#but i guess in this age of gaming thats impossible cos everyone has to be available to the protagonist at all times

[pigeonliker420]

i know given the amount of dialogue and animations they had to mocap the amount of companions u get in this game is reasonable but part of me wishes it had the old games variety with some that would just fuckig try to kill each other if they were in the party together too long

[jus-tea]

Going to explain a little about the Miss Rhona lyrics, what inspired different aspects etc, as I’ve seen a lot of people speculating over it, and coming up with their own ideas (which I fully support!) but for those who are curious...

1st Stanza

“Daddy’s at the food store” So, when this was written, myself, my partner, and seemingly everyone was spending so much time going from supermarket to supermarket trying to find the basics, the essentials. Pasta, flour, sugar etc were sold out seemingly everywhere. The weekend just before this was written he’d lined up for half an hour before Costco opened to ensure he acquired some toilet paper- which seemed impossible to get ANYWHERE. I had colleagues who sent their adult children to shops everyday (they couldn’t cause they were at work) to try to find toilet paper somewhere. We ran out at work, and ended up with tissues. People, generally, were spending so much more time trying to find essentials at supermarkets. It’s not nearly as bad now, but just over a month ago when I wrote this it felt like a big issue. Also, “food store”?! NO ONE HAS CALLED ME OUT ON THIS which I find so weird because no one actually says, “food store”?! What a weird expression! So why did I use it? Well! Initially I thought “cost-co” but didn’t use it because I wanted the rhyme to appeal more universally. And we only got a Costco in my city a few years ago and I know plenty of places in the world don’t have one so... I thought maybe supermarket? But thought maybe they didn’t call them that in other countries- market? Market sounded so strange as it’s really only fresh fruit and veggies we get in our local markets here (in my part of the world) and didnt fit with the image I was trying to create and besides all our markets were cancelled as they were too crowded.. so “food store” was initially just a place-hold. I still can’t believe literally no one has said “hey wtf is up with “food store? No one says that” but there you go. It’s in literally every version ive seen as that so... that’s what it is now. So, that line about the food store and collated with the next line, “mummy’s our of town- she’s working at the hospital” was based on news articles I’d read about doctors having to isolate themselves from their families by sleeping either at hospital or in their garage. People who couldn’t see their kids for ages, it was really sad! And then combining these lines, it’s about how these little kids for the first time really are sometimes being left home alone because their parents have stuff they *have* to do; get food or work, and lots of kids these days don’t get left home alone anymore, it was common when I was little but not for a long time! But seemingly suddenly with this pandemic it’s happening again. And I hadn’t seen that talked about but I was seeing glimpses of it and it, felt weird? I guess? So that made for the perfect beginning to a covid19 nursery rhyme- a kid getting left home alone a lot and not being really sure how to respond to that.

So, with the hide away lines, there’s 3 stanzas and in each miss Rhona gets closer. The first one is she’s “come to town”. Now I remember that feeling on that day learning that the first coronavirus case had occurred in my city. Up until then there was a bit of a sense of dread, like you knew it was everywhere else, then in the news it got closer and closer, with cases in small country towns nearby. But when it got to my city it was suddenly so real. And that’s where the story starts because Miss Rhona was HERE. She arrived in the kid’s town. The line, “she’s come to take us down” is another way of saying “she’s going to get you” and also links to the final line which reveals her success “she took us down/she’s brought us down”.

2nd stanza

So, she goes from being in town to being “at the doorstep” which represents getting closer- being in those people the child might interact with everyday- and imagined more literally in the postal worker delivering a package (actually ON the doorstep) or food delivery or anyone who they’d still have close contact with. But “I’ll keep 6 feet away” is a self reassurance that if they just do the right thing and keep their distance everything will be ok. But then the conflict! Grandma needs toilet paper, EVERYONE needs toilet paper and no one can get it anywhere! No doubt the dad is our trying to find some more while he’s at the “food store”. And I was thinking... my children’s grandmother lives in a different state to us but if we were in the same one you can bet your life id be out dropping essentials at her doorstep whenever I could- tp included. (Although, tbh the tp issue didn’t seem as bad in her state from what she told me) so in this bit I guess I imagined myself as the child because that would be something important to me, to make sure my elders had their essentials. Idk I tried to help where I could, got baby wipes when I found it for a friend with a newborn, stuff like that. So the conflict is the child’s sense of responsibility ensuring their grandmother has what she needs, while also knowing that the coronavirus, Miss Rhona, could reside in anyone they meet along the way. Kind of like a little red riding hood situation linking the dangers of strangers. So they open the door due to this sense of responsibility and, oh no, Miss Rhona was at the doorstep, remember? Now the child has it too; “Miss Rhona’s come to stay” IN THE CHILD. This line was to use the imagery of Miss Rhona coming to stay with the child at their house, like an aunt might come to visit for the weekend, but symbolises the virus coming to live within the child, they’ve caught it now, which is why they definitely, “can’t come out to play”.

