#another huge thing that bothers me is when the main character(s) completely lose control of the story for an extended period of time

[mossy-covered-bones]

Yknow im a huge fan of angst, and its incredibly fun to write, but i find myself kind of picky abt the structure of angst stories that ill actually read?

Like ive clicked off plenty of stories bc the way the authors handled a facet of their story, or the plot, or the tone. And its a give and take—im more likely to stay through a plot structure that im not enthusiastic about if the writing or framing is super good and vis versa. Because theres a balance, yknow?

I guess what it mostly boils down to is continuity in tone. Dramatic tone shifts—sudden plot twists—throw me off a BUNCH. Bc ive already familiarized myself with the existing tone, already grew attached to the apparent vibe that the story is going for, that a sudden shift in writing is going to throw me off and ruin the immersion.

Now, if its gradual…

Angst is, partially, about suspense. (I say as if EVERY genre isnt at least partially about suspense) I’m not here because i delight in reading about someone suffering, im here because i like reading about someone experiencing emotion

Even if a dramatic shift is part of the plot there is going to be some call back to the before. That is the purpose of dramatic, life altering events—to shake your character’s grip from their previous normal. They’ll flounder in the unfamiliarity, or theyll thrive in the new conditions, but theres still going to be some call back, some comparison to how it was before and how this event changed them or shaped them. Because people are naturally resistant to change, theyre not going to adjust perfectly. They’re also not going to suddenly change who they are as a person.

Its gradual. Theres going to be something resisting that sudden change that help to create a sense of continuity between before and after. And also having a dramatic shift with no build up or foreshadowing and NOT having that sense of tone drag is. Kinda lazy writing, in my opinion. A cop out, a deux ex machina but for plotlines

[pla-teau]

WANDAVISION SERIES FINALE THOUGHTS

WHOEVER’S CUTTING ONIONS NEEDS TO S T O P.

hayward | i was one of the many few who really wished death on the man cause he’s just the worst. this man emptied his clip at two children. i’m glad jimmy was able to pull a fast one on this dick and that darcy hit him with the ice cream truck and very happy to see the man being taken away in cuffs.

vision vs. vision | while i would’ve enjoyed seeing them fight it out until one completely lost, it wouldn’t be vision without some philosophic conversation. it’s true vision fashion. he doesn’t fight unless it’s a last resort. he’s logical and can assess other means in which to deter a foe. truly enjoyed the scene and now i’m just curious as to where tf white vision yeeted off to after regaining the memories from hex!vision? some have speculated possibly wakanda since that is the place where he died. twice. i would love to see him possibly interact with shuri since she would’ve appeared in the memory montage that hex!vision provided him with alongside other events from infinity war.

agatha (aka not mephisto) | overall, i loved agatha as a character and i’m glad she wasn’t killed off by the end of the series. i know she was more villainous in the show but i’m glad they somewhat neutralized her even if it was by cruel punishment brought upon by wanda to keep her trapped in westview as a nosy neighbor. it keeps the door open for us to see more interactions between her and wanda. i’m also glad that she was the foe wanda had to go against. i know many (like myself) speculated mephisto would appear and be revealed but i’m happy i was wrong about that. this is the first entry into phase four and to spill out a big bad right away? probably not the best move. i know ant-man 3 is planning on introducing kang the conqueror so i wouldn’t be shocked if mephisto is used as a red herring to distract us from the actual big bad of the phase, kang the conqueror (while still keeping mephisto around obviously for future battles and possibly use him as a big bad down the road).

family is forever | i was sobbing when seeing the hex start shrinking down in the distance outside the boys’ window. i love that wanda and vision made the move to put them to bed as a way of saying goodbye so they wouldn’t have to see them disappear. i hope to see these same boys come back cause i think no matter what your theory was on them, viewers fell in love with them. if planning for young avengers, i cannot wait to see them be a part of it. given that these boys weren’t real and not actually wanda’s children, i think they’ll go the route that they’ll find each other even if not as a blood related family but reincarnations that know that wanda was their mother in one instance and see her as a mother figure (alongside their actual mothers, of course). i just love them and i really wish they stuck around but i know this won’t be the last time we see them!

wanda’s outfit | i love it and i think pays homage to her comic book costume while still fitting the aesthetic of wanda and the mcu. love the attention to detail and the pattern on her headpiece. someone on here also pointed out in a post how it resembles magneto’s suit and it makes me love it more because of that. in conclusion, this is the scarlet witch and she’s hot.

wanda and vision’s farewell | if i was sobbing at billy and tommy’s fate, i was wailing by the time these two started saying goodbye. we learn that the main reason vision was able to be created the way he was by wanda was because of the mind stone. while she is the scarlet witch, she was exposed to and enhanced by the mind stone that ended up becoming vision. like she said, it’s a part of her. he lives on in her and overall, this scene just cemented that these two are meant to be together. they are going to be that power couple in the mcu moving forward, together or apart. we know these two are meant for each other and have so much love for each other and will find their way back always. while they may change, the one thing you can bet your ass on is that they fucking love each other.

ralph bohner | the twist that no one saw coming - peter is ralph. it’s clear that he was being controlled by agatha because the moment monica took off the necklace, he woke up from her spell. a lot of people are swirling around to say that he’s probably woo’s missing person. we don’t know that and it’s something that’s left unconfirmed. while i would’ve enjoyed the reveal to be peter actually being peter from the x-men universe, i’m also happy he isn’t. yes there was a lot of fanfare and hope for this series to introduce the multiverse but in retrospect, it would’ve been too much to throw at us at the beginning of phase four. throwing in the multiverse right away would’ve taken away from the series being about wanda (separate point i’ll get to at the end). do hope to see evan peters in a future mcu project, though!

wanda’s story moving forward | i hope wanda becomes a sort of anti-hero for the future. this does set up her appearance in doctor strange 2 and i can’t wait to see what she does. while agatha said she’s destined to destroy the world and her power exceeds the sorcerer supreme’s, i hope the writers don’t make wanda into this villain that loses her logic because of extreme power. wanda has proven agatha wrong already by acknowledging the error in her ways. when she realized she was hurting the people of westview, she let them go and stopped hurting them. she learned that yes, she is hurting them without knowing so what she has to do is let them go. wanda has learned throughout her years with the avengers the consequences her powers can have on people. we know she’s never been trained by a witch and yes, that makes her dangerous with her chaos magic. the second post credit scene shows us that she’s determined to teach herself even if it’s through the darkhold. in seeing what she’s done and the power she holds, i think wanda will be this gray moral character. she holds a great deal of power, the most powerful being on the planet at the moment, and that can cloud her judgement at times. despite being an avenger, this show has really shown us that wanda is alone. while she was with the avengers, what have they really done? they kept her in check and helped her utilize her powers for good but then when civil war happened, she was detained and treated like a weapon of mass destruction. the avengers are clearly nonexistent and those that are around, haven’t bothered with her. i also hope that this new phase of marvel kinda tears down the original avengers and their actions because while intentions were good, not everything or everyone was perfect and there’s consequences. and i hope those consequences are shown through the main characters of this phase like wanda.

the complaints | while i loved this show so so much, i did have some issues. while i enjoyed that this show fleshed out more of wanda’s past, i’m sad that they didn’t confirm or at least try to make wanda jewish since they completely erased her romani roots from the comics. this goes back to my whole thing with representation which i’ve mentioned before in response to an article. while i love elizabeth olsen’s portrayal and care she has for wanda, a romani actress still should’ve been cast from the beginning. the least they could’ve done was at least make her jewish even if ever so subtly because that is the other half of wanda’s identity, even if it’s been retconned often. if they are never going to confirm her as magneto’s daughter in the mcu, at least honor that aspect of her identity if you’ve erased one major one already. representation matters and i wish they tried to do right by the character since they clearly paid close attention to other aspects of her comic book history and took a deep dive into her mental health. come at me for these thoughts but i’ll stand by them. another is just directed at the press for the show (i’m looking at you paul bettany). while fans went ham on the theories and marvel will do anything to misdirect you, i think there should’ve been a clear up from marvel about bettany’s claims of a big cameo coming in the series when it was about himself. i get you don’t want to spoil the show and the big surprises it may hold for the audience but still. i think there should’ve been someone behind the scenes or bettany’s publicist could’ve kinda told him to stop hinting at a super duper big cameo. yes, fans got carried away but i think when you’re doing press for marvel, it should be somewhat common knowledge that fans are going to analyze and try to figure out wtf is gonna happen. it’s fun theorizing, don’t get me wrong but when it’s gone the way it has for this show, i think it leaves a lot of people unsatisfied. i’ll admit i was being a clown thinking i’d see patrick stewart as professor x again since he’s an actor paul’s never worked with before and would be a huge fan service for the audience like in the mandalorian season finale. tldr; crazy fan theories comes with the territory. my final grievance actually has to do with the set up for monica’s engineer. i was also hoping we’d someone big or someone that could be big in the future, possibly it was a skrull at the end but the tone and way monica talked about it, i think it was underwhelming to see a character that we came not to care too much about.

