#because it had a lot of really interesting developments and a good ensemble/overarching plot

[amplexadversary]

I've come to a realization about myself that I'm not very fond of.

It's the fact that I've fallen for a lot of works that make big promises and setups without really having a solid plan to deliver.

When I was in high school it was Moffat's Doctor Who and Sherlock, which was especially egregious because it came out later that the fucker was basically stealing writing credibility from other people.

Moffat would frequently only write the beginning of many of "his" famous stories, including The Empty Child/The Doctor Dances, and left it to other writers to wrap them up into a satisfying conclusion.

This made him look like he could deliver more than he actually could and led to a lot of disappointment when Sherlock and his run of Who hit a point where it was time for a payoff neither he nor the other writers had, so they just kept escalating and diverting attention with new wacky things to distract from the fact that they didn't actually have anything in mind that they were building up to.

Overwatch has a similar problem with a different source. It's a game that attracted its initial fanbase with a lot of characters that were really interestingly designed with exciting backstory hooks and the promise of an overarching epic plot.

Once again, all of this setup was set up without actually having a planned destination, or even a general direction. Instead of building on what it already had down, the game offered more of the same combined with minuscule trickles of hints and character interactions and things the fans concluded based on gameplay and extrapolation on what scarce info there was. Sure, anything concrete on one's top favorites was rare, but chances are you would like a good majority of the other characters enough that it was still fun when something new focused on them, and occasionally everyone would get a new voice line or interaction that felt like it gave new information.

Overwatch was able to keep going on that good will for a while before people started getting disappointed by the lack of substance, the realization that a majority of the information that was all people had to go on was not considered significant or even canon by the writing team, and that the game kept putting out hooks in the form of other characters much faster than they followed up on any of them.

My experience with the last one in particular was that I eventually ended up getting really frustrated with every new character because development on everyone was getting so spread thin that they just felt like one other body to compete with my faves (this frustration turned to resentment when a character that filled multiple story niches of one of my least favorites was released and ended up very popular; with Ashe being a second hawt chicc DPS in addition to Widow I was seeing a lot less of many characters I was much more interested in. Suddenly half the character interactions I was seeing included a character I really did not care about, and characters I wanted to see intereact because they were interesting would rarely both be picked in the same match. This also became a problem with how much the devs struggled to balance shield tanks and "off-tanks," of which I found the latter much more interesting but almost never saw in actual gameplay.)

The advantage of these big ensemble cast pieces was the fandom, who typically produced an impressive quantity of beautiful fanart and exciting and heartfelt writing that filled in the yawning gaps in canon. Even better, everyone had a different take, so it was easy to pick and choose the approaches that have persona appeal, most of which were pretty clever because all of them had to be extrapolated from the same scarce information.

The pitfall of this, which may be obvious to someone reading the previous paragraph, was that when the fandom outpaces the actual writers with such ease and variety, it puts a LOT more pressure on the writers to deliver something that stands up to the top 30%~ish at least of the fanworks, or to at least pick the most interesting ideas to follow up on, which makes it very disappointing when they don't... do that.

This situation actually informs what I suspect might be some of my more controversial opinions on shipping and fanon:

The first being, there are cases where fans can outpace and outperform canon to such a degree that, the fans effectively out-vote the author. If a reasonably obvious assumption based on all of the available information has been circulating long enough, without anything new in the work to challenge it, elaborate, or present a different perspective, people are going to consider the most likely explanation to be canon and are going to push back HARD against an alternative unless the alternative is SIGNIFICANTLY MORE CLEVER AND INTERESTING THAN THE FANON. Yes, this means even dumb fanon often deserves the foothold it has because the writers couldn't be assed to put something there in time. This is a problem with the WRITERS, NOT the fandom. It wouldn't happen if the writers returned to each character frequently enough, set up better, and made sure to make some kind of forward movement on the regular.

The second is that there are ships that I have an immense double-standard over based on who is pushing them. I'm going to use one I've been pretty blatant about my feelings for as an example: Gency, or Genji and Mercy from Overwatch. When I see it from fans, it's fine. It's by far the least interesting pairing for either of its members, but I've seen some really impressive things done with it. Sometimes I even like it, especially when the person in question engages with the more thorny elements of it because they clearly like it, such as how fucked up it is that she's fucking her patient. When the official writers do it though, the fact that they've specifically passed over every other more interesting pairing for this one, and are pretending the thorniness that could make it interesting isn't there, and mostly seem interested in doing a generic het couple thing with the woman's attractiveness being the driving force behind it? You fucking hacks, get on AO3 like the rest of us, learn to write something fucking interesting, or leave it fucking platonic.

When Overwatch started engaging in more and more FOMO bullshit, starting with select cosmetics that would only be obtainable within a short timeframe and that would never come back and culminating in the OW2's bullshit battle pass, I stopped playing, but still had a craving for something similar, because the fanworks were really good and I do like a pretty video game with interesting designs and rich, colorful environments.

So when a couple of friends of mine suggested I casually try out Genshin, I gave it an honest go. I definitely did not play the game like it was intended to, and it was in fact really fun for a while. I love the environment design, the exploration mechanics, and the fact that you can climb almost anything. And it seems that Genshin is actually largely avoiding most of the no-plan pitfalls because they published a fucking plot outline before the game had a second chapter.

