#because it detracted from the scene too much

[muninnhuginn]

The thing is that the dynamic between John and James does sound genuinely fascinating from the glimpses we get of it.

John says that James was always better at (social) stuff. James did go out and become a police officer, marry Lucy, and just generally have more of a "normal" life, but it's clear that Lucy thinks John and James *aren't* as dissimilar as John believes. James may have been better at masking, but he clearly didn't have an easy ride either. Still, John is envious of his brother and feels like James is what he *could* have been if he'd been able to venture out into the world. The fact that both brothers had crushes on Lucy only serves to hammer that in.

On the other hand, John is an incredibly successful puzzle solver and spending most of his life in his house in no way detracts from that. The murders he solves appear to be beyond the capabilities of James going by the reactions of everyone else. There's an argument to be had about how much is difference in solving vs being tied in by procedure and social niceties, but either way, John gets accurate results much faster than James ever did. Even if John does very much ignore behavioural factors as he attempts to simplify each crime scene to a "puzzle to be solved".

There's also something to be said for how James' coworkers didn't clock he had been replaced. How none of them even knew he *had* a twin brother. Obviously, there's an element of it being down to the writing in that the game couldn't be given away too quickly, but it does speak of a more distant relationship with his coworkers (perhaps aside from his former partner). And there's the voicemail where James says (though given the context, this can't be taken as 100% true) that he was the one most like their father, in his choice to run away. It was a hint to John, but it only worked as such because they had so little that tied them together in the first place. They grew up together, shared their childhood, and yet, they hadn't spoken in years. Makes me wonder how much of it was neither wanting to be the first to reach out. On John's side that makes total sense (James is the "social successful" one, after all) but James' side is much more a mystery (though, "they're more alike than they seem" comes to mind).

Of course, both of them were impacted by their father leaving as he did. It's spelled out several times that John and James reacted differently. John turning inwards (only pushed further by his bullies and discovering his love of puzzles) whilst James focused outwards (to become more socially successful). But we find that John doesn't want to lose the social aspects once he's found a place for himself. That James is able to go almost entirely non-contact with his family despite knowing the impact his own father had on his family. The one stuck in his house ventures out as the one surrounded by family escapes it all.

All in all, John and James are pretty interesting characters even if we only know one of them secondhand.

*However*, when we actually *see* James in person, my main thought is "that's a second David Mitchell"

[grilledcheese-savage]

New au idea: Opposites Detract

I came up with this a couple years ago but I still kinda like it so here’s what it was

- Lila gets the miraculous of the ladybug instead of Marinette after her fake persona goes too far. She either doesn’t know about the miraculous at this point, or does know, but still doesn’t have all the pieces in the puzzle.

- she will get a redemption arc in this, it’s mostly the proximity of being ladybug and having people around her to make her better.

- here’s what I like most about this au though, everyone HATES ladybug in this. Like, HATES WITH A PASSION. Because she messes up at first when fighting the stone guy and makes everything so much worse, simply because she doesn’t care about the repercussions. She doesn’t do the miraculous ladybug and the damage is permanent. This causes an avalanche of hate to come upon her and chat noir (even though he didn’t really do much.) So from now on the public shits on ladybug like Spider-man. It makes it a lot harder to their job and also causes her to face what she’s done head-on.

-I remember both her and Adrien meeting Master fu very early on, mostly because he realizes his grave mistake giving her the ladybug miraculous. Adrien does not like Lila at all.

- same time she actually runs into Marinette and she’s the first person who’s kind to her after all this. A la umbrella scene. Both Lila and Adrien gain a crush on her. They fight each other like siblings it’s really funny.

- Lila’s first real friend (other than marinette) is Chloe. She feels like she doesn’t have to wear a mask around her. She kinda feeds into her horrible energy tho until she gets redeemed.

- I thought about how interesting it could be if some of the worst people got redeemed in this and everything kinda happens backwards.In fact, I think Adrien gets worse 😂 but he does learn how to stand up for himself.

All in all, it’s a pretty out of character au, but it’s a fun character study. Like, imagining all the possibilities people could change. I think Lila at first would also want to abuse her ladybug power but again, being ladybug makes her want to do better and gain redemption. She’s still a psychopath and a compulsive liar but she learns to live in society and enjoy her life without hatred fueling her every decision.

Idk something to think about. Also her name is Coccinella

[neuroticbookworm]

Cherry Magic Thailand is doing so many things so correctly.

Integrating Japan into the adaptation, acknowledging the original and giving it the shoutout it deserves, and more importantly, bridging the cultural gaps that might be too hard to translate, like Japan's workplace hierarchy and culture

Filling in with scenes that doesn't detract or deviate from the original too much, and yet add depth to the existing narrative. The dinner meetup scene with Aachi and Jinta was already excellent, but then I watched Jinta walk into an alley and have an half-hearted argument with a stray cat, which he then took home. I was squealing, and not just because I got to meet the cute cat early. They're taking the off-screen moments in the original version and bringing them forward. This opens the show up to explore uncovered ground, and can add to Karan and Aachi's dynamics later.

We already knew Thailand is not gonna hold back on physical intimacy, but I did not expect Karan to lean in and almost kiss Aachi's mole! IN EPISODE ONE! I was screaming, kicking my feet and altogether losing my little mind!

Tay Tawan is so pretty he hurts my eyes, and I still won't look away. Newwie's physical comedy serves Aachi well, but he is also good at adding depth to Aachi's interiority in the quieter moments. Sing Harit, my beloved, is back on my screen and so fucking funny. Jinta might be the version of Tsuge I finally love, dialled down enough to feel human yet still weird enough to feel wacky and fun.

So.

Can y'all tell I fucking loved the episode?

[ageless-soul-au]

From FACTION ch 27:

Link closed their eyes to breathe, then looked in the mirror again. They were wearing a knee-length, blue tunic with a laced belt that cinched their waist, trousers, white boots, a white and gold scarf worn in a way that slightly obscured their missing arm, and a Ravio-appropriate amount of jewelry. They'd forgone makeup, thinking it'd be too much from the start, but… the nagging voice that said the clothes were too feminine on their own was still very present. It wasn't a dress, but…

“The last time I saw her, I dressed—... It was... very masculine,” Link murmured. “I don't suppose anyone has told her otherwise— They're not allowed to pass information— so…”

[...]

After they entered, the first thing Dahlia did was a double take aimed at Link. “Who—.... Link? What the hell are you wearing? What is this?”

Link set a hand on their hip and tried to breathe, to remain unaffected. “....I'm wearing whatever I damn well please. It's not your concern,” they said, attempting to sound level.

The embroidery for this one was interesting to figure out! It needed to be subtle enough that it didn't detract from the overall look but also be visually interesting enough that the tunic didn't look plain. Link's hair was ALSO super interesting because it curls and has a decent amount of volume, so when it's all a similar length and not long enough to weigh itself down, it goes POOF!

Link is so cute, I love them 😭 this was a serious scene but I'm so so glad we've finally gotten to the gender thing!! 🩷🤍💜🖤💙

Link (he/she/they) belongs to ASAU! Please don't tag any other AUs!

🫐Kio's kofi🫐

[ponett]

Heya inspiring dev here, I'm brain-storming for a game concept based on classical RPGs (specifically on the 2000s Tales Of titles), I wanted to ask as somebody who's being a big fan of RPGs and a game developer yourself, what is the one big sin in terms of design you should avoid doing for a game in vein of the games of that era?

This might not be a particularly helpful response, but I generally shy away from "always do this"/"never do this" type game design advice these days. What works for one game might not work for another, and what sucks in one game might be exactly what another game needs. It's all about execution, and knowing how different choices enhance or detract from the overall experience you're trying to craft.

Players tend to vocally dislike anything that inconveniences them. Random encounters, for example. Everyone says they hate those. But random encounters have their place! They can be used effectively, and you can also design around them to make them more palatable for a modern audience, or you can just use them exactly how the classics did if that's the experience you're going for. People complain about limited inventory space, but having a smaller number of items usually means players will actually use what they have, rather than sitting on a stockpile of 99 of everything "just in case they need it later." People say they hate ice sliding puzzles in games, but I put some in SLARPG because I thought that was what that section of the game needed and by god, I'd do it again!!!

Uhhh anyway for a small piece of actual actionable advice: it's annoying when there's an incredibly long cutscene directly before a boss fight and you have to watch the whole thing again if you die and try again. Being able to fast forward dialogue or outright skip a scene is good, but so is structuring things so that longer dialogue scenes tend to come after bosses rather than before them, or placing a point where the player can stop and save between the long dialogue scene and the boss fight.

Also PS1/PS2 era JRPGs (especially FF) were often obsessed with including tons of obscure missable items that you could permanently lock yourself out of obtaining by progressing the story too far. Again, I won't say this is something you should never do - the argument can easily be made that this increases replayability, or that it encourages players to talk to their friends about secrets. But it can get frustrating if you do it too much, and it can encourage paranoid behavior in players.

[the-golden-comet]

✨💋Friday Kiss/Last Line/ OC Confessions/Writing Share Mega Tag (wew)💋✨

Thank you for tagging me for writing shares, last lines, and OC Confessions @thecomfywriter , @saturnine-saturneight , @davycoquette , @sableglass ,@wyked-ao3 , @fortunatetragedy , @the-letterbox-archives , @theink-stainedfolk , and @drchenquill ! 💛✨

I know it’s still a little early, but it’s Friday somewhere (right? 🤣) Time to SMOOCH (among other tags. Thank you if you have tagged me recently, by the way! I may miss some, but I always appreciate being tagged 💛✨)

Rules: Pick one of these tags (or all, if it applies) ✨to do:

Rules: Post a scene where one of your character's does a confession to another character from your wip. It doesn't have to be a love confession. Maybe it's a lie. Maybe it's a crime. Maybe it's betrayal. Go buckwild, go crazy!

Rules: From your story/WIP, share a kiss. It can be any kiss, from forehead kisses, familial pecks on the cheek, platonic kisses, to full-blown make-outs.

Rules: Post a last line from your story/WIP

Rules: Post a snippet from your writing

Rules: So many rules. So little time 😵‍💫

The Peter Hart confession that covers ALL OF THESE lovely tags. Prepare to melt 🫠

Benji hiccuped as tears fell down to the floorboards. Too emotional for words, he mustered a quick head nod. Peter sighed low, shaking his head. “Oh, Benjamin….why on earth didn’t you tell me?”

The noble shook his head once more. Peter tried again, his tone greatly hurt now, yet soft and unthreatening: “ Benjamin…. ”

Through his gentle sobs, the prince spoke in a cracking voice. “I….I didn’t want my heart to break…..” His lips curled as he tried to bottle his sorrow, but the waves wouldn’t cease. Finally, the onslaught of passionate grief overflowed from his chest to his tear ducts, and down his freckled face.

“Benjamin…..” Peter whispered low and gently.

“…..J-just break my h-heart already…..!” Benji’s crying breath hitched. The amulet was glowing brightly around his trembling bosom, yet the light did not detract the tears.

Peter cupped his hands over Benjamin’s cheeks, wiping the streams away with his thumbs. Tenderly, he tilted the prince’s head up to meet his eyes as he cooed gently down: “You should have told me, Benjamin….because you’d never know that….” He confessed through his own swelling voice. “…..that I feel the same.”

Benjamin’s shining eyes widened in shock. But, before he could let Peter’s words sink in, the captain leaned forward and met their lips. Slowly, sweetly, he kissed Benji as he tried to calm the crying mess of a man in his arms.

The noble’s breath hitched into Peter’s mouth, but he didn’t fight the kiss. Instead, he leaned into it with his whole heart as he finally relinquished his remaining reservation. Giving Hart total control, Benjamin moved his lips and jaw in tandem with the captain. Much like their dancing, he let Peter lead…..and Peter would absolutely take.