final thoughts | overall, i loved this show and it was refreshing to see marvel embrace the magical side of their universe as it continues to expand. the cast was amazing. everyone in the cast and crew deserve awards because this really gave us a show about wanda. i think a lot of people lost that (including myself) with all the theorizing; goes back to my complaint about press for the show. it gave us a show that dealt with trauma and grief in a way we haven’t seen before in marvel’s cinematic universe. i’ll admit i didn’t care much for wanda as i did with the others but this show made me care for her a lot more and made me a bigger fan of her and vision’s story. it grounded itself in dealing with wanda’s grief and trauma in a new way while also exploring her character more. so i’m happy that we didn’t get a super big cameo or that the multiverse wasn’t confirmed because then the tone and attention would’ve shifted away from this story being about her. i hope marvel can give us shows like this that make us care about a character’s emotions and feelings rather than just how cool and badass they look in a suit. it was clear that the cast and crew made this with such love and care that had good storytelling and kept us on edge every week. i hope that marvel can show us these types of stories and ranges from characters in future movies as well.

[shoujocentral]

Symphogear G- Sequelitis Strikes Again...

So, after watching the first season of Symphogear, finishing it in three days, and being hooked in an instant, naturally I was pumped to get to the next season to see what they would do with the plot, what new characters we'd get to see, how the old characters would be expanded upon, and how much more awesome the fights would get. And... would it be too harsh to say that it basically failed on most of that criteria?

Okay, yeah it would. But still, the reason this review took so long to come out is because I found this season to be a chore to get through. I still had a lot of fun, don't get me wrong, but it was a far cry from the excitement and investment I experienced in the first season. Where exactly did Symphogear G go wrong? Well, let's dive into that now.

Once again, this review will be spoiler-free for any who haven't seen the show yet.

Plot:

What is Senshi Zesshou Symphogear G about?

After the events of the first season, Hibiki, Tsubasa and Chris along with the DRS are working with the esteemed Dr. Ver to preserve Solomon's Cane, a device that Finé used to summon Noise. However, it is soon revealed that the doctor is evil, and working with a terrorist organization known as Federal Institutes of Sacrist (FIS), and with Solomon's Cane in their possession, they now have control of the Noise.

On top of that, three new Symphogear users appear, only they are working on the side of FIS. The leaders of the three, Maria Cadenzavna Eve, claims to be the new reincarnation of Finé's soul, and she also possesses a dark version of Gungnir, Hibiki's Symphogear. With such a formidable ally, FIS demands that the world's governments relinquish all control to them, lest they unleash the Noise upon them in an all-out assault.

How will our heroes stop this new global threat? And why are a group of Gear users working for the enemy?

At first, I thought the plot had a lot of intrigue and potential. While the first episode didn't grab me by the balls like Season 1 Episode 1 did, I was still interested to learn about the villainous Gear users and how the enemy's nefarious schemes would unfold. Unfortunately, if I could describe the execution of said plot in a single word, it would be "unbalanced."

Basically, the first half of G had great character and plot setup, but I found the fights somewhat lacking. Then, by episode 8, the fights had returned to their usual epicness and badassery, but the plot and characters had taken a turn for the worst.

Whereas Season 1 felt like it was continuous building and building with each episode, stuff just... happens in Symphogear G. Characters motivations are set up, but either forgotten or completely changed halfway through the show. It honestly felt like the writers were making G's story up as they went along.

The issues I had with Season 1's story are present here as well, in that the villain's motivation is incredibly confusing and not made 100% clear until the last couple of episodes. FIS's main goal is to save humanity from the Moon, which will soon crash into the Earth due to the damage it endured from Finé. However, they go about this by... killing people? I understand innocent bloodshed is necessary in most evil "save the world" schemes, but is this really the best way to convince the rest of the world that you're here to help?

Either I'm just really dumb, or Symphogear just isn't very good at explaining things.

Another thing that bothered me about this season was the usage of Swan Songs. In Symphogear G, there's not one, but TWO methods that allow Gear users to sing their Swan Songs without dying. "Tension? Consequences? WhAt ThE hElL aRe ThOsE?!"

However, the worst part about this confused and structurally unbalanced plot is how it affects the character development.

Characters:

I'm going to cover the three lead characters and Miku very briefly (cause there honestly isn't much to talk about) so we can discuss the new characters in more detail.

Remember how I praised Hibiki in Season 1 for being a flat character done right? Well, in G, the writers attempted to give Hibiki somewhat of an arc by having the villains call her a "hypocrite." At first, I was intrigued as to what they meant by this. Then, there was a point where Hibiki went Berserk again, and I figured "Oh, they mean that because she can't control her Gear, she's a danger to the people she's trying to protect!" Nope. Once Hibiki returns to normal, she never goes Berserk again, and her plot becomes about her dealing with the Gungnir fragments slowly killing her from the inside. Soooo... why is she a hypocrite again? An excellent question! ...that's never answered. Weak.

I wasn't the biggest fan of Tsubasa in Season 1, finding her over-the-top EDGE a bit too much for my taste. However, I will give credit that she at least had an arc. In G, she does absolutely nothing. She has no arc, no motivation, and contributes nothing to the plot (thankfully her strict, yet compassionate personality is left untouched). I initially thought she would have some conflict with Maria, given that the two had a bit of a standoff in Episode 1, with Tsubasa angry at Maria for possessing Kanade's Gear. Much like Hibiki's Berserk Mode, though, this conflict was never expanded upon or brought up again, relegating Tsubasa to a glorified background character.

Chris was my favorite character in Season 1, with her fiery tsundere personality and redemption arc. But much like Tsubasa, she suffered the fate of being pushed to the sidelines. Chris started out in a tough spot, transferring into Hibiki and Tsubasa's school and bearing little to no social skills. This new environment throws her for a loop, especially when a group of her classmates try to befriend her. I interpreted this as Chris not only struggling with social anxiety due to her hatred of people in Season 1, but also still harboring some guilt over her actions and not feeling worthy of friendship or care whatsoever. Okay, fair enough.

Well guess what else the writers forgot about?! 🤪

And alas, let's talk about Miku...... Oh my sweet little angel, what have they done to you??? Miku was the heart and soul of Season 1; she was Hibiki's emotional support; her Sun that warmed her whenever she felt dark. In G, she's just useless. The writers, like Hibiki, try to give her an arc (that doesn't start till episode 6...) where she wants to protect Hibiki from the Gungnir killing her. The way the writers execute this promising arc, however, is nothing short of insulting. Long story short, she fails to protect Hibiki in any single way. Instead, Hibiki ends up being the one still protecting her. Good job, Symphogear G.

With all that out of the way, I can FINALLY move onto something more positive. While I may not like what G did with the protagonists, the same cannot be said for the villains. These people are what made this season enjoyable to me.

Maria Candenzavna Eve

Maria is objectively the best character of the season. I really don't see how anyone could argue otherwise. She has a gut-wrenching backstory, a clearly defined motivation, and every action she takes, while not always the most logical, makes sense to how she is feeling at the time.

Maria's sister, Serena, who was also a Gear user, used her Swan Song to save FIS from an out-of-control experiment. Immediately following this, the scientists berated the deceased Serena for destroying something they had put so much work in. Maria was enraged by the idea that they would do this to someone, a child nonetheless, who had just sacrificed her life for them. However, instead of retaliating and seeking revenge on FIS for this, Maria dedicates her actions to protecting human lives so that Serena's sacrifice wouldn't be in vain. And unlike the rest of FIS, she actually goes out of her way to avoid killing anyone! Of course, she eventually learns the hard way that saving everyone may be an impossibility...

Also, she gets one of the most adrenaline-pumping and yet emotional fights, accompanied by her kickass battle song, which is probably my favorite of the entire series now.

