#i have a Perspective on this as someone who did sw for a time i will readily admit nsfbsjhfbs

[ch0sene]

it's so hard for me to describe my halsi.n's feelings on romance/sex/kink because he's so anti-label but like... he sees sex/kink as fundamentally conceptually distinct from deep emotional connection and partnership, but they can be combined to great effect. he happily plays and/or sleeps with friends; it's fun, it's natural, it doesn't have to be Deep like that. he has none of the hangups about that that others might. that's part of the reason he doesn't view his time in the underdark as traumatic - it wasn't a huge deal to him because sex isn't a huge deal to him. he would compare it to like... putting up with wearing a uniform you hate to go to work. folding sex into an established dynamic is not what makes it a romantic partnership to him (not that he would label it that way, but i digress) and i resent the fact that the game implies that. it's that deeper level of connection/devotion, which... he's three hundred and fifty years old, he knows how to separate immense gratitude from that feeling, thank you. "you've just come in and solved both the massive problems plaguing me" does not a romance make - it earns his undying loyalty and fierce friendship, sure, but it doesn't automatically make him fall in love? (don't get me wrong, it puts him well on his way; he's very attracted to the traits tav demonstrates to get there, wit and courage and unflinching compassion even when it's hard, but he has the sense to wait on it until he can untangle the two a little.)

[echos-gal]

ok i'm rapidly losing hope that Tech is still alive, and this sucks because it was basically the top thing i desperately wanted from this season. i wanted to see him survive. so here's my exhaustive and embarrassingly long list of reasons why he SHOULD still be alive, and if he isn't, why it was a missed opportunity. obviously no hate to the writers or anything, i love them dearly for creating this show!!!

(if you're a "Tech should stay dead for the stakes/so someone in SW stays dead for once/i hate delusional Tech stans" person, kindly keep scrolling, this ain't for you)

SEASON 2:

right from the start, Romar connects with Tech and calls himself "a survivor." HELLO???

in this same arc, Tech breaks his leg in a fall which he survives. he continues to walk on it, fighting off troopers to save Echo & Omega, showcasing his persistence and grit.

one of Phee's first lines is "better late than dead," and we know she shares a connection with Tech. she flirts with him later in this scene. it would be a shame not to reuse this line, i'm just saying....

Cid still owes Tech for racing for her in Faster. we see Cid looking miserable as she betrays the batch in Plan 99, so her playing a part in his rescue/comeback would be a nice way to show her growth. (i'm afraid there isn't enough time for this, though- as much as i thought a Cid redemption was on the horizon!)

Phee and Tech's departure is awkward, and although we have some context from season 3 (they talked more than we realized), the scene would do best if reconciled in person imo. it felt like it was setting up for something, and feels weird to leave hanging.

"don't go running off with any pirates or smugglers" could not have just been a throw away line. it set up for him to do exactly that. how fitting would it be if pirates or smugglers actually did manage to pick him up before the empire made it to the railcar crash site?

Hemlock's retrieval of the goggles shows that he sent a team to look through the wreckage. he thought there was a chance Tech survived, and may have him.

i won't go into the logistics, but big falls ARE survivable. in star wars especially. we have no idea what was below the layer of clouds/mist Tech fell through.

SEASON 3:

this is mostly CX-2 centric. their armor is very similar: the jaw/mouth shape, the hexagons over the ears, the rectangles on the chest, and the pouches/pockets.

"domicile." that is all.

CX-2 uses technology more than the other operatives we've seen, and he gets past the encryption on Phee's ship with ease.

"who are you?" was enunciated in the exact same way Tech says it to Trace and Rafa, which i definitely think was intentional.

CX-2 stops to use his rifle scope in the exact same spot where Tech and Phee stood to let down the ladders in the sea surge on Pabu.

he survives a waterfall plunge on Teth, which appears to have fooled Rex's group into thinking he'd died. the writers could have killed him off there and sent a new operative, but they chose to stick with CX-2 pursuing them to Pabu.

it's worth noting that while this CX is designated as "2," Tech's CT number is CT-9902. he is associated with the number even on a visual level: he's a dual-wielder, he wears goggles, he salutes with two fingers.

FROM A STORY PERSPECTIVE:

firstly, i am sorry and i LOVE the writers, but if you want people to accept a character's death, you've got to show his family and friends' grief. we saw no reaction from Crosshair or Phee, no tears from Hunter or Echo. it feels like fans were sadder about Tech's death than the characters in the story.

Tech seems to have been mentioned more in the second half of season 3 than the first half, which works if they want to bring him back in the finale.

the finale is called "The Cavalry Has Arrived." i really don't think you can have the cavalry (aka the bad batch) arrive without every member present. i also don't think it would feel right to play their theme without Tech there. idk, that feels incomplete!

we saw no body, and Hunter received Tech's goggles not from a trusted ally or friend, but from Hemlock. this calls into question the legitimacy of his claim that the goggles were "all he could salvage."