I am leaving this as an +open tag for anyone who wants to do one, some, or all of these ✨

✨👇Tag list for writing snippets below the cut. DM me if you’d like to be added 👇✨

Tag List for writing tidbits (lmk if you want + or -)

@jev-urisk , @talesofsorrowandofruin , @glasshouses-and-stones , @alinacapellabooks , @fortunatetragedy , @deanwax , @dyrewrites , @honeybewrites , @drchenquill , @paeliae-occasionally , @lychhiker-writes , @thatuselesshuman , @katenewmanwrites , @zackprincebooks , @fantasy-things-and-such , @billybatsonmylove , @madi-konrad , @houseplantblank , @far-cry-from-finality , @froggy-pposto , @avaseofpeonies , @topazadine , @thecoolerlucky , @theaistired , @willtheweaver , @rivenantiqnerd @somethingclevermahogony , @noxxytocin , @leahnardo-da-veggie , @addicted2coke-theothercoke , @illarian-rambling , @the-letterbox-archives , @theink-stainedfolk , @ominous-feychild , @saturnine-saturneight , @words-after-midnight , @sableglass , @cowboybrunch , @moltenwrites , @pixies-love-envy , @davycoquette , @writeahurricane @nczaversnick , @greenfinchwriter , @oliolioxenfreewrites , @lavender-gloom , @smellyrottentrees , @aintgonnatakethis , @thecomfywriter

[one-and-a-half-yikes]

Don't mind me but can you plz rant about colly a lil more... :3

I'll do you one BETTER @ch1-kasak0

I'm gonna talk about Colly AND do an accidental Cuphead analysis on the side lmao

I will say, it is crazy to me that years ago, one of the reasons I had for why I didn't like the idea of Cupanny was because I perceived Fanny as someone un-ambitious, who seemed to have a bleak outlook and no real hope for a better future, something that was completely antithetical to what Cuphead needed in his life.

Obviously I don't hold that viewpoint about Fanny anymore, but I do think it's funny how that critique of mine (which I never shared on here I should add and I regret it lol) came back around but in an unexpected way. The Labyrinth arc was genuinely the deepest look we've gotten into Cuphead. With the thing that hit me the most stepping into Cuphead's dream and really seeing how much of himself is consumed by the guilt he feels about making a deal with the Devil, was how that guilt had basically consumed his personhood in a way.

Mugman dreams of being a pilot for the Calix Animi, of marrying Cala and having a whole, completed family; that his parents never left, that his dad was alive; Mugman dreamed of a future for himself. A fantasy that could never really be real, at least mostly, but it was a future nonetheless. Everyone, except Felix who's a special situation given his circumstances, dreamed of a future. Something that they were fighting towards even after they left the Labyrinth.

Except Cuphead.

He could never envision a future for himself, because so much of what made up who Cuphead was as a child was stripped from him that he's essentially a husk of who he was. We saw the real Cuphead in his dreamscape. He had aspirations, and goals he wanted to reach. But when your whole is spent struggling to survive it's hard to have real goals and aspire to them. It's hard to dream a dream that you hope comes true.

And then the gala happened.

Something that seemed out of reach for someone like himself suddenly seemed like a real, genuine reality within his reach. All because of his love for Holly. His love for her made him finally see a real future. A real dream. For one second, Cuphead didn't think about a bleak horizon that he was walking towards, but instead a beautiful sunrise that he wanted to walk towards hand-in-hand with Holly and it says a lot. It really does. In my Cuphead analysis I did say that his dream was still him in the background playing the role of Cuphead the Supporter rather than playing an active role in his own future where his own ambitions and drive exist alongside Holly's. But it doesn't detract from how much his love made him see something that for the longest he never saw as possible and that means something. It really does.

But oh, bitch I'm not even done yet. Y'all asked for this!!!

There's this one scene, I'm too lazy to go back and find it again (EDIT: I couldn't find it for some reason so my source is trust me bro), where Cuphead and Holly, and maybe Mugs was there I think, were talking and Holly said something along the lines of "I like your childish side" (paraphrasing). And that stuck with me, because when, in the other previous relationships that Cuphead had, has he ever been told that being his actual true self is the part they like the most about him? That the sulking badboy persona who's all rough edges and mysterious isn't nearly as interesting as the real him.

The thing I think a lot of people sort of forget, is that for Cuphead it's not a persona, it's just who he is. Because everything else has been stripped from him via abuse and threats to himself and his brother. From unethical experiments forced on him as punishment, to beatings from the boss when they screw up a job, to being yelled and cursed out by Hat because they messed up during training, and so on. So much of who he is, who he was, was taken from him and all that's left is whatever identity Cuphead needs to put on in that exact moment. Mugman was right when he said that for Cuphead, it's always about the damn mission. Keeping him and his brother safe, desperately trying to right his wrongs, and just trying to not have anyone see his weaknesses means the Cuphead we saw before in the Labyrinth is a ghost. Someone else entirely. A speck in the distance that feels entirely out of reach now to Cuphead.

But there's this part of him that he's tried to keep safe and held close and we see that in the Wonderful Winter arc. When Cuphead and Mugman started chasing each other, throwing snowballs at one another, it's the closest we get to seeing Cup in a light where he's not putting on a persona; the real him. And Holly notices that, too. But not just that she notices that, but that she is intrigued by it enough that she wants to get to know him more.

Holly had a crush on Cuphead, but the Tree Princess chapter is where she really fell for him. Which makes sense cause that's the chapter where she truly realizes the depth there is to his character and how multifaceted he was as a person. He wasn't just a killer thug like she'd first assumed, but a true complex person, just like her and all the other Questers.

And I think that's fucking beautiful man.

Of course I'd love to gush about Cuphead's perspective on Holly, but there's not really enough to say outside of:

You know it's true love when you're willing to spill all your secrets to this one person; to bear your whole heart and soul to them if it means being able to have them back in your life.

[dreamerwriternstargazer]

So Oct 3rd is coming up :D spoilers for Oct 3rd below

As I was lying in bed debating whether to get up I realised I very badly want to make a piece for Oct 3rd, I’ve wanted to for ages but I’ve been hesitant and unsure

1. It means so so much to me, I want to do the scene justice

2. There’s just so much to do for that one scene you know? So many different ways to portray it I have loads and no ideas all at once

3. I don’t draw faces so portraying the anguish of the scene is a challenge, a welcome challenge! But a challenge nonetheless

So first, debate on what aspect I want to present, what is my focus. Of course I want to depict Mina’s anguish and pain, I think there’s not very many artworks that have her at the centre of the scene, it’s her and Jonathan. But I also want to do that too!! I want to show the comfort and support she has

Depending on whether I focus purely on Mina, or Jonmina together, want to be able to portray it so that in looking at the piece you feel a scream in your chest and can almost hear hers.

But can that be done in combining the ideas, having Jonathan present in a painting that has her anguish at the focus?

One of my friends suggested a wonderful idea to get around the issue of the face, *illustrate the scene through her reflection on a cracked mirror*

Which I think is stunning especially because oooh the mirror crack’d references there could be (though it’s a long time since I read that poem I’d better reread it and see if it’s relevant)

Also vampires, mirrors, the fact she’s obscured suggests her impending transformation

Also “foul bauble of man’s vanity” reference, nice visual parallel with Jonathan and losing his mirror.

The options as it stands:

1. Mina alone and reflected in the mirror, a piece highlighting her pain and fear and anguish as a victim and allegory for SA

2. Mina in the same pose, kneeling, blood spattered, shattered mirror reflection, but with Jonathan holding her tight from behind. I like this idea very much but how does it influence the message and idea? It must be said though she’s a victim she’s not *alone* in her victimhood, on two counts. Jonathan has suffered at the hands of the Count too, albeit to a different degree and it was because she didn’t want him to be hurt again that she didn’t scream out during the assault, and also even if he hadn’t been through it, he would still not let her feel alone. None of them do, none of them for even a second blame her.

3. Make a separate piece of Jonmina as well as the Mina alone piece

This option I’m considering because I can’t decide whether it would be better to have them in separate pieces or not. I like the idea of keeping Jonathan in the main one about Mina, but is that messy, does that detract from the pain and fear I want to portray? It’s supposed to be her perception

Or does it make it better and more complex, I can portray the actual scene, he is holding her she is not alone, but the mirror sort of represents her skewed perspective, so we have both pain and hope, loneliness and companionship in one

If it were two different pieces though then I feel like separate, the message for both only heightens. To combine I worry muddies them both, I don’t do justice to either the significance of his comfort or her pain. Which is why I could do a separate piece of him holding her after the others leave, lying down on the bed, alongside the first one of her reflected in the mirror.

(I feel like I would then need a third piece to make a triptych and complete a series but that’s a whole other discussion~)

Anyway, fellow Dracula/artist/both fans advise!! What to do what to do…

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

There is all this Nonsense going in Miraculous, and I'm STILL stuck on "Master Fu canonically let the holocaust happen". Like, "Mentor is too scared of failure" is valid and interesting, but why tf would they use WW2 for emphasizing that?!?! And Fu is Chinese. Maybe we should have made a bigger deal about the rising sun flag, actually. Having access to ALL the miraculouses, and still shrugging and walking away from goddamn concentration camps is just- what??? Literally no one would have asked the question, except as a joke, if they didn't put a scene of him and his wife fleeing the nazis. Why would they do this.

Yeah, that was certainly a choice.

When it comes to magic-based fiction that's set in the "real world" or even just stuff that uses secret societies or advanced technology, you generally have to be willing to not think about the way these things should have changed history. It's just part of the standard suspension of disbelief requirements needed to enjoy these genres. If you can't do that - and it's fine if you can't! - then these types of stories aren't for you the same way that dark romance isn't for me.

For example, I once saw someone getting upset about the North American miracle box being in the hands of someone clearly tied to the indigenous population because it meant that the previous guardians could have stopped colonization, but didn't, and it's like, I get where you're coming from, but I think you're taking this a little too seriously. You can't enjoy shows like Miraculous if you try to take them that seriously and that goes for shows aimed at adults, too! The genre generally doesn't support that level of realism.

However, that defense only works if the show keeps itself removed from actual history. Once you include real-world political elements like Joan of Arc - who is famous for her involvement in France's war against England - or World War Two imagery, then you're asking your audience to think about that stuff, which is a terrible idea! Miraculous is not deep enough to support that level of scrutiny! Keep the setting modern and make any past Chosen tied to things that didn't really happen! There was no reason to hint at WWII. It adds nothing of value to the show. If anything, it detracts from the show because why would Fu have time to stop and help while he's running away from Nazis? Why wouldn't he get involved if the guardians had an established history of messing with European politics? Which they canonically do since they were around until the 1800's, meaning that Joan could only have a miraculous if they gave it to her since she's from the early 1400's. It would have been so much better if Gabriel had gone to a random time and randomly landed in front of Fu's shop, allowing Ladybug and Chat Noir to duck inside on a seemingly normal day.

[writingquestionsanswered]

Hello there! Do you have any tips for 'kill your darlings' and what kind of scenes to cut from a story? Anything in particular to look for?

"Kill Your Darlings"

The phrase "kill your darlings" is one of the most parroted yet least understood bits of writing advice. Writers too often take this advice to heart, believing they must go through their story and eradicate anything they deeply love... and that's not just immensely stressful--it's wrong.

"Kill your darlings" just means "don't let yourself be so blinded by love of something in your story that you don't realize it doesn't belong." In other words, you may really REALLY love your protagonist's best friend's quirky girlfriend, but what does she actually contribute to the story? What role does she play that's so important that taking her out would make the story fall apart or diminish the reader's understanding of setting, circumstances, character, or plot? If the answer is, "Well, she doesn't really contribute anything other than a little humor. But there are other characters who provide that. If I take her out of the story, nothing changes. The story still works, the reader's understanding doesn't suffer..." Bad news, this character is "a darling" and she needs to be cut from the story. As much as you might adore this character, she's just taking up space on the page and in the reader's mind, which detracts from characters who are actually important.

So, that's what you look for... look first at the things you love best about your story (characters, moments, events, conversations, setting details, character details, descriptions--literally anything) and ask yourself, "Does this really serve a purpose? Is anything negatively impacted if I remove it?" And really, you should do this for every element of your story. It's just that it's most important with the things you love best, because those are the things you're most likely to think are working when they actually aren't.

And don't stress too much about it... Critique partners and beta readers will be sure to spot things that don't work in your story, so even if you miss some things, it's okay. They'll be caught.

Although, the truth of the matter is, if you let the protagonist's best friend's quirky girlfriend slip through even though she adds nothing to your story, as long as she doesn't get too much page time and wrestle the spotlight away from more important things, it's probably not going to ruin your story or the reader's enjoyment. It's just that you don't want too many unhelpful "darlings" running around in your story.