The problems with Genshin, though, include the problem you get with an ever expanding ensemble cast, where there isn't ever a point where the writers stop adding extraneous characters, focusing on them for a while, and dropping them for new ones you're supposed to start caring about. I think they really went off with Itto. And Venti. And Kaeya. And Aloy, even though she's a crossover character and nobody likes her (incorrect opinion but whatever). And there were a ton of other characters that I either liked right away but not as much (Sucrose, Xingqiu, Fischl, Sara, Kuki, so many more). There were a few characters I actively disliked, but after a certain point I didn't have to see much of them.

This is compounded by the fact that the game wants to have power creep despite being a single fucking player game, so they tailor challenges to strongly favor the kit of their latest flavor of the month. Which *still* wouldn't be a problem for me, because I enjoy the challenge of trying to win with my favorites even if it means I have to draw out the fight by playing defensive. Except, Fuck You Specifically, Morgan, we decided that our main method of adding difficulty is going to be a fucking time limit to many fights, so the only valid approach to gameplay is DPSmaxxing. On a single player game. Yeah, fuck you too Mihoyo, that's such a dick move I'm deadnaming your company.

I fucking hate the concept of Gatcha games, frankly it's insane that I gave this one a try, and honestly I hope in 15 years someone steals the source code and dolls it up with an alternate means of progression that isn't so damn tedious because I did play the SHIT out of the exploration sections of the game.

I was really frustrated with Genshin's fucking exploitative monetization scheme, but for the most part I only really liked a few of the big ticket characters, and so was pretty much able to put together enough currency to get all of the ones I wanted (though as far as support characters went, there are a few I wanted but never got, and it took me like half a year before getting an actual healer. Fuck Gatchas man). Combined with the balance pushing constantly getting new characters I mostly did not want so hard and refusing to let me win a single player game with my favorites, that still ended up being a negative for me, despite the fact that I could effectively game their pity system through pure budgeting. (In total I only spent around $60 on that game, and $30 of it was for my friend's account because she came just short of a guarantee of a character she was in lesbians with.)

And yeah since I was in that game for the characters (and the mountain climbing), the fact that each of the ones I liked kept getting overtaken by new ones eventually put me off it. The main story is okay, slow moving, and kept moving on to new people and leaving my favorites behind, so even if it makes its payoff, they lost me along the way.

And then there's the franchise that really should have been able to AVOID being a no-payoff trap, fucking superhero movies. I really liked early MCU. The characters were fun, the first phase had a plan and mostly stuck the landing, and fans were making a ton of cool shit for it. Phase two put out some great movies until it didn't, its big crossover was a mess, and basically what plans the writers had got fucked by executive meddling. Which is especially stupid because these dwinguses literally had just shy of a century's worth of playbooks, complete with plenty of feedback on what worked, what didn't, and interesting things to do with the characters. Which all got whittled down, genericized, and had all of the little set dressing and costuming and elements that support the storytelling whittled out because execs can't tell the difference between people picking up on foreshadowing and people telling you your fave died before you got to the part with their death flags.

[obstinaterixatrix]

the thing is I’ll check out any degree of threatening, hostile, and/or somewhat grotesque stories if I’m bored enough or if it’s interesting enough. it’s like if there’s something thematically or emotionally compelling that’s able to justify how off-putting a story is to me then I’ll keep engaging with it.

[theglguidetowebcomics]

Full review: Girly

What’s Pink, insane, NSFW, hilarious, and somehow heartwarming at points? This comic is a ride and a half, and I’m genuinely surprised more people haven’t heard of this one… I’ve been wanting to talk about this one for a WHILE. 

So let’s talk about the elephant in this room… Because I think it just ate someone’s couch. 

Slightly NSFW review with spoilers below.

Girly, by Jackie Lesnick was a webcomic that ran between 2003 and 2010, (and really has some of those early webcomic hallmarks). Its monochromatic pink, vertical, with a poppy early cartoon feel. It’s also listed as a romantic comedy, which is… correct, but cuts a whole lot of what makes this comic good, short. 

This review was always going to be one of the 4 I really struggled with. And not just because I lost it the first time without a back up in a code glitch, got distracted by a pandemic, then procrastinated my way to finally making a second version in my new backup folder… No, well also yes but no. This was a comic I read when I was younger (and should NOT have read  when I was younger), and have always had a soft spot for. I’ll admit as much as this comic has its flaws or weird moments or just weirdness in general, its one of the few comics I’ve found myself rereading in its entirety more than once. And no matter how much I know it's coming, find myself sobbing, uncontrollably, at the final panel. There’s surprisingly a lot of heart in this comic, and a whole lot of honesty in just the direction the author took this weird little thing. But, first let me take of those rose tinted glasses as much as I can… (actually that might not work too well with a pink comic seriously whats with all these early 2000s lesbian comics being PINK?). And give this old comic a look and a bit of a dust. but , first...

Sex.