Kirika Akatsuki

Hot-blooded, cheerful, and insistent on ending every sentence with "I say!" Kirika is nothing short of a joy to watch. She's a welcome entry in the villain faction, which desperately needed someone lighthearted to counteract the dead sister angst. Of course, this doesn't mean she's is without her own conflicts.

Kirika's main drive is, aside from saving the innocent, protecting her girlfriend best friend Shirabe. She's constantly trying to cheer her up cold-hearted friend and remind her that what they're doing is the right thing. However, this protective instinct leads to a discovery that changes her for the worst, and the rest of the show is her tragic and slow descent into madness, leading to a heartbreaking scene in the final battle that left me going "damn, they went there."

Kirika's Gear is cool enough, but not my favorite. It's mostly just a scthye and boomerangs, making it not much different from Tsubasa's Gear. Or at least, her Gear isn't as impressive as our next antagonist...

Shirabe Tsukuyomi

Cold, distant, but ruthless in combat (beware the quite ones), Shirabe is a great foil to her lover friend Kirika, or "Kiri-chan" as she likes to call her. One could say that Shirabe is an emotionless husk, but as the story plays out we learn that, like most tsunderes, this is merely a mask to hide how much she cares for the people around her. She harbors a deep respect and admiration for Maria and an unbreakable bond with Kirika.

Shirabe bears a strong resentment towards Hibiki, being the one to drill home the fact that she's a "hypocrite" (for reasons I'm still not hugely clear on...). She believes that FIS is the only hope humanity has for survival. Of course, once her idol, Maria, starts to lose sight of this goal, Shirabe becomes conflicted, and starts to question which side is right. I love it when villains don't know which path to take. Such delicious angst! 😬

As much as I love Chris' Gear, Shirabe's may just be my new favorite. Her pigtails transform into mechanical arms with sawblades! She can spawn a giant sawblade to ride around on like a giant wheel! She can turn into a giant robot with sawblades for arms! Y'know, I'm starting to think I like saw-based weapons...

Professor Nastassja

My only complaint about this character is that no one ever made fun of her name.

Prof. Nastassja, or "Mom" as Maria, Kirika and Shirabe call her, is the serious, straightforward thinking mastermind of FIS's operations. She was there when Serena died in front of Maria, and after seeing her determination to protect people, she decided to push Maria towards their ultimate goal of "saving" mankind from the Moon crashing. Thankfully, this woman actually has a head on her shoulders, and comes to realize that killing people probably isn't the best way to save them (who'da thunk?) and thus sets out on a path of redemption. Damn, what's with villains this season realizing that they might be wrong? I love it!

Of course, on the deep end of the villains spectrum, we have the only one who doesn't realize the error of his ways...

Dr. Ver

Just a sample of the many amazing faces this guys makes.

Everyone loves a good psychopath. And oh boy, does this guy really underline the "psycho" part of that word. Constantly laughing manically, making theatrical gestures, spawning Noise with an itchy trigger finger, and declaring loud and proud that HE is the hero of this story. I could watch him for hours.

While Dr. Ver's motivation does stem from FIS's overly convoluted plot, he makes it very clear that he has his own agenda. He may claim he strives for the salvation of humanity, but his actions say otherwise. And that's why he's so great. He doesn't have a complex backstory or a redemption arc. He's just evil through and through and he loves every minute of it. As Alfred once said to Bruce Wayne: "Some men just want to watch the world burn." 😈

Alright, that's all the new characters out of the way. Time to move onto my favorite section before I wrap things up...

Yuri:

The yuri content this season was, like the rest of it, a mixed bag. The best way I can sum it up is that it took one giant leap forward, and another giant leap back.

First and foremost, our star couple of the show: HibiMiku. Or they would be the star of the show if they had more screentime. Yeah, G really did this couple dirty. They don't even hold a conversation together until Episode 6! And then they throw in the whole conflict of Miko wanting to protect Hibiki. I guess the writers were relying on the sentiment they'd built on HibiMiku from the last season, but I feel like the two could've have at least TALKED about Miku not wanting Hibiki to fight before throwing her into the action. There was one scene twowards the end with the two of them that really got me in the feels, but it was hardly enough to make up for the whole lot of nothing we got from the rest of the season.

Second, we have the two that ultimately saved the yuri content in G: KiriShira. They look good together? Check. Complimenting personalities? Check. Emotional support? Check. Each character has their own motivation and arc outside of their relationship? Check. These two are not only absolutely adorable together, but unlike HibiMiku, which is more implied (even though there shouldn't be any doubt they're dating), KiriShira actually gets a love confession! I haven't seen that in a magical girl show since Sailor Moon Crystal when Hotaru confessed to Chibi-Usa! I'll have to see more of these two before I can say for sure, but I might actually prefer KiriShira to HibiMiku at this point. Gonna have to see how the rest of the series plays out!

Conclusion:

Symphogear G is a considerable step down from Season 1 in my opinion. While I absolutely adore the antagonists and love (MOST) of the yuri content we got, the story and protagonists just didn't do it for me this time around, which is a shame considering how much I liked them in Season 1. The fight scenes in the first couple of episodes were less than impressive, which had me nervous, but they thankfully stepped up towards the end, delivering one hell of a climactic finale.

Also, I'm not gonna lie, the final episode got me choked up.

I may have been to hard on this season when I started this review. Despite my numerous issues, I still enjoyed myself throughout and I am looking forward to the next season. I sincerely hope my issues with the plot and protagonists are rectified because I do love this series. What's done well in G is really good, but what fails in G really fails. Oh well, not every season of a franchise can be a masterpiece. I'm just praying that it's all uphill from here. 🙏

Rating: 6/10

Hope you all enjoyed! I'll see you in my review of Symphogear GX, my fellow yuri lovers! ❤️😊❤️

[modestmuses-a]

5, 6, 11, 18, 21, 23, 26, 30, 34, 35, 43, 50 - ekko

//CAS I ALREADY DON’T SHUT UP ABOUT THIS BOY AS IT IS.  WHY WOULD YOU ENCOURAGE ME AND SUBJECT MY FOLLOWERS TO THIS??  i’m gonna have to fuckin readmore this for length because Christ…

Unusual Headcanons | accepting

5. How many blankets / pillows do they like to have on their bed?

One of each.  When it’s exceptionally warm out, you can nix the blanket.  Although, “blanket” is kind of a strong word for it.  It’s really more of a threadbare rag at this point.  When it gets cold out, he does think, “Hm, I better replace this,” but then he immediately forgets about it upon waking up and getting on with his day.

6. What do they normally dream about?  Nightmares or nonsense?

Thanks to time travel fucking with his circadian rhythm, it’s very rare for Ekko to get any more than three or four hours of sleep at a time.  More on that here.

But his terrible non-existent sleeping patterns, coupled with a whole host of repressed negative emotions that he hasn’t properly worked through because he doesn’t want to burden anyone with his problems, mean his nightmares are frequent and severe.  Usually of the ridiculously gory variety.  His nightmares typically end with him dying in some over-the-top, Final-Destination-esque way.

(Speaking of, my favorite death from those movies is from the third one, where the girl stumbles backwards into a nail gun and takes several nails through the back of her skull right out the front of her face.)

If you were to watch them, like, as a horror movie, some of them might be laughable.  (If you’re into that sort of thing.)  And indeed, he does try to laugh some of them off, although whether it’s genuine laughter or him trying to put on a brave face and again refusing to acknowledge that he’s got Issues is up for debate.

11. Bar soap or liquid?  Do they like loofahs?

Bar soap.  No loofahs.

18. Do they prefer cats or dogs?  Or neither?

Ekko doesn’t really have a preference!  He’ll drop scraps down to stray animals when he has the scraps to spare, and he’s made a number of furry friends of both species this way.  Sometimes, you’ll just see random animals tailing him as he walks through the city, ‘cause they’re hoping to get more food out of him.  He feels guilty when he doesn’t have anything to give them.

21. Did they have any fears growing up that they’ve since conquered?

Ekko used to be afraid of trees when he was younger and would always hold his breath when he walked by the cultivair.  This is because he heard a story about a man who accidentally inhaled a tree seed and ended up growing a tree in his lung.  He now knows that it’s ridiculous to be afraid of trees for that reason since the odds of it happening to him are infinitesimally small, but he’ll still tell people the story of Ol’ Tree Lung whenever they pass the cultivair, regardless of how many times his present company has heard it before.  Most of his friends are sick to death of Ol’ Tree Lung by now.