Happy writing!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[jetra4ivor]

I’m really troubled by the fact that the people who want to promote the fan made “MCSM Block by Block” YouTube series remake are so reticent to hear criticisms.

I am not confident that they’re going to be able to live up to the lofty goals of having a multiple part TV series on YouTube. Here’s why:

We’ve seen nothing about how they intend to actually tell the story.

We’ve seen CONCEPTS for changes in the story. We’ve seen CONCEPTS for character designs. We’ve been told there’s a new voice cast, no clue who they are. We’ve been told there’s new changes to the story, but they won’t solidify what they are and are relying on concept teaser trailers for things they’d like to do, but that they may not necessarily deliver. We’ve been told Eric Stripe gives their blessing… okay??? That doesn’t mean they’re good storytellers though. We’ve been told they can use some Minecraft fan music… okay?!?? That doesn’t mean the entire show is going to be musically coherent…

And whenever I bring up these concerns, I get told I’m just being too much of a worry wort. They don’t seem to be taking this remake seriously, while the fans of MCSM ARE taking it seriously.

It’s one thing to mock up scenes and action shots you’d LIKE to have in a trailer… it’s another thing entirely to start sitting down and writing out the dialogue and working on the real meat and potatoes of the narrative for how the themes and story beats fit together. You can make a trailer with scenes set to a music track… but can you write natural sounding dialogue? Does the scene fit the theme of the story? What is the theme you’re working on? What added content enhances or detract from this theme?

And thus far I have not see the Block by Block team produce anything that reassures me that they can handle this stuff. In fact, whenever I bring it up I inevitably get told this:

And that pisses me off. Because I care about MCSM. And if you’re going to go around advertising that you’re going to remake the game into a TV show, there are certain expectations fans have of the quality there… and you’re not helping by teasing stuff that you may not even include in the story because you haven’t written it yet!

So here’s a test I’d like to see. Have the Block by Block team do a 2 minute introduction. Like the prologue from MCSM. Not only will this give your team the ability to work out the kinks of production flow, but it will help reassure fans who are concerned that you know what you’re doing and that you can deliver on your VERY HIGH promises. Not only that, but it will give us an idea of what level of quality to expect and what kind of performances the voice actors will bring.

I understand I am in no position to demand anything of the sort. But I do think it would go a long way to hyping up the reality of this project more than a flashy trailer filled with scenes that aren’t even in the story. I do not understand this need for “secrecy” around the story. It’s MCSM. We know what to expect from that story. What we WANT is to see you can do it JUSTICE.

The biggest issue fan projects have is that they often focus too much on the superficial. The fun stuff. The cool action scenes or abilities. They don’t focus on the meat and potatoes of story building and structure and that’s why so many fan projects suffer.

I don’t want to see this project suffer.

God… sometimes it feels like I care more about this project than the people working on it…

[maybevillage]

my really really long rant about endwalker

i'm not kidding this is really long. spoilers ahead of course, like immediately upon entry. sorry i sound so angry the whole time

unfortunately for me and for anyone reading this, endwalker is one of those cases where i like/d so much of what happens that the many weak moments make me more critical of the whole than i would be if it was just wholly bad like stormblood, bc it's a waste of potential. a lot of the time the moments i liked would even be happening simultaneously with the things i find so problematic: cheap storytelling decisions, cheap moments that only serve as fanservice or for shock value that only detract from a characters’ pre-existing complexity, poorly done rehashing of elements from shadowbringers, a lot of hollow pseudo-intellectual arguments, rushed and underdeveloped writing in one instance and then meandering wastes of time immediately after….these issues are so consistent that rather than try to break up endwalker's story based on these things, i will just try to run thru the whole thing chronologically and hope i don't get too repetitive. that's why this isn't an essay with some pretense of structure. i'll do my best.

what's crazy to me is i thought endwalker was going to be my second favourite expansion. this was despite not caring about its original main conflict--i thought fandaniel just wasn't a compelling or even interesting villain. he comes out of nowhere. and he's also asahi so that association is hard to break away from bc i find asahi silly. and he suffers from the same writing issues zenos does, where nearly every cutscene with them did little to develop their characters further from the baseline, only reiterated what i already know bc they literally never say anything else: zenos wants to fight wol, he's bored with everything life could possibly offer, fandaniel will ensure zenos can fight wol through his towers bc he no longer plays to the tune of his unsundered masters... even though what fandaniel was promising to cause were the final days i just didn't really care. in the wake of shadowbringers the final days are like a pretty big deal, but something about reviving a catastrophe i had just finished wrapping up--i thought, naively--made bringing them back seem really thoughtless. i don't really need to see anymore final days...like how much more do i need to understand how bad it was? i mean i think shb did a pretty good job????? of making the final days seem pretty fucking bad. why not come up with something new because this is endwalker and not shadowbringers haha? the only fresh thing about this new uncooler final days was the motivation behind them. fandaniel wanting to bring about the final days bc he wants to die and thinks everything should die with him vs emet-selch's unwillingness to die no matter what bc the final days took everything from him and he needs to bring it all back. still, recontextualising the final days from a past event into a present issue ruins them to me. whatever, i thought, there's no way we're letting the final days happen so what does this matter anyways. there's no way.

so yeah post-shb into ew was starting to lose me plot-wise. not the end of the world (LOL?) though bc the atmosphere in the beginning was so subtle and fresh and rich like dew in the morning that i was willing to look past it. going to old sharlayan i liked a lot. i liked going there not as a more typical homecoming for your friends but to instead uncover the sharlayan forum's cryptic behaviour. this kind of intrigue was what i really wanted after the grandness of shadowbringers and i really do think endwalker gave me that for a while. i liked the opening scene on the ship a lot bc it felt exciting and uncertain and new, especially talking to hydaelyn. i liked how she had become such an unstable variable after originally being the most anchoring presence in the entire game: learning she's a primal, whether she's actually “good” after listening to emet-selch’s explanation of her origins and actions in shb, and the fact that her appeals to her champions have been fewer and fewer… i thought her meeting with you at the very beginning of endwalker was cool and foreboding. i also really liked the emet-selch narration btw, i thought that was a fun choice. who better to guide you into the final stages of your adventure than the person who left you with that final, most important task. i wish this had been the only callback to his character at all. 

so a big part of why i like/d endwalker so much is all that atmosphere. and something i can't really put into words. it just felt cool and cohesive at the start. old sharlayan is one of my favourite locations now; i like that despite its rigidity and (to me farcical but w/e tangent) pursuit of rationality/knowledge, there's the quaint island charm and fresh winter sea and overgrown greenery and forest paths. i liked that the game enhanced the usual hubworld tour chore by having g’raha and krile follow you around to give you more personal anecdotes of the place, really gave it a more lived-in feeling, which really added to both them and the location. i also really liked all this charm and familiarity in tandem with the secret hostility of the place bc of the forum, having to sneak around and so on, sharlayan citizens not really recognising you somehow? but being very aware of a warrior of light threat to their way of life, even if i find that non-intervention way of life silly.

i also really liked labryinthos. it's a really creative place. i liked its uncanny false sky and controlled environment, and yet all the people scrambling about inside. and the music felt kind of magical like i had encountered another fairy area or something idk it all felt very whimsical. thavnair i really liked as well but i feel like my immediate impression of the place was kind of poisoned by the stereotypes, like the huge focus on trade and the first impression being undercutting foreign tourists but then i started to really enjoy the part where you run around with matsya and help him sell fish. i liked the mundanity and slow pace of that exercise bc it felt like a much more involved way of learning about thavnair and its current issues through conversations rather than the fetch quest slog, and this is one of the things i like a lot about the beginning of endwalker. the gameplay really improved i think bc they found more creative ways of having you interact with your surroundings, rather than having the usual running between npcs to fetch things for them or other chores. like rather than doing a string of quests and then being rewarded with development of the story, the gameplay simultaneously develops the story. like turning into frogs i thought was fun, testing nidhana’s aether lamp was fun, etc. it felt like they had better ideas about how to progress the in-between parts.

thavnair quickly started to upset me though bc it started to feel like the only relevance the location had was what they could give you for your military cause, that is, the scales. like alchemy is this place’s big highlight and its just the scales the scales the scales and the tower aughhhhhh!!!!!!! the tower!!!!!!!!!! i wish they had focused on something but i guess this is just to be expected with ffxiv...any interaction with a foreign ("foreign" as far as square enix eorzea is concerned) culture really boils down to how they might bolster your military efforts, the azim steppe for eg. so it felt like my concern for an individual (matsya) and the experience firsthand trying to help him with his day to day; the idea that every single person on earth is important and shouldn't be made to suffer, and helping that single person... was like overshadowed by something more focused on a “greater good", that is, the construction of the scales to defeat the towers to save the world ad infinitum. but if you played endwalker then you would know how this idea of only concerning oneself with a "greater good" and this diluting of the importance of an individual's life for the sake of this idealistic whole causes some problems for a certain someone..................so why didn't the game focus more on these themes? probably because at the end of the day it's a video game by square enix and you need a big boss to fight or something or bc this expansion is insanely unfocused i don't know. i feel like this concept about the importance of the small things that can add up to one life and how that one life is beautiful and important crops up with the significance of weeds despite its importance overall. i don't know if i think this is one of the main underlying themes of endwalker just poorly executed so as to not even be there or if i just wish it was one of its main themes. anyways i'm getting distracted, what i mean to say is thavnair gets dehumanised throughout the entire expansion in the most horrific ways possible so i guess this was just the start

moving on... i liked the part in garlemald a lot, which i didn't expect bc i don't expect this game to handle anything regarding imperialism well. i liked that the garlemald you finally experience, after it being one of your main enemies and this very proud nation, was just this dead quiet and ruined place. the quest where you follow that girl is another eg of how the gameplay was a bit more immersive, i think it helped me feel the loneliness and the danger of the place, that i could be a danger to this girl. that i really had to try if i wanted to help her. what i didn't like was alphinaud's and alisaie’s babying attitude towards the garleans? like ok yeah of course we’re gonna have patience and grace for GARLEMALD meanwhile lyse was losing her head at the ala mhigans whenever they disagreed with her. like sure arguing won't get anywhere but it felt like the twins were reckoning with children sometimes, it was so strange. but i did like that the game didn't shy away from making the garleans just unpleasant to be around at best, and an actual danger to you at worst. it's just better to me to make them harder to reconcile with so that there's no frustrating cheap shots at redemption but rather a good, sobering look at a society that's been totally and willingly misled. and i liked that alisaie's and alphinaud's attempts to help those garlean kids ended so badly, even though i'm not usually a fan of such cruel outcomes. it felt like we were seeing a garlemald not necessarily being punished for its actions more than we were seeing a place built on shitty ideals crumble bc of those ideals. i thought jullus was a good char and helped to carry that idea of disillusionment forward. i didn't care so much about sympathising with what he'd lost, but i did find it interesting how they contrast him with the legatus he's working under, who even while the place is in ruins is still more concerned with war than providing for the people relying on him. i don't think the part in garlemald is perfect by any means, like it doesn't do anything too brave, but ig it was a lot more subtle and complex in its storytelling than i expected. and it wasn't meaninglessly cruel. like i'm glad those shock collars put on the twins were only used to gauge jullus' emotional growth or something like him not wanting to activate them rather than them actually being fucking used which would have just made me close the game and not look back.

