novel take on the biblical character, but also the archetype he is playing. There are some really cool details that I will go into in detail in a moment.

But as a guy, Adam is painfully uncreative. Case and point: his language style is so basic.

I mentioned in my previous post that Charlie is characterised as naïve, but I deliberately didn’t say anything about this as a youthful lack of knowledge. The series as a whole takes great care to not get the two misconstrued, and Charlie is always treated as the adult she is.

Adam, meanwhile, has the vocabulary of a twelve-year-old who just learned the word “fuck.” He has nothing else going on than dirty jokes and immaturity. He’s puerile.

Lexicon is a character tool. Every word has its place, and every situation has about a hundred ways of approaching it through language. If a character everything in the same exact way, it implies that they approach the rest of their life with the same brute force technique. One size fits all in this person’s mind.

Note that this does not apply to real people, a person can curse and swear as much as they like. Symbolism is not a force of nature.

Adam’s unoriginality actually does take an interesting form in his music. It’s rock, and it sounds cool, but it misses the heart of what rock is as a genre, at least to me.

Rock is transgressive. It’s about raw expression and emotion. It’s a genre about being free from constraints and letting loose. Take Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing by Set It Off, and The Hand That Feeds by the Crane Wives, for example.

The former is about betrayal and feels like a journey through the stages of grief at a broken relationship as it ricochets from unfettered anger in the verses to a more manic-depressive pleading in the chorus, until crashing into a form of acceptance that immediately subverts itself as the song returns to its chorus and the perspective character is unable to move on.

It twists fairy tales to show the corruption of what could have been a storybook romance and lays the blame entirely on the protagonist's ex-partner.

Meanwhile, The Hand That Feeds isn’t really a rock song until it abruptly is. It’s a slow, lilting melody about powerlessness in the face of capitalism and the danger of “the great American ruse.” It has a bit of venom to it as it speaks of loss like a survivor showing off their scars. Then it goes quiet for a moment as its protagonist starts talking about the present and future, before releasing that stored energy into a mantra that speaks of being unchained in the face of the horrors she is describing. It’s a statement of hope, a war cry to raise the morale the downtrodden and a threat to those who hold together institutional injustice.

“I may never be a rich man but the rich man will never have me, never have me I may never be a rich man but I can make sure that I am free”.

Compare that to Adam, who sings:

“The rules are black and white There’s no use to tryin’ to fight it. They’re burning for their lives Until we kill ‘em again.”

Are you picking up on the thematic dissonance here? Its appropriation of an aesthetic without any thought going into it. It’s Adam using a genre about freedom to say “no, the system is fine actually,” and that misuse plays into something else as well.

Adam's wings also allow him to manipulate the cinematography. As he flies, the audience takes the side of Charlie looking up at him as he regards us both with distain.

Music is a tool of expression being heard. That’s why Seraphine should be the most dangerous character in League Of Legends but isn’t because Riot is Riot. Music makes an idea palatable and easy to convey.

Adam’s use of the genre takes that tool and irons it out. It makes the meaning less special by mixing it with utter horseshit that effectively waters it down, therefore stripping those he oppresses of a key tool to band together and achieve their freedom.

He doesn’t even do this intentionally, he's not intelligent enough to do that; the meaning is a side effect of his greater motive.

In that way, Adam is like an AI image generator. He scrubs the source material for shallow things that people like and turns them into something that looks half decent but doesn’t actually mean anything. It’s a disregard for those who paved the way for the thing he likes because it doesn’t occur to him that any of them had any actual thoughts.

This carries over into the visuals, which are just token edginess without any of the punch to them that actually make edginess special. The black and white shot is cool visually, but it’s the most literal visualisation of what he is saying, same with the thing of the image of the pot a few seconds later. There were so many ways to get the idea across, but Adam is uncreative and went for the obvious because it was easier.

Here is what Adam thinks better is. It's just heaven. He thinks of himself and his people as inherently superior, so to go with a line about chances, he shows heaven. Its uncreative on his part, but really interesting storytelling being done by the writers.

On the other hand, the lyrics of this song pull double duty by undercutting Adam at every moment possible to display his hypocrisy. The man is a walking satire of himself, and the writers know it.

Why do I think this? You may ask. Context, I answer.