Tech alive and being held on Tantiss would provide a nice parallel to Echo in the first mission where we meet the batch, in TCW. and [ep 14 SPOILERS] we see that Echo is currently looking more like his TCW self, with his earpiece removed.

feels kinda sour that a character who a lot of people related to as neurodivergent representation would die just a few episodes after having a deep conversation with his sister about it.

likewise (and as a white woman i can't speak for WOC), from what i have seen, Black women are rarely the main love interest of a series! Phee is the ONLY love interest in this whole show, and it would suck to just cut off that romance before it could really become something. a lot of people wanted to see TechPhee become canon.

CX-2 is the one who destroys the marauder. it works well storywise for its pilot to have been the one to do that- the person who worked so hard modifying it, flying it, and teaching his sister to fly it. i'll be lowkey pissed if it turns out some random dude blew it up.

it's also CX-2 who invades and sets fire to Pabu. this is emotionally gripping on its own, but if he is Tech, it's even more so.

we have no idea what the operatives go through. Crosshair isn't telling, but it clearly put him in a really bad place. if Tech underwent this conditioning in his post-fall injured state, there's a chance he could come back from it. Emerie is probably the key to this, if they take the CX-2 route.

this show is all about a family trying to stay together as the Empire desperately tries to rip them apart. seeing the whole family together again - even if not everyone survives - in the finale is the satisfaction that the show ideally would go for. the last time they were all together was the season 1 finale. that was about 2 years ago in the show's timeline.

leaving Crosshair and Tech's final interactions be where they parted on the Kamino platform also feels off. Tech was the one who really vocalized the need to rescue Crosshair in season 2's finale. Crosshair, in the meantime, has changed significantly as a person. Tech's comment about Crosshair being "severe and unyielding," and unable to change this facet of his nature, is incorrect. leaving Tech dead would mean that he never gets to see this change in Crosshair, which makes me feel like a deflated balloon.

FROM MY SELFISH PERSPECTIVE!!!

give me Tech with cool scars and slightly disheveled longer hair. this is such a good opportunity for the creators to give him a sweet new look!

we never got to see Tech without his goggles on, despite Phee constantly referring to his eyes. he definitely doesn't have them right now (they're in the Archium), so we could get Mister Big Brown Eyes if he's alive. it's another missed opportunity if not, imo!

the goggles being placed in the Archium was a beautiful scene that makes me tear up whenever i think about it. it's symbolic, it's bittersweet, and it's exactly where the goggles belong. but was it closure for me? not really.

Tech is a character who became a LOT of people's favorite in season 2, including my own. why kill off a fan-favorite with an entire season to go?

yes, i desperately want a Rex and Echo series. yes, i want the batch to cameo in it, and yes... that includes Tech. making up for lost season 3 Tech content 😎

the finale will feature the zillo beast, and Tech loves the zillo beast. FREE HER! REUNITE THEM! he would love to witness her rampage.

FROM A "SURPRISE!!!!!" PERSPECTIVE

it seems like most people think Tech is either CX-2 or dead. it would be a great finale twist if we DID get CX-2's identity, it's NOT Tech, the audience loses hope, and then he shows up. i think this is actually plausible given the other assassin schematics Hemlock was looking at in Point of No Return. Tech might be in Hemlock's grasp, but not an active operative. having an enhanced clone to toy with is something Hemlock would want to keep under wraps. we see him step out of the assassin chamber at the start of that episode - if Tech is anywhere on Tantiss, i think it's here.

i think the writers have expected us to have all lost hope by now, so his finale reappearance would ideally come as a shock. the finale is almost guaranteed to be a very long episode, so we really might have quite a bit of time to explore his return, if it happens.

secret 16th episode: i know, i'm putting my clown makeup on as i type this. but the previous 2 seasons each had 16 episodes, with a two-parter finale. season 3 is just 15, with a single episode finale. TBB formally ends may 1st, so what if we get a may 4th surprise episode detailing how Tech survived? (that or an epilogue leading into a new series, which i think is more likely actually!)

[arcadianmoonshadowjedi]

Callum & Viren: Are they similar? Is Callum on the same path as Viren? - Star Wars Analogies

I know there have been posts made before in the Dragon Prince fandom comparing characters from tdp to Star Wars characters, esp Callum to Anakin/Vader as someone who will eventually get corrupted/turn to the dark side and become a potential apprentice to Aaravos, as well as Rayllum to Anidala in terms of Callum being seen as being bound to doom the world for Rayla.

I wanted to share a different perspective of mine as to which characters/relationship dynamics (outside of romantic ones included) from tdp I believe compare the most to which Star Wars characters as a massive fan of both sagas myself.

The number one character from Star Wars that I see Callum being most similar to is Luke Skywalker, whereas a character I think is the best comparison to Anakin/Vader, especially after watching Season 6 of the Dragon Prince, would be none other than Viren himself. While I do know for a fact that the tdp characters aren’t carbon copies of the SW characters I’m comparing them to, I still think that their overall arcs are quite matching.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Starting with Callum and Luke, on the surface, both are the hero who prevails and saves everyone & the whole world/galaxy from doom, but on a deeper level, they both struggle with a dark side inside of them & temptations to give in to it. And before I continue, I wanted to emphasize that I DO NOT see Callum as someone who’s morally dubious, as there are several instances in canon which prove otherwise, specifically his immense guilt over using dark magic and his fear of becoming corrupted and consumed by darkness in S6 (his nightmare at the beginning of episode 3 perfectly illustrates this), the latter of which is a challenge we also see Luke dealing with in The Empire Strikes Back.