from here on is where i struggle to lock in for the rest of the story. starting with when zenos kidnaps you in the midst of the fighting at camp broken glass--i don't think i have ever been more immediately mentally locked out of a story. endwalker is darker than usual, trapping people in fleshy towers, two young girls lying dead on the ice, tentacles erupting out of tempered garlean soldiers... and so on. and while i don't personally like things that are overly dark or cruel, it's not that i think they're bad, just that with moments like that it's a lot better imo that a point is being made or they add something to the story, and that it doesn't feel soullessly random or disrespectful. unfortunately this stops being the case for the rest of the expansion..... like something about the weird eldritch feeling of fandaniel pulling you out of your body and putting you in a random soldier's was throwing me off immensely. it felt like i was playing a different game, like so disconcerting i found it distracting, because why would he not just do this to screw you over more often? i didn't understand them having access to such an unrestrained power. at the same time it was also just too wacky to really take seriously despite the apparent gravity of what was happening. zenos inside of my bunny girl's body??? i don't even understand why they did it? to piss you off?? the duty where you play as the imperial soldier was interesting i guess but i couldn’t understand what the meaning behind being made to struggle through that experience was... like didn't we just spend all that time sympathising with the garleans and wrap that section up already? why do i now need to sympathise with/experience firsthand what its like to be a garlean footsoldier? and it annoyed me because these parts felt emotionally rich, like stumbling across those garleans fighting that machine and trying to do your best to help them; dragging yourself across the ground to get to your friends before something bad happens to them, and running towards them before zenos hurts them while in your body--i thought all of that could've been really poignant if not for the actual situation being so silly?? they could have just kept some of those ideas, wol dragging themselves across the ground for eg--the extent to which they're willing to stop harm from reaching their friends (which reminds me of what vrtra says to you about the importance of protecting your friends the first time you meet him. but that was such a one-off moment that goes nowhere... i just wish ew would pick something, anything, to be a poignant message about love on planet earth if they want nihilism to be the main villain, and just stick to it)--and do something that felt a lot more relevant to the established story thus far? just felt totally pointless

what makes this worse is this ridiculous part is iirc right after fandaniel reveals that the entity tempering all of the garleans is varis reanimated as an ancient oh-so-important primal...?? like here's (what i thought was going to be) an actually important point in the story being sidelined for a moment that just goes absolutely nowhere. they certainly made it seem important for a moment, and i think this would've rounded off what was being said about garlemald well; the garleans are so taken in by the farce of their homeland that they think varis is calling them to reclaim their country over the radio, but all along what's actually causing their nation to fall apart is this monstrous version of their late emperor. the irony would've been interesting but they just do nothing with it... (i think desecrating a dead person's corpse by turning it into a monster is really weird btw, even weirder that they do it for no reason. whatever ew is weird.) i thought, considering that this plotline was being established from before endwalker started, that anima was going to take some time. not so. ffxiv would rather have you and zenos enact tropes from a disney channel movie. you merk that guy at the end of the tower of babil and from then on every important plot point the expansion could possibly have moves at fucking mach 567472838758745745

because why all of a sudden are you getting beamed up to the moon? and fighting ZODIARK? i was so confused when asahi i mean fandaniel was punching shit into that fuckgin allagan computer like fandaniel what the fuck are you talking about... i couldn't process anything that happened here. like i'll willingly put aside boring practicalities like why anyone can breathe on the moon, but not so much how fast this all happened and how out of nowhere--is this the reason fandaniel is also amon btw? so that he can use their allagan computers to do this? bc i honestly can’t find any other reason why him being amon is relevant when they revealed that in the tower of zot...like i dont get why that's important

and it doesn't get better after this is the sad thing to me. it doesn't pick itself back up. it is just extremely unfocused right until the endwalker. i was willing to move past getting rid of zodiark so quickly because it's not that i hold standard storytelling rules so dearly in my heart that i need the biggest final boss of the entire series to get a bit more gravitas. it actually ended up being a pretty interesting decision--dispatching the largest villain at the heart of the game being the catalyst for the biggest catastrophe you've ever heard of. like i like that wol gets played. but the entire mare lamentorum section that follows is disrespectful. this expansion suffers from some extreme tonal dissonance, bc how does wol learn that the final days are now upon them and then proceed to spend their time leisurely touring the moon rabbit facility to tell them that the clothes they’ve made for humans to wear isn’t fashionable? why on god's green earth does that matter at this current juncture? this part is one of the worst story-writing sinkholes in the expansion to me, bc why are the discrepancies between what the loporrits know of humanity vs what humanity is actually like something the story chooses to grapple with? we're building an ark to save humanity, and instead of approaching this in a contemplative or emotional way, the point of conflict they choose is logistics? in the expansion about nihilism? at best this conflict was overly realistic..... mostly it's just boring, and at worst the FINAL DAYS are now upon us, so why am i taste-testing carrots? how could the sharlayans, the most focused group of people on the entire planet, have been collaborating with the loporrits for decades and not even have one of the most basic aspects of staying alive squared away? i’m supposed to not only believe that nobody knew after all that time the lopporits think people only eat carrots, but also waste time on fixing this? whyyyyy would they even devote any time to this at all when there are so many more complicated and interesting ideas that they let flounder bc they rush through them at breakneck pace constantly? we just fucking killed zodiark! is this why they stick urianger up there to do all the fixing actually? to save time offscreen? maybe that's why they chose this asinine chunk of the story to start processing his character? though why they would choose to add more to a plate they can barely balance i don't know. i don’t even feel like getting into what they did with urianger bc it will just piss me off. i think only my love for rabbits and how i will never ever not find urianger precious were stopping me from putting a hex on square enix

the following section of the story is easily the worst part to me in the entire game. like i would rather replay stormblood multiple times in a row than ever sit through the final days coming to thavnair ever again. i've already said bringing back the final days would just be bad; a disservice to the time spent on it in shadowbringers. what more is there to say on that front? nothing. and the way ew utilises the final days tells me that the answer is nothing. it just wanted to unleash the violence of that event on the non-white area and spends an insane amount of time doing it. i can think of no other time in this game where there is so much wanton death and destruction for no useful storytelling reason other than to relish in the cheap shock of witnessing violence, violence they are unwilling to inflict on its white areas, because even in garlemald you only see the aftermath of what happens rather than being in the midst of it. it was actually making me feel fatigued. it was just so much of the same thing over and over with no real meaning to any of it. and that's not to say that meaning justifies suffering, but this is a game.....with a story... first and foremost? there needs to be some kind of reason to move the story forward? but nothing new or inspired is being said, just "the final days are really bad"

i’m actually not even sure where to begin so i’ll start with a glaring issue: i hate that people turn into abominations. people “randomly” turning into monsters just feels too unwieldy--how could there be any sense whatsoever that that situation is controllable? even learning that it's caused by feelings of despair is shit because emotions are so vague, how could there be any worthwhile attempt to control your emotions, let alone while watching your loved ones turn into/be eaten by monsters? this entire part felt so wildly out of hand/unpredictable to me that every single moment onward that wasn't more or less focused on maintaining this extremealy volatile situation felt like an unforgivable lack of priorities. it was extremely distracting to have it hovering over everything; everything else felt absolutely inconsequential in comparison. bc what the fuck do you mean people are randomly turning into monsters?? also the stakes were already really high just knowing the final days were coming, so raising them that much higher felt unnecessary to the point of it being hard to believe. and then bc you know there's no way any character important to wol is going to turn into a monster, subjecting commonfolk npcs to this just feels absurdly cruel, and also just made it obvious how much of a cheap scare it all was, bc it can't have any real narrative importance as a result of only happening to random npcs. it was all so blatantly fake-deep. there was no meaning behind them originally being people except for the useless horror of it--the scions still referred to them as monsters to be put down rather than as the people they used to be, just like any other monster in this game. dynamis was more of a retroactive explanation for why people turned into monsters, rather than people turning into monsters bolstering any understanding of dynamis. in shb the sin eaters had some method to them that made them more believable. you fight them throughout the story rather than them just being dropped on you midway through, they helped provide a picture of what kind of world the first was, they were emotional diving boards for characters like alisaie to develop personal goals and so on and so forth... the horror of the sin eaters had a narrative purpose. in endwalker it feels like they didn’t know what to do but wanted to replicate parts of shadowbringers, but didn't know why those parts worked so well bc they're too obsessed with trying to shock their audience. this part just sucked beyond description.

and it just continues to get worse. how can you be the one writing the parametres of a situation and you create something that's literally unmanageable, so that when its only manageable bc you need it to be, it's just so obviously shit writing? my sister described endwalker's writing as really contrived, like when they need something to happen (and that thing is often a really bad idea) they just shove it in there at the cost of keeping their characters in character, or having their story threads--both the interesting ones and the stupid ones--fall totally flat. she says they shortcut the writing. and it's true. for eg, the characters literally don't feel like themselves at times, or get utilised in really moronic ways. like when wol just watches the satrap die, another cheap scare btw he literally gets grabbed an eaten in a way my sis (i was ranting to her a lot about this game ok) described as straight from attack on titan. just gets grabbed and eaten. and this happens to him for such asinine reasons: 1. so that this random asf plot point of vrtra revealing himself as the true satrap can bear fruit. for some fucking reason. i struggle to understand why this is important at all but i guess it's yet another little sideplot that ew just can't seem to resist adding to its already towering plate at the plot buffet, like whatever is going on with urianger and moenbryda's parents/the loporrits, or zenos who now spends most of his time offscreen, or the twins and their father, etc, bc ew likes to waste time 2. so that g'raha (???????????????????????) out of fucking nowhere can have a big boy moment and direct the scions and the people of thavnair in their time of need. what on earth was that scene supposed to be? fanservice? a reminder that g'raha was a leader back in the first? which blows my mind bc mere moments before he had a scene i really enjoyed despite the circumstances, where after a man witnesses his son get turned into a beast and then stepped on by another beast because endwalker is literally jacking itself off to suffering and expects me to be doing the same... g’raha goes up to this man and stops him from panicking and turning into a monster himself. while i don't think any of this should be happening, i thought it was a nice take on his character to have a more sensitive moment in such a harrowing situation. i don't know, have a character demonstrate some emotional skills instead of the usual fighting ones. ofc all of this i thought mere moments before disaster. why was any of this necessary? literally why not just have the satrap, i don't know, take charge of his country when he's needed most, even if he's only been a figurehead the whole time? why let him go out so horribly when he obvious loves his people with his whole heart just so that vrtra can step in without any sort of conflict? i don't understand the focus on vrtra at all

and it actually just keeps getting worse.. the following part where you have to find matsya's friends at palaka's stand was awful. the friends have a newborn baby, so it's obvious that only that baby is surviving bc ew is convinced you don't know how harsh the world is yet. that must be why this part is so long? i'm repeating myself but so many other things that shouldn't be rushed get rushed, only for ew to devote a lot of time to sections like this where nothing changes or develops except for compounding how bad it all feels. i think it was at this point actually, that i realised endwalker actually had some underlying point it was trying to make. it would've been impossible not to realise bc of how heavy-handed it is. i'm not even going to try and paraphrase bc it was so random the way it was introduced i thought i had missed some lines of dialogue or something when it happened:

the suddenness of this felt like when a writer forsakes trying to show what a story is about and instead opts to speak to their audience directly through poorly disguised self-inserts. like i know things are bad right now guys, but the preaching tone of this is jarring. like maybe if you spent some time trying to develop your themes you wouldn't have to be doing this endwalker. i know you need your final villain to literally parrot these ideas for the rest of the game, but if this was supposed to be such a core point of the story why wait all the way until now to just beat me over the head with it? was watching a child be crushed underfoot supposed to make elderly man of palaka using the phrase "at journey's end" seem profound?

anyways then you go and try to save matsya’s friend (the mother bc the father has now died, of course). this leads us to another forced decision that doesn’t make any sense: alisaie and alphinaud fail to kill a single abomination--just the one solitary abomination that was stalking the poor woman--so that we can see it fling her into the water and her corpse dangling on the surface. in what fucking world do alisaie and alphinaud, who have single-handedly dispatched numerous abominations prior to reaching this point, fail to kill just one of them between the two of them in a way reminiscent of a cartoon, one being knocked into the other and them both falling over? how is that fucking possible? and then to somehow make things worse, because that's still possible, despite the fact that wol spends this entire segment in palaka’s stand being told by alisaie and alphinaud not to leave matsya alone because he can’t fend for himself, the twins suggest sending him back on his own to deliver the baby to palaka's stand? why??????????????????????????????