This song is one of those moments from media that I have heard misused a few times by people who agree with the guy who say it, and by a few people who disagree and think that the author shares the character’s views. I would put the “You Can’t Handle The Truth” speech from A Few Good Men in this category, as well as Feed The Machine by Poor Man’s Poison.

Feed The Machine is a song about political corruption and classism. It’s the idea of “what if we said the quiet part out loud” and is aggressively morbid. It is most definitely not a song about gamers not getting what they want. There are a ton of reasons to get upset with Microsoft, don’t get me wrong, but using this song to protest in that context just looks like Dudley complaining about only getting 36 birthday presents.

A Few Good Men is the most egregious example, because holy moly is it misconstrued. The speech declares that the army is necessary and therefore allowed to get away with whatever they want because the truth is too unpleasant. It talks about the sacrifices needed to win.

But you do realise he’s wrong, right? Jack Nickleson is charismatic, sure, but his character, Jessep, is the villain. The sacrifice in question was the assault and death of a recruit, and this is happening in peace time. The man is a prison guardian in Guantanamo Bay after the cold war and before the war on terror. What is he guarding against? He’s justifying manslaughter with the vague concept of an enemy. He’s overtly in the wrong.

This is the Alf Garnett problem. It doesn’t matter how bad you make a satire, there will always be someone who is actually worse and who doesn’t read the writing on the wall.

For the record, I would also put most of what Catra does in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power into this basket, but I have an entire other series exploring that, so check that out if you want to know more.

Adam is, like Jessep, the villain of the story, and his antagonism is based in his hypocrisy. He spends the entirety of the song claiming that the rules of heaven are set in stone, but are they? He declared that the extermination would be sped up because “fuck you, I do what I want,” and the rules are never actually stated.

Most notably, how does anyone actually get into heaven? We still don’t know that and season one has wrapped up and hinted at an answer. It’s all speculation at this point.

I mentioned in my previous post that this series is aimed at the internet and Tumblr specifically, and Adam actually factors into it, because for a satire set in the Judaeo-Christian afterlife, the series is weirdly averse to critiquing its setting.

Instead, the series uses it as a visualisation of the themes and relies on the version presented in the Devine Comedy rather than anything more specific to the source beliefs.

As such, Adam exemplified the idea of retributive justice. The idea that if you are good, you can make bad people suffer, which I personally disagree with as a concept.

Adam takes on a mournful affectation for this line, the dissonance of which makes me laugh so much. It's like "I have to do a murder, or I will be sad, and you wouldn't want me to be sad, would you?" He's such a shmuck.

“For those of us with divine ordainment, extermination is entertainment.”

It is fun to Adam to watch bad people get their just deserts. And putting aside for a moment the inherently dubious morality of “bad” being ambiguously defined, it also doesn’t take into account the complexity of individuals that cannot be generalised.

Perhaps a person made a mistake or genuinely didn’t take into account the consequences. Maybe a person needed to make the decision because they had no other choice, like stealing money to pay for a medical procedure. What if someone wasn’t thinking straight and made a rash decision because they were tired or inebriated.

Or how about this: A person knowingly and willingly did an abhorrent thing, like a murder, and then regretted it and devoted themselves to getting better as a person and atoning for it.

Your mileage may vary on the morality of all of these people, but if I was to ask you individually if each of them deserved death, what would you say?

The show's specific word choice here, "winners", is a representation of Adam's justification. He thinks that he has earned the right to do genocide and that the penalty for losing a game whose rules he is actively making up, is death.

Looping back to the ethics of this, what is defined as bad in this story?

Is stealing enough to get you into hell? How much would you have to steal? If you walked home from school with a pencil you borrowed from a friend and forgot to give back, that’s technically stealing, so are you going to hell?

Similarly, the series implies a Judaeo-Christian moral code, but that changes depending on the denomination and location. In some places, homosexuality is a sin, would that get someone in this universe damned for all time even if their particular church disagreed with that specific doctrine?

This is all compounded by the fact that, it doesn’t matter what you did to get to hell, the extermination aims to kill as many people as it can, one size fits all punishment.

Which leads to my critique of the internet, because say what you will about its benefits, the internet is awful at nuance, and it is awful at morality. Youtube and Twitter incentivise controversy through their algorithms, and while Tumblr doesn’t have that problem as bad, I have seen so many people in the media analysis side of this platform complain about how x character didn’t receive enough punishment for what they did, or y character’s redemption arc can’t work because they were too bad before.