Throughout the Original trilogy, mainly in ESB & Return of the Jedi, we see so many “hints” and “indicators” that Luke might turn to the dark side, who unlike Callum, actually shares many personality traits with his father such as his impatience and recklessness. We see Yoda fear that he might follow in his father’s footsteps before reluctantly training him, we see Vader and eventually Palpatine try to lure Luke to the dark side, even pointing out that they could sense his anger which is a major precursor for that. But in the end, despite all of those temptations, despite all of his anger and eventual fear & rage for his sister’s safety, he ultimately resisted and refused to join the sith.

Along with seeing many protagonists who may be put in similar situations or even in some cases share some similarities with the main/major antagonist, such as Harry and Voldemort being another example of this, this is why I am a firm believer that Callum will be tested in Season 7, he may be faced with temptations to use dark magic again perhaps as a quick means to defeat Aaravos or potentially save Rayla if it gets to that, or even Aaravos trying to bribe him to join him, but in the end he will ultimately resist, since dark magic, as stated several times before, is merely a shortcut that leads to much bigger long term harm (which I don’t think there would be enough time to even flesh this out in the final season of the Mystery of Aaravos arc). As we’ve seen Callum reject succumbing to his dark side after he used dark magic for the first time, and seeing him willingly do the purification ritual to rid himself of his darkness/corruption in his soul, I do believe that Callum has the power to reject dark magic once and for all and do the right thing (this does not necessarily mean he would sacrifice Rayla if the plot does get to that, but I do think he would find a third option aside from dark magic to save her, like he did back in S3 when he cast the mage wing spell to save her). After all, a major theme in the Dragon Prince is breaking cycles and not repeating previous mistakes, so what would be the point in having those themes or specifically Harrow’s letter in the first place, or better yet have the whole “destiny’s a book you write yourself” line be brought up multiple times if Callum’s just fated keep repeating past mistakes over and over again?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now onto my next analogy: Viren & Anakin/Vader, the characters who I genuinely saw as those whose corruption & downfalls may have started out of desperation to save a loved one from dying, but ultimately grew into greed and hunger for power.

I could go on about the complexities of Anakin’s character, specifically the ones that got fleshed out even more in the Clone Wars and how there are multiple factors that led to his turn to the dark side, but that’s not the whole point of this post. I know that there are some differing factors between both Viren and Anakin in terms of their dark sides/stories, but ultimately the last straw that led to their corruption was the fact that they were both terrified of losing an important loved one and both were completely unwilling to let that happen, whatever the price they had to pay. We also see them seek some sort of counsel/beg for help, like when Anakin vaguely told Yoda about his visions and fears, and Viren telling Kpp’Ar about Soren’s condition and needing the staff, ultimately both Anakin and Viren were told that there wasn’t really anything that could be done and they both needed to learn to let go. However neither of them were having that, so we somewhat see them both resort to another counsel, both very different but leading to same outcome. Anakin starts to open up more to Palpatine, who in turn manipulates him and convinces him that he has his “solution.” While Viren on the other hand, may have offered advice to Harrow to “do what he must” over his own dilemma, he in turn used that same advice but in a more twisted, corrupted manner. So then, both Anakin and Viren resort to darker approaches to solve their own problems and completely give in to their own darknesses.

I won’t go into deep detail about what they each did, since you can just rewatch these scenes in Revenge of the Sith and Episode 6 of TDP for that, but now I wanted to talk about how despite having the desire to save their loved ones, they ultimately caused massive harm to them. Anakin desperately did whatever he could to save Padme, but in the end, when he thought she betrayed him, he force-choked her then afterwards, she was shattered and heartbroken over his downfall that it led to her death, the very thing that Anakin tried so hard to prevent. While Viren on the other hand may have succeeded in healing and saving Soren, he grew to treat him coldly and abusively to the point where he completely damaged & even destroyed his relationship with his very son that he corrupted himself completely to save in the first place.

Even though I primarily focused on the similarities between Viren saving Soren & Anakin trying to save Padme, I also wanted to point out how similar the impacts were on Lissa and Padme as well, namely how they were both horrified when they saw what became of their husbands.

Sadly both of them ended up getting assaulted by their corrupted husbands, which then led up to the destruction of their families. And ultimately both Viren and Anakin continued on their dark paths and grew more ruthless, evil, and corrupted until they finally reached their eventual redemptions (I know not everyone thinks that Viren got redeemed but I do believe that his redemption arc was him accepting that he’s done far too much and accepting the consequences for his actions).

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So far these are the thoughts that I have on which Dragon Prince characters/relationships I think compare best to which Star Wars ones. And I know that Claudia would also be a good comparison to Anakin since she too struggles a lot with loss and refuses to let go, but at the same time, I see her still being in Anakin’s early villain phase during Revenge of the Sith, not yet having reached the Vader levels that we see during the Original Trilogy era. The way I see Vader & Viren relationships with Luke and Callum’s characters, it’s that the former two represent what the latter two fear of becoming if they do not overcome their dark sides.