this is what i mean when i say the characters get used in the most bullshit ways for the most bullshit reasons. it's like the game needs as much suffering as possible to happen so that it can make a worthwhile point on this later on (spoiler: it doesn't) so it pulls shit like this. why would the twins, who we just watched try to spoonfeed the garleans cereleum straight from the tank, leave matsya on his own if not solely bc the story needs the doomerism of the Resolute Citizen to ring true? and this is also what i mean when i say the scions try to manage a disaster that is just not manageable, bc they for some reason believe that bc they've taken care of the abominations they saw in the area, that means the area is safe enough for matsya to go back on his own? like are we just suddenly pretending the nature of these creatures doesn't imply that anyone can turn into one at any moment? everyone is ALWAYS in danger? we're just going to mill around while matsya weathers the most potent fear of his life running back to the village on his own, with the baby of his friends who just died moments before, while we all know that extremely negative emotions cause people to turn into the monsters? why are we doing this after we just went to so much trouble keeping people safe (or failing to, really)? forget turning into monsters for a sec, why are we even letting him experience such painful emotions at all? anyways the fucking baby starts turning into a monster because this is endwalker.. but i will say that matsya running and chanting that little piece up there about how life is suffering to try and convince me it's true calm himself down was one of the cutscenes i liked the most from this entire part, maybe endwalker in general. it was another one of those emotionally poignant and well-executed moments that just suffers from how much i wish it was happening under totally different circumstances. i don't even remember why one of us doesn’t go with him, like i don't remember what we were busy doing bc it was that unimportant--no wait, i remember! we were waiting for matsya to reach the total end of his rope so that when all things seem lost, when those monsters obviously show up on his path back to the village out of nowhere like they've been doing the past painstaking quest after quest of this entire part, estinien and vrtra can get this really cool moment of jumping into save him! it all makes so much sense now. i've never seen estinien do anything really cool before like diving down from the sky with his lance, so i understand how this was a really important moment that the game needed to make happen. also how vrtra really needs to prove to the people he can be a good satrap bc ahewann just died and all. yeah, i totally get it. perfect. just great. 

what is the message behind despair turning you into a monster? we're about to get into it with meteion and try to convince her she's wrong--come out championing the idea that suffering is just one of the many aspects of life we need to accept, and yet we're going to preface that with a part where to feel despair is bad? you get punished if you do it? honestly?

whatever. elpis...we go here because we need to learn about the elpis flower. i'm thinking we're definitely just going to ask the watcher, right? like the guy on the moon who told us the name of the flower in the first place? and time is of the fucking essence here, so surely we just go back to the watcher and ask him what we need to know and come back? wrong. we're going back to the first. to talk to elidibus. i thought we killed elidibus? does nobody truly die in this game except for my favourite character? so wol gets sent back to the first, and there's this upbeat tonally dissonant little section where you catch up with some old friends like beq lugg and those kids you helped back in shb bc now is just the perfect time for pleasantries and remembering how good shadowbringers was. ew trying to relive shadowbringers was already something i was feeling out in thavnair fighting leagues of "terminus" creatures and not "forgiven" ones, and watching the carefully constructed horror and gravity of the final days get reduced to an average apocalyptic shitshow. so i can't say i appreciated this part. also people are indiscriminately turning into monsters. i can't help but have that hang over everything constantly until the end of the expansion.

anyways we go to the crystal tower and drag out elidibus even though i personally prefer when characters have their final moments and are properly laid to rest. like i hate to not only beat a dead horse but also reanimate said horse and then drag its corpse around. well fuck what i want. so elidibus willingly does this favour for us i guess and sends us to the past somehow with some useless warnings about how we won't be able to interact with our surroundings or change the past. i say useless because the former is just untrue, i'm not sure why he bothered to say it. the moment we step foot on elpis you get a nice gift of aether from emet-selch that renders you tangible and now you can proceed to live love laugh with him and hythlodaeus on elpis even though people are indiscriminately dying back home. and the latter warning, well. i don't know, that just seemed obvious. i'm kind of just a hater.

time to be positive again for a short moment, if you can believe it? emet-selch is one of my favourite characters. i enjoyed this new light cast on him...for a short while. i like his relationship with hythlodaeus and i really like hythlodaeus; i’m really fond of the faceless simulacrum version of him you meet in shb and i'm really fond of him now. learning about the unsundered world in person rather than through hearsay was interesting, and although i can't lie and say i don't think this all kind of felt like a huge tangent despite the important aspects of the plot that come out of it, i still like it. i guess it feels this way because a lot of big plot points have already been established, like the ark on the moon and the sharlayans' involvement and the final days, so this was all kind of too big to me to be coming this late into the story. it doesn't feel all that relevant to prior parts of the expansion either except for hermes, who has been poorly developed throughout, so okay, i get it. it's time to give one of the main villains some depth (i want you to guess if this is successful or not). hermes has a lot of qualities i really like. has a child, secretly nurturing a potent sadness, thinks differently from the world around him because at his core he’s too deeply empathetic…. even though i was still largely aware of the insanity happening back at home which i'm going to keep repeating, i still enjoyed elpis At The Start. the exposition of this part was easily better than its resolution. it was taking the time to develop hermes’ character so that you could see if the game was written well anyhow how he became the fandaniel of the present. i really liked his relationship with meteion too. it's getting hard to talk about what i like without simultaneously talking about what i don't like so i'm going back to criticising now, positivity over, sorry....

personally, i’d have been totally fine without any more development to emet-selch’s character. i think it was nice to see a fresh perspective on him and all, really rounds out who he is from what you know and what he talks about in shadowbringers. and i actually like a lot of the things he said throughout, not all of it, but a good amount of it was fun and sorely needed whenever hermes was being annoying, which was often. but there was a lot of times wehere i thought, i don't really need to be hanging out with emet-selch right now? i don't need my wol and emet-selch to be friends? considering who he is....? .............and what's going on back home? how many more moments showing how endearingly prickly he is do i need to see? like sure, i can enjoy this emet-selch fest in isolation of what's going on because me love emet-selch like it's not like i think these moments are bad or anything but i don't know, don't we have other things to be doing? i'm not diametrically opposed to fanservice, i like when things are kept fresh and lighthearted. but. well you know by now. about the people turning into monsters. i guess i just both enjoyed this part and wished it happened under different circumstances or in a different way or something, or maybe not at all, bc as things progress his character just gets more and more diluted.

i actually really liked meteion. i will say i’m really tired of non-human, overly childish girl children creature characters who become villains, because i think there's this concept where…idk how to say it? i wish i could find something that talks about this more... it's like the dehumanisation involved when non-binary characters or non-white characters are often not human (not that these things are done in the same way). but i feel like women or females ig are often the ones chosen to be non-human in this particular way...? like, when emotional labour is involved. or when it needs to be some taboo evil entity. it's like a guy and his part-animal female second lead or part-alien love interest or female-voiced ai system or android or abandoned girl he finds/rescues. it's kind of like the born sexy yesterday trope but without the blatant sexuality (i don't want to go on a tangent). quite often this weird quirky alien and playful girl child is a harbinger of destruction. take drakengard, for example, or fire emblem engage, or cc from code geass iirc, or veronica from fire emblem heroes.. there's apparently something about childishness and girlishness and innocence and corrupting that innocence or being fooled by that innocence that seems to incite fear of the unknown enough in people for villainous children to be a trope in general regardless of gender, but it was just something i was thinking about in regards to meteion's character, especially when she becomes evil. and this blurry line between her as a "being" with a consciousness and free well as GIVEN to her by hermes, and her as a "tool" to be used by him as well, doesn't really get addressed in any meaningful way at all. like sure, she doesn't need to eat but she can still enjoy candy apples and flowers, and can empathise bc often of her own volition she wants to cheer hermes up, but actually her ability to empathise is programmed; so let's send send her, this highly empathetic being (with consciousness and free will and tastes and personality) into the cold expanse of space for as long as it takes for hermes to find his answer, that's totally fine. why did he make it a girl? why couldn't they address the fact that the loneliest bastard in this entire game made himself a child? like i'm not saying there needs to be clear-cut definitions on what meteion is or why she or hermes take certain actions, but it feels like a lot of things regarding their characters are really complex and implied to be really deep, and then just don't go anywhere or are completely ignored or unexplained? and because these things are so present yet passed over, it leaves me genuinely confused about most of what happens on elpis and how these two specifically reach any of the conclusions they do once things start going south

like i thought what she and hermes were going to add to the story was going to be a lot more interesting and complex than what it turned out to be.....a banal mantra on the "mercy" of nihilism. i can barely reconcile what bothers hermes in the first place with what meteion concludes from her sisters' expeditions, like they almost feel irrelevant to each other. he's upset over man's lording over who deserves to live and the callousness of making and unmaking life. he feels sadder about the coming death of his friend than the average ancient, and doesn't want to accept meaningless platitudes about dying for the good of the star. ok, i agree with that. so he wants to know what meaning there is to life, if it can be so easily judged and discarded...? okay. so his answer is to....secretly create creatures without any of the rigourous testing they usually go through to prevent them from being dangerous, and then send them on a potentially dangerous and traumatising mission to answer his vague philosophical questions? like.......? so when she reports back traumatised and tells him every single society out there is suffering (which i just find so unbelievable btw), then the answer to his question must be that suffering is the meaning of life--which she figures bc she's an entelechy so i imagine she's highly susceptible to her emotional surroundings, and because his pseudo-intellectual question is so poorly framed (something only emet-selch points out in a throwaway line btw). and this alone spurs him on to allowing meteion to unmake their entire society in the most violent way conceivable? you literally tell him that the final days are coming as a result of his actions, but he's fine with it because he'd rather that than enact some policy changes at his workplace, or talking to someone? everyone seemed to listen and respect his decision when he suggested helping that creature learn to fly instead of just killing it, i'm sure he could've talked it out? isn't he in charge of the place? this entire section was so hard for me to follow bc i kept thinking something more complex was making everyone behave the way they were, when it was actually just totally senseless.

as an aside, i hate how they chose to make the way meteion reports information so cooly technological btw, it felt not only anachronistic but corny. i’m sure there's a better way to have her impartially report things without making her sound like she's reporting weather conditions on some distant planet in star trek. anyways, when you frantically search for meteion after she receives her transmission was another part that took up a lot of time for no reason. it just made everything feel so dire when i could barely understand why any of what was going on was such a big deal. and i’ll never be one to say that any bureau of anything should “detain” anyone, but why hermes was so frantic to prevent meteion from being brought to the convocation i just don't know. like he goes on the run with her so that he can hear the end of her report? is that really it? i just find it hypocritical that he doesn't want her to be sent to the convocation where they'll limit her free will or fucking whatever but he's totally fine with ordering the meteia into space? why am i being made to guess what the convocation is going to do to meteion when hermes is making it seem like such a big deal?? what fucking sense does that make? what on earth was he afraid of? their judgment? the convocation members deciding whether meteion is good for the star or not? could they not have just reasoned this out? aren’t they a "highly advanced" and "reasonable" society? like okay he sees through the veil of his utopian home but i just did not get a sense of how much it was bothering him at all, like i cannot stress enough how him going turbo feels like an insane jump from what his problems seemingly were. why did nobody stop to think this through or communicate to each other? is it because of the bullshit time paradox this game has trapped us in so that nothing we do will amount to anything anyways so we might as well make the most confused villain of all time be responsible for the biggest event in this game's history?

but it annoys me because meteion and hermes felt like such a waste of potential, maybe the biggest waste to me in the entire expansion. i was really intrigued by their wholesome relationship at the start, knowing that hermes was a main villain. and that he can't find connection or meaning in an otherwise "perfect" society, so he has to create it for himself and try to find it elsewhere, as far as the reaches of outer space... he wants to make what's hurting him stop hurting him. i like that he approaches such human desires with meteion despite her non-humanness, and that she can return those feelings to him. he wants to signify meteion’s return with a flower because they both like flowers… like those things we can’t put into words but share with others, moments, emotions, connections……..but nope. nihilism beam. it feels like the worst sort of retroactive writing ever. they didn't even think too hard about dynamis--this hugely important thing, except nobody has ever heard of it, aside from nidhana back at home? while members of the highest office in the most advanced society earth has ever had are left squinting.