And people act like Adam and Lute online, either shouting down others to drown them out or by speaking quickly to out debate people with arguments that don’t actually make sense when you think about them.

This is why the popular moral grey character these days is just either a fully good character who wears eyeliner or a fully bad character who’s blonde, but it also strays into how we view our own world.

The internet talks about the world with a black and white morality that just doesn’t fit. I live in a country where one politician being unapologetically terrible as a person means that everyone else is suddenly an angel and everything they do is forgiven, which is exhausting.

Yes, there are evil people out there, and there are good people, but the vast majority of humanity is somewhere in the middle.

People get really emotional online, and the desire to take revenge out on fictional characters is fine, they’re fictional. But take care to not let that stray into how you interact with real people. The internet has far too many horror stories of angry people hurting others because “its ok to hurt them, they hurt someone else, and this is payback”.

After I wrote this @comicaurora put out a post that made my point in a really succinct way, so go read that.

The most chilling example of this is that while writing this post, I was worried people would think I was generalising and assume I have accused them of being awful human beings for misconstruing characters. That’s not what I’m trying to do, I’m just saying that morality is complex and the internet as a whole isn’t very good at understanding that, so we should all try to work together and get better at nuanced thinking.

Be kind to people, essentially. Everyone has a story and some even have reasons for what they do.

Before I go, I despise the visual designs of the angels. I think in concept they are cool, but in practice I don’t quite buy them. However, the one thing that really works for me is that the exorcists all have one eye crossed out. An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

Final Thoughts

I want to focus on my thesis for this series. As in, I think the series is fundamentally about hope. Hope for a better future, hope that you can get better, hope against all odds. So it’s important to me that Adam as a villain goes out of his way to tell Charlie that her hope is misplaced and that it won’t go anywhere.

But that’s the thing about hope, if there was a reason to believe, hope wouldn’t be necessary. Hope exists when there is no proof, and it inspires. Adam’s attempts to tell Charlie that she’ doesn’t have a chance fall on deaf ears because she knows what he’s telling her, it’s all been said before.

The difference being, thanks to the extermination, Charlie and the crew as a whole have no choice but to hope. Adam has brought on his own destruction through his callousness. If he had just left hell alone, it would have got better over time, sure, but it wouldn’t have done so in battle.

In other words, oppressors can only bring about their own demise when they make resistance the only viable option.

Next week, I will be looking at Stayed Gone and Alastor’s introduction, but I also have a post planned for this Sunday in which I will go into Lavendertowne’s second batch of redesigns and explore how they tell their story. So, stick around if that interests you.

Previous - Next

[bluecheeseinmyoffwhites]

Very late, but, https://www.tumblr.com/blue-cheeseinmyoffwhites/756639587329277952/rwby-asks-are-open-im-bored?source=share

Who's you're favorite character?

Quick shoutout to the lovely @tumblingxelian for their amazing RWBY content check them out on YT

Let’s do Top 5

Mercury Black

This is solely because of his fighting style. If I could fuck up some stuff with my legs I’d probably be a dick about it too. I started RWBY during V2 & he was one of the first faces I met. I remember LOVING his design & liking his cool laid-back attitude. He started gaining my attention in Volume 3 after his fight with Coco & Yatsu, then won me over after his fight with Yang. I remember being baffled after his prosthetic reveal, & after learning about his allusion it all came together. For the longest time I was trying to decode his semblance (I thought it was something to do with wind manipulation) then V6 came around & shut all that down. I understand he hasn’t been very popular as of late, but I think he has so much potential & they just need to give him more screentime in V10+

Sun Wukong

I appreciate an unconditionally positive character. Sun & Mercury have always just been so cool to me. His design is great too, I like his monkey traits & how he shows his abs. His weapon is genuinely top 5 in the series, & his semblance matches his bright personality. One of my favorite fight scenes is Blake & Sun vs Sea Feilong & his contribution played a big part of that. I did like his appearance in V4-V5 & I was excited to see his gun-chucks return against Ilia. I think he is a great foil to Blake & serves her character arc really well.