23. How do they show fear?  Sweating, shaking, blankness, anger, etc?

Ekko shakes something fierce when he gets scared.  He also starts stammering and messing up sentences on account of his brain working much faster than his mouth.  He’ll start a sentence and not finish it.  Tries to restart the sentence slightly different this time and doesn’t finish that one either.  Starts a sentence, cuts it off, starts a different sentence about a completely different thought, loses track of that one, too.

desperately tries not to cry

26. What are they most passionate about?  What could they debate about for hours?

Ekko is passionate about… eating the rich.  When are we bringing back the guillotine again?? kfhdgkdf

No, but seriously, Ekko is pretty adamant about “Capitalism sucks” and believes that the best use of wealth is providing for those less fortunate than you.  He doesn’t have a lot, but he’s always using what he does have to help the Lost Children and his parents first and himself second.  He sees people living these lives of luxury, and it makes him sick ‘cause he’s just like… *gestures @ starving orphans* “Y’all wanna like… maybe do something about this sometime?”

He believes that no one should have that much money for any reason because they should be putting it towards making society a better place instead of just… sitting on it.  There is a reason I associate Billy Talent with him (and why “Man Alive!” is his main verse tag) and it’s because they have a lot of songs that just absolutely shit all over capitalism.  I made a playlist for Ekko, and the first four songs on it are Billy Talent criticizing capitalism for the flawed, soul-sucking system that it is.  (Three of the four are from the Dead Silence album.)

Anyway, Billy Talent tangent aside since I can’t control myself…

On April Fool’s, there were a couple IC posts of rich characters saying, “Rich people don’t have rights!” but then claiming to be exceptions to the rule.  Like, one of them said, “I have rights ‘cause I didn’t choose to be rich.  I was just born into a rich family.”

And let me tell you, I had to physically restrain Ekko ‘cause he was p i s s e d.  He was in time-out that day, haha!  “Oh, I’m so sorry, it must be so hard for you to have been born into a life of privilege,” he fumes to himself in the little corner I’ve trapped him in.  “NONE OF YOU ARE EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE!  NONE OF YOU HAVE RIGHTS!  AND WHEN THE REVOLUTION COMES, YOU’RE GOING TO THE GUILLOTINE WITH THE REST OF ‘EM!”

Me, desperately trying to calm him down like, “No, no, shh, look at the date!  It’s probably just a joke!”

He’s like, “IT FUCKING BETTER BE.”

Tl;dr: Nothing gets Ekko riled quite like rich people being shitty and annoying.

I was also going to mention that Ekko’s passionate about maintaining hope and will argue the importance of not giving up and not letting bad situations turn you into a bad person, but this answer is already hella long, so here’s a brief passing mention of it lmao

30. Is there something about their personality they want to change?

Ekko is… angry deep down.  Or maybe not even so deep down.  Maybe right there, just under his skin.  And he wishes he wasn’t.

He often questions his own goodness, wondering if he’s not just Fake Nice to conceal the wretched thing he actually is.  If you skim the top layer of sweetness off of him, you’re left with this horrid, bitter, hateful little beast.  Or that’s what he thinks sometimes, anyway.

Whether it’s justified or it isn’t, anger is such an ugly emotion, and he’s worried it’s going to cause him to hurt someone he cares about someday.

I often worry about my portrayal of Ekko and how damn inconsistent it is sometimes ‘cause in one thread, he’s this sweet helpful angel who wants to do his best, and in another thread, he’s more bitter than the blackest coffee, but like.  This be why.  He’s a good person.  Just deep down, he’s angry about A Lot, but even deeper down, he’s an even better person.  He feels like his anger is the thing standing between him and being the best person he can be, and he wishes he could get rid of it, but alas, it seems to be stuck to him.

I mean, maybe it wouldn’t be if he ever bothered to resolve any of his Issues, but y’know.  Helping others comes first, so :’)  He’ll worry about helping himself when he’s dead.

34. Are they the jealous type?  What are they most likely to be jealous of?

Hmm, I wouldn’t say Ekko is much of the jealous type, no.  Like, his anger towards rich folks isn’t because he’s jealous of their lifestyle or wants what they have.  It’s because he wants them to be decent fucking people for once.  It doesn’t make sense to a lot of people, but he’s content stomping around in the gutters.  He does wish things were easier on his parents, but he can’t complain about the life of freedom he’s been allowed to lead up to this point.

He doesn’t really get jealous of other people’s relationships either.  Like, I mentioned in a reply to Draven that in the Academy verse, Ekko has a crush on Ahri.  (But only in the Academy verse.)  But like, he doesn’t really get jealous when she dates other guys.  In fact, he expects it.  He hasn’t said anything about his crush on Ahri (although it’s probably a bit obvious), and he’s never going to because he doesn’t expect anything to come of it.  He lowkey doesn’t want anything to come of it because he feels like it’ll just make the dynamics in their friend group weird.  So, really, he’s got no problem with her dating whoever she wants.

35. Are they possessive over their things?  Or over other people?  Both?

The only thing Ekko is especially possessive of is the Zero Drive, for obvious reasons.  It’d be just… the worst to have that fall into the wrong hands.  Time travel is a huge responsibility, Ekko says as he abuses the shit out of it to skip class and get infinite Halloween candy.  Can you imagine what would happen if any of the shadier characters in LoL had the ability to time travel??

He isn’t particularly possessive over the rest of his things, though, and he’ll frequently give stuff up to people he feels could use it more.

As for people… I wouldn’t call him possessive, so much as protective.  He might seem a bit possessive of his friends at times, but it’s only because he’s trying to keep them out of trouble.  Whenever he tells people, “I don’t want you hanging out with so-and-so,” it’s not because he’s being possessive, it’s because so-and-so has Bad Vibes written all over them.

In the modern/K/DA verse, he’s friends with Akali before she gets famous.  She ran away from the dojo and lived on the streets for a while, and it was there that she met Ekko, and honestly, he probably did a lot more than he realizes to keep her out of trouble.  Who knows what kind of bullshit her dumb ass would have gotten into if she hadn’t been trying to set as good of an example for Ekko as she could?

Anyway, modern verse Ekko despises modern verse Shen.  Akali gets back in touch with Shen, and Ekko is extremely vocal about how terrible he finds this whole idea.

And it’s not that he’s possessive of Akali.  In fact, it’s quite the opposite.  When she needed to leave him to join K/DA, he let her go ‘cause he understood that was her big dream and it wouldn’t have been fair to keep her there.  She was destined for better things, and he wanted to see her get off the streets.

But it’s just that… he’s heard stories about the way she was treated at the dojo, so when she tells him she got back in touch with Shen, he gets pissed and tells her that she can’t expect him to support her ripping open old wounds.  He’s just scared that Shen’s going to hurt her again, so when she tries to introduce the two of them to each other, Ekko’s cold towards Shen at best and openly hostile towards him at worst.  He might be inclined to strangle the guy if Akali didn’t have herself situated between them in a somewhat fruitless effort to ease the tension.

43. Do they like living alone or with another person / other people?

Ahaha, Ekko is a huge people-person, actually!  I think he’d just die if he had to live alone.  A big reason he spends so much time away from home and out on the streets is because his parents are never home, and the house feels too empty without them.  He’ll roll back home in the evening, when his parents are getting off work, to enjoy their company for a bit before they both pass out, but unless somebody else is there, he doesn’t want to be either.

If he had to live alone, there wouldn’t be any point in him having a house or anything ‘cause he’d literally never stay there.  He’d always be out chasing adventure and other people’s company.

50. Where do they see themselves in 2 / 5 / 10 years?

God, this is hard because the thing is that Ekko is terrible at making plans for the future, especially long-term plans.  Thinking about the future causes him major stress, especially when he thinks of possibilities that might involve him relinquishing some of his freedom, which is a lot.  Like, he has no desire to go to school or join the workforce - at least not in any sort of traditional way - or any of that, and the fact that he’s not going to be 16 forever is just something that he prefers not to think about!

Anyway, let’s take a crack at it, nonetheless…

In two years, Ekko hopes to have worked up the courage to tell his parents he doesn’t want to go to the academy in Piltover.  Listen… he’s working on it.  But like, he thinks at least part of the reason they work so hard is because they’re trying to put money back to send him to school, and… he’s really torn about it.  He’d feel guilty if they kept working to send him to school without knowing he doesn’t want to go, but he’d also feel guilty if he told them he doesn’t want to go and crushed all their hopes and dreams.  So, really, it is a lose-lose.

But hey, two years is plenty of time to work up the courage, right?