and the entire section after you fight hermes just pissed me off. we kicked his ass so that we could stop him from inciting meteion any further, and yet we just let him hear her out anyways? he's yelling at you during the entire dungeon that he just wants the time to hear her out, we're chasing after him so that we can stop him from doing that, and then we just let him hear her out anyways? and then even when we do that she doesn’t even say anything different? she just goes right back to reporting on different worlds and how self-destructive they are and That's All She Really Proceeds To Say For The Rest Of The Expansion But Fucking Who Cares Anymore. so we let her repeat herself. this sends her into a spiral, because she's an entelechy who just got hit by a high frequency nihilism beam, but subjecting her to all that despair is only ever addressed by one of the scions in a throwaway line near the very end of the story in ultima thule... and then hermes...captures venat, emet-selch and hythlodaeus??? he captures two of the strongest characters in the game? did we not just kick hermes’ ass??? what is going on?

emet-selch: that's bullshit, and you know it's bullshit

hermes: *says more bullshit*

i really think hermes might be one of the worst villains in the game. it's a shame bc i think he's such an interesting character. i'm not sure why he started behaving like such an incel when he was right to be troubled by the things he was? why did they even bother have wol relate to him over experiencing sadness from loss if that just went totally nowhere? why does he behave so hypocritically? being saddened by loss leads to him setting the stage for the final days? him hating man's jurisdiction over other lives leads to him wiping emet-selch's and hythlodaeus' memories, and subjecting the entire planet to the worst test ever? he's not even morally grey or anything! just annoying! i saw someone say that it's even worse that he wants the ancients to prove that their life is meaningful to them, bc it's true, they do??? like isn't that what venat interrupts them from doing in the answers cutscene, calling back for that lost life? isn't that what you learn in shadowbringers? didn't an entire half of their population sacrifice themselves so that the other half could live? what the fuck else did they need to prove?

this part was pissing me off even more because i never even wanted hythlodaeus or emet-selch to learn about where wol came from or about the final days coming in the first place. i thought that was an awful writing decision. telling them just felt weirdly cruel to me considering elidibus explicitly told you there was nothing you could do to change it. maybe this is just my opinion, but why would anybody want to know that their planet is going to go up in flames and there is nothing they can do to stop it? telling venat i was like sure, she becomes hydaeyln so this makes a little more sense to me, but the other two…….? this is around when i was getting tired of the emet-selch cameo, because i don't really care to know what he thinks of his future self? i couldn't really understand what the point of any of that was? so it annoyed me even further that it amounts to nothing anyways when they get their minds conveniently erased. it felt like a fucking joke. why did we revive these characters, develop them, and then just treat them like tools...? like now that we're done using their powers and creation magicks--i thought, naively--we just toss them aside? like ohhhhh noooooo now they won't remember all the fun we had on elpis this is so sad......but at least before he got his memories wiped emet-selch, even though he definitely totally doesn't believe a fucking word i say, renews his shb vows to wol and leaves the future in my hands again? yeah, i totally wanted to hear him say that a second time. forget how deeply affecting and important a moment that was at the end of shadowbringers. i really needed to see him do that one more time in this shittier, more contrived context. that's really what i needed from endwalker. also i've been on reddit reading what people have to say about endwalker out of curiosity (ppl make a lot of good points that i haven't) and someone pointed out that moments before all this happens venat literally pulls memories from the aether around you so that we can watch hermes send the meteia to space. what on earth is stopping anyone from doing that for hermes, hythlodaeus, and emet-selch? but whatever, i already know the writing doesn't care how silly it is anymore. two of the strongest ancients get bound by a weakened hermes, only break out after the story conveniently needed meteion to start flying into space, and then venats lets her escape somehow even though doing so essentially dooms their entire planet. ok

so we’re back home and we have to go immediately help the thavnarians who are being punished for not being white again. the sharlayans were going to bring them to the teleporter to the moon in garlemald to start getting them on the moon, but oops, the final days have come to garlemald, so now we can't use the teleporter, so if you're thavnarian your life sucks. who saw that coming? absolute waste of time. so then we have to get rid of more beasts because we need to waste even more time doing something we already spent an agonising amount of time doing in thavnair. and then immediately after this we need to......wrap up yet another asinine plot thread endwalker is so obssesed with adding to it's already convoluted story: fourchenault excommunicating his children...? it seemed really important when he did this in post-shb, but materially nothing for alphinaud or alisaie really changed, everyone still gets into sharlayan no problem. ultimately i just didn’t really know why they chose to pursue this mini-plot at all because how many more pushes does alphinaud (i'm saying alphinaud bc he does not share that spotlight with alisaie lmfao) need to become resolute in his goals? he already does this throughout the series? they ruined arenvald's legs in post-shb so that alphinaud could become more resolute in his goals, why keep dedicating time to this? just keep juggling endwalker, just keep juggling. anyways we’re in garlemald, we calm the final days for now, zenos shows up out of nowhere to remind us he’s still in the game. and to be fair to him that was one of the most interesting cutscenes he’s had the whole time, and, get this--they have him randomly answer hermes' question? about the meaning of life? while talking to jullus? like jullus gets mad at him for not giving a fuck about causing what happened to garlemald, and zenos responds by saying: "ask any creature of this star and those above for answers, and they will tell you what suits their fancy. and they would be right to do so. what meaning there is to be found in the petty vicissitudes of your existence must be gleaned by you and you alone." like......? he just provides the answer right there in a conversation with jullus? did this expansion have any interest at all in putting any of its different parts in conversation with each other, or are we supposed to just try and build a good story like a puzzle, where the pieces, albeit interesting, don't actually fit together? weren't zenos and fandaniel working together at the beginning of the expansion? he should have just posed this question to zenos because the answer was apparently right fucking there, with the flattest character in the entire game, this whole time? whatever, i still liked this scene. alisaie putting a curse on zenos was very cool of her. so we're back in garlemald and....….tonal dissonance! puddingway shows up. cute scene where g’raha’s ears perk up also bc he's the one who hears the loporrits coming. just in case you forgot about g’raha, which is an oxymoron. and then maybe the second worst segment of endwalker...........we go back to labryinthos. 

now i love labryinthos. i thought it was interesting we only collected one aetheryte the first time we were there, and i was hoping the place would be as intriguing to me as it first was when we got back. admittedly learning that the sharlayans' secrecy only amounted to contributing to the moon project was kind of a let down, but i thought maybe there was still more to it. i mean, an ark to the moon? the abandonment of one's home planet? it's not like the ideas aren't there. let's go back to elpis for a second. one of the moments that really stood out to me during that part was a throwaway line that emet-selch says to wol after hermes starts freaking it:

he's right. i don't think hermes found society so truly beyond help that he couldn't turn to any one of his peers for help before devising such a reckless plan. but i'm not trying to rehash my issues with hermes, more that i think an interesting parallel could have been made, possibly, with the ark flying to the moon as currenlty the most viable solution to the final days problem? challenging this notion of just throwing it all away as a last resort? especially because it's so obvious to me that by the end of this expansion nobody is actually going into space to start a new life out there; trying to sort out living accomodations and acquaint the lopporits properly with earth is just a waste of time. so why not pose the underlying question of the entire expansion, about what makes life meaningful, to the last bastion of hope in the entire universe--the sole planet amongst millions of dead stars that still believes in itself? would it not just be free real estate to try and connect this story's multiple parts together by ...connecting this story's multiple parts together? the scions say repeatedly how much they'd prefer to protect their planet rather than leave it, and everyone on earth vouches for you because they don't want to leave, either. could they not have made a connection in some way between that ark and the meteia's voyage to outer space? could the writing not have turned around and asked the actual inhabtants of the planet of that we've helped and saved and laughed with and broken bread with or whatever the fuck what they think about the meaning of life, now that they have to leave that life behind? i guess fucking not??? i guess endwalker would rather only highlight civilians when they're being turned into abominations to drive home the same points about life = suffering constantly, and not the points about how despite the suffering life needs to be lived? because they don't actually seem to care about challenging meteion's nihilism when that can just be lazily solved by beating her up at the end. hermes could have been learning to love the world he was on, the smaller things that make it beautiful. because that's what he does, he creates this creature that is built to understand him, and it does and it shares these small joys with him. but nope, time to waste time doing fetch quests in labryinthos. find every single researcher who is obviously losing their mind with stress in labryinthos and give them their government-assigned lopporit while this hectic music with only one minute's worth of loop value plays in the background. go and deliver these papers with alisaie and alphinaud bc if you do a former friend of their father’s will tell them that their father actually loves them duh that’s why he disrespects them publicly every chance he gets. go follow one of the lopporits around while they sample fruits so that they can learn to make food other than carrots. go and watch urianger reconcile with moenbryda's parents even though she died all the way back in a realm reborn. fuck you. also everyone is still just a bad day away from turning into an abomination. just in case you forgot.

that shit where asahi shows up to take fandaniel away for the final time might be top three most bizarre scenes in all of final fantasy fourteen btw. i almost didn't want to mention it, but i need it on record how silly i thought that was. we are in the final stages of this expansion and it still can't stop wasting time. did we see ardbert's thoughts on elidibus using his body? no. but asahi was who they chose to get upset about this? ok.

i liked the trial against mother. you might have noticed i've had very little to say on venat this whole time. that might just have to be its own post or something if nobody is sick of me by now. but anything to do with working together with your friends to overcome a trial is good.

that's what i liked about ultima thule. at the same time, this is where the game finally just loses me forever. i think, somehow, even despite all the things i didn't like, the way the story is told i still enjoyed, even if what it was saying was often. bad. there's still a lot of moments i really liked despite it all. but after ultima thule i was just done. we get on the ark. great. i like that things don't go as planned because meteion intercepts our ship. but now meteion is finally here, which means it's finally time for me to reckon with the pseudo-intellectual nihilism she's been touting every chance she gets. it's hard for me to suspend my disbelief that every single society out in space wanted oblivion, but if that's what endwalker wants me to believe for the sake of its story making sense (oxymoron) then fine. ok. but that's all that's ever said. "life is suffering" "life is suffering" "the final days are really bad"

just the same pseudo-intellectual browbeating about how living just leads to constant strife and the most beautiful thing to do is to just end it all for everyone ever again. like sure, empath hears death cry repeatedly--i can see how meteion could change so permanently. i think that's fine. i doubt that's why she's so repetitive. i genuinely just 't think there's nothing anyone really had to say on this. and the thing is, we've heard this argument before? the idea that humanity is imperfect so they don't deserve to live? it will all amount to nothing, so why let it continue to exist? these are major points of conflict from shadowbringers because it's what emet-selch was always saying. the difference is that emet-selch is just an easily more interesting and fleshed out character whose arguments are largely more complicated, even if they're just as morally wrong. like it's extremely easy for me to answer whatever meteion is saying with a resounding no. and while i feel that emet-selch can also be easily disagreed with on what he believes, bc i do disagree--he at least introduces ideas that complicate the story and his own character. he challenges the scions on their hatred of primals--their god is a primal. he offers visions of a world where nobody has to struggle ever again, where strife doesn't exist, and so on and so forth. while that doesn’t justify his actions, nor do i think they should, i think he at least gives the characters something to think about. he throws their own actions back at them. why would the scions not want a world without suffering? when emet-selch asks alphinaud if he believes half of the sundered world would give up half of their number to save the other half, alphinaud is unable to answer because he knows that the answer is no. i don't think humanity should be tested, let alone with such an insane standard, but i at least think that the questions being asked in shadowbringers were interesting. there's a point to them. with meteion, all she basically says to the scions is that she’s going to fucking kill everyone they know and love in the worst way possible. nothing to chew on that wouldn't better be solved by just getting rid of the threat. i don't know why they even bother arguing with her ever. she doesn't even feel like a character to me in that last section of the game. and they keep trying to have her seem all scary by having her get really close to the screen or move around without warning which is all very silly to me. i at least did like how much of a threat she was, and the way thancred vanished, and then everyone finds themselves in that dark area in front of the ship wondering where he is while the ultima thule music plays for the first time, distantly and quietly. i actually really liked that part. i thought it was really moving. i wish it had stayed that way.