Cinder Fall

Sorry but Cinder Fall is just that bitch. I hate everything she does & that’s why I love her. She knows what she wants & can easily get people on her side to do her bidding. She actually pushes the narrative & I consider her to be the main antagonist. The animators take real care when it comes to her battles. She has not missed a SINGLE fight she has been in. Seriously every one has been a hit: Glynda, Amber, Ozpin, Pyrrha, Raven, Neo, Winter, Penny, etc etc. Anytime there is a fight involving Cinder it’s going to be rememberable in some way, especially the Raven vs Cinder fight. I vividly remember my mind going numb watching it for the first time. I do feel they made her a little OP but it’s whatever. I really like her character arc & how she’s slowly turning into a Grimm. I loved her backstory, a lot of people didn’t because it’s just “Cinderella but dark” but like…..that’s kinda the entire point of this series, dark retellings of fairytales. She’s a great foil to Ruby & actually learns from her to gain victory in V8. I just want them to have a proper fight.

Qrow Branwen

Qrow Qrow Qrow. I love their man & want to give him hugs. If there’s one thing RWBY does amazingly, it is setup & payoff. I love his they slowly teased him in V1-V2 as a badass & then finally let us visualize it in V3. He doesn’t take crap from anyone & says what’s on his mind. Love Love LOVE his relationship with Ruby (forever holding onto my cracktheory that he’s her real dad). He acts as her mentor & influenced her fighting style. I like how he became the leader of the team for some time & how his laid-back attitude conflicts with him suddenly having to take care of 8 kids. But he does it anyway. His fight scenes are also amazing. He always looks so confident. His first appearance in V3 he had that super dynamic fight against Winter. In V4 he fought Tyrian & showed Team RNJR (& us) the difference between students & Huntsmen. V7 is where he really shined for me. He finally had a relationship that wasn’t affected by his semblance & can just chill for a while. I very much enjoyed his relationship with Clover & was heartbroken by what happened after. But those last 2 fights with them were pretty great. I hope his semblance evolves into Good Luck as well.

Yang Xiao Long

I like all members of Team RWBY but Yang stands out for obvious reasons. She had the best Trailer for one. Also her fighting style is the most different from her teammates. They’re all swing-swing-slash & she’s all punch-punch-kick. Like Cinder, Yang gets the best treatment when it comes to fight scenes. She’s been marketed as the strongest member & it shows over & over again. Her semblance is super cool & makes her look like a Goddess. I like how her character arc revolves around her fighting style & we can actually see her improvement throughout the volumes. I like how she is the most vocal about the whole trust situation in V5-V8. She lost her arm for this war, she of all people deserves some answers. I really adore her relationship with Blake & I think their story is perfect. She’s the heart of the team & it’s most present in V5 when she is the one reuniting the team.

[arkhaline]

My Complete Thoughts on RvB: Restoration

Major spoilers for the entire season below the cut!

I think the biggest sin of this season was not clarifying when it takes place, as it cheapened a lot of the twists by genuinely confusing me or contrasting information that we had already been given in S15-S18. Keep this in mind for the rest of the review.

Maybe the allusion to Caboose’s voice being “misremembered” was confirmation that it was in fact a simulation post-S13, but it still wasn’t super clear to me. Especially since Dylan was talking about the Reds and Blues (even though I know they met post-S10), which kinda made it feel like Restoration could be post-S18 (unless that was the point). There was just enough ambiguity that it really could have gone either way for most of the movie.

I feel like the humor was a bit off?? Maybe it was a generational gap since the show was going back to someone who hasn’t written for it in a while and is older than the current writers (case in point: he used tropes that Gen Z makes fun of a lot, e.g. he’s right behind me isn’t he). The Zoom call bit also went on WAY too long. The metacommentary about the changing attitudes toward RT also felt a bit tone deaf. In general, a lot of the trademark RvB banter just felt stale, it was the more general dialogue that was stronger (though Church telling Caboose to shut up when Simmons was talking did make me laugh).

Also, Grif was so angry all the time at the beginning?? Felt out of character and took me out of those early scenes. Maybe it was a setup for the whole discharge subplot but it just felt… off

The writing was just a bit clunky at the beginning, felt very direct and exposition-y, but that might be because they had so much to cover in so little time. It resolved itself later, anyway (except for the rapid fire ending, there was so much to unpack there).

Alright enough complaining about the general format, here are my more detailed thoughts.

Sheila!!! That is all.

I can excuse Caboose secretly speaking Spanish the whole time because there was a bit in S16 (maybe 17? can’t remember) where he understands something that Lopez said.