In five years, Ekko’s unsure of whether he’ll still be living with his parents or not.  He knows that he wants to get them into a nicer house, and as such, he’ll likely have to find some way to make money other than thievery.  So, he might consider commercializing an invention or two.

He knows his parents are fond of Piltover for whatever reason, and he would reluctantly let them go there, if they wanted.  That’s why he isn’t sure if he’ll still be living with them or not because if they do choose to go to Piltover, he’s absolutely staying behind in Zaun.  He wants them to be happy, but he’s not going to abandon Zaun like that.  Plus, he can still come visit sometimes, so it’s like… whatever.

He would also like to make a little more progress on the Z-Drive by this point, maybe getting it to the point where he can go back days instead of only minutes.  Just in case.  You never know when that thing you did three days ago is gonna come back around to bite you in the ass.

In ten years, he’ll be 26 and probably (sadly) a bit old to be running around doing dumb teenager things.  Still, he can’t see himself abandoning the Lost Children.  They’ll still need someone, you know?  A large part of his mission with the Lost Children has become keeping them out of trouble, more or less.  The bad kind of trouble, anyway.  Keeping them away from chem-punks and out of the factories and away from drugs and potentially dangerous augmentations, so on and so forth.

He’d like to keep doing that, keep helping kids stay out of bad situations.  Maybe start some sort of home for them, where they can come get a bed and a warm meal.  Or something like a school, but where they’re allowed to study what they want and hone the skills they think will be most useful to them, instead of some arbitrary curriculum they’re not even interested in.  Maybe a bit ambitious for only ten years, but… he hopes to at least be on his way to that sort of thing by then.

He wants to see Zaun be a better place, and children are the future, and he doesn’t want to see any of them fall through the cracks.  If there’s any hope for Zaun to get better - and he believes there is - it starts with its children being happy and safe.

So, his plans are currently:

Tell his parents he doesn’t want to go to the academy.

Get his parents somewhere nicer ‘cause they deserve it.

Improve time travel maybe.

Find a way to get as many children out of harm’s way as humanly possible.

And that’s basically it.

[cloppyreads]

Dumb Fanfic Writer Reads Salty Comments

Hey guys, if you didn’t know, I’m a huge fan of the horrific YouTube series Filthy Frank, which I’ve only become really interested in over the past few months. One of the funniest series he does is “Loser Reads Hater Comments” which is pretty self-explanatory through the title itself. Whereas my last post about Pride was pretty composed, this time the filter is coming COMPLETELY off, so if you’re not a fan of me cussing and basically being a huge dick to the people who deserve it, then I’d just skip this post. Everyone else, jump down past the “read below” line

Alright motherfuckers, let’s get this shit-show on the road! We’ll start off with the main account, AO3, which is where I got a lot of the heat from in the first weekend of chapter 1 going up, but let’s take a look at the constructive criticism that the opposition felt the need to leave for me (and if you want to read the full comments section for yourself, here you go):

(You’re most-likely going to have to right-click the images and open them in another tab to be able to read them, since I’m putting this under the “read more” line. Sorry. :( ) 

First of all, don’t you love these types?  Hurrrr, the media is corrupt, man, they’re all trying to brainwash us with their poisonous broadcasts, I’m not gonna let them make me one of their SHEEPLE, illuminati confirmed!!1! Second of all, HOLY CRAP, you DIDN’T vote for Trump, and you’re STILL disagreeing with me!? Oh my god guys, we have such an open-minded individual, someone give this special snowflake a medal, STAT! Buddy, nobody gives a shit that you didn’t vote for Trump. Your voting choice doesn’t take away the butthurt that you’re projecting because I’m saying something you don’t like. I mean, I’m just speculating here, I could easily be wrong about this, but I’m gonna wager a guess through your comments that you didn’t vote for Hillary either, so that leaves you in three possible groups: 1) You didn’t vote at all, which means you don’t give a shit about your country, and you’re just as much to blame for every shitty decision Trump makes because you didn’t even TRY to stop it.  2) You were one of the 10,000 idiots who voted for Harambe, a dead gorilla. Not just a gorilla, an animal, who isn’t allowed to be president anyway, but a DEAD animal who isn’t allowed to be president. So there’s a strong possibility that you were one of the thousands of college students who were just barely old enough to vote, and were chuckling the entire time you waited in the voting line mumbling “lol memes xD” while avoiding eye contact with anyone more attractive than you (which is probably most people).  3) You voted for that libertarian guy who I can’t even remember- Johnson, something or other? I forget what his deal was, but he was basically an idiot. My brain probably did me a favor by purging him from my memory. 

Alright, let’s move on

Well guys, I don’t know how to fight this one; nobody in the history of the world has ever made a parody of a real person for satire and to entertain the people who don’t like that person. There’s no such thing as SNL or any other late night talk show who does this regularly for entertainment purposes.  I’m basically public enemy number 1 at this point, I’m shocked the FBI hasn’t knocked on my door because I made a caricature of Trump. But even if they do, I’m not going quietly. I’ve got a Walking Dead dart-shotgun that’s fully loaded and ready to pop some sticky darts onto people’s foreheads. #FUCK GUN CONTROL Seriously though, you want to cry about leftists burning buildings down because of political bullshit? Do you? Do you also want to cry about white sports fans who burn down cars and start riots when their team loses (or hell, even if they win)? You know who doesn’t cry about that? Fox News. Yeah, they just show a thirty second blip of it on TV and chalk it up to “some fans getting a little out of control” God forbid any of those fans have dark skin, otherwise they might get shot just for screaming too loud. 

what’s next?

WHEW LAD Okay, telling me that I need to adopt a “don’t ask don’t tell policy” about politics in MY writings, seriously? What country are you from, Korea? One of those countries where you’re required to suck your political leader’s dick every day or you get thrown in jail or worse, killed? Buddy, I said right in the first chapter there was gonna be political bias in this story; I didn’t say I was a political scientist and that I was writing this as a thesis for how our government needs to restructure itself (at this point, I think dismantling it completely might be better off; a Mad Max style anarchy or Walking Dead wasteland looks like an okay alternative right now), I wrote this story for entertainment purposes. Telling me this story is shit because the politics aren’t 100% accurate is the same kind of cringe that tumblr exhibited when they got mad at Zootopia because the staff designed Judy’s nose incorrectly, BIG FUCKING DEAL.  Oh, and the kicker, saying I created “a major divide in the audience” and warning me when “all hell breaks loose”.  Oh my god guys, I’m so scared! I think some terrorist organizations are gonna come after me because I wrote a fanfic that expressed my ideals! Shit! I better seclude myself in the Right-Wing protection room, I hope I have enough canned ravioli and lotion to survive their furious rage! D: 

Ooh, ouch, that cuts deep yo! What an educated response, just rubbing my face in it, oh god, how will I recover!?? Alright, well if you click on this guy’s name, you can see that he doesn’t have any stories on his account. If you google search his name though, you’ll find two things of interest that stand out: -He’s a League of Legends player (and it lists his stats there, but I don’t play this game; is he good? Is he trash? Someone who plays this game tell me, because I don’t give a shit enough to look it up). -He has an account on fanfiction.net which has ONE story, the Zootopian Empire. I’m not gonna waste my brain cells on reading any of the story, but just from the description, I’m gonna assume this guy has such a hard on for League that his manchild brain decided it’d be a good idea to write a Zootopia fanfic that basically has the characters from the movie stand in for the characters of the game. Is that what this is, Valhalla? You trying to be a writer by combining your favorite videogame with your favorite movie? Oh yeah, those always go over REAL well. “Oh my fucking god guys, I fucking love League, and I fucking love Zootopia! I’m gonna write a fanfic that combines both of them and I’ll just explode with popularity, because the idea is so good that IT SELLS ITSELF, I AM A FUCKING GENIUS!!” 