Getting to the point - page 3 of “Girly”

Girly is a NSFW comic. It’s not shy about it either. It hits the audience (and the main character) over the head with it literally in the first pages. It has sex positive characters, a sex positive world, some characters with… sex powers almost, and Dildos, a whole lot of dildos. Some even with smiley faces on them. It’s a pretty unavoidable part of the comic that makes up a large core of it’s humour and is baked into its wacky world. So if that’s not your thing, and it’s not really skippable in this case, you won’t like this comic.

But, if you’re alright with that part of it this might just be a hidden gem. Moving on.

Art

Artwork is always interesting in webcomics. They’re usually one man shows, have a weird niche / strong influences, and or usually go on massive journeys as the art improves. Girly is no different here. 

Girly starts out rough. Some poses are wonky and its a bit scratchy. Technically speaking it has a few issues, which is fine. Its a free webcomic, from the 2000s that didn't copy and paste faces. (Won’t name names, you know who you are). You can’t be too harsh on a free comic, though.

However, what the art style does, even early on is set the style and feel of the comic. Anime inspired faces, bold outlines, and blocky silhouettes that were really popular with 90’s and 2000s cartoons. It has a newspaper, manga comedy strip vertical style, too. It fits the style of story well as a poppy wacky story. It's the perfect art style it could take.

Its rough in the beginning, but moves on from its scratchy days, to loose pen brush, to finally a polished free hand poppy style. It gets more technically advanced as it goes along, but it keeps its core style throughout. It’s fun, a little unhinged, and just pares perfectly.

The one issue I have with the art is it comes off as a bit cramped. It certainly matches the energy of the story, but it also feels like it doesn't let the characters have any breathing room in the frame. It comes off as squashed, and can make some character poses hard to read. That’s the only complaint I can find though. The issue even fixes itself later in the story, but just very very close to the end. It looks great there, but the majority of the comic is a little cramped. Still that’s just a small complaint.

Nitpicking here but some panels need a lil more room

This a humour comic foremost. It's the biggest part of what makes Girly specifically Girly.

Humour

The humour is mostly wacky nonsense, playing off its insane characters, physics defying world, everything being dialed up to 11. It also works a lot like satire, poking at what influences it, and playing with cinematic expectations. The first page has Otra shooting someone into space on a rocket because they annoyed them, the first “adventure” the character’s go on is stealing everyone’s pants because they couldn’t find anything else to do. Then there’s the kidnapping adventures, knight trials, and slice of life shenanigans that happen. All of it as wacky as the last. I haven’t really found any other lesbian comics like it. Its not everyone’s tastes, but it is certainly unique.

If you’re into a willy wonka tunnel of over the top characters and plots, you’ll like Girly.

Characters

Girl is a LONG comic, it ran for 7 years. The art evolved, the story writing, jokes, and themes along with it. It was originally meant to run for only 50 strips... and it ended up with 764. 

so, there’s a lot to unpack.

Firstly, the premise of the story is somewhat simple. It focuses on Otra. The kinda straight man to the entire universe. She starts out almost depressed, out of place, and bored of the wacky inhabitants of her world. Until one of those wacky residents smacks her over the head with a giant dildo and won’t leave her alone for the next 7 years of run time. 

What follows is the sullen Otra being pulled around by the always cheery and zany nonsensical Winter as the sidekick for bizarre adventures. Otra’s depressive grounded view keeps the bizarreness funny, while Winter cuts through her negative attitude and causes a lot of the over the top plot. Leaving Otra to warm up to the world, and Winter to get less reckless as they balance eachother out. It’s a fun dynamic, and works as an emotional core of the story. No matter how weird the plot and rules of the world are, their relationship keeps the story somewhat focused and rewarding to see develop.

An example of bold wacky character designs from even early on

The comic isn’t just about them, though. As an ensemble comic there's plenty of side characters that go through arcs and beats as well. From el chubacabre, the man that woman find so irresistible that they sleep with him as soon as they see him; detective Clapjaw the street wise detective who is very bad at his job; Officer Hipbone and police guy from the cute P D; captain fist the ever popular bad at his job superhero who gets all the credit; the news reporter obsessed with captain fist; the woman with babies; Steak;  the elephants that just… appear and eat buildings; among many many others. A lot of whom also have nicely written character arcs and depth in later chapters. Many of the character however are simple and remain simple, which isn’t a bad thing. For such a large cast, having a diverse range of strange characters with strong identities and looks even if a bit simple stops it from getting bogged down. It strikes a good balance. Plus there’s plenty enough of characters with more depth later on. 

 All the character’s are insane, and over the top in a way that really sets up the world they live in and how it works... as dysfunctional as it is. There’s something very Cartoon Network about all the characters, but with some wider influences. something about  dumb characters, with very specific goals and quirks that work on their own physics to feed into the high energy insanity of the world. Its entertaining to read, and leads to a weirdly charming feel of the comic. 

Story and plot

For the bit people actually want to know about. What is it about?

Just a little bit of influences...

For the style itself the comic comes off as a mix between early 2000s slice of life-y anime, 2000s cartoon Network, and a dose of 2000s webcomic sarcastic action/adventure flare. It definitely has one of the most pronounced styles that I’ve seen, and even if it's very much a webcomic of it’s time it also goes a bit beyond that into something that feels personal to the author and honest. Its a batshit comic. But, it wears its influences on it’s sleeve and really plays with tropes and ideas the author found engaging at the time. It somehow comes off as refreshing in just how willing it is to go weird or niche for no other reason but because it wants to. It's what I appreciate most about the comic. It’s honest.