Stanza 3

“But grandma needs the paper” that’s where the conflict arises again- the child’s sense of responsibility, maybe guilt even? Overshadowing their understanding of just how serious the virus would be should their grandmother catch it. They’re just a kid remember? They don’t understand. So they take her some anyway, everyone needs toilet paper! Also, I know that phrasing it as such misleads the listener to think about a newspaper. Thats how we talk, “I’ll get the paper!” My dad says ... often. But, 2 things, it rolls off the tongue easier than “grandma needs toilet paper” which would’ve messed up the rhythm anyway, and also, for anyone who’s lived it you would automatically know about the “great toilet paper shortage of 2020” 😅 there were so many memes about it and it was funny that everyone was obsessed with it but if you were one of those people who genuinely really couldn’t find any- and there were lots!- then it kind of sucked. And that’s a memory that’ll stick with you 🙈

So. The note. “And here’s a note from Rhona she wanted me to say” imagine the child at the grandmas doorstep, she’s bringing her tp (that’s nice) but the child is infected, and hands grandma a note. I imagined like a little filed up piece of paper in their back pocket they take out and hand over, to pass on the message from their aunt living in their house. As kids would do- what teacher hasn’t given their student a note and said “go tell mr x such and such” and the note is a reminder of what to say. But the note they hand over is also a metaphor. It symbolises contact between the grandmother and grandchild, and as grandma took it, she caught the virus too. And the note reads,

“Hide away, hide away, keep 6 feet away”

Which is that line repeated all the way through the rhyme. In the end, it’s what Miss Rhona was saying all along. Hide away children...

And the final line is a throwback to near the beginning, “she took us down” because earlier remember she came to “take us down” but now it’s happened and we’re in past tense. She did it. She took down the grandma, and possibly the child too, although I left that as ambiguous. To be taken down here is the symbol for death, of course. It’s pretty grim. But that was the point i suppose.

And that’s where it ends. Anything after that, while I’ve seen some adaptations made which sound really cool, doesn’t really make sense with the story, because they died in that moment. And continuing on after that seems a bit overkill, because I gues, perhaps symbolically at least, who would be able to continue singing the rhyme once they had already died?

But having said that, it’s still nice to see people get exited about it and want to contribute more lyrics too. Making up stories, songs, games, art in general, it’s a way we’ve found to cope i think? Like dark and morbid stories are a part of our culture because we respond to them. Lessons, feelings, etc. people far more articulate than I have explained before...

So. That’s Miss Rhona. This explanation was written really roughly and I apologise for that, but you get the gist. I strongly recommend for anyone who hasn’t already to check out the #miss Rhona recordings hashtag on my blog, because some of these melodies people have put to it are really beyond words. Dreamy, haunting. Peaceful. Childlike. Much more than the original chant-like skipping rhyme I originally envisaged.

Thanks for reading this far... please be safe and look after your grandmothers ❤️

[theskyexists]

she-ra 4

the reason i stopped watching she-ra is the same reason i stopped watching the dragon prince.

the narrative doesn’t take the situation seriously. instead of leaning into the anguish of war and violence (atla, teen titans) - they make light of it. EVEN when the characters’ guardians are KILLED!!

when Angella died and they spent 2 seconds on Glimmer’s grief at the end of season 3 i was like......actually fuck this. HOW can i take any of these stakes seriously when they insist on brushing them off???

anyway just had to complain about that - especially because the start of the first ep of 4 is them joking AGAIN about something as grim as Glimmer now carrying all the responsibilities of her mother - who may i remind you IS DEAD

but catradora became canon apparently so now i have to struggle through

her aunt, her mother’s sister, is fuckin, joking about cakes, her friends are laughing at the joke. COME ON! how goddamn unrealistic and insensitive. EVEN if they wanna make a point of it - it’s silly! because the narrative PARTICIPATES in making light of the situation. if it was just the characters it would be less jarring

‘we’ll make sure this day is perfect’  WHAT? how could it EVER BE IF HER MOTHER IS FUCKING DEAD????????? AND THAT”S THE ONLY REASON SHE’S QUEEN????? ‘must be hard’ YEAH IT’S HARD - IN FACT IMPOSSIBLE. instead of pretending to be happy maybe you can show some genuine sensitivity. these people are so crazily emotionally underdeveloped my god. what age are they supposed to be? 16? 17? The problem that She-ra has (just like the dragon prince) is that there are no relevant adults. Oh sure there’s a Queen, and some Soldiers, and a Sorceress. But there isn’t a single relevant competent adult around who is concerned with running a bureaucracy or the emotional stability of children

I do like how Catra has overcome her fear of Hordak. but i think i remember being fuckin furious at her for almost destroying the whole world and hurting Scorpia and betraying Entrapta just to spite Adora. vaguely.

the rebellions problem is that they’re all extremely stupid himbos. like literally, in the whole story, only catra and shadowweaver have any smarts, while glimmer gains the ability to think during full moons on wednesdays. meanwhile everybodys is a slave to their emotions - which destroys any brain cells that shadowweaver or catra (or angella or anyone) might have managed. they could literally have killed hordak the entire time but just let him order them around because they’re so hot for acknowledgement

I’m glad Glimmer reflects my frustrations now hahahahaah

‘everyone is already acting like she doesn’t matter’  - yeah dudes, you fucking insensitive bastards

‘im supposed to take care of you glimmer’ - but unfortunately i have the emotional intelligence of a crab! FUCK!

this is another thing about this show that makes me groan. sappy quick resolutions of emotional turmoil through re-affirming the fuckin power of friendship in the first episode of the season.

also couldn’t Adora have done this she-ra stuff from the very beginning

that was badass.....miss glimmer’s other hair though. ok the emotions at that hologram and statue though...

the coolest part of she-ra for me is finding out more how the ancient systems all fit into Etheria and the She-Ras and Hordak Prime etc.