Alright that’s all for AO3′s side, let’s take a look at what angry manchildren on fanfiction.net had to say: 

Totally didn’t write a foreword in my first chapter warning people “this story contains political bias, don’t read it that bothers you”, nope, not at all.  Seriously, how do people like you get through life? Do you read a sign that says “water contains sharks, do not swim”, then jump right in and get mad when you see sharks coming after you? You’re obviously (barely) smart enough to read, so do you just willfully ignore warnings for the sole purpose of being an ass? Great use of your time there, I’m glad this small act of yours gave you the confidence you needed to keep going through life. :)

Sir, you seem to be coughing a whole lot. Are you okay? Maybe if you didn’t spend so much time with your head up your own ass, you wouldn’t be choking on your own shit; just a thought.  Anyway, yeah, you reading stories from National Enquirer about Hillary SUBTLE COUGH AND PRETENDING TO CHOKE WHILE I CORRECT MYSELF LAWL MALLORY and her secret emails doesn’t really convince me or anyone else with an above average IQ. I do find it funny however that people like you will take any mention of questionable emails from ANY source as unarguable truth, but when allegations of Trump THROAT CLEAR SHAKE OF HEAD HOLDING UP HANDS ROFL TRUNK HA HA being guilty of sexually assaulting women, you start saying “Hurrrrr, where’s your prooooof, where’s your sources, huuuuuuuuh!?”.  Ah, hypocrisy; smells of that ripe acrid smell of bullshit. Gotta love it. 

Now this... this one brought a tear to my eye. I mean, I know there’s war going on in the East, starving children in third-world countries and nations who have gone entirely bankrupt, but this... this is the most tragic thing I have ever heard.  A person living in a well-off global super power country has to... they have to... see and hear things that they don’t like! On TV! On the radio! On newspapers! And they can’t do anything about it! They can’t change the channel, or look up something on youtube or play a videogame to give themselves some entertainment to distract themselves from this minor inconvenience; NO. They have to sit there helpless and the thing they’re subjected to makes them slightly uncomfortable.  Guys... I’m sorry, I’m just so emotional right now, I need to go listen to Arms of the Angel and grieve for this poor soul living in a constant state of minor inconvenience. T___T

Fun fact: the part about the transgender thing is 100% wrong you dub fucking idiot, and unlike you, I have a source backing it.  According to the same source, apparently he doesn’t want them in the military either, so thanks for proving how stupid you are, bye bye. 

Oh hey guys, look, it’s Mr. “I’m gonna write a Zootopia fanfic that’s basically League of Legends with Zootopia characters.” AGAIN I don’t really have much to say about this, I just think it’s funny that the same guy had to show how NOT UPSET he is by commenting on the first chapter ON TWO DIFFERENT WEBSITES.  Good job sir, you sure are showing me the what-for’s and the business and stuff, I just can’t survive under your onslaught. 

So that’s all for the public comments on both websites, which means this little segment of mine SHOULD be over; but wait, there’s more! This one came really as a surprise to me, because I got it through a PM on FurAffinity, which I haven’t even published the story on (I kept meaning to, but, eh, lazy).  I’m not going to ask you to read this whole thing-- I seriously don’t want you guys to waste your precious brain cells on something like this, but I still felt like I at least had to show you a visual of it, just so you know that human beings like this are indeed real.  Without further ado, I present to you, the MacDaddy of butthurt manchild in its purest form:

I know that’s probably too small of font for most of you to read- like I said, don’t bother reading the whole thing, your IQ will probably drop by seven points- but that is a whopping twelve paragraphs of “I don’t like what you said, it hurt my feelings and made me more upset than any rational human being should feel over something so inconsequential”.

I’ll admit, I didn’t read the whole thing either, but just for fun, let’s go ahead and skim it and highlight a few parts of it: “ To make matters even worse, instead of providing a reasonable political commentary and giving both sides their fair share of flaws, you go into full-on Hillary Clinton fangirl mode, portraying Muleford's side through rose-tinted glasses while making Trunk and his supporters look like total lunatics. Officer McHorn, for example, is ridiculed for bringing up the email scandal, which is actually a real issue that the FBI themselves have exposed multiple times. “ blah blah blah, here’s some stuff I read from my favorite Republican news source... “ What makes this even more glaring is how obviously out of character Judy and Nick are here. They both uncharacteristically identify themselves as "progressives" who "embrace diversity in each other's species", have uncontrolled emotional breakdowns over election turnouts, and even go as far as to ditch their jobs as impartial protectors of the law in order to carry protest signs around during an organized event they should be patrolling.” Yeah, because you know, you, a fan who has no involvement with the creation of the canon movie, never collaborated with the directors or the staff or anyone working for Disney, has all the business in the world telling me what is and isn’t “out of character” for characters you didn’t create. Great logic there.  “ Speaking of which, what's up with all the blatant Donald Trump demonization? Yes, I get that you voted for Hillary Clinton, as you made that painfully obvious earlier, but that doesn't justify using Remus Trunk as an excuse to hate on Donald Trump. Whether you like it or not, he is our country's president, so the least you could do is be tasteful about it. There are better ways to go about tackling political issues than constantly calling a political caricature "bigoted"” Bro, how many people wouldn’t shut the fuck up about how much they hated Barack Obama when he was president? What if Hillary had won; would you take anyone seriously if they were telling you to show her some respect because she was the president, or would you be foaming at the mouth going “TRAITOR TRAITOR EMAILS PUT HER IN JAIL I AM UPSET AND INSECURE BLARRRRRGH!!!!”? Anyway, that’s all I care to read of that message, you get the idea-- people who either like Trump or like Hillary LESS than Trump all had to come pitch a fit and tell me how threatened they are that I expressed my opinion in a fucking fanfiction. Really great that these are the people who think the world is too PC and that everyone is too sensitive for their tastes, when they themselves get all butthurt when someone voices something that disagrees with them. 

So there you have it- my fanfiction pissed off a lot of idiots, and no shits were given. I just wanted to showcase this gallery because it was fun, and I hoped it was fun for some of you guys too. If you think this was petty and that I should have been the bigger man and just ignore them, you’re probably right, but I think being the bigger man is overrated. :) Petty for life! Whooo!

[casualarsonist]

The Witcher 3 review

The Witcher 3 is the best game I have ever played.

This doesn’t mean it’s a perfect game, an entirely complete game, or above being frustrating at times.

But in a world of cookie-cutter copy-and-paste busywork-rammed factory-made conveyor-belt-production-line open-world games, The Witcher 3, in my opinion, stands heads and shoulders about the rest.

Now it’s worth a mention as I start that this is the second time I’ve reviewed The Witcher 3 and my first take on the game was not quite so flattering. I was bothered by a few things, namely the baffling exclusivity of the narrative that failed to fill us in on the back stories of characters that were old friends to Geralt and strangers to anyone that hadn’t read the novels, as well as the sheer exhaustive amount of content on offer (‘what’s that?!’ I hear you cry, ‘you were critical of it for the level of content?!’ Not critical, as such, just, as I said, exhausted.) I wrote an enormous paragraph about how I wasn’t able to be invested in a story that relied on me knowing the histories of the key characters in order to understand their function on a practical and a personal level. I felt particularly slighted given TW2 followed on directly from TW1 in such a way as the only requirement for the player’s full investment in the story was to have finished the first game, but even then it was enough of its own product that it could be reliably enjoyed autonomously. I was also quite simply fatigued by it all. The numerous maps are sprawling, packed with locations and people and missions. Your quest list becomes absolutely rammed with things to do, and factor in all the travelling and searching and listening and reading…well, it’s a bit investment, and something you need to be prepared to pay attention to in order to fully enjoy, and I fully admit that I wasn’t mentally prepared to forsake everything else and focus simply on letting myself be a part of this world for as long as it took to finish the game, and without that dedication, without giving yourself permission to be sucked into  the living, breathing empire of the Northern Kingdoms it can feel a little overwhelming. It was the first of The Witcher games that I had failed to complete in one go, which in retrospect is both paradoxically shocking and yet unsurprising as it’s clearly the best of the series by a mile, but it’s also the most grand. So, after some time had passed and the game had had a few updates I went back, and I found that somethings had changed, others had not, but most importantly, with fresh eyes I found the greatest open-world game ever made.

If you know nothing of The Witcher series then I won’t be able to cover everything for you, but in short, TW3 is the continuing story of Geralt of Rivia – a Witcher, or beast-slayer for hire. The Northern Realms have been invaded by the Nilfgaardian Empire from the south, and are losing the war. Geralt has been contacted by his former lover Yennifer of Vengeberg, and attempts to track her down whilst doing his best to dodge the affairs of the various armies, but whereas TW2 went full-on Game Of Thrones with complex political dealings and many choices to be made by the player character that affected the world at large, TW3 is a much more personal story. After finally coming into contact with Yennifer, with whom Geralt seems indelibly connected despite the fact that neither is particularly good for one another, she informs him that she’s working for the Nilfgaardian emperor, who has summoned Geralt for a meeting. In the meeting, Geralt is informed that the emperor’s daughter, Ciri, has gone missing. Ciri trained as a Witcher under Geralt, and as such he has a deep paternal connection to her. Ciri is also the last of the bloodline of an ancient elven race and has the ability to manipulate time and space, and is fleeing the Wild Hunt – a group of malicious elves determined to use her powers for destruction and control.