But to answer my questions in the header, I do not think that Callum is bound to be on the same path as Viren or that he will let himself be consumed by darkness. Season 6 dealt with his overall guilt over using dark magic, his fear of being consumed by it/being used as by Aaravos, and ultimately his choice to purify himself of his darkness and understanding the consequences of doing dark magic again beforehand. Just as many protagonists get put through the wringer in their final battles, but ultimately persevere and do the right thing, I do believe that Callum will win and not fall victim to his temptations once again.

That’s all I have folks! Thanks for reading this far if you have! And an important friendly reminder (as mentioned already in my bio) if you have differing opinions and would like to disagree and discuss, please be sure to do so respectfully. Otherwise scroll by or I’ll be more than glad to press that block button! 😊🙌🏽

(Screenshot+caption of Lissa scene by @stuck-in-jelly)

[tallerthantale]

I finally got around to doing a close reading of transcripts of the Tortoise episodes, and I am very glad that I did.

My view remains that I find all the allegations both very credible and very damning. The updates to my views are that I feel more positively (though not entirely positively) about Tortoise, and that there is a probable very bad actor in all of this that isn't getting nearly enough attention. (Not Amanda Palmer. Or well, yes Amanda Palmer, but she isn't who I'm talking about.)

Tortoise first.

I'd been seeing a lot of comments claiming that Tortoise was anti BDSM. I don't know what the people in the podcast have as their personal views, but they made a point multiple times to clarify that BDSM does not operate like what Neil Gaimen was alleged to have done, and the condemnation they had for the alleged actions was not a condemnation of consensual BDSM. As someone who has been very involved in BDSM community for decades, I am fully in agreement with everything the hosts have said. The line people got most hung up on was a guest expert snarking about degradation ever being consensual. It is ambiguous in context what definition of "degradation" he is using, but it seemed to me he was referring to processes of establishing coercive control, and not referring to degrading roleplay in a mutually invested, healthily negotiated kink scenario. My remaining critique on the host / guests perspective is that the language around abuse and coercive control used by the hosts and guests often presumes all abusers are male and all victims are female. It doesn't diminish the value of the rest of what they are doing, but I think it is worth being critical of as a side note.

The other big point of concern with Tortoise, which I got major bad vibes off of from day one, was the manner in which they talk about their "understanding of Neil Gaimen's position." That sets off my internal red flags because it immediately prompts the follow up questions, "How did you acquire that understanding?" "Who told you that?" "Why aren't you quoting and / or citing them?" I had been speculating that they were from his side of the communications provided by the people coming forward, or comments from lawyers that weren't being properly attributed. Council of Geeks had a great "Cite Your Sources!" whiteboard moment I would generally agree with.

However.

It turns out there is actually a good reason for the citation fuckery. I think a lot of people missed it, so I'm going to try to explain it. When the hosts are referencing communications provided by those coming forward, they say so. When they are referencing comments by lawyers, they say so. The issue is, the bulk of the time, their understanding is coming from piles of direct emails with Gaimen that are OFF THE RECORD. Journalists have to take that seriously to get to keep doing journalism. They are professionally obligated to NOT cite or quote him when he is off the record. Normally in such a situation journalists wouldn't do this squiggly 'our understanding of their views' thing, they would leave it out entirely to be on the safe side of their professional obligations. Sprinkled through the podcasts are comments about the moral importance of hearing from both sides, the great public interest need to hear from both sides. This is a very snarky justification for the game they are playing of vague-posting the gist of his off the record statements without ever putting the exact statement on the record.

A lot of their snark surrounding that, and some other bits, leave the very distinct impression that Gaimen and his lawyers have threatened legal action against Tortoise several times already. Honestly I hope that they do file legal action, as that would open Gaimen up to discovery. Discovery is a process by which Tortoise would be able to demand access to nearly all documents and / or electronic communications Gaimen has relating to the matter, and in doing so make them public. Discovery is far broader sweeping that what is admissible in court, because it has to be 'discovered' before the court can rule it admissible or not. But inadmissible thigs are still usually public record. A jury wouldn't see them, but we still can. Because of that, it is extremely unlikely that Gaimen will file a legal claim, but again, I truly hope that he does. Tortoise probably does too.

But there is another person deserving of investigation and discovery in all this.

The main focus of my current attention is from a bit in the first episode that jumped out at me. Like, it made my eyes bug out, jaw on the metaphorical floor, and I was shocked that I haven't seen it mentioned. But then I figured, people might just not have the context to know how big of a deal this is. So I'm going to talk about it.

According to Scarlett's account, after she came forward to Amanda, Neil asked her to take a call with a therapist that both he and Amanda see. It seemed like his financial assistance offer to her may have hinged on the call being part of the deal. At first read, it looks like Gaimen strongarming Scarlett to tell his therapist he didn't assault anyone. She does the call, and there is a message from the guy that seems designed to plant the suggestion in Scarlett that her friends are manipulating her into perceiving a consensual relationship as a non consensual one.