THIS IS A GOOD SPEECH. love this badass.

love Hordak getting put in his place. Love Catra realising she has power - love Hordak reaping what he sows. its unfortunate that she’s a shitty brat who JUST can’t get over her inferiority complex

if i could endlessly teleport i would do what glimmer does

also, glimmer was willing to fuckin murder catra before and she DEFINITELY will be now lol. love that for her.

why did they only introduce adora learning to transform her sword NOW ahahaha, theyve had SO MANY SCENES in which she doesnt have it and then suddenly does - and then its gone again

scorpia is the funniest and most likeable person in the whole show

they really suddenly can’t take five people on with she ra and fuckin huntara on their side??

i remember that little sadistic righteous twist in my stomach when Adora finally was like: FUCK!!!!!! YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!! Catra!!!!!!! and the stupid idiot got it

FINALLY A GLANCE AT THE PEOPLE OF ETHERIA AGAIN! i love the party sequences in this!!! the people of etheria are so beautiful! nobody ever comments on the main characters all looking plain human in contrast....

‘and i fell for it!’  yeah cos you DUMB AS BRICKS ADORA

so first they quietly take out the guards....and then literally break open the door hahaahahahahaaha

‘we forgot the bots regenerate’ - yeah cos you DUMB AS BRICKS ADORA

i just dont understand why they insist on making the main characters so DUMB ahahahahaah

Adora and Catra are great at hitting where it hurts. the difference between them is that Catra KNOWS that she’s hurting Adora - she does it deliberately.

wow that could be some pretty angsty stuff constantly leaving her to struggle on the floor while painfully electrocuted. Catra has also moved to kill Adora straight up so many times. im sure she really wants to (but it would destroy her later). But now, Adora swept something at Catra that might have actually killed her. I get Catra though, I would’t want to get beaten by some blonde, blue-eyed, glowing golden kid who always gets to win and do better. this is truly the first time Adora has moved to kill Catra......

does flatterina not have parents who’d be like: uhhhhh maybe leave the soldiering for a couple more years?

catra truly burning all her bridges. hahaha. it’s so satisfying to see her use her anger and power to truly destroy herself - because of guilt!

no other villagers were like - HMMMMMMM this random new kid is here? weird..... i didnt see that coming either.

Adora doesn’t think about what Catra might have even been doing there - cos she’s DUMB AS BRICKS

the interesting thing about this show is that they’re setting up a dichotomy. they’re treating war like a high-stakes game because they have the good side adhere to an aesthetic of ....magic. they will not make the two sides equivalent in any way - which makes questions of morality moot. the show is purely an emotional drama. the horde is an army of brainwashed kids in an industrial wasteland - they fight with tech and guns. but the good guys cannot fight with an army or tech, they fight with cleverness and magic. they’re called the ‘rebellion’ - they HAVE to be underdogs because they have to follow the script of good - even though what’s really going on is war, not a rebellion. That’s why they have a single strike team that do ‘missions’. They are presented as FUNDAMENTALLY different - on the level of identity which they cannot change lest they destroy themselves - and in that way the good guys can never become the bad guys. it is ALMOST meta. think they’re gonna do something with that at one point. i hope

also Netossa has such a super cool design.

‘everyone knows you’re needed in bright moon’ - uh. really? i dont know. some random person i’ve never seen before demands you go to meetings. so? is that important? why?

spinerella can literally FLY???????? why has she been in the background this whole time??? hahahaha military inefficiency.

there was an explosion that ripped trees apart - but bo’s alive!! honesty why didn’t they try explosive suicide bots before. they’re very lucky he was still alive to heal

‘could they be tracking she-ra?’ WHAT? isn’t the obvious suggestion - A SPY???? they just assume that the general is right hahahahaa.

i love how double trouble is so meta.

actually, why wasn’t glimmer trained as a sorcerer anyway?

glimmer is upset about her growing magic plants but not her having magic ingredients

why do they present good strategic thinking (for once) as evil influence from shadowweaver

what a fuckin badass. honestly - glad that this show finally utilised glimmer’s extremely op powers like they should be. honestly, she’s much more powerful than She-Ra.

that bit with spinerella was so contrived jfc.

‘by using me as a decoy’ adora says, pissed off. uhhhh YOU went off on your own to get smushed by fuckin bots adora. Glimmer didn’t do that to you. she just used your stupidity.

glimmer really left catra to die. hahahahaa

i like adora best when she’s on her own and being a dork

they definitely managed to foreshadow that Light Hope was evil but im glad they picked up the thread now

am i seeing this wrong or did scorpia have two mums??? but also. where the fuck are they

lolololololol because everybodys dumb as bricks and emotionally volatile they’re incredibly easy to manipulate

‘i cant risk hitting flatterina’ pffft - ALL YOUR ARROWS ARE NON-LETHAL BO. ugh i cant deal with these contrived stakes

I LOVE THIS BADASS EFFICIENT HARDCORE GLIMMER

they’re really gonna spin it like this is a bad development? fuck off. finally some grit.