The overarching story of the comic is without a doubt about Otra and winter growing together as people. But with a comic that’s run for 7 years a little bit more happens in the journey, at least you hope it would. Girly runs on chapters, 15 in total (with 15 having sub chapters due to being the story’s climax), and each one of those chapters follows a different plot or adventure with Otra’s and Winter’s developing relationship gluing them together. 

The plots themselves are wild and vary a bit in quality. But for a long comic that’s understandable and expected. They go from solving elephant problems, super villains, body swapping, fantasy parodies, and all sorts of strange things. Sometimes a few plots drag and a few character arcs feel a bit bland. It still manages to be entertaining all the way through though. The plots themselves work to get the character’s to play off each other and explore the strange world it takes place in. Exploring evil teddy bears, or an entire town devoted to cheap gags. No matter what, all the plots work in fleshing out the world and pushing character’s out of their comfort zone or forcing them to change. There are some that are less fun than others, but none of them manage to be boring or useless. Which for a long comic such as this, is quite an achievement.

Conclusion

Girly is a hidden gem, Its an insane sex positive comic. A loose style and even looser physics. It’s bold and unabashedly itself. But, at its core it's about the love story of Winter, the wacky insane woman needing to slow down and open up, and Otra, a sullen woman who’s deemed herself only worthy of being on the outskirts of society. It’s two people growing together in a world that’s up to its ears in care bears, sentient dildos, earth shattering cloning, and jabs at 2000’s paste it comics. And somehow it all sticks together.

The characters resonated, at least with me, which may be the nostalgia talking. But by the end of the comic I can’t help but  think back on how long it took them to get there. The bits that made me laugh (a lot of them), the stupid parts, and the character’s arcs, as over the top they could be at times.  It may not everyone’s cup of tea. But it has a lot of heart at its core. (If you get past all the dildos). 

For all it’s flaws and weird bits. I still find myself going back to Girly. 

Maybe now, some more people will too.

[smokeybrand]

Poppycock

Last night, i read a ton of the Crossed comics. I’d been seeing the Horsecock meme for a few years now and finally decided to pull the trigger to see what all the fuss was about. I’m always curious about ho the US does mature content in anything other than cinema because it rarely ever turns out decent. So how does Crossed fair? As something that wears it’s graphic nature on it’s sleeve, is it the unicorn that finally executes mature content, overt sexual situations, and storytelling in a way that is both satisfying and rewarding to the reader? No. No it does not. Crossed sucks. There shouldn’t be fuss because this sh*t is trash. Aside from the fact that the art is ugly as sin, making it incredibly difficult to want to keep reading, the actual narrative content is mediocre at it’s best and a whole ass dumpster fire at it’s worst. This sh*t is peak, teenage, edgelord, nonsense and it’s weird there are so many f*cking issues in the franchise. How is Crossed so successful? F*ck, dude, The Walking Dead does this entire narrative better. It’s like someone read that, removed all of the compelling character work and intricate world building, amped up the gore to cartoonishly ghoulish levels, and sh*t it out into a public too lazy to do the work. The Walking Dead is a story where the violence is a consequence of the plot. Crossed is a narrative that in service to, and almost an afterthought of, the violence. It’s the Michael Bay of this specific genre and i hated every minute i spent reading this trash. Also, and i can’t stress this enough, the art in these books is f*cking ugly. Not disgusting like they want it to be, but fundamentally poorly drawn.

Now, i may be a too hard on this series. May be. I’m not entirely sure but i feel like I'm not. I as raised on Eighties era Japanimation. That’s what we called it back then, not anime. Weebs weren’t a thing a yet, we were Otaku. I had a subscription to Newtype when i was, like twelve, that’s how deep i was into that sh*t. That’s how deep i am still into that sh*t. It’s wild seeing the culture shifts and how everything gets sanitized as appeal broadens but that’s a different essay. My point is i grew up on sh*t like Angel Cop, Dark City, Battle Angel Alita, and Akira. Tits and gore and sex and ultraviolence. It was intricately detailed and never skimped on the grim reality but was drawn with a passionate reverence for the art form. Hell, even films that have cultural significance and are heralded as high art like Grave of the Fireflies, never shied away from the brutality necessary for that narrative. I’ve seen a lot of f*cked up sh*t before my tenth birthday because of my love for the Japanese imports so i might be desensitized to this kind of stuff. That said, i know shock schlock when i see it and Crossed is definitely that. It’s an ugly, bloated, meandering, franchise filled with bad writing, poor art, and uninspired storytelling. We’ve seen this narrative before. Something triggers an apocalypse. Terrible people are terrible. Earnest people are trying to survive in the new status quo of nightmare and brutality. Now and Then, Here and There, did this much better, with less mutilation and more character development. The f*cking Mad Max franchise is built on this sh*t and Fury Road won Oscars for it. You don’t have to be Hemingway but, f*ck, give us something! Crossed doesn’t even present the bare minimum