I initially completely missed the fact that the Meta’s color scheme was an allusion to Felix, that is so fucked up. Tucker dressed in the colors of the man he hates the most about to kill his closest friends? Jesus.

The Director being Epsilon’s therapist in the YouTube video made me laugh really hard.

Speaking of therapists, Wash was patient 619-B and I think that was the Counselor’s voice. Is the implication that he survived in this timeline?? Because he died before Epsilon fractured himself, so that much should at least be set in stone. Not really clear on that.

The “Great Destroyer” thing felt a bit retcon-y, but I can get behind it well enough.

I got so excited when 479er showed up, glad that we got confirmation that she made it out of Recovery okay. Wish we could’ve seen her and Wash (and Carolina) interact though.

I wish they had done Sarge’s death a bit differently. Kinda wish he hadn’t been all “that worked out well!” only to be stabbed, it felt very “he’s right behind me isn’t he” and made the fact that he was about to be stabbed obvious from a million miles away. There’s definitely something to be said about him sacrificing himself for a blue, and the deathbed interactions he had with the others were really good, but it kinda just felt like shock value?? Like there wasn’t enough build up to the payoff, it just kinda seemed like he decided to save Caboose last minute without any major character motivations or development behind the decision.

Which is another thing, it felt like it relied a LOT on Red vs. Blue dynamics in the beginning, and I was fucking flabbergasted when they actually left Caboose behind. The same people who broke time to save Wash would just leave Caboose to die like that? No way.

Meta!Tucker felt like it wasn’t explored enough, mostly just “no I won’t do your bidding” and “yes you will” back and forth with no real depth. However, credit where credit is due, I LOVED how this gave us a new perspective to Maine’s descent into madness. That ten-years-of-torture-in-a-few-seconds thing? So fucked up. Can you imagine being tortured by the remnants of your best friend, who have zero regard for your well-being? If they did all of that to Tucker in the short time they were together, just imagine what they did to Maine to get him to the point he was at at the end of S10/by Recollection.

Bonus points for the fact that the fragments tortured Tucker without a second thought when they themselves are a result of torture. They seemed to spare no empathy for Tucker despite having been through this themselves. Then again, I suppose they are they are copies of the original Leonard Church, who had no such qualms.

Didn’t realize that Meta!Tucker was voiced by Miles Luna (aka Felix’s voice actor) until the credits, that was an extra layer of fucked up and I loved it.

I really enjoyed Wash’s plot for the most part. I was definitely super intrigued the whole time since so much of his subplot didn’t add up from his perspective. I mean, I think he deserved something more for a send-off since most of his arc wasn’t really related to his character as a whole (besides the freelancer thing at the end). However, I still enjoyed it for what it was worth.

Additionally, if this is post-S13, I wish they’d clarified because I assumed that Wash was suffering from cerebral hypoxia and not some other injury. They kept alluding to something that happened on Chorus, but I wasn’t clear on the fact that it was a separate timeline of events. The Doc plot twist threw me off a lot more as a result.

I could tell he was gonna launch himself off the cliff and it still made me laugh hysterically.

I’m glad that the final battle was in Blood Gulch. It’s cliché, but it felt full-circle. Plus, it was the best resting place for Sarge in canon and a good set-up for a “why were we here” moment.

I knew Simmons was gonna have his arm broken but I still gasped anyway. And when the shotgun was cut in half??? Bro my jaw was on the floor, it was like when John Wick’s dog was killed (probably, I’ve never seen that movie). But the way Simmons cocked the shotgun with one hand was badass as hell, good for him.

I’m glad we got something resembling a Simmons character arc? I think it relied a lot on setup from previous seasons of him becoming a leader, with little to no actual development in S19 itself, but it still felt at least decently satisfying.

“Best throw ever. Of all time” made me laugh, I love a good callback. Actually, there were a lot of fun callbacks to jokes, like the irony bit. They were greatly appreciated.

Tucker getting launched by a warthog actually made me laugh really hard, I love the “shotgun as a code word” bit so much.

The Tex plot twist was SO GOOD, I totally didn’t see it coming. Much better direction to go anyway, since we already put Church to rest in S15. So glad that Caboose was able to get his moment in the spotlight and have the smartest plan of all of them. Unless it was Church’s plan, in which case I find it so sweet that he wanted to bring Tex back instead of himself (even if it did cheapen the S9 “let her go” thing a bit). I also really loved the callback where her armor turned black because of the teleporter, that was really good.