‘you took things way too far’ - but she got results! dumb as bricks adora

(this may seem harsh but adora is DUMB shes so fucking DUMB!!!! and she has many good qualities (such as an almost innate sense of morality) but goddamn. i guess its good to sometimes have a show about all around dumb characters. i mean, it’s not unrealistic per se, it’s just.....weird.)

the interesting thing about these characters is that you can SEE every single one of them struggling with cognitive dissonance. thats the big story of this show. they see the world a certain way - and then when something challenges that, they fight to the death to destroy or deny or ignore that new information - to everybody’s detriment. and they can’t back down because every step they’ve taken - would turn to sins they can’t live with. it’s interesting and its also a kind of conflict that‘s frustrating if not resolved at SOME point. thats why i love this season for its characters going off the rails. adora aiming to kill catra, catra destroying her last relationships, glimmer growing more and more militant.

they’re all acting like teens - that  is - highly volatile - unable to keep from provoking others or be provoked - but they ARE teens.

‘catra doesn’t care. she’ll hurt people to get her way (implied: EVEN people on her side)’ - we must remember that Scorpia was entirely fine with KILLING the trio (it was Catra that wasn’t at the time).

‘you’re a bad friend’ OH OUCH. Catra - who’s always been treated as a whipping girl by those in power - does the same to those she is in power over. But on some level she doesn’t WANT to be that. she’s just always always been rejected and take advantage of and lashed out at and abandoned by the people she considered important (shadowweaver ---- doing the same to catra that was done to her is so goddamn....it’s the story of this show. the simplicity and banality of damaging and hurting others and that carrying over to harm even more people - is the story of this show and it’s immeasurably frustrating and REALISTIC)

she still flinches at Hordak’s lashing out. but she imprints on him the exact lesson she’s trying to school herself in. If you don’t need anybody - you don’t want anyone - if nobody matters but the mission and winning - then you can’t be hurt. she wants to prove her worth - but she doesn’t realise that inherently means that she’s putting somebody in power over her - again and again and again.

mermista coming  in clutch with the braincells: there’s a spy! I love how this is played as completely implausible and just Mermista nonsense (who i love learning about) - while it’s so obviously true/

i actually love Adora when she’s being serious and heroic, or a huge dork. and she has the wit to RECOGNISE good ideas. but i just don’t understand why Adora is being big b about being used as a distraction. like....why?

i love that the underside of Mermista’s sneaker has a figure. but why the fuck is a common soldier with them (flatterina) and do they really think they can interrogate the whole castle filled with some shitty guards and...what - the guerilla troops they sometimes employ? where do they even live? ah in a tent city. ok

why is the GENERAL in front line combat WITHOUT SOLDIERS???? oh wait. glimmer did that too when she was general. lolololol

i understand why Adora doesn’t trust Shadowweaver and doesn’t want her around most of all - and Glimmer getting buddy buddy with her is hurtful. but...it’s not helpful to needle glimmer about it. but dismissing the guards around shadowweaver however? stupid of Glimmer. unnecessary. ‘what has she done but help us?’ - uhhhh she kidnapped you, corrupted your powers, almost wiped Adora’s mind. I wish Adora had summed up those things instead of leaving them implied.

so perfuma and mermista come across inconsistencies in the stories - but then. forget about it? i just...... UGGHGHGHGHGHGHGH. people really aren’t this dumb are they? they’re just NOT.

‘no more secrets and doing things without us’ - that was a good speech. but like, glimmer is right - she’s surrounded by INCOMPETENT IDIOTS lolololol. but good leadership is corralling idiots, Glimmer. not going off on your own. but she’s already planted the bait about the dining room.

‘we were the only ones who knew about the plan to take back dril’ ---- THEN WHY DID YOU INTERROGATE OTHER PEOPLE AHAHAHAHAAHAHAAHA

‘stop questioning my choices, stop whining about being a decoy’ YEAH FUCKIN HELL ADORA STOP BEING SUCH A FUCKING SHIT. IS THIS REALLY ‘TAKING CARE OF GLIMMER’????

‘all you do is question my authority, it��s exhausting.’ yeah god...it really is. adora needs to fucking BACK! OFF! but im loving these fights because it brings out the grievances. Adora is right to be worried about Glimmer no longer including her in her decisions. and she makes a good point that that’s bad. She makes a good point that Shadowweaver cannot be trusted. And Glimmer makes zero good points - except that it’s been hard for her and has garnered 0.1% understanding from the people around her. Oh they were working together. BUT those were definitely real grievances.

GLIMMER CAN ALREADY DO A CONTAINMENT SPELL LIKE THAT??? godDAMN. castapella completely flunked her responsibilities to Glimmer but shadowweaver did NOT.

hmmm so Solinius was....destroyed. but like, did the people die? like....the people? that’s the important bit isn’t it? i mean, they were under the sea right?

i suppose the problem i also have is that this show will NOT hurry up. normally i love filler stuff but ...the characters are too.....cheery. too flat. their quirks are fun and funny until they’re literally character flaws.

are the horde just literally attacking civilians? jezus. the war crimes. how did shadowweaver ever expect to trick Adora when she was released into the field?