Nothing is in service to a narrative. It’s all just murderrapezombies just for the shock of murderrapezombies. Holy sh*t, there’s incest in Family Values? That’s horrifying! Yosuga No Sora. They murdered those kids in the first limited? How f*cking bleak! Erased. I’ll admit, there are some interesting choices made in how to tell these pedestrian ass stories, Psychopath really stood out on that front, but the story, itself, is f*cking dumb. The first limited flirted with being pretty good over all but I've seen it done better elsewhere. Blood-C is a great example of that sh*t. Graphic violence, ridiculous gore you can feel, and still a damn decent overarching plot to tie it all together. The violence never overstays it’s welcome. It’s there to accentuate the powerlessness of our principals, never the main f*cking point of the story. I mentioned Alita before but if you want to focus on character, that’s your bet right there. The adventures of Gally are some of the most devastating situations you’ll ever experience. That chick has lived a life. Belladonna of Sadness is a horrible time but a beautiful watch. Want to go wide? An ensemble type narrative? AD Police. F*ck, dude, Devilman exists! Everything just mentioned, came out at least thirty f*cking years ago. Why is Crossed so bad when there is a plethora of material you can read that does this sh*t better? How can you not tell this type of story, when you have literally hundreds of example on how to tell this story properly, both contemporary and historical? And I'm only using Japanese content because that’s what I'm most familiar with. The French can give the Nihon a run for their money with some of the sh*t they’ve dropped over the years. Metal Hurlant, Heavy Metal when it skipped across the pond, is a straight up pioneer in this type of content. That motherf*cker has been publishing since the Seventies. It’s entire thing is mature storytelling and it does it in a way that’s compelling, easy on the eye, and rewarding to experience. Crossed does none of that.

Crossed is just gore porn trash. There’s no substance to be had . None of the characters are actually compelling. All of the violence is gratuitous. It’s never used as a mirror to humanity, just bloody viscera for the sake of it. It does nothing with that naked violence that has merit outside of just being there. Why do the Crossed f*cked each other to death? Is the fact that there are a mother and son character f*cking matter outside of the intrinsic revulsion humans are supposed to feel toward that type of sh*t? Where is the narrative reward for that guy f*cking a moose corpse? I can’t express how try-hard all of this comes across. There’s so much rape and mutilation in this thing, it just becomes normal. All the carnage s just background noise at some point and you’re left with lackluster storytelling for the remainder of the read. Like, there’s a scene where a bunch of these assholes are circle jerking into a bowl of bullets to turn people they shoot. That’s a scene in this comic which had potential. You could have explored how maybe the Crossed are more capable and build them up as a far deadlier threat. Nope. Another shows a bunch of Crossed eating baby corpses in an long abandoned delivery room. Why? What’s the point of this scene? How much harder would it hit if it wasn’t Crossed eating the fetus jerky, but regular people? This is how low some people would stoop just to live another day, even if that day is in a living hell. I read Sweet Tooth a few weeks back and it has a lot in common with Crossed. They can be companion pieces. Sweet Tooth is infinitely better. It does all the things you need to do, in order to tell this type of story. Emotional anchoring, strong motivations, a unrelenting sense of bleak struggle; Sweet Tooth is everything Crossed should have been. Instead, i got horsecock.

[class-wom]

Can Legion hurry up and find Farouk’s body already? These characters have been searching for eight episodes, and the show becomes more tedious as it focuses on this plot point. The hunt for Farouk’s body isn’t an especially engaging overarching storyline: Season one packed far more plot into the same number of chapters, and if the show is going to drag out the search, it could at least balance it with meaningful character development for the rest of the ensemble.

On the bright side, “Chapter 16” doesn’t meander as much as last week’s episode, and there’s some significant forward movement as David secretly sets up a mission to find the body. He puts psychic suggestions in the brains of his companions, and while he wanders the desert on his own, these suggestions are gradually triggered in the others. David is able to hone in on a location thanks to the help of Ptonomy, who discovers the consciousness of the deceased Mi-Go monk inside Division 3’s tree-computer thing. Ptonomy learns a lot in there, including the history of Admiral Fukiyama, who was recruited by the government at age 17 to undergo a procedure that would make him invulnerable to psychic manipulation in a strange new world where no one’s thoughts are safe. This suggests the Admiral will play a major part in the resolution of this season’s story, and it also explains why Farouk has been trying to take out this man who cannot be swayed by mutant abilities.

The best scene in “Chapter 16” is a conversation between Syd and Clark where she opens up about how her feelings for David have changed since he’s been back. These characters haven’t spent much time together, and their talk shows the benefits of pairing off different people in a large ensemble cast. Clark’s paranoia about David creates tension as Syd opens up about their relationship, and she has to be careful about the words she uses because she doesn’t want to paint David as a menace, but she still wants to express her reservations. She loves David, but she recognizes that there are things about him that may always get in the way of a truly healthy bond, so she doesn’t know how to proceed.

I appreciate that Syd is starting to evaluate her history with David and putting in the effort to figure out if she really wants to be with him. She talks about the romance of meeting him in Clockworks and the addictive intensity of their time together at Summerland, and while she adores what they had in the past, she doesn’t know if she feels the same way about their current state. This doubt makes Clark very nervous, and he doesn’t want to see what could potentially happen if Syd hurts the feelings of a mutant powerful enough to destroy the entire world. Luckily for everyone, it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen: After Syd talks things through, she decides to hop on a plane to the desert and help David because she still believes that love is the thing that needs to be saved if they’re going to save the world.