To me, that is a five alarm fire. Everything happening in there should not be happening, ever. A person who provides individual therapy should not provide it to both partners in a relationship. A person who provides relationship therapy should not be providing individual therapy to people in the relationship. (They should do one-on-one sessions with each in the context of the relationship therapy but that is different.) A therapist should not be framing things the way they are described in that message, or interacting that way towards someone who is not a client, particularly if they have a conflict with someone who is. Therapists are very aware of the potential for clients to coerce others into saying things that fit the client's narrative, and should not be encouraging them to try. And all that is before we even get to the part where he seems to have been tasked specifically to gasslight Scarlett into mistrusting herself and blaming her friends. By Scarlett's paper trailed account, this person should be facing very serious repercussions and investigation. According to Tortoise, he has not responded to any of their attempts to get in touch with him, and he has a phone that is set up to not accept voicemail.

The name of this alleged professional is stated in the podcast, so I looked him up. He is most widely known as an author. His first professional descriptor for himself is as an executive leadership mentor. That more or less translates to person who gives expensive pep talks to rich people. He is also a minister, and a 'consultant.' He does call himself a therapist, but he has no degrees, background, or training in psychology. His degree is from divinity school. He does not list any professional qualifications or certifications in mental health, he does not list any memberships in any mental health organizations. He did co-found an organization that appears to have put on motivational seminars for a variety of organizations. His 'client list' was last updated in 2012. His website has features that are only accessible by those who are 'fully committed.' He is based out of Arizona, USA.

Searching for his name + therapist will get you to a podcast episode with Amanda Palmer, where she had him on as a guest, described him as a therapist, her therapist, and her and Neil's relationship therapist, and promoted his books. It was recorded in 2019, and it is utterly vapid and out of touch from the both of them. Searching his name + therapist will not get you any information on his work as a therapist, because he is not a therapist.

He can't get stripped of his status as a mental health practitioner, because he isn't one. Tortoise states that he has protected confidentiality to Neil and Amanda. If he does have protected confidentiality, he has it solely through his status as a minister, not as a mental health professional because again, he isn't one. As a minister, he may have greater client privilege than an actual mental health professional, who would be required to break privilege if they have reason to believe their client is a danger to themselves or others. Religious client privilege is very strongly protected in most of the US even if the client is explicitly planning to commit specific acts of violence. This might be the main selling point to people who choose to work with ministers who pretend to be therapists rather than actual therapists.

Scarlett doesn't have confidentiality much less privilege by any avenue, his communication with her did not form a professional relationship despite the ways his message seemed to blur those lines, which would have left him free to pass on whatever she said to Neil and Amanda. That would also open the door for him to corroborate what Scarlett told him to the media, but my impression is that if he can be contacted, he will cite a duty to his real client, Neil Gaimen, to avoid saying anything. This is one of many reasons why real therapists do not take clients who have potential conflicts of interest with their other clients. I can't tell from the content of either podcast to what extent he may have materially represented himself to be an actual mental health professional to his clients, but if he has done so he absolutely should be liable if not culpable for that.

I would like to see this man investigated to hell and back, but I don't know if anyone in the media is going to bother. For anyone who needs to hear it, do not go to therapy with someone who isn't a licensed mental health professional. Do not have the same individual therapist as your romantic partner(s). If you are setting up couples therapy, it needs to be with someone who has never met either of you before, and you make first contact with them as a unit.

Obligatory this is all personal opinion disclaimer. The internal states of public figures cannot be determined or scientifically evaluated by their public statements / appearances / works / ect... I am not the behaviour panel, nor do I endorse that kind of thing. But under certain circumstances I am willing to put out some personal opinions about what certain actions, if they happened, would seem to suggest.

I've been saying for a while now, the allegations paint a very strong and compelling picture of Gaimen knowing what he was doing and engaging in deliberate strategy even if he can make pocket experiences for himself where he gets to believe that the relationships were real. I think the evidence pointing towards Gaimen having a long running pseudo 'therapist' he is comfortable sending his accusers to talk to, who then encourages the accuser to think their friends are controlling them, speaks to how deeply this approach to life can saturate a person's existence. When I say 14 represents a lifestyle choice, these are the kinds of things I'm talking about. Someone who fucked up and made a few grievous errors, and did soul searching, and is trying to do better doesn't send their victims to their on call professional gassligter with religious privilege who they outsource to. This looks like 'life revolves around finding ways to control and silence people' level shit.

[brujitaadinbo]

I am happy and a little nervous to start here. English is not something I master, so please let's go slowly. If you don't understand something, you can ask before anything.

I have a lot to say and I hope to gather more friends than anything else. I am open to dialogue but I repeat, insulting is not an argument and you leave. I have seen how Duo Din and Bo katan have coexisted during these seasons; I never expected that this interaction would deepen from the fact of giving each other the opportunity to open up and get to know each other.

I don't deny that at first I didn't see something between them; because I was more distracted by the action of the series and the euphoria. But my opinion completely changed in the season 3 finale.

When I saw how Grogu protected his father and in that process, I included Bo (and I'm not saying that he saw her as a mother but he saw the need to protect her, feeling her closer and part of him) So I change my perspective to this season.