‘you can’t just keep going off on your own!’ - SHE LITERALLY SAVED THE WHOLE FUCKING TOWN. SHE’S THE QUEEN! EVERYBODY SHOULD LISTEN TO HER! lolololol

the problem with Adora’s points is that everything about their dynamics are always so nebulous. why cant glimmer keep showing up to help out? WHY??? she’s the most capable fucking soldier in the field! she’s supposed to have full fucking authority! like, Adora isn’t in the right here. the problem is that her needling is only a symptom of her worries - which is that Glimmer doesn’t trust her any more. but the needling does NOTHING but make her seem like an idiot

i do love this trope reversal here - Seahawk deliberately damselling them to let the princesses save the boys? pffft

love catra getting the consequences for her actions regarding Scorpia. You can’t keep lashing out at people and expect them to stay my dear cat.....

oooohhh Glimmer.... you’re treading close to very hurtful territory. Blaming Adora for the Rebellion failing? for things she couldn’t do anything about? stupid.

really?? you’re really gonna fucking fight-resolution BLOCK ME? are you FUCKING kidding me? edging me for the whole GODDAMN SEASON??? and finally Adora cries at Glimmer going over the line????  fuckin I HATE the narrative decisions in this stupid show I FUCKING HATE THEM FUCK THESE WRITERS GOD FUKCING DAMMIT!!! this has been the whole GODDAMN SHOW!!!!!! ARGHGHGHGHGHGH

i’ve been waiting for a fucking resolution for Adora and Catra the whole! goddamn! SHOW! NOTHING! else matters! you do the exact same for glimmer and adora and now you let it fester again??? because of some no-stakes BULLSHIT? just give me the fucking godddamn PAYOFF for watching these kids be IDIOTS.

this fight on the boat is COOL and really wonderfully animated

really? Glimmer’s response to Adora being hurt and not wanting to be TOUCHED is to be angry herself? what a fucking IDIOT. god i can’t stand this. I CAN’T STAND IT

is this how people act? do they never take a moment to breathe and think and reflect and realise their priorities and take a step back and fucking apologise?

jezus FUCKING! CHRIST!

‘no matter what glimmer thinks of me’ oh that HURTED. oh damn. that’s so relatable. it’s a way to run, it’s a way to internalise the hurt and then prove the things that hurt wrong. the one that hurt you

I know Bo is supposed to be the emotionally intelligent one but he’s also too soft. He should go up to his friends individually and ask them the sharp questions. not - ‘communicate more positively’.

I just like Adora so much better when she’s alone. Her friendships’ positive moments are always so sappy or so....like over-exaggerated, the negative moments always so fucking annoying. Alone, Adora is generally driven, tragic, and cool. the problem is perhaps that i don’t care for the constant fucking drama

god i LOVE Mara so much - she’s so beautiful. and i LOVE learning more about the Old Ones. So they were trying to study Ehteria’s magic.... but then Bright Moon and the princesses were already here. The Magic-Like systems of the Old Ones are pure tech.

wow! even Mara’s transformation is way cooler.

so why was the first one’s tech (she ra) responsive to the magic? why does Raz know about She-Ra? when she ra is first ones tech????

WAIT ONE SECOND. She-Ra is ‘magic’ ??? it’s the SWORD that’s the first one’s tech! She-Ra is Etheria’s magic ! but how if the First Ones chose Mara. Did they steal She-Ra from Etheria?

so what im getting is that. the Old Ones colonised Etheria. Etheria has magic, and when Mara was chosen they made that girl an elite soldier - giving her a first one’s tech sword so she could ‘control’ Etheria’s magic. Then Mara was told to study the magic of Etheria - the ship implying that she’d not been on the planet before. then they created a Heart of Etheria project - which will probably turn the magic into a weapon. this was going to be used against Hordak Prime, im sure. I mean, Mara saved Etheria, but she did doom the rest of the universe to...extinction.... like, judging from Hordak’s strategy, Hordak Prime just literally exterminates planets and repopulates them with his clones....

But why would the planet choose a girl from amongst the colonisers - twice?

OOOHHH that anguished scream. i love anguished screams

why dont they put fucking safety belts in these ships. it’s not like the ship didn’t survive. only Mara got splatted (i guess)

also i love Mara. but damn Adora just got some more shit on her plate. why the fuck was she pushed through a portal again? for a She-Ra chain reaction?

I love madame Raz.

So they didn’t explicitly use it against Hordak Prime. and it wouldn’t have destroyed Etheria back then but it will now...

guh this showmakes it so hard to enjoy catra’s pain.

well they did finally have a good talk about it. I have to say, Glimmer is making good strategic sense - it’s just that this show only rewards harebrained schemes

Catra having a crazy panic attack cos she can’t find Scorpia and she’s completely lost and she knows its her fault. kinda love that for her. my heart

my dear Glimmer, theres a difference between absence of trust and absence of agreement.

they’re bringing king micah back just when angella is dead? oh fuckin lol

the horde....exiled micah? they exiled Micah instead of killing him???

why do they ALWAYS interrupt important conversations? i hate that shit. it’s cheap. it’s unsatisfying.

now THIS is what im here for - that unstoppable WILL!! john gonzalez is right - we watch stories for characters overcomign obstacles. writing, is creating the obstacle course. .....what does that say about me and my life....hmmm.

‘light hope told me everything i need to know’ - uhhh no she didn’t. she didn’t tell you how to harness the energy at all. ugh

how the fuck did double trouble escape. seems to me that they didn’t actually. they were let go....

it’s always so stupid when people try to tell other people: oh no you’ve got no plan - this is too risky! when that’s NEVER a problem

Glimmer is going to activate the weapon just in time for Hordak Prime to use it. And naturally she misses the return of her dad. fuck this

they’re gonna have Hordak and Catra fight? hmm

Double Trouble is right - this IS good for her - and it IS Catra - except for Shadowweaver’s case - she was an abusive bitch

I love Scorpia’s new cool fight music and also glowy eyes

is glimmer going to throw herself into lava??

the unfortunate thing is that Hordak Prime is right on the doorstep and he took over the whole universe or whatever. so they could probably have used that weapon. i mean the Old Ones must have seen something coming. there must be a reason they’re all GONE maybe????

why did Adora assume that all those stars would be destroyed?