During this conversation, Syd says that David doesn’t know what is real and what’s not and that he can’t differentiate between right and wrong. It’s an idea that the Jon Hamm-narrated runs with to suggest the most alarming delusion of all: that other people ultimately don’t matter. I’m beginning to wonder if the season was originally plotted with these interludes or if they were a late addition, because their connections to the main story are so thin that they feel like afterthoughts. This week’s interlude makes a case against smartphones and social media immersion by evoking Plato’s Cave, an allegory about perception and how a person’s reality is shaped by what is presented to them.

If a group of people live their entire lives only knowing the world through shadows projected on a cave wall, they would reject the reality outside the cave because it doesn’t align with what has been ingrained in their minds. This interlude posits that smartphones are the new cave and other people have become shadows, which dehumanizes them and makes it easy to abandon empathy. I’ll be honest, though: I have no idea how online bullying plays into this episode, this season, or this series. There’s a place in this show for exploring how delusions can manifest in everyday life, but the writers need to spend more time thinking about how to weave these threads in with everything else so they don’t come across as superfluous. Legion has always felt a bit disjointed because of the fractured nature of David’s mental state, but these interludes are interruptions that pad out the running time and keep us from the good stuff.

While on the topic of recurring frustrations, I continue to lament Melanie’s role, which is somehow both increased and diminished in this episode. I’ve been annoyed by this season’s treatment of her from the start, but I’m full-on angry after “Chapter 16,” which has Jean Smart on screen for approximately a minute. Melanie eavesdrops on Syd and Clark’s conversation, then attacks Clark when he’s about to begin his part of the mission that David psychically implanted in his brain. The action rewinds from that attack to reveal that Melanie’s mind has been taken over by Oliver and Farouk, and it’s a waste of a great actress to have Melanie reduced to a pawn without any agency. She’s barely done anything over eight episodes, and adding injury to insult, she’s been stripped of her identity as others take control of her person.

It’s possible we’ll some meaty Melanie moments in the final three episodes of the season, and this week’s creepy final shot is an upside-down close-up of the monstrous being that Melanie has glimpsed in her Vapor haze. Is this something Oliver planted in her head? A different, new psychic parasite? None of the above? I wish I was more interested in finding out, but it’s hard to get excited when the writers don’t care enough about the character to make space for her in the plot.

I’m a fan of split-screen storytelling, and it can energize an otherwise monotonous scene by arranging images in different layouts on the screen. It also allows film and TV creators to replicate the look of a comic-book page, giving viewers individual panels that don’t necessarily tell a sequential narrative, but create a specific atmosphere when taken together. This episode uses split screens for three separate sequences, with a lot of overlap for the second two. The first instance is when Ptonomy is exploring the tree: one frame shows his consciousness being bombarded with information, and it is flanked on both sides by static images of Ptonomy’s lifeless body and Admiral Fukiyama sitting in his lair. It’s a small moment, but it visually creates a link between the two men that becomes deeper as Ptonomy learns about Admiral Fukiyama’s past.

Later, the split-screen is used to show David walking through the desert, with thin horizontal panels that allow director Jeremy Webb to create sweeping panoramas. Oliver and Farouk are also on the move, and as they’re carried through the desert in a rickshaw, their panel moves across the middle of the screen to make their action more dynamic than David’s. The location of the body is ever-changing, and unless the searcher uncovers the secret for reaching the destination, they’ll never be able to find it. Farouk knows the secret, and the split-screen creates a sense that he’s actually moving toward the destination while David is traveling from vista to vista, but not getting any closer.

There’s another split-screen sequence in the desert after Syd joins David, and while it initially feels like filler, there is a purpose behind it. In the preceding sequence, David is wandering alone, but this second one emphasizes that he now has someone by his side, willing to take the journey with him even though she doesn’t know where it will lead. It could lead to salvation or it could lead to death, but they’re going to find out together.

[noddytheornithopod]

Phineas & Ferb and Milo Murphy's Law?

Interesting, this should be fun.

Which has the better protagonist: Hmm, in terms of actual story structure I’m gonna say Milo Murphy’s Law. I might love Candace, Phineas, Ferb, Perry and Doofenshmirtz more and am more attached to them, but as I just indicated Phineas and Ferb is more of an ensemble cast so it’s harder to break down. Milo is already one of the strongest aspects of his show (and that’s not even taking into account how great Weird Al Yankovic is as him), and the fact that ultimately he is the protagonist does make this easier to answer. If I were to break it down into individual plots then I would definitely say Candace in PnF’s A-plot (or Phineas and Ferb if Candace is in her own C-plot, to which the same feeling applies) and Perry and Doof in the B-plot, but if we’re talking about whole shows then it’s easier to go with Milo because he’s the only real protagonist in the end.