I got so excited when they started playing Round One I’ll be honest. Also, I Say Ooh?? Was not expecting that one.

In all honesty, I didn’t love the soundtrack (kinda felt stock music-y and cliché in a lot of parts, plus it didn’t have the musical style that we’ve come to expect from RvB). It was fine, but nothing to write home about. The campfire song was good too. I know about the whole thing where Trocadero wouldn’t join on unless everyone was brought back on, and now that we know that RT is shutting down, it’s possible that this was because multiple musical artists just weren’t in the budget. That said, it’s a shame that there weren’t more original songs.

I called that Carolina was gonna be Recovery (though now I think about it, why was she doing Recovery?? was it even Recovery since Charon had been shut down??? What happened to her after Chorus???? Also her talking about how her and Wash would do everything together from now on meanwhile she left him behind in some hospital?????). Anyway, the fight with her and Tex was SO fan service-y but I ate it up anyway, good for them.

Tex winning because she was a collection of the Reds and Blues’ memories and she always won against them was so, so good, something to be said about the positive nature of the memories of your friends (I mean just look at how happy they had been when recounting everything they’d been through!)

Also if just talking about someone was enough to create a functional AI, it kinda makes the whole “torturing Alpha to make more AI” thing totally pointless and retcons the entire show but. Whatever.

TEX DESERVED THIS ENDING!! I like the S9 ending in a lot of ways, it was poetic that she was finally allowed to rest after being dragged back so many times against her will, but I think it also felt incomplete because I don’t know if being put to rest was what Tex herself would actually want. There is a significant difference between not electing to bring her back again and choosing to take her out of the fight. Tex was never allowed to make her own decisions, not even in S9. This ending was entirely on her terms, which I think was fantastic.

I loved the rockslide, it reminded me a lot of the ice fight from S8 was just generally very fun.

It’s established that Tucker became the Meta because he had several AI when just two was enough to almost kill Carolina. If this isn’t the canon timeline, then why didn’t Tucker become the Meta in that one? For a reason besides “the writers didn’t think of it”.

I hope that Burnie came up with the idea for this season by reading Meta!Tucker fan fiction.

The Doc thing was so??? Why did they do a Sixth Sense. Like I think that twist would have worked a LOT better if they made it clearer when this took place (I kept flip flopping on whether this was an alternate timeline post-S13 or main timeline post-S18 up until this point, which made the whole Doc-died-on-Chorus thing feel like it came out of nowhere since, if it was post-S18, we knew that Doc survived Chorus. It also makes Epsilon’s sacrifice to get them all out of there feel a bit cheaper since they didn’t all get out of there, but maybe that suggests that S15-S18 are the main timeline).

How did Doc heal Wash’s leg?? Was it even broken in the first place??? Did they ever clarify that????

I GASPED when the Freelancers showed up. It was camp as hell and hard to take seriously but also I don’t even care. I’m glad he got some kind of goodbye, since he was always too late to do so as a Recovery agent.

Kinda funny that Wyoming wasn’t there but Florida was, and also South was there even though Wash murdered her in cold blood. Anyway.

When One showed up I felt every emotion I think

Bro where the hell was Donut? There was no good reason for him not to at least show up, maybe on the pelican with One or something. Especially since S16 and S17 were dedicated to an entire arc about how everyone should stop disrespecting Donut, like come on.

Edit: did a little research and it might be because there’s no pink armor in the game this season was filmed in? Which is so hard to believe, since Halo has so many references to RvB. I can’t believe they would just cut out the armor colors of one of the main characters and make it impossible for him to return in the way we know him, it’s messed up.

I know time was short, but I wish we had more time to explore Tucker’s feelings post-Meta. Especially since he killed Sarge, even though it definitely wasn’t his fault. There probably wasn’t enough time to get into all that, but still, he seemed remarkably fine after everything that had happened. I guess that kind of exploration is what AO3 is for lol.

I have mixed feelings about the end for Tex and Church. On one hand, Tex calling herself Allison Church was so sweet and I loved how caring she was, it reminded me of when she said goodbye to Alpha during the Freelancer saga. Also, the fact that there was finally a Church free of the memories of his predecessors felt very satisfying. However, I kind of wish that they could have just had their happily ever after and stayed in the memory unit. I understand the decision—destroying the remaining AI was really the best way to make sure Project Freelancer was put to rest forever—but I kinda feel like she and Church deserved better than simply being put down after everything they’d been through.