THE ANIMATION ON THAT FINAL STUFF WAS INCREDIBLE AND EPIC

how the fukc are they going to beat Horde Prime lolololol.

i guess Glimmer really shouldn’t have done that. but at least she was in time to bond with Catra.

[kaorei-endgame]

Who would have thought that it was the massive open world 3D zelda game that got you. How did that happen?

Who knew, right!

I had a cautiously optimistic feeling when people whose tastes tend to sync with mine started talking about how Breath of the Wild recalled original Zelda (versus I don’t think -nobody- whose tastes fall with mine said Resident Evil 7 was like Resident Evil 1). Everything after the first few 2D Zeldas ain’t may favorite, so that perked my ear up.

Turns out it’s a pretty good game. For my take on it: it systems are intuitive, discrete, and fun. There’s statistical variance, but it’s in a small enough band to be immediately apparent, no spreadsheets required. “Blue goblins are harder than red goblins” and “This spread does 13 damage and swings fast, this sword does 26 damage and swings slow,” versus “Level 47 Elite Goblin Crusher With Fire Resistance, Might Aura, Headshot Immunity” and “This spear is a Level 59 Spear of Striking with +20% mp regend on kill, +137 attack power, and +20% roll speed, this sword is a Level 59 Greater Broadsword of Maiming With +5 mp/second, +137 strength, +20% roll distance.”

It’s a game made out of discrete micro-experiences instead of bulk grinding: solving a tiny logic puzzle to get a korok seed with the knowledge that six more will get you another weapon slot (which is a big deal when you have like, eight weapon slots!) vs. killing enough Night Ogres that your “0/100 Night Ogres Killed” bar is filled and you now have the +10% Night Ogre Damage trait. 

That being said, it needed just a touch more depth. For example: cooking is fun! The jingle is cute, all the little food icons are adorable, it is totally rad how there are recipe posters all over the world–in our usual fashion, we wrote down every one we saw in our little notebook. Any game that has me writing stuff down is an okay game by me!

…but none of the food does anything interesting! 

Like why the hell am I going to go out of my way to cook Salmon Meuniere, where I have to sit there and remember what the ingredients are, when I could just throw anything with the world “Hearty” in front of it into a pot with anything else and get literally the same result. I like that there are a billion crafting ingredients because one of my primary weaknesses is nice menu icons&this got a ton of ���em, but it’s a total letdown that it all amounts to nothing, because there are really only about six traits recipes can have (Attack Up, Fire Resist, etc) and the only difference otherwise is how many hearts they give back.

The dearth of permanent rewards–outside of armor sets–is a colossal bummer, and turns weapon durability into an annoying chore when otherwise it’s a perfectly fine system. Shrines are fun, I would do all the shrines for NO reward, but paradoxically that makes it all the more frustrating when you kick open a chest at the end and it’s like some “Knight’s Halberd” that’s half as strong as everything you’re carrying and even if it weren’t it’d break in two seconds, so who cares. I’m a Path of Least Resistance kind of game player, so the joy a rare ultra-strong chest weapon produces in me is completely lost in the brain suck of inventory management of all the other crap I had to shuffle around. This is also why I don’t like crafting systems pretty much ever: I’m not going to waste mental energy and time scrolling through menus to make a Sword +45 if it feels like my Sword +30 that I picked up a random barrel I broke will do the job until I find a Sword +50 in the next hour or two worth of barrels. 

Zelda is not THAT, but it’s still kind of a mess, bequeathing you these anti-nega-prizes as like, some kinda taunt or something. In lack of actual, substantive rewards I would’ve rathered 90% of the weapon chests in shrines be replaced with cash or gems. 

I can’t say exactly what these permanent rewards should’ve been, but it’s ridiculous that the best you can hope for at the end of any quest is money, and money is irrelevant almost immediately upon starting the game (especially if you don’t care about upgrading the few, mostly redundant, armor pieces that require precious gems). But I can’t believe we’re at the end of the game and it doesn’t look like there’s going to be a way to upgrade the master sword, which even in its temporary buffed state is barely stronger than many of the random trash weapons you can get in two seconds from fighting any mini-boss. I guess it’s the strongest one-handed sword by a wide margin, but there’s a huge dearth of good one-handed weapons in that game and that super sucks, and that feels really super weird to me, coming from a series that popularized circle-strafing around a target with your shield out.

Even though Link to the Past is not my all-time fave (pieces of heaaaaartts 😦), one of my favorite things about that game is doing the sidequests to upgrade the master sword and watching the sprite change as it was tempered, and getting the little 1>2>3>4 numerals next it.

I guess you could count the faux pieces of heart (spirit peeps) you get from shrines as your permanent reward. Through the stamina (and the callback to Zelda 1 of needing X amount of hearts to get the master sword), I found upgrading my bars to be more interesting than any game SINCE Zelda 1. But that’s also a passive, expected reward from any Zelda game–basically: don’t you got anything new to show me? Really, I’m just saying: I shit a brick every time we opened a shrine chest and found a Climber’s Bandana. It would’ve been nice if the rest of the shrine chests were, like, the mild positive of more rupees (so we don’t have to more of our gems) versus the active negative of a pain-in-the-ass hit of inventory management where I waste thirty seconds throwing some random sword I was using, but might be almost broken, on the ground so I can pick up this NEW random sword I didn’t want in the first place out of this chest.