It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? And it isn’t helped by the fact that the major players – Yennifer, Ciri, the Nilfgaardian emperor, and the Wild Hunt all have a rich history with Geralt that is referenced, but not elaborated upon or explained in-game for the player, and this is a huge problem if you’re supposed to be relating to the feelings felt between Geralt and Yennifer, but you don’t know who Yennifer is and have no reason to care for her, for instance. At its worst it’s crippling, devastating to the player’s ability to connect with the main plot of the game. There are ever-expanding character bios that give you summaries, but if you want to understand many of the references the characters make throughout your time playing, if you want to understand why Ciri, for instance, is so important, and why the Wild Hunt are to be feared, you’re just going to have to read the books (or the wiki, I guess). This is my single greatest point of contention with TW3, and given that it was the main focus of my last review, I felt it handy to address it upfront here. And perhaps it’s that I devoted more attention to the what is said and written the second time round, perhaps it’s that I was passing over a story with which I now had a familiarity, or perhaps I’m just an idiot and was too thick to get it the first time round, but my second playthrough was a little easier to understand than my first. I still don’t quite get the big deal about Ciri, and I still didn’t connect to Yennifer and had no problem making decisions that worked against her, so I would still label the exclusivity of the plot and its reliance on lore outside of the games as a bad choice by the writers, but it was easier. Seriously though, the fact that it’s called ‘The Witcher 3’ gives the consumer a reasonable expectation that playing the Witchers 1 and 2 is enough required material for following the story, so given that this is almost an entirely new and separate entity with dozens of characters established in the books but never before appearing in the video games, I still feel that it’s hugely problematic that they introduced so many elements foreign to any of the games. This isn’t to say that the whole game is like that – once you learn who the characters and enemies are, the story is gripping and well-written; the DLC especially so as the characters there are ‘discovered’ by Geralt as they are the player. But as I said, this is my main gripe, and while I have one or two big problems with the game, they’re almost alone in this sense of importance. 

But what of the game itself? Well, here’s the real treat. Story issues aside, The Witcher 3 is absolutely glorious. The game is incredibly well-optimised, and you ought to be able to find a configuration of settings that will have it playing well on almost any type of rig.

While there were a number of sometimes-fatal glitches upon release, these were more-or-less non-existent upon my returning playthrough. Some of the gameplay systems have been streamlined – the controls are smoother and tighter than they used to be and there’s an alternate control scheme on offer that feels much better when playing with a controller.

Moving away from the Arkham style of glorified quicktime combat that had flooded the market of open world fighting games, TW3’s system of combat is far more skill-based. Things are skewed against you as a newcomer, and there are certain areas that you won’t be able to venture into and certain enemies you won’t be able to defeat for a while after you begin, but the game quickly forces you into learning the virtues of dodging, blocking, effectively parrying, and using your signs (magic powers, basically) to control bands of incoming enemies and gain the upper hand. That is, the more you play it, the better you get. The fighting is wonderfully gory as well, and lopping off heads or slicing people entirely in two never gets old.

The skill tree is vast and allows for a number of different play-styles, although some skills are clearly more useful than others and there’s a good chance that many will go untouched by you forever. Given that the game only lets you use a certain number of upgraded skills at once, there also comes a point when you are simply wasting points on upgrades that you can’t or won’t use. This, along with some elements of the menu interface remain clunky and wasteful in their design, but for a series that is notable for its often frustrating design choices, this is a minor quibble if anything at all.

Traversing the world is a pleasure, and whether on-foot or on Geralt’s horse, Roach, you will cross grassy meadows and snow-capped peaks, stony shores and misty marshes, through populous cobbled cities and small rural villages. Geralt can run and jump, swim or pilot a boat. Roach can navigate the landscape fairly well, and will navigate roads automatically. The developers haven’t quite got the technology down pat in terms of his AI steering and it feels like he takes the wrong fork in the road four out of five times, as well as occasionally stopping dead for no reason or simply refusing to ride down certain slopes, although I suppose you could say that this perfectly mimics the stubborn flightiness of horses.

Compared to the previous games, your actions don’t seem to make as much of an impact here, but acknowledging the fact that this story is a more personal one, I suppose it makes sense that you’re no-longer changing the course of history for entire countries. This is at odds with two things, however; the first being that there are seemingly world-ending consequences to losing Ciri, which sets the stakes enormously high for a game that won’t let you play with the fates of kings and men as the previous game did. Secondly, it’s exactly because your actions had such wide-reaching consequences previously that it feels so incongruent that your actions suddenly have less of an over-all visible impact in this game - Geralt goes from being a pivotal piece in the puzzle to a mere pawn. On the whole, the way they tried to give you a degree of choice just feels a little undercooked, and there’s little to convince the player that we’re doing something other than being marched irrevocably onwards towards one single final point, regardless of what path we choose to take.

Visually, the game is…incredible. This word - ‘incredible’ - feels flaccid because it simply doesn’t do it justice; TW3 has to be seen to be believed. The emotional weight of the narrative is helped immensely by the quality of the facial animations, and every single main character is animated impeccably. The day/night cycle is spectacularly realised, and whether you’re seeing the sun set over calm fields or rise over the blue ocean, you might find yourself frequently stopping to stare and take a screenshot, as I did.

The voice work is also top notch, and it’s hard to find a flaw in any of the performances. Doug Cockle brings his gravelly best to Geralt, and frankly, I can’t imagine anyone else in the role. The role of Geralt disappears with Doug Cockle, in my mind. Denise Gough, a fantastic actor, portrays Yennifer with such strength and biting contrariness that one can’t help but see in her exactly the kind of dangerous hot-headedness but complex humanity that Geralt sees. A massive special mention to James Clyde who plays The Bloody Baron – one of the Northern Kingdom’s lords, a drunk and unprincipled bastard if ever there was one, but not a Nilfgaardian (importantly) and (more importantly) the axis upon which one of the best stories in the game hinges.

His performance and the writing of his character typifies one of the game’s greatest strengths – the fact that the game favours quality side content, an almost unheard-of feature as of late. The main quest mission concerning the Baron is a trifle, but it’s the extended side plot involving him that is truly interesting and echoes with a deep emotional resonance. In this, his character blossoms into one with a wonderful sense of light and shade, a maturity that gamers have long been trained not to expect. Remember how I mentioned cookie-cutter busywork-rammed open-world games? TW3 is the antithesis of these, the antigen to the cancerous Ubisoft model of open-world gaming. Every side mission, every activity, every thing you do in TW3 has context; there is a clear reason for doing them, a clear motivation that is understood by the player and Geralt alike. You feel compelled to finish them not out of an obsessive completionism, but out of a genuine desire to see where they lead. Sometimes you’re investigating interesting new places, sometimes you’re wooed by the character’s stories, sometimes you must make choices that will change the fates of the individuals involved; in most cases you will find yourself invested in what you are doing. Almost never will you be required to go somewhere and collect something for the sake of collecting it, or kill something just for the sake of killing it. Even the simple Witcher contracts (beast-killing bounties) are jazzed up, because the game will often undermine your expectations and deliver a twist or conclusion that you didn’t expect, and this keeps things interesting. There’s a great variety in the amount of activities available as well - many towns will have a noticeboard that will offer you quests and bounties. By the end of the game these have numbered in the hundreds, but as most will lead to a story in and of itself, it’s rare to feel bored by these.

And this is why I was wrong about The Witcher 3 the first time around. This is why I needed to rewrite my review. I initially claimed that it wasn’t the ‘great leap forward’ that so many had predicted, but I was incorrect, because the developer’s dedication to maintaining the quality of the little things and mastery of the technology behind the big things turned it into something bigger than the latest Assassin’s Creed photocopy; something bigger than the soulless Fallout 4. The prevailing opinion these days seems to be that players want more features and more systems. But The Witcher 3 rejects the ‘sandbox’ style of gameplay in which a developer gives the player a set of boundaries and bunch of toys thrown haphazardly about and tells them to make their own fun. They remembered that a single player game is one that relies on narrative; the single player experience is one in which the player is asking to be entertained. So they didn’t settle for a ‘box’, and instead made a series of crafted landscapes, and they rejected the assumption that a pile of toys was enough, instead giving us stories and context. Yes, it still has some bizarre design choices that seem endemic to the series as a whole, but The Witcher 3 is a long way from the clunkiness of the first game. And yes, the established interpersonal relationships can seem impenetrable, but these gripes are outweighed by the importance of everything the game got right. The developers weren’t happy to deliver a sandbox game. They wanted to deliver an open world, a real world with people interacting and feeling and doing and saying and affecting each other, and in turn, affecting us. And by god, they did it.  