I had to rewatch the series several times, hahaha I'm not lying and it makes me laugh but I did it. Then I started to see those little details between Din and Bo katan. Certain parallels and how hatred came to be appreciated. Since there were signs of flirting, he added verbal and body language, non-verbal language, approaches and even the dialogues, the music. A way to pair them, but not as a cliché couple, as they always portray us. With that cliché romance that always repeats itself; no no

Here they were giving things a process, this type of relationship in which both come wounded, with doubts, with traumas, something that must be slow because if not, it won't end up cooking. And living in a world like the one we live in, where survival is substantial, it is very likely that you empathize with them, understand them and understand how they have done what they have done and how they walk hand in hand.

I do not want to come to talk for the sake of talking and I will try to take all the visible and documented elements to show that indeed; There was no romance as such in this season between them, but there were romantic overtones, there was subtle interaction of this type between them, so much so that Grogu realized that something in Bo was changing. Being sensitive in those aspects, come on, that cannot be hidden from the child.

I have also seen how because of all this, toxic fandom and harmful people have given themselves the right to criticize, mock and attack. I understand it's Star Wars, without generalizing, don't expect many to understand or be mature or allow themselves to question or see beyond their own very personal visions and tastes.

But as I say; Your tastes are clouding the panorama or denying a palpable reality just because something is not to your liking and attacking it. More than sad, it's pathetic. Although anything can happen in The Mandalorian and no one can deny it, if we talk about possibilities, then I tell you, the possibility of something healthy developing is there!!! among them like so many ships from other SW content and clearly those little messages have been there for a reason.

"You don't talk about what you don't know" I love that Din said that. Because if you do not take the time to objectively question this union, to see the content again, you will continue in that ignorance of the elements, which is not just me (because it is not just my opinion, I base it on other aspects) Many others

I would like SW to understand that it is not just a bias of the population or of a certain country that has fans or fandoms about its content. We must give priority to everyone, this is a global phenomenon, seen in many places. And although the program has a family focus, nothing is an obstacle for them to show that no matter what it is, who it is, feelings and emotions are also valid and allow us to surround ourselves with positive people, becoming someone better for those who little by little have entered our hearts. No matter how badass, how Mandalorian, or where you want to be from. No matter the conflict or situation you are going through. Star Wars is based on human emotions and love is not left out of this.

are proving it and they only come to silence them.

[cenobittten]

Gregory is sus: A Security Breach analysis

A spoilery leak-informed introduction to why I am doing this - for theorists & hardcore fans

A non-spoilery link to all analysis parts - coming soon.

No spoilers, game evidence only

PART ONE - GAME OPENING

So, from the beginning of the game, Gregory always puzzled me. So much so that I have been building a theory for a whole year based on him being sus.

Join me as I rewatch the game and highlight some things you may have missed.

Today, we'll cover the opening of the game up until the start of daycare. You may think there isn't much to say here but… surprisingly the game opening does a LOT of heavy lifting with setup. So much so that I boldly promise that you'll be given enough to realise Gregory is sus af by the end of this post.

The game's opening never made sense to me. From a storytelling perspective, why would SW have the game open with us in Freddy's room? Out of all the beautiful game settings they could have opened with, you start in a tiny room side room. Things are already confusing. Gregory has mysteriously come from Freddy's hatch - he claims he crawled in there when Freddy was asleep. That was extremely suspicious and my writer's senses were tingling. I had a suspicion that this was a writing technique called "In medias res", where the narrative begins partway through the story in the middle of the action and that this might be a clue in and of itself.

Protip: I highly recommend rewatching the opening to Security Breach before reading this or clicking the accompanying clips. Dialogue tone is extremely important.

The clues

(Covers 1-4)

1: Gregory hiding in Freddy's hatch:

Lets start at the very beginning. Now, what kid in their right mind climbs into a switched off animatronic? Especially after it has been glitching wildly on stage? Most kids would find the prospect terrifying but Gregory seems surprisingly unbothered by it. What or who is he hiding from? What drove him to hide somewhere so dangerous?

The mystery goes deeper though. To solve it, we need to channel our inner Benoit Blanc. Time to play detective:

Gregory claims he got into Freddy's hatch while he was sleeping

However, Freddy was on stage when he glitched. Presumably he was still on the stage when he switched off.

We know from the Fazwatch note 'Party Foul' that Freddy was out of commission for the rest of the day. He missed a kid's birthday party.

This means we have at least several hours between Freddy crashing and the game starting. This presumably means there could have been time where Freddy was out of action/asleep and Gregory could have climbed into him as he said.

When though? Freddy malfunctioned in public view in front of a big audience. There is no way he could have got into Freddy without someone noticing unless no one was around. He would have been stopped by staff. And presumably, Freddy was transported by a staff member back to his own room. When could Gregory have snuck in?

This is where SB fans say 'Simple. He got into Freddy's room and snuck in there'! Now, its possible I am wrong here but I think the game is hinting at that being impossible. Why? The game goes out of its way to tell us Freddy can't get out of his room. His door is locked, requiring someone with a party pass to open it from the outside. If Gregory has no security badges at all, how could he have gotten into Freddy's room independently? How did he get the chance?