Considerably offended that you can’t board anything at stables but horses. Which is bullshit, and 50% because you can work up some p. good Ashitaka cosplay if you wanna. As a result, I have boycotted stables (but also because going out of your way to get a horse from the stables is just enough of a pain that I’d rather walk)

🎉You can ride a moose🎉 

(ED NOTE: WAIT NO YOU CAN’T DUMMY, YOU WERE CONFUSED BECAUSE OF THAT TIME GRAZ *EXPLODED* A MOOSE RUNNING INTO IT WITH A HORSE)

(thats a bear tho)

I do wish there were more dungeons. Having gone to Hyrule Castle for the first time last night, I was impressed at how they made this giant building with a bunch of different sub-challenges in it (I like “final exam” video game levels) but I was also disappointed that there was nothing else like it in the game. The four other dungeons were okay, but I liked their themeing much more than the actual puzzle solving (outside of the map manipulation, to a certain extent). Entering Hyrule Castle and feeling like you’re in an open world WITHIN the open world– where you have a ton of intersecting paths and shortcuts to unlock, and about a million different entrance points (lift a dungeon portcullis with an ice block, sneaking mission by swimming in through the underground port, full frontal assault on the gate)–I’m not sure I can think of a comparison. Maybe how the castle successively unlocked in Devil May Cry? 

But really, it’s like you’ve been dropped into someone’s living Dungeons and Dragons module, or how a fantasy novel or a manga present dungeon exploring, where everything seems impossibly expansive and dungeons are truly cavernous and intricate, and nothing at all like Dragon Age’s (or anything else) “go right for monsters, go left for treasure (and then go right because it’s the way forward).” In a way, it’s one of the main things I’ve craved from games in a long time–this ersatz D&D dungeon crawl experience that doesn’t require eight hours on a Sunday every month and someone to suffer being your DM.

What really tied the whole thing together for me (and seemingly everyone else, tbqh) was the traversal. My major complaint about open world games is how much of your time they waste on brainlessly parkouring through essentially featureless environments, it’s not really that much of a surprise that this Zelda worked for me, because you actually have to involve yourself in the getting around. Managing your stamina bar to go up mountains, wearing the right armor for the climate, all these things force you to consider what you’re about to do for five seconds before you actually do it. It’s not hard or brain taxing, but it does invest you in the process. “Okay it’s cold now, I should put on my winter gear” or “this mountain’s tall as hell, but there’s a ledge ¾ths of the way up I’m pretty sure I can take a break on” instead of Shadow of Mordor’s “hold the direction and a sprint button until you arrive at your destination” or Skyrim’s “I’m just going to shove myself against this hill and hope the physics engine doesn’t arbitrarily decide I’m not allowed to climb anymore.” It’s still an open game world game, which means you spend more of your time getting around than you do anything else; but what a surprise–getting around is actually a lot of the fun part???

It also just has a good art style. We probably generally understate/spend too little talk acknowledging how that works on you in ways that don’t factor into a score tally, or whatever. Aesthetic pleasure can be both substantive and difficult to quantify. For a long time I’ve been like “they should make an anime borderlands.” Because even if they left everything else about Borderland’s sorta-crappy mechanics the same, I crave that sort of co-op shooting experience enough that I’d be more willing to give it a shot if I didn’t feel like I was being constantly needled by its trash aesthetic and bad meme jokes. Well, they did that here with open world games. Instead of being dropped in some humdrum brown & gray world, things are actually super colorful and vivacious. That affects you almost on a subconscious level, makes trucking around the world less like a chore because it’s a pleasant world to truck around in.

Good game! I’m always happy to have my expectations defied! 😮👌😮👌😮👌😮👌

[tumblunni]

ah no its okay! its just the achievement system being weird! You get the achievement for gathering evidence A right after gathering it, but only get the achievement for evidence B during the actual ending for some reason. Phewwww okay! But man its getting a bit annoying replaying the final scene trying to figure out the precise order to possess everyone to get certain endings. Its annoying cos there’s a long cutscene before it, and even though this game has a super fast skip feature you have to keep hitting the button for like a minute each time. Wish it could have at least been something you hold down instead :P oww my wrist ehh I guess I’ll pause here and wait a bit before going for the true ending. I’m gonna look up a guide cos its so frustrating having all the evidence and not knowing the right order to do it in, gahhh! And there’s so many trip ups where itll send you immediately into one of the bad endings, and then if you present too many pieces of evidence you get a bad ending and GAHHHH! How can I leave out half of these evidences and find other ones that say the same thing in less words?? Also it seems I might have to completely replay the final chapter cos the requirement for the golden-failure ending is to get everything for the golden ending except one thing. Its the only ending that cant be gotten after you get all the evidence, you can get all the other bad ones by messing up this final minigame :P gahhhhhh :P

Anyway RAMBLING ABOUT THE BAD ENDINGS SO FAR AND HOW GREAT THEY ARE (by which I mean DEPRESSING):