Which has the better villain: Phineas and Ferb. Doofenshmirtz is one of my favourite characters in general, and the fact that his entire villainy is pretty much subverted in the end in that he’s not even really evil just makes that even more interesting. Even when you take into account that Doof isn’t even really evil in the end, I still choose PnF though. They might be one-off villains but characters like Second Dimension Doofenshmirtz, Mitch the alien, the Drill Sergeant from PnF Get Busted and if they count despite being a horde enemy the zombie pharmacists (ESPECIALLY) I still have found more memorable than what MML has offered. We do have recurring villains in the forms of the Pistachions, and King Pistachion himself is fun and they do have a very sinister plot, but I just don’t feel like they’ve really left a mark on me as much yet (even if the whole kidnapping humans and replacing them with themselves plot is pretty creepy). I guess I just find them a bit one-note for being major villains? That’s fine and all if you want to focus more on the protagonists, but it doesn’t necessarily get you villain points.

Which has the better plot: Depends on what you mean by “plot.” If we’re talking about an overarching plot and continuity then Milo Murphy’s Law wins by default because it is a more serialised show and as a result has a more solid continuity. If we’re talking about individual episode plots though, then I still have to pick Phineas and Ferb because “kid with stuff going wrong around him and sometimes there’s time travellers” is compelling enough, but “two brothers build and invent impossible things, their sister wants them busted while struggling with teen life and their pet platypus is a secret agent who fights a not-so-evil scientist, also all of these plots influence each other’s outcomes” is something else entirely.

Which has better cinematography: I’m not really sure to be honest, though if I had to pick I’d probably pick Phineas and Ferb. It being a storyboard driven show as opposed to MML being script driven probably helps a lot, and some of the visuals in later episodes (especially specials) are great.

Which one is more fun: Phineas and Ferb. Of course both shows can be really fun, but I’ve been with PnF for longer and it being more ridiculous in general as well as the characters being more interesting and offbeat to me really helps.

Which one makes me think the most: Phineas and Ferb by far. Maybe i’m biased since I’m Autistic and PnF is my main interest, but there’s just so much stuff out there to explore, and the characters truly fascinate me.

Which do I watch when I want to relax: I rarely go back and revisit shows more than once because I’m lazy, but in general I find Phineas and Ferb to be more that kind of show, even if in my case it’s more images/GIFs and fanart. :P

Which do I watch when I want it to consume me: Phineas and Ferb. Despite Milo being more serialised, I find it easier to watch single episodes of. With Phineas and Ferb, I end up getting so obsessed with even minor details that I need to watch everything to pick it all up.

Which is my favorite: If it wasn’t obvious, Phineas and Ferb. I don’t think it’s going to be replaced anytime soon, because it really was for me a case of the right show for me showing up at the right place at the right time. My affection for the show has had years to develop, and the characters in the show are not some of my favourites out of anything I’ve consumed, but actually for the first time gave me ones I felt I could truly care about and connect with. Milo is already pretty good of course and definitely has a stronger start than PnF and arguably potential to be even better, but combined with sentimental value and the fact that it seems to be aware that it’s going to always live in the shadow of its predecessor (I mean, they wrote the first season KNOWING they were going to end up in a PnF crossover), I do have to say PnF is definitely the better show.

[vgwriter]

Metro Exodus: A Review

The End of a Trilogy

The Metro series is based off of the books by Dmitry Glukhovsky, with each game set in the world of Metro 2033 (the book) and at times, having Glukhovsky writing them. Metro 2033 came out in 2010 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and was met with critical praise for its setting and horror aspects. Last Light came out in 2013 and built on 2033, adding better graphics and AI. Last Light was one of my favorites on the 7th generation. Exodus came out in February and took the series in drastically different direction. The complex and narrow Metro is traded in for large maps and non-linear missions. The changes are handled well by 4A. This game still brings great tension and story to the FPS genre but unfortunately still has bugs that have persisted through the entire series.

The Good

*SPOILERS*

#1-The Story

4A does something that not a lot of developers do when they make a modern FPS: they focus on the story. Exodus is the third installment of the Metro game continuity but it doesn't really build on the previous two, which were focused on the Dark Ones. Instead, it takes the story in a new direction with exploration outside Moscow and into Russia. The game explores several themes and ideologies with its story including religious extremism, slavery, the inherent violence and love in humanity. The player follows Artyom, his wife Anna, her father Col. Miller, and a half dozen Spartans as they go through nuked out Russia in search of a new home. They pick up a few people as the game goes on as well.

The story starts out with Artyom wanting to explore the outside world in hopes that there are people in it. Everyone says he is crazy but it turns out he is right and they steal a train to go explore Russia. They go to a marsh and pick up a nurse and her kid and one of the soldiers hits on her by making her tell him if her daughter knew her father was dead... it's really a touching scene. They get married later but Anna ruins it by coughing really loudly because she fell down into a toxic bunker two chapters ago (somehow no one saw her sickness coming). Then Artyom and Miller have to go and find her medicine all while Miller and Anna give Artyom back handed compliments or saying this all his fault for getting them kicked out of the Metro. They think they've found a home but turns out it's controlled by Petra Pan and the Lost Boys and Girls. Then they finally get the medicine and the ending depends on how the player played the game. It's not an original story by any stretch and has some dips in execution but coupled with the enviroments, it is a good enough story to warrant another post-apocalyptic setting in a rapidly saturating genre.