One final team kill for Caboose. Ow.

The animation was really, really good!! It looked much better than that plasticky look the trailer had. I didn’t love Epsilon’s animations (they felt a bit jerky and overacted), but otherwise I think they did a really great job. I especially loved how they animated the AI on Tucker’s visor, it looked cool as hell.

I think one of the things this season suffered from was the overall tonal shift in the writing. Burnie hadn’t written for, and Matt hadn’t solely directed, a season in a LONG time. We’ve come to expect more character-focused narratives that dive into the nuisances of the characters and their relationships, and we didn’t really get that here (unless you count Sarge’s deathbed confession to Grif that he was hard on him because he wanted him to be more, which still felt a bit shallow. Actually, there are lot of things which could be considered set-ups in retrospect, but their intended payoffs didn’t feel like payoffs). I think there was a consequential whiplash as compared to what we have come to expect from RvB, and while the writing style we got wasn’t inherently bad (again, I liked a lot of it), it was definitely different.

I really, really hated that Grif left at the end. That’s literally the antithesis of his S15 arc, which felt much more complete and true to the character than this one. It’s impossible not to compare these arcs because of how inherently similar they are, and because I believe the S15 arc is superior (Grif’s exhaustion was a more subtle and believable reaction than this Grif’s raw anger, and his realization of how much he relied on his team was much more powerful than this Grif just tapping out), it makes the S19 Grif arc feel poorly thought out.

Also, he wanted to be discharged, but I don’t think they worked for the UNSC or any other military organization after Chorus since they all retired, so was any of that really necessary? Maybe retirement is just a vessel, so to speak, to represent Grif leaving adventure behind him for good. Still, I liked the way S15 handled this arc a lot more.

Vale Deah. Ow.

NO GRIMMONS??? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???

The most we got was Grif leaving and asking Simmons to come with him but like. “not scared to take risks my ass”, Burnie.

Honestly, I think this season was a victim of its format. Eighty minutes isn’t a lot of time to properly send off these characters, especially when RvB as a format is based on multi-season arcs. There just wasn’t enough time to build up tension or explore the dynamics of something as extreme as Meta!Tucker in a way that would feel satisfying. That said, I think Burnie did a pretty good job fitting as many things as he did into this format. A part of me is almost glad that Grimmons wasn’t made canon? I feel like it might’ve felt rushed to give it a satisfying arc in just 80 minutes in addition to all of the other shit going on, and I think after 21 years they deserved at least a satisfying resolution. However, they did NOT deserve an ending which implied that they would never see each other again, what the fuck.

TL;DR? 7.5/10. Far from perfect, and there were a lot of creative decisions made that I heavily disagree with. However, they did a lot right, too, and it still seems heartfelt in a way that helps me overlook some of its flaws. Overall, I enjoyed this season for what it was worth. There are some qualities of S17 that I think made for a better final goodbye to these characters, and some qualities of S19 that I think made for a better goodbye (in all honesty I never finished S18, but it wasn’t really a “goodbye” season anyway). Wrapping up a 21-year-old series is very difficult, and I have a lot of respect for Burnie and the others who worked on Restoration for what they put together. Truthfully, I’m gonna pick and choose which segments of S17 and S19 are canon in my heart (S17 is still the overall canon ending for me), but I’m happy with what we got in the end.

Anyways, I’m happy to chat more in the replies, let me know your thoughts!

[teecupangel]

was reading through your claudes tag and came across this tag "at this point we’re only missing petruccio and we will have all the auditore siblings x desmond headcanons XD" and it made me think of an au where desmond is reborn around the same time as petruccio is born so they become childhood friends after they hit it off after tthye "coincidentally" meet on one of petruccio's rare days out

so they grow up together with desmond feeling guilty about using petruccio to get closer to petruccio's family not realizing that he's started thinking of them as petruccio's family instead of ezio's and that his motivation has shifted to saving petruccio instead of sparing ezio the pain of seeing his family die

meanwhile petruccio has a puppy crush on desmond forever because desmond while protective of him doesn't coddle him like his family does and also being very understanding about changing plans because of petruccio's disability like "oh we had planned to play outside today but now you're not feeling up to it that's cool lets go play cards, or read together, or play whatever board games existed in renaissance italy"

side tangent had the thought of desmond apprenticing to a woodcarver so that he could learn how to make some of the few board games he can remember from the future to play with petruccio

also i feel like demond would have to have petruccio's crush pointed out to him a la white aster before he has his oh oh moment probably by one of petruccio's siblings letting something slip by accident

The post from the #claudes tag where I did write in the tags that we’re only missing Petruccio from the Auditore family.