9.5/10

(Very) Outstanding

[symbianosgames]

Localisation 101 - How we can use language to make our games more inclusive.

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community. The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

Hey Folks! This article will be putting forward the case for more localisation in games, but also how to do it on a budget. Hope you enjoy!

In the game industry, we often discuss how to deal with the various barriers to entry in games - What platforms the game is available on, complexity of controls, difficulty curves, pay models and technical requirements. Particularly in mobile, care and attention is taken to craft the perfect icons, pacing of gameplay to retain interest and pixel perfect UI button positioning to improve the player experience, as any barriers or obstructions can lose the player. One area that can severely hamper player experience that is less discussed is the integration of different languages in games. 

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Last week I released Narcissus on the App Store. Upon launch, the game featured 14 different languages, including the following:

English  French  Spanish Portuguese German Swedish Dutch Polish Italian Russian Arabic Chinese (T) Chinese (S) Japanese

I managed to get this done for my app for free and with around 2 weeks of work.

So why localise in the first place? For one, it increases your audience, but in particular it makes them feel included and accommodated for. Would you feel less inclined to play a game if you couldn't read the instructions or the narrative to give context to the actions of characters? Having to watch films such as Akira or The Illusionist without translations - whilst the mood of the setting and emotions of the characters is recognisable, so much essential information is lost without subtitles/dubbing. 

Here's an example of the complications that can occur across language barriers in the real world; I remember buying a friend a gift in Sweden as a gift for organising the trip, and I spotted a shelf of cheap bottles of vodka that looked like a bargain bucket version of a famous brand. After presenting it to him, he informed me that I'd actually purchased a one litre bottle of vinegar.

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Many people were able to explore this feeling of confusion when playing a previous game of mine, Morse. In the game, your main interactions are via a series of dots and dashes. It is possible to do, but is an awkward process of trial and error. One publisher I approached the game with even suggested the game would be too difficult to sell, as learning a language to play the game would be a too high of a barrier for audiences. Yet, when we put out games without local translations, this is what we expect a number of non-English speaking countries to do. 

So what can we do to help with this? My answer was to translate Narcissus to a bunch of different languages, but you could just stick with a couple to begin with. The first game that I localised, Flotate, I only translated to French and the game itself only needed a handful of words and this meant the festivals it was exhibited at could be enjoyed by its attendees in the local language. 

For sourcing my translations for Narcissus, the major element that enabled me to do this came from being connected with friends from countries throughout the world (From Sweden all the way to Saudi Arabia!). I would personally suggest if you can get at least 2 people for each language; one to translate and the other to check. 

There are other ways of doing this - If you have a forum or thread for your game, putting out a request for translations is an easy trick. I got Russian and German translated for Narcissus via this method. I've often seen on Steam pages threads and workshops to translate the game content. If a fan is willing to take the time to translate your game to their language, it's not a far conclusion to reach that there are others out there who wish for the same.

Even using paid sites are cheaper than you think - I initially looked into the cost of translation and for all of the text in my game 14 languages of localisation it averaged around £50. 

One to absolutely not do (Yet) is translations via automated systems E.g. Google Translate. Whilst they have fantastic capability in translating content (I used it for reading a lot of reviews in international regions), it doesn't factor in elements such as context, such as translations specifically for games or sometimes order of words. It does usually do a good job with singular words, but can make mistakes and in a commercial work that can do more bad than good. If you go down this route, try and find a local speaker to check them with (But if you have that available, why bother with the automated system?)

### The speed bumps of localisation Translating comes with its own collection of issues - One in particular is making sure you have all the words necessary for your game before you localise. I found near the back end of development on Narcissus as I added the third party features I needed extra words (settings, redeem purchase, buy ads). This was followed by the realisation I'd need to reach out to the translators and go through the same checks again for each of the new words in all 14 languages. Not having these extra translations constrained my workflow and I had to create very specific symbols to compensate and avoid the hassle. 

There's also the issue of UI layout - whilst one word may be short in one language, it can be very long in another! This can make designing menus quite difficult - Just look at the variation below!

Regarding the option of icons or symbols instead of words, there's a risk that if your icon is illegible, rather than making it universally compatible for all languages, your interface becomes incompatible with every one of them. Check your menu icon sheet with at least 5-15 people, any that bring up a number of inaccurate answers, replace with more easy to understand alternatives. 

I'll admit that translation can be near impossible with certain types of game without a budget or dedicated team, for example narrative heavy games require expert checking for context, flow and structure. But if you're building an app with just a few select words, it's worth the effort.

One of the advantages of localisation is once you've done it once, you don't need to do the bulk of it again - common phrases like "push button to start" and "level select" are common throughout many games so the most part can be reused, saving future development costs/time. 

Have your translations? Excellent. Now you need a method of putting them in your game. Even if you have the translations you need, localised fonts can be expensive and creating your own for a language you can't read is very hard! Thankfully Google has you covered: Google Noto Fonts. This is a collection of free fonts for all languages as well as variations of each for varying regional styles. This saved a huge amount of cost for the project and is well worth considering. For Narcissus, I had to manually create these as images rather than as type files/fonts, so for other software or game engines this process might be easier.

Super important tip with Arabic - If you're doing Arabic as a language for your game, you need to change the language settings under Preferences -> Type -> Choose Text Engine Options. Switch from East Asian to Middle Eastern and South Asian. This will make sure your text is added in the correct manner; since Arabic copied via the clipboard reverses when pasted (Since Arabic is read from right to left). I cannot describe the frustration for having translated the entire game to Arabic only to find all of it was written backwards (E.g. OLLEH DLROW). Do a sample piece, such as the title of your game or a quick word like Menu and test this with your translator. Games developer Rami Ismail has done some excellent documentation of sloppy translation mistakes in games; even I have some typos to go back over in Narcissus despite my efforts. Remember, an easy way to spot if your text is backwards is if the letters in the word are all disconnected (Most Arabic text flows from one letter to the next). 

**List of most spoken languages worldwide: Estimates via Ethnologue**  Chinese: 1,213 Million Spanish: 329 Million English: 328 Million Arabic: 221 Million Hindi: 182 Million

If you look at the list of the most spoken languages worldwide, English lists third in the tables. If you think about how many people excluded or have the barrier of using a non-native language to interact with your game, it's quite a lot. Even catering for Spanish alone is doubling your app accessibility.

Another thing to consider is 3 of the top 5 languages spoken have an alphabet that is completely different to the English language not only in content but also presentation. Imagine trying to not only translate a language but also decipher the text it's written in, that is a high barrier to entry for many. People might be able to figure out how to navigate your game without understanding the individual words, but the experience of not understanding how to operate an interface is never a comfortable one. 

Inevitably there was a limit to what I could do in the time constraints that I had to submit the App on time, so whilst the game is translated, the App description/storefronts were not (To avoid delays on the final release from submission issues). In future updates, I will be going back through and adding the respective translations. Another thing I'll be looking into for future releases is a method of changing the language based on region downloaded automatically, so rather than having to navigate to the main menu it'll either be instantaneous or an intial screen the pops up on the first playthrough.

For me, localising does appear to have been appreciated, with local press in various languages mentioning the benefit of translated versions in their articles. Narcissus received features on the Apple Store around the world and in turn the extra effort to translate may have influenced more prominent features in countries such as Japan, where it got a front page banner feature. Unfortunately there isn't way to determine its effect outside of comments and reviews mentioning its impact. 

An interesting factor to consider is curators of regional storefronts or press may highlight or promote games that make the extra effort to match their language. There has been an international exhibition that I've submitted games to in the past that have welcomed and even helped translate the game to multiple languages.

On a personal level, localising the game has been incredibly useful as well to my own development, learning a lot of the similarities between different languages, getting the workflow down for future projects and building a database of words for future projects.

By localising our games, we can grow the audiences of our industry even further and lower one more barrier for entry to the realm of games. As with visiting other countries and learning the local dialect, people appreciate the effort to connect and adapt. I urge you to do the same with your own games.

#localisation #language #narcissus #translation #gamedev