* Oh godddddd It wasnt ferdinand was it?? I mean if you get that ending then everyone acts as if it was him, but it didnt seem very believeable?? The ending is so quick and weird. Its definately a bad ending. You get it from presenting just one piece of evidence during the final minigame, and then ferdinand never confesses and honestly his alternate suggestion makes a fuckin lotta sense! When Donavan shoots him he confesses that he’s actually a conman that snuck onto the ship with false papers to steal stuff, but then Donavan is like ‘NO. YOU ARE THE KILLER.’ and shoots him dead anyway. And everyone is just like.. ‘umm.. i guess... he was the killer...?’ and it just ends! I really dont think he was the killer, I think he was just a petty criminal instead. or if he WAS the killer, we didnt really prove it here, we didnt find the real truth. That was just executing a scapegoat because we didnt solve the mystery. Tho it would be incredibly ironic if we get the true ending and it turns out he WAS a serial killer! option to actually deduce it was him, option to not deduce anything and just accidentally shoot the right man XD Either way he is a creepy fuck and clearly evil even if he didnt kill anyone. Thats why I can believe that he was a misdirect and he’s just a different criminal who wasnt involved with the main plot. I was suspicious of him for AGES and I was so convinced he was the killer but now I’m really heckin not!

* The ultimate bad ending where you don’t pin anyone as the killer is just so depressing and messed up! Donavan turns into a monster himself in his pursuit of the killer, he’s got his guts hanging out and he knows someone in the room has to be the culprit but he doesnt have time. So he tries to kill EVERYONE just in case! Wow you lost every single one of those badass points you had when I first got to play as you, dude. I was actually happy you didnt die! Now I’m frickin glad to see you shoot yourself after shooting all my friends, you fuck! ‘Hey I avenged one person’s death by killing nine other innocent people but lol I got the criminal’. Godddd, I can see how he got to this point but man its impossible to be sympathetic even if its not like he’s evil. Jeeesus... And if anything its WORSE that he dies before he can finish off every single main character! Paulo survives in this one, along with Xu who feels like she deserved to die. And Paulo is so traumatized by everything that he becomes severely mentally ill and is only capable of repeating words people say at him, he doesnt even recognise anyone anymore and we dont even get to know if he gets treatment or if he could ever recover. We just see everyone huddled together on a lifeboat trying to make him wake up and crying that they deserved to die too... gahhh... WHY PAULO WHY Man, at least its better than how he doesnt even get a single line of dialogue in the other two bad endings, that was weird. I hope he gets an epilogue in the true ending at least! I cared about him the most! Oh and it really fuckin hurt how Quella and Darryl were murdered in reverse order, dear jesus. Darryl was fine with dying, but then Quella jumped in front of him to protect him and all it accomplished was that darryl actually cried for his own death before he got mowed down too. And their bodies were left holding each other! GAHHHHH And its even worse cos the dialogue kinda upgrades their friendship to some cute romantic tension in the bad endings where they survive, that just makes me love them more and then AAAAAA

* Oh and the third bad ending is really sneaky cos it seems like a true ending?? You discover who was behind the human trafficking and he gets a cathartic punishment and really the only clue it isnt the true ending is how ferdinand seems suspicious and it all wraps up a bit too quickly and all. I’m left wondering what on earth could be the extra thing in the true ending, like do we find out someone entirely else was involved in this, or do we get more of a proper reveal of how ferdinand was the serial killer and he gets actual karma instead of just being killed before anyone is even sure he really did it... BUT ANYWAY THIS BAD END THIS CULPRIT NOOOOOOOOOO God, I knew Ferdinand was probably the culprit but even with all the clues together I didnt realise the human trafficking was even happening, let alone who did it! IT WAS GRANDPA IT WAS GRANDPA ALL ALOOOOONG NOOOO I mean.. at least it wasnt the grandpa I liked best. Darryl is totally innocent. But it was the more clearly a grandpa dude, the one you cant even debate is actually fifty. WHY GRANDPA WHY Gah, at least now I have an excuse why for once I didnt like a grandpa character. He always did seem like a bit of a suspicious asshole, even if I also believed a lot of what he said and never thought he’d be THAT evil! like.. god. Even if his sympathetic backstory is true he just fuckin destroyed it by reacting this way to it. Hell, i dont even trust its true though, i feel like it likely his wife divorced him for very good reasons after seeing what his personality really is in this ending. His kids are fuckin lucky theyre never gonna see him again! GAHHHHH The cute grandpa who loves cats and GAHHHH he was drugging and transporting kidnapped tennage girls to be sold into sex slavery. And he justified it by saying ‘oh humans are all animals, my wife was like an animal to me, blablabla its just our base desire to be evil motherfuckers’. And even right to the end he didnt understand why we were all disgusted at him, he was like ‘okay you can stop lying now, you dont REALLY care about these random nameless victims, you just wanna get a cut of the profits! I can make you all fuckin’ rich, we can smooth this all over, right?’ its so fuckin sick cos he was faking concern throughout the whole damn minigame so clearly he DOES understand that some people are good, right? He has to understand what morality is, he’s just excusing himself by pretending all of humanity is inherantly the same as him! GOD it was satisfying to see him shot in the head mid sentence Tho still i wish for an ending where the culprits can go to prison and suffer forever for what they did, and nobody else has to die. Also i want some conclusion for Paulo And a proper goodbye scene for the protagonist instead of them just dissappearing after the last minigame with no fanfare at all :P

* Also wtf was up with the mystery ghost in the bathroom, then? They just ask you random personality quiz type questions once per chapter of the game, and get no conclusion or reveal of who they are. Did they just stay haunting the bathroom forever, unable to solve their own murder like the protagonist did? Thats depressing. I mean i could understand their lack of conclusion if they were just meant to be a tutorial character or something, but paulo does all that! And why do they say all those questions if your choices dont matter...??