This made me wonder if Gregory was lying and covering up how he'd come to be inside Freddy. By its own, this line of thinking is a bit thin but stay with me and you'll see why I made a big deal about this.

Quite the puzzle. Reminds me of the old 'locked door' mysteries! It also raises the question: Was Gregory actually already inside Freddy before he glitched? Could he even be the reason for said malfunction?

2: Gregory's narrative set up:

I also want to point out that we see no hint of Gregory's backstory or how he came to be in the Pizzaplex. Despite being a lost kid in a shut-down Pizzaplex, he isn't upset or scared. He doesn't talk about wanting to go home. From a storytelling perspective, this immediately stood out.

3: Gregory's rude introduction:

Gregory's first line of dialogue is "Shh! WILL YOU SHUT UP?!". Kinda rude for a lost kid, huh? He's scared of Vanessa the Security Guard coming over, sure. But why? If he hasn't at least met Vanessa in passing before, how does he know she is 'trying to get him'? Either Vanessa has shown herself to be a threat to him (which she shows no sign of to the player) or Gregory is hiding something or making an excuse. I also noted that he almost sounds frustrated and annoyed at Freddy for asking questions.

4: NO RECORD OF GREGORY:

This clue is super important! Freddy scans Gregory. He has no guest profile. He then asks for Gregory's name. Freddy proceeds to try and notify the main office and he receives a connection error. Ergo, there is no way that anyone else in the Pizzaplex can or should know his name. Remember this.

5: Gregory makes accusations/deflects:

Omg I titled this clip wrong lol. GREGORY'S REACTION TO VANESSA

Gregory immediately blames Freddy's connection problems on 'her'. "She cut you off", "She's trying to get to me. She's not going to let you call for help until she finds me." The player presumes he's talking about Vanessa.

Freddy responds with "Who? Your Mother?"

I personally think this is the game foreshadowing but that's for another theory.

It's telling that we never get an answer in-game. Gregory distracts by talking about footsteps approaching. This could be read as deflection.

6: G's reaction to Vanessa:

Freddy tells him it's the security guard and 'she can help!. Gregory responds in a panicked way. "NO, NO, I don't trust her." "I don't know who she is but she's trying to get me!"

Again, what is going on here? Think back. Gregory just said he doesn't know her but earlier he 'knew' that she'd cut communications and that Vanessa was after him. Why doesn't he trust her? (At this point, my mind was whirring. Things don't add up.)

Unless, of course, he's referring to a different 'she'...

7: Gregory expresses no verbal desire to exit the pizzaplex:

This fact gets lost in the Fazwatch intro sequence but - believe it or not - it is Freddy who prompts the walk to the main entrance. Gregory says nothing about escaping, leaving or his motivation at all. Why? That's rather plot convenient.

8: Freddy assumes Gregory has a party pass:

After climbing out of Freddy's room via the vents, Gregory tries but fails to open Freddy's door. He needs a party pass.

Freddy says: "Apologies, I assumed you had one already…" Why would Freddy assume this given Gregory didn't have a guest profile? Well, because Freddy knows Gregory could not have entered his room without it. Again, a surprisingly telling dialogue choice.

Freddy sends Gregory to find a complimentary pass in the lobby so he can get Freddy out of his room.

Clue 9: Gregory's dialogue reminds players of Afton:

Party pass achieved, Gregory reunites with Freddy. Freddy says that he has figured out how to get Gregory out of the Pizzaplex and says he'll take him to the main entrance. Freddy proceeds to suggest that Gregory travels in this cakehatch.

Gregory says yes: "But you better be careful moving around, I don't want to be crushed and twisted into a meat pretzel."

This could be taken as innocent fear but… it's delivered a little dryly for that. The imagery reminds the player of Springtrap. And the fear is sort of belated, isn't it? Given he already hid in there earlier.

Clue 10: Freddy's sudden detour to First Aid:

I don't know how else to explain it but Freddy starts behaving quite strangely as soon as he exits his room with Gregory in his hatch. He says about taking Gregory to the main entrance, they need to hurry before the doors shut. Then unexpectedly Freddy announces randomly that "You are broken" and he makes an impromptu trip to first aid despite Gregory's protests that he is 'fine' and they "Don't have time".

The first aid room, as it happens, is located in the Staff-only utility tunnels in a dark room with danger signs and sparking wires. Bit odd, huh? Why isn't First Aid in one of the guest areas? This doesn't seem like a typical place to bring customers.

Plot happens:

As soon as the duo get to the First Aid Station, they are interrupted by Vanessa. Gregory hides while Vanessa tells Freddy off. The following scene plays out:

Vanessa: Freddy! You're supposed to be on lockdown.

Freddy: Officer Vanessa! I do not know how I got here!

Vanessa: Well you totally blew it tonight you know. Your system crashed and you ruined the show. Now Parts and Service have you on reduced power! They said it's a safety precaution. Just one more thing to deal with...

Freddy: I apologize.

Vanessa: Ok... Look, we're like 15 minutes from closing and some kid is sneaking around backstage. If you see anything notify me immediately, I already alerted the others. Now go back to your room.

This is important context and establishes a few things. "Parts and Services" have put Freddy on reduced power, meaning he requires recharging every hour. Additionally, Vanessa at least appears to know very little about Gregory other than the fact that he exists.