Now, there are a few big plot decisions that effect how the story plays out with the morality mechanic in this game. Basically, if the player kills people and does stuff that people normally do in a FPS game, they get the bad ending. If Artyom is just a sneaky little Russian, the crew stays together and they all live happily ever after. Well, kind of, it is a Russian story after all. Pretty simple choices but they do change the tone of the game considerably and for that I will give 4A props on making in game decisions matter.

The dialogue can be a little iffy at times and there are some parts that are roughly translated (Miller uses his Russian name instead of his Anglicized name during one scene) but each character is their own person and brings a great voice to the ensemble. My personal favorites were Anna and Nastya. Over all, the game tells an effective and gripping story of people trying to survive a moralless wasteland and remain the honest people they were before.

#2-Maps and Enviroment

The story is broken up in to 4 large maps with smaller train sections linking the travel to them. It's actually a great move and a refreshing change of pace from all the gigantic map games that have come out recently. The first two maps are just large enough to warrant not having a fast travel system while still making exploration interesting. The other maps in the game are more linear in design with the first and last map being down in the Metro again. This variety in maps keeps the game fresh and makes each area refreshing and interesting instead of an over used chore.

Where this game really shines is the enviroments. Each map feels completely brand new, with very few reused assets like in many other open world games (especially western). Each level seems fully realized and lived in as the player and Artyom pass through areas that feel like someone else's home. The best thing is that each level feels this way. In terms of enviroment, there are no dips in quality in any of the chapters. Each level has this realistic level of destruction and a shared struggle to survive that seeps into every corner of the game. The place where this really lifts this game up is the last level, Dead City. Without the enviroment, the story really wouldn't have landed well with its obvious forshadowing and unoriginal overarching story. The desolation of the city and constant danger everywhere do a great job of putting the player in Artyom's mind with his anxiety and desperation in trying to save Anna. The enviroments throughout the entire game lift up the psychological undercurrents of the characters and really put this game on an artistic level despite its other problems.

#3-Weapons and Customization

The weapons in Metro are the best kind of customizable in that the options the player makes for what weapons and how they customize them actually matter. There are five kinds of weapons: revolver, shotguns, rifles, sniper, and special. The specials are the air rifle and crossbow (there is also a railgun but I never figured out how to equip it). Each have different positives and negatives to them and feel different to play with in game. The customization is also diverse with each gun having different parts that the player can find out in the world. Unlike other games where the player must find several different components or blueprints (looking at you Andromeda and Fallout), 4A just gives the player the customization if they find it. It provides a great utility in the game without focusing on it, which is how customization should be.

The Bad

#1-The Combat

It is clear that 4A's focus on this game was stealth. The character is slow, the aiming for PS4 is absolutely terrible even after trying to tweak it, and the enemies are super shifty. All of this adds up to a bad combat experience. I can't count the number of times I just said "f*** it" after failing to hit the same guy 3 times only to discover that Artyom was caught in a corner of two inch ledges. This games combat is severely unpolished and makes the otherwise great game difficult to play for bad reasons. When compared to other fps's like Far Cry 5, this game feels definitively last generation. It's like the Crash Bandicoot of fps, really precise shooting on imprecise controls (don't @ me cause you know it's true). This really sapped the fun out of the game.

#2-The Clingy Map

I mentioned this in the last paragraph but the enviroment is not fun to move through. Artyom sticks to everything. There were times when playing this that I would try to be sneaking and come across a small step that I had to get over and couldn't. I had to jump and when I did the enemies who I was sneaking from would discover where I was instantly. They also messed up going down stairs, even though I'm pretty sure they discovered that technology in 2004. When Artyom "walks" down the stairs, he keeps his forward momentum and goes in an arch over the stairs he is "walkig" over. The maps do have a great feel about them but they are not fun to walk around and that really hurts this games replayability for me.

#3-Unpolished, Epic Games, and Bad Camp Design

I've heard and seen all sorts of bugs on the PC version but the PS4 has no shortage of bad glitches either. My very first shot, the first time I ever fired a gun in the game, it didn't make a sound. That sadly set the tone for the whole game. Each chapter was more frustrating than fun and that was caused for a number of reasons but all of them could go under the umbrella of unpolished game design. There have been several recorded game breaking glitches or the AI just acting real dumb. Aside from that the game is an exclusive on PC for Epic Games. Normally I don't concern myself with PC master race bullsh*t but Epic Games has some very shady business practices on a platform that has a great storefront in Steam. Sadly, this does effect the overall game for consumers and that is why I mention it in my review.

The last bad thing I'll mention is the camp conversation interface, or lackthereof. The characters just start talking and they never seem to stop. Being raised in a polite household has taught me to never walk away when someone is talking to me and this game made me rethink my entire upbringing. The conversations are okay but they are sooooo slow and there is no way to control them at all. They just talk to you and it is honestly annoying, easy to ignore but still annoying.

The Non-ESRB Rating

This is tough to give but Metro Exodus is a 2/5. While I love this game for everything that it adds, it is just more of a hassle to play than fun. The combat and general unpolishedness of the game are what really sink this game for me. I really hate that it does this too because the story and enviroments are really cool and enrich the story so much. The tension in the game is real and the map design is refreshing with its variety and design depth. This game had so much potential but it just feels wasted on such a buggy and unpolished product.

[xicana-de-corazon-blog]

Cheat Payday 2

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