the first area of ultima thule was the best part imo. i liked the immense darkness and quiet and lack of wind and the foul air and  yet, green grass. i liked the strange horror of being the only person at first who could really see the dragons, and then learning that estinien can see them too. i liked how that was the segue for his sacrifice. having those "final" moments with a specific scion each time until that climactic moment that pushes the group forward i really liked. i liked that thancred was no longer with them but still with them, a presence over them keeping them safe from harm. i found that very touching. but i was actually really confused while going through ultima thule becuase of how they visually shows what happens, like while the swirling vortex each scion would stand in was cool, and then standing to face off against that dark bird, i think what those things actually represented i just did not really understand what was actually being done or going on. i think that might be because dynamis suffers a bit from being just too nebulous or underdeveloped. i don't mind how abstract of a concept it is, i mean aether is used to do all sorts of never-explained things all the time.. it's more like... if ultima thule is going to be a place ruled by emotions, with laws different from what the scions are used to, it's hard for me to see how they were able to really draw any conclusions about where they were or what to do. it actually kind of reminded me of the logic of jojo's bizarre adventure where an attack only overrules another attack not becuase of some fundamental power scale the reader understands, but bc of what araki feels like contriving to get the story moving the way he wants. and that's fine because it's jojo. but this is ffxiv, so in my mind ultima thule should have either remained abstract and they don't try to explain the rules of the place so much, or they should’ve just made what was going on less abstract if they were going to try to logic the place out

what i mean is: the scene where estinien argues with that dragon so that he can overcome its despair is really cool. i liked that he turned into a cool wind. i liked that your friends sacrificed themselves for the sake of their home, that the power of their hopes for wol to overcome this final challenge was the only way they could move forward in such a stagnant place, as well as the only way they could be protected by meteion's violence. but after estinien does it--and he admits that he doesn't know how, just that it was the right thing to do--it feels like the writing immediately tries to specify what's going on so that there's some easy way forward the scions just have to follow the rulebook for, so that they can get to meteion. when urianger takes wol and g'raha aside i was actually just so lost. i don't know what it was i wasn't getting. i still don't. like to kind of say that there’s always one "individual" in these fake worlds who is despairing more than the others that can be located if they just identify a certain set of behaviours... this kind of just waters down what the scions are doing and the magic of being at the universe's end or w/e to me. we use language because of our inability otherwise to really express the depth of emotions and sensations that exist in this world, not the other way around--trying to box in something so complex through things like processes and so on...so to try and narrow down this part kind of rung a bit hollow to me. it was somehow both overexplained and underexplained at the same time. this might seem kind of nitpicky but i guess it was just hard for me to enjoy ultima thule when i was genuinely confused almost the whole way throughout. and bc the ea and the omicrons were so goddamn annoying. trying to do this slapdash learning about their societies at the very end of the game was just like...? okay? why bother, all they really care about is dying anyways. and then that final dungeon, ew's final attempt at replicating the wins of shadowbringers (the amaurot dungeon) with meteion's voice over. like who cares now meteion, you are somehow still just repeating yourself. endwalker is almost at it's end girl, i get it. everyone wants to die.

where i actually started to get annoyed though was where y'shtola says in no uncertain terms not to use the retcon crystal hydaelyn gave you to call their spirits back. y'shtola, you shouldn't have bothered, because you know wol is going to do absolutely that. why even have her say it? there is no sense of risk whatsoever because that crystal is involved. i still liked the sacrificing, but maybe they should have framed it in a way where it wasn't obvious that the scions were going to be totally fine. ew literally didn't seem ballsy enough to kill all of the scions, and i don't think it should've either. but then it just makes this all very wishy-washy. and even worse was when wol used it to summon HYTHLODAEUS AND EMET-SELCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHY!!!!!!!! WHYYYYYYYYYYYY?????????????? i was so annoyed. i'm still annoyed. back when their memories got wiped hythlodaeus was like oh yeah by the way emet did you know that in the aetherial sea you can get your memories back haha? and i was like okay cool so when they die they can get their memories back, whatever, still don't think me and emet-selch should've been live love laughing on elpis. i didn’t actually think this game would be so juvenile as to let you get to meet them once more with their memories fully intact. i don't know why ew has to dot every i and cross every t and sign off every single bit of intrigue with the biggest fucking full stop The End ever where emet-selch is concerned, holy fuck man. i hated this decision so much. your friends SACRIFICE THEMSELVES so that WOL can face meteion. they believe that at the very end of everything, hydaelyn believes that at the very end of everything, WOL is the one who can defeat meteion. they all put so much faith in you. and the first thing you do is summon emet-selch and hythlodaeus because what? because you just can't fucking help yourself? just shit all over the importance of carrying your friends’ beliefs in you. christ i hated that. i loved seeing the elpis flowers grow all over that fake sun. why couldn't that have been wol who grew them, wol's turn to use dynamis to overcome meteion's despair, flowers that represent the hopes every single person on earth has placed in them to see their star to safety? why? emet-selch there for what? to set in stone his position as the Tsundere once and for all? is that it? to have him renew his vows to wol for the millionth time just in case you forgot that he wants you to take up the mantle of their future? i wish they would go back to never making emet-selch palatable and less hostile to the warrior of light, it feels like such a disservice to the character he was in shadowbringers and to just their characters in general like i do not want to be canon friends with emet-selch! it's not necessary! it's fucking emet-selch! what's even worse is that for some reason while the flowers are growing, emet-selch is just point blank explaining what's going on. he literally says something like, "these flowers are the hopes of everyone meteion you're washed. by the way, if you didn't catch that, wol. you can summon your friends back now." immersion gone. any sense of playing a game that actually gives a fuck gone. so we call our friends back, only to send them away again with the teleporter because meteion is just too strong for us. to be fair i liked that decision, but why fake me out a second time having me think yes, finally wol is going to face meteion ON HER OWN. and then have ZENOS show up? i actually just stopped playing and went to bed. genuinelly just fuck me. who fucking cares anymore.

and then after you finally get meteion to stop being emo and she offers to reconcile with you by sending you safely back to your friends it's like, actually i can't even accept this meteoin. because i have to go fight zenos now. and then it's crazy to me that after you kick zenos' ass for like the millionth time, we're literally on the edge of the world so i'm finally expecting him to say something worth listening to, he opens his mouth and says "you know, wol, this whole time... i've been so bored... and the only thing that gives me joy is fighting you...” like. stuck record. the writers dragged him all the way out here to be a stuck fucking record

i like endwalker btw. kind of. like i know nobody who reads this is going to believe me but i really do. if it had just, well. i don't even know. there's too much wrong with it. it wastes too much time and just doesn't seem to be able to let go. how is it possible that an expansion can make me tired of callbacks to haurchefant being important to wol? i've never felt that before. like how many more flashbacks to his grave does one need to have to know that when wol is fighting for their world they're fighting for their friends too. but this game just cannot let things go. it NEEDS to make that joke about alphinaud gathering firewood four more times. it makes anything i appreciated the second or maybe even the third time just upset me. they can't let anything go, they have to wave it in front of me like it's a dog treat and i'm a dog. a fucking dog with blonde hair and blue eyes

[dreadfuldevotee]

very glad I follow so many loumand enthusiasts like you. there will always be idiots detracting from what they had together but louis & armand liked each other! that is a very important part of the story! they had intelligent conversations and clung together to escape loneliness the way all vampires do and tried their best to take care of each other despite being way, way too fucked up to even care for themselves.

Ha, thank you! It saddens me that I feel like im out here fighting demons over them, but not that much because I love talking about them. If Loumand has no fans, I am dead and there is no afterlife because I would be scratching my feelings out on them on all the walls in Rolin Jones's house.

And, yes! It's really easy to point out all the ways these two didn't mesh that I feel like we don't spend enough time talking about how they fall together in the first place!

Louis is trying to find what it means to be himself, now with Lestat seemingly dead and the growing distance between him and Claudia, and is attracted to Armand's allure. Their courtship is a lot more classically romantic in their long walks along the river and philosophical conversations over smokey Parisian backdrops. It's not really touched upon, but Armand is vastly educated (a grumbling acknowledgement of a rare MDR good move) and willing and capable of engaging with Louis in ways Lestat wasn't (Season 1 conflicts sprouting in no small amount out of Lestats unwillingness and inability to understand Race). Coming off that explosive dynamic of Loustat, Louis finds Armand as a more easeful experience. I think it certainly helps that even Claudia, judgemental of Louis' romanticisms, is unthreatened by Armand's advances on Louis until he quite literally puts his hands on her.

For Armand, Louis is a breath of fresh air. Once again- hating his job and the role he plays, Armand is so attracted to Louis' independence and connection to humanity. He's not only curious about Louis but also feels safe with him. Its easy to misunderstand the bench scene, but that moment is about Louis speaking to that scared child Armand revealed to him and saying "I am staying here with you, you aren't alone", and Armand's metaphorical sigh of relief that he can share this burden with anyone else. If i had to describe their relationship in one word, the answer is easily "Safety"

[thisissirius]

i would also like to add to the chris is 13! and he's choosing to go with THEM? discourse to add that chris does not know. because eddie is a good father and he does not let his insecurities and battles with his parents detract from the fact that ramon and helena cared for chris for a long time, that they loved him and he remembers that. they were a huge part of chris' life and he was safe with them. it wasn't perfect and we have a LOT to say about them as parents and as grandparents, but they're safety for chris. notice how all of the talks eddie has with them are away from chris. they're overbearing and have their faults (because i just know some of y'all will bring shit like that up) but chris doesn't see that.

at thirteen these choices are more than capable of being made. i have said it before and will say it again; children are wholeass human beings. they are young, but they're not without experiences. chris has dealt with a lot of stuff in LA. tsunamis, earthquakes, his father's constant brushes with death. he's making a choice to remove himself from a situation that he doesn't think is best for him right now because eddie is not making choices in his best interest. however much you like those scenes or this storyline as a whole, chris is not wrong for wanting to be secure.

and while it might not seem like it, this is also good for eddie. he needs to know he can exist in spaces without chris around. he might not want to, but he needs to learn that he can and that he is NOT in the right place, through grief and stress and ptsd and all the shit he's gone through. he is choosing to let christopher go because he knows this, deep down, where he doesn't want to look too closely.

this situation is about choices; christopher's AND eddie's.

[thescreaminghat]

so i watched suzume. . .

And it was good—the animators, vas, musicians, and other talented people who worked on this film deserve so much praise for their work.

On the other hand (and this is a purely personal exercise that isn't meant to detract from Makoto Shinkai's vision for the piece), I think the overall theme of the film might have been better served if the story centered on the ups and downs of Suzume's relationship with her aunt Tamaki, rather than Souta.

Suzume is very much a story about grief—set against the tragedy of the 2011 tohoku earthquake, Suzume's personal struggle with the loss of her mother is arguably our entryway into understanding how this tragedy continues to shape the relationship between Japan’s very geography, its history, and its people.  

I believe that central to this narrative focus is Suzume’s complicated relationship with Tamaki, her mother’s sister, who raised Suzume for much of her life after the loss of Suzume's mother. For me, one of the most important moments of Suzume and Tamaki’s relationship is shown at the climax of their disagreements with each other. After being Suzume's sudden departure from their small town (partially out of that rebellious teenage desire to not be "suffocated" by Tamaki's presence; we'll get to Souta’s role in this later) and Tamaki's understandable worry about Suzume's wellbeing (which leads her to embark on a wild goose chase after Suzume, though we’re not shown much of Tamaki’s personal journey), Tamaki yells at Suzume while the two are at a rest stop with Souta’s friend Serizawa. Tamaki bitterly states that raising Suzume after her sister's death had been a suffocating burden on her as well, as she couldn't find love and live the life that she had wanted because of her responsibility. This leads Suzume to shrink back in disbelief, as she recalls a pivotal memory where, after wandering in a snowstorm in search of her mother (and encountering the Ever After), she is found by Tamaki, who cries and affirms that Suzume will always be her daughter. It's a heartbreaking scene. We can empathize with both characters—Suzume is closer in age to most viewers, and we know that she doesn’t really hate her aunt’s presence, as the stress of her chase after Daijin and Souta’s temporary “demise” has whittled away at her emotions. Similarly, we can imagine that Tamaki herself likely hasn't overcome her grief at losing her sister, and that her outburst wasn’t truly genuine—she does love Suzume, but she wants her adoptive daughter to understand the sacrifices she had made, because she had no one else to confide in or rely on. We anticipate that this is the emotional crux of the movie, showing the relationship of a surrogate mother to a child who has gone through deep, unresolved trauma, now burdened with the consequences arising from the "imbalances" of the spirit world, itself a metaphor for the turbulence of living and of losing.