Gregory says: "I told you she was after me."

This voice line implies that Gregory and Vanessa have at least had one run in with each other.

Freddy promises: "I said nothing. I will keep you safe. Let's go."

11: Gregory doesn't receive any first aid:

I kid you not, I laughed the first time I realised this. After all the fuss that was made, Freddy doesn't even look Gregory over. They just leave immediately. Is this a plot oversight or a clue?

Unrelated(?) detail you may have missed:

As Freddy and Gregory move through the Utility Tunnels, Freddy explains they link to every area of the building.

Freddy says: Fazer Blast, Monty Golf, Roxy Raceway, they are all accessible to S.T.A.F.F - with high enough clearance of course. Guests are never allowed down here but yours is a... special situation.

This scene provides confirmation that the First Aid Station Freddy took Gregory to isn't usually used by guests. Hmmm.

Additionally, there's another notable piece of flavour text. The S.T.A.F.F bots need security clearance to go around the building. Why? If S.T.A.F.F bots are just generic AI/personality-less robots, why would they need individual security clearance?

It's also worth noting that - as this line is delivered - we pass a scene behind a chain link fence. It is of three S.T.A.F.F bots standing around a broken colleague.

Then, a short walk later, this poster is displayed: "100% of fatal accidents involve human beings."

It feels like Steel Wool might be trying to imply something here.

Plot:

About two seconds later, Freddy draws to a halt because he ran out of power. So helpful. Gregory is on his own again but Freddy promises to direct him via the Fazwatch. Gregory sets off for the main entrance.

12: Animatronic dialogue:

Gregory wanders around a bit and triggers a playable cutscene where Roxy, Chica and Monty begin to chase him.

I'm going to cheat slightly here and use this as an opportunity not only to review their dialogue in this scene but their wandering around dialogue as it boils down to the same point.

During the chase, the animatronics say the following.

Monty: There you are! (Friendly tone, like he's found you after playing hide and seek)

Roxy: Are you lost? (Dry voice, could be read as sarcasm or a genuine question. Ambiguous)

Chica: Lost boy over here! (Singsong)

You can also find the rest of their dialogue text and audio here.

None of these voice lines sound threatening at all. They sound pretty reasonable on the whole honestly. In some cases, they even sound friendly or like they are just doing the task assigned to them as part of a Pizzaplex lost kid protocol. Or directions from Vanny/Vanessa/an unseen force. But whatever is driving them, they don't seem very murdery.

Some patroling dialogue lines that stuck out to me:

Monty: "You can hide but you can't hide!", "Hey kid, come on out! We're only tryin' to help." (That first one… what does Monty mean?)

Chica: "Your family is looking for you.", "Your parents want you to follow me.", "Don't worry, you're safe with me." (How does Chica know who Gregory's parents/family are?)

Roxy: "Why are you hiding from me?", "Hey kid, come on out. We're only trying to help.", "I can help." (Roxy has some more spiteful-sounding dialogue like "Sneak away, little coward" and "Nobody will miss you" but none sound threatening or aggressive)

Plot again:

Gregory escapes but doesn't make it to the door in time.

"How unfortunate Gregory. You missed your chance but there is still hope. You should be able to escape when the security doors reopen at 6:00am. Until then, keep moving and try not to draw attention to yourself, there is another way out. I will help you find it. I promise."

13: Chica knows Gregory's name:

So now, Gregory begins to find a means to upgrade his Party Pass so he can enter the Pizzaplex. During this time, Chica patrols the area.

Hey, remember how I pointed out that:

Gregory has no guest profile?

Freddy couldnt access the mainframe to report his name?

Ergo, there is no way that anyone other than Freddy who can know Gregory's name?

THEN HOW DOES CHICA KNOW GREGORY'S NAME?

Before people say "Vanessa hears Gregory's name through the Fazwatch via Freddy." That scene happened at 2am. This clip is LITERALLY from 12am moments after the door shut. It's several hours before that scene even happens. Vanessa is still calling him 'little boy' and 'some kid'.

How was this missed by much of the fandom? Well, I have a theory. In Matpat's GT live playthrough pre-release day patch, I'm pretty sure Chica has a different set of voice lines. As far as I can see, she also never says Gregory's name at 12am. But on Markiplier's - post patch - playthrough, she says it continuously. There are even different iterations of her saying Gregory's name, one of which is reminiscient of the special voicebox screech used to access the Burntrap boss fight.

This was my jaw drop moment while watching my second playthrough of Security Breach. How does Chica know Gregory's name? In that moment, I 'knew' that Gregory could not be unknown to Chica. He knew more than he was letting on and I was on the lookout for more inconsistencies.

And I realised Chica is super important - after all, Chica's beak has always been lore significant.

14: Freddy's strange response to Gregory's gift magnet:

Gregory goes to find an item with which to 'hack' the Party Pass machine. He finds a 'Free Mystery Gift' box conveniently located in the gift shop. He opens it to find - in his own words "a crappy Mr. Hippo fridge magnet. Lame"

Freddy responds to his magnet disappointment with: "I am sorry, Gregory. I am truly sorry."