With this ask, Desmond now have the complete set XD

Okay, let’s talk about this childhood friends-to-lover setup for Petruccio and Desmond!

Why not just make Desmond be reborn as the son of a carpenter? That would give Desmond easy access to what can be considered as ‘trash’ and he could just start trying to carve it because he keeps on talking about board games he remembered playing and Petruccio always looked interested in playing them but then Desmond would remember that they wouldn’t be invented until later on.

We can even make Desmond’s father a descendant of the Vikings so he could teach Desmond how to carve out his first Orlog set so Desmond would have something to practice on.

From there, Desmond could start bringing his own board games to play with Petruccio.

So in this scenario, Desmond would have played lots of board games. Maybe one of his coworkers in Bad Weather liked board games and would invite his coworkers to play during the weekend or something and Desmond enjoyed it because it felt like he was connecting with people without lying about who he was.

In this situation, I think it would be funny if Desmond making board games he remember to play with Petruccio would lead to Leonardo discovering him as a genius ‘game maker’.

How?

Because a lot of the board games Desmond remembered needed more than two players (although Petruccio does love Patchwork and they play that a lot) so the other Auditore siblings (and sometimes their parents) get roped in to play with them as well.

The Auditores are competitive kids and even Petruccio shows his fangs during this time (even if the main reason why Petruccio is being competitive is because he doesn’t want to lose in front of Desmond and, really, the three try their best to support their youngest brother's puppy love but their thirst for victory superseded any familial love they feel for one another).

So Leonardo gets roped in to the weekly (biweekly? Triweekly?) board game night and he sees all of the many board games Desmond had made and he starts to interview him about them and Desmond tries to answer all of them, admitting that a lot of the board games are actually versions 2 or 3 because he had to tweak the game balance (since he didn’t remember all the rules) a lot of times which embarrasses him. This only makes Leonardo think highly of him because admitting that it’s not perfect meant that Desmond strives to keep upgrading his work.

Leonardo’s sudden interest in Desmond makes Petruccio jealous though and he already had to be make peace with how Desmond seem to be ‘like’ Ezio (in Desmond’s defense… he’s bias to Ezio thanks to his life as Desmond Miles).

But he can’t do anything because Leonardo is a friend of the family and a loyal friend for that matter and…

Well…

Leonardo was also trying to help Petruccio try to get Desmond’s attention.

It all comes to a boil when in one of the more stressful board games (I’m thinking maybe Nemesis or maybe even Werewolves/Blood on the Clocktower), someone (probably Claudia?) calls out Petruccio’s actions as less of him playing to win but playing to make sure Desmond wins and that’s cheating because he can’t let his love for Desmond be the reason why he’s willing to lose the game and drag everybody with him.

And everyone just grows quiet…

And Petruccio runs away.

While Desmond’s just sitting there, having his own “Oh my god, he loves me! Why didn’t I see that? Oh Jesus Christ, I’m so dumb! Why didn’t I notice it???” and “Do I… Do I love Petruccio??? Have I fallen for him without realizing it???” breakdown on the inside while he just looked at the board game blankly.

This would happen when Desmond and Petruccio reached like maybe 18 or 19 (so yeah, no Auditore execution event because Desmond had been busy).

Leonardo would actually be the one to talk to Desmond and he would talk about how the real reason why he fell in love with Desmond’s board games (which they’re working on selling soon) was because it was made with love.

Each carving done by the same pair of hands each time…

Each stories engraved in the board…

Each rules to ensure fairness…

Desmond wasn’t just making them for fun.

They had always been a labor of love.

But the question then becomes…

Who was Desmond thinking of when he was making all of these board games?

And Desmond just stares at Leonardo before he goes, “Thank you.”

Leonardo just smiles back as he asks, “I’m not the one who needs to hear the truth about these board games now, am I, Desmond?”

“Yeah…” Desmond stands as he agrees, “I should… I need to talk to Petruccio.”

Leonardo nods and watches as Desmond rushes back to Palazzo Auditore.

Ah… young love…