. . .and then the movie doesn't do anything with this scene. It's suddenly cut short with the random appearance of the keystone Sadaijin, and any lingering tension from that scene is resolved offscreen, with Tamaki and Suzume regaining each other's trust in the next scene. It feels unearned and deeply unsatisfying, especially when the emotional core of the film then gets transplanted onto Suzume's emotional relationship with Souta, a college-aged man whom she has known for less than a week (Suzume, by the way, is in high school, and even if they don’t “get together” in the movie, it makes me a bit uncomfortable seeing someone who is implied to be in their twenties being the implied romantic interest for a seventeen-year-old).

So, I thought, what if the movie kept its cast of characters, and the general sequence of events, but instead of Souta being the one cursed by Daijin to be the keystone (an act that initiates the film's events), it was Tamaki? This is going to be broken up into a few reblogs since it's too long for one post, but here's how I would structure it. (Part 1 of 2, and with a lot of my own hc interactions)

The beginning of the film can stay the same, including Souta's appearance. however, the driving force for Suzume to go to the isolated spot where the first door is located is an argument with Tamaki, rather than her implied curiosity regarding Souta. Perhaps, in this fight, we see bits of Tamaki's personality that may come across as "suffocating" to a teenager, even if she meant well.

Suzume, bothered by Tamaki's presence and the dream that she had of wandering through the Ever After, goes to this isolated spot to get away from everything, which is where she encounters the door and Daijin. Perhaps she's sulking a bit, and makes some sarcastic remark about someone like Souta being able to travel (something that would show her interest in leaving the small town she currently lives in). She then opens the door, Daijin escapes, and she goes about her day as in the film, until the worm appears above the skyline.

She then runs back to the door, where she encounters Souta again. They close the door, and Souta explains what he does and what the door represents. She brings Souta back to their house for medical treatment (except without any of the weird romantic tension between them), and they begin talking about Suzume’s life (perhaps about her room, the chair, and her dreams, as Suzume imagines the kinds of dangers—and thrills—that come with Souta’s position as a Closer).

This is where Tamaki comes back into the story. Tamaki, returning early to check on Suzume and encountering Suzume and Souta together, thinks the worst and begins to berate Suzume. They get into another argument, with Souta trying to calm the two down. Suzume, already stressed from the day's events, wishes that she can be "free" of Tamaki.

This is when Daijin appears on the windowsill, shit-eating grin and all, and says something along the lines of "Ok, Suzume. I can do that—because you're just like me." And then Tamaki is suddenly turned into a chair.

The same chaos ensues, with Tamaki, Souta, and Suzume chasing after Daijin until they get on the ferry. This is where Souta can give some more exposition, saying that he's never encountered this before, while encouraging Tamaki and Suzume to try and come together as he figures the whole thing out. Perhaps this is also the time where we get more information about Souta's personal life (in this version, it is information about his desire to become a teacher, as well as info about his relationship with his own mother, who was killed during a dangerous mission she took on as a Closer.)

The trio continue chasing after Daijin, with the group splitting up by necessity (thus allowing Tamaki and Suzume to have more screentime together). Specifically, Souta finds out that another door is opening off the path of travel they are taking after Daijin, and he instructs Tamaki and Suzume to continue their journey while he takes care of the other door. Before he leaves, he gives Suzume another key he keeps in his possession, which he reveals belonged to his mother.

Suzume and Tamaki continue onwards and meet Chika, the girl on the motorcycle. Suzume and Tamaki then cooperate in closing the door opened by Daijin. In this version, I think it would be interesting if Daijin is actually actively opening doors, not simply leading the pair to doors that are about to open. This serves as a huge bonding moment for Suzume and Tamaki, as they previously couldn’t go a day without arguing over the best way to do things.

Suzume and Tamaki stay at Chika's place (and have the downtime with Chika that is shown in the movie), except Suzume's dialogue with Tamaki consists of her confessing that she is jealous of Chika's independence and the bustling atmosphere at Chika's home. Tamaki is initially angered by this, but gradually calms down in her “chair corner” as she sees Suzume and Chika having fun, perhaps even reminding Tamaki of her own childhood with her sister.

When Tamaki falls asleep, she sees visions of her sister, which both frightens and immobilizes her (i.e. literally her survivor’s guilt “anchoring” her in place). This is meant to replace how Souta gradually descends into his “death” when he sleeps.

Suzume and Tamaki head off and are picked up by Rumi, the mother who works at the hostess bar. Initially, Tamaki whispers to Suzume that she doesn’t want Suzume hitchhiking with a stranger, but Suzume tells her that sometimes they need to rely on others to get by. The same comedy shenanigans with Rumi’s children can be kept in—I think it’s more fitting that Tamaki plays the role of the “toy chair that can speak” in order to keep the children entertained, because she probably, after all, raised Suzume on similar silly stories.

Suzume and Tamaki run to the abandoned fairgrounds to close the other door when the worm appears. I think this scene becomes more impactful when Tamaki is the chair and not Souta, as her decision to save Suzume from falling from the Ferris wheel and letting Daijin go would highlight her parental worry for Suzume, though perhaps this isn’t fully realized by Suzume in the midst of her adrenaline rush. Suzume, however, does look upon the fairground as a place that she wants to go to with Tamaki, when all of this is over, though she keeps this to herself.

Suzume, watching Rumi work her shift as a hostess, comes to appreciate the struggles of being a mother more. Similarly, Tamaki wants to connect with Rumi as a peer, but is limited by her chair form. Seeing Suzume bond with Rumi makes Tamaki want to be there for Suzume, as she sees Suzume slowly maturing into her own person. However, neither Suzume nor Tamaki feel ready to fully open up about these nuanced feelings, as they fall instead into a comical back-and-forth when they’re alone.

Suzume and Tamaki manage to get to Tokyo, where they meet up with Souta. He tells them that he’s been doing whatever research he can to try and figure out how to break Tamaki’s curse. This is where he can explain the keystone lore to Suzume and Tamaki.

The giant worm starts appearing over the city. Tamaki insists that Suzume get out of Tokyo. Souta agrees, and tells Suzume and Tamaki to leave, stating that he can handle the worm himself. Suzume refuses, stating that she’s not going to let anyone else die—the “else” implying that she too still feels survivor’s guilt over her mother’s death.

Despite Souta’s attempts at reasoning with her, Suzume is adamant on staying—Daijin appears and mocks her, telling her that she only knows how to let her aunt dictate how she lives. Suzume rushes ahead without Souta and Tamaki. Tamaki and Souta chase after Suzume, with Tamaki yelling at Suzume again, calling her “rash”, "always making her worry and chase after her," and “thinking and behaving like a child”.

Perhaps Suzume covers her ears, as Tamaki’s words begin to blend into Daijin’s laughter as he scrambles towards the worm. Perhaps Suzume screams out loud, screaming that she felt as though Tamaki had never believed in her, that even when an entire city is threatened, Tamaki cares only about herself, and knows only how to chastise and suffocate Suzume. This shocks Tamaki, but before she can respond, the trio are shot up to the worm’s back, and Souta attempts to seal the worm. However, Daijin interferes and Souta is injured. Suzume then tries to grab Daijin, only for Daijin to purr contentedly and state that he understands what Suzume is feeling—that is why Tamaki will now be the keystone, and both of them can be free.

Suzume turns to Tamaki, only to find that she is unresponsive. Ice is forming around her, as Suzume’s words echo over and over in her mind. Perhaps Tamaki then screams in grief as she sinks deeper into her regret and memories of her sister—that is when we get her screams about how much she had sacrificed for Suzume, and how much happiness Suzume took from her (basically what she said during the rest stop confrontation).

(pt 1 end)

[gillyweedgrl]

You should be watching Pit Babe! - A Brief Review

Saddens me to think how many people are missing out on a great show because they think it’s not worth more than a trash watch, if that.

I mean, realistically, is it the most amazing cinematic work of all time? No, not unless pretty-boy power bottoms with daddy issues are your thing, which in my case they are, so let's talk about Pit Babe!

Note: I've tried to keep the spoilers to a minimum, they're mainly in the tags and links so follow them at your own risk, you've been warned.

Honestly, Pit Babe is a pretty damn good show, especially if you A) pretend the Omegaverse factor doesn’t exist and take the show for what it is and B) you don't mind not knowing what's going on half the time, just sit back, relax and enjoy the ride.

Overall, Pit Babe has got a good production value, a slightly absurd yet entertaining plot, a great choice of cast with amazing chemistry and pretty decent acting skills amongst the mix of seasoned actors and newbies.

For a totally biased fair and balanced review: There are some details that are left vague instead of being explained in depth or at all (yet), but that’s to be expected when you adapt a novel into a movie or series. It would get boring for the audience if the pace was interrupted to explain all those little details that we’re likely to find out along the way anyways (shout out to those who've watched the latest episode; finally!).

There are also some scenes that feel like they’re not as necessary and some background/plot devices that made a little more sense in the novel but I personally don’t feel like they detract too much from my viewing experience.

Babe (played by Pavel) and Charlie (played by Pooh) as the main leads do a really good job at shouldering a large percentage of screen time. Charlie comes across as happy-go-lucky, a bit clumsy/goofy, entirely fearless and a little naive, which is mostly true, but there's clearly more to him than that. Right from the start Babe is clearly someone guarded, detirmined and skilled at what he does (racing cars and having sex) and he has a very tight cirlce of people he trusts. There's a winning combo right there, quite tsundere/sunshine from the outside but definitely more breath the surface that gets exploded as they go.

Way (played by Nut) is Babe's best friend and racing companion, they've been racing together at Team X-Hunter for years but there's clearly more than friendship on the mind for Way, though the feelings appear to be one sided.

Alan (played by Sailub) is the owner of Team X-Hunter and an all-round cool Uncle (which the whole team call's him (despite barely being in his mid 30's). He's kind but firm, he cares for his team like they’re his family and it does seem as though they’re his only family.

And the rest of the cast consists primarily of:

Team X-Hunter:

Dean (played by Lee); a junior racer with slight douche vibes

North and Sonic (played by Michael and TopTen); everyone’s babies, they’re junior racers and content creators

Jeff (played by Pon); the newest member of the team, he’s a part time mechanic and full time conspicuous

Pete (played by Ping); the money guy Alan brings on board to sponsor the team

Team Red Racing (the rival team):

Winner (played by Pop); the guy who never seems to win against Babe

Kim (played by Benz); the new racer they hired to beat Babe

Tony (played by S Vorarit); Red Racing's newest benefactor and *shock horror* Babe's former foster father (try saying that ten times fast)

Kenta (played by Garfield); Tony's right hand man

Then, there’s the 🌶🔥🤯

I, personally, enjoy a little spice/heat in my shows. It’s not necessary for every show, of course, but I do think that when it serves a purpose to the story and it’s done well then it can be quite enjoyable and this cast/production team is doing it really well.

As I said, the chemistry between the cast really is amazing (both on and off the screen, if you're interested in that kind of thing) and although the spicy scenes aren’t nearly as abundant as they are in the novel, there are some really good ones. I decided to bite the bullet and binge read the novel over the past couple of weeks, I blame @pharawee’s breakdown posts for those sleepless nights, and it was worth it for me but not necessary for watching the series.

Lastly (as if this post isn't long winded enough as it is) there are a handful of things in this series that we don't see too often in BL's and make it worth watching even more:

It's got race cars, murder attempts, mafia influence and supernatural powers (at least half the characters have one).

There's no evil ex-lover out to get revenge or get back together with one of the mains (thank the BL gods).

It's got a Soft Top/Dominant Bottom dynamic where the title character is both super masc and a pretty princess.

And we can't forget, it is technically an Omegaverse series (or rather, it's Omegaverse-lite) which none of us saw coming!

Anywho, to conclude; yes, you should be watching Pit Babe. No, you don't have to read the novel to understand what's going on because none of us understand what the hell is going on at any given time. Charlie and Babe are fucking around and finding out, the rest of us are just long for the ride, Alan and Jeff are having a whole ass rom-com-drama in the corner, the babies are making their content and having a blast and the others aren't quite on the map yet (or are they? *wink, wink*), but I sure hope they will be soon!

If you made it this far, thank you and are you okay? Do you need to have your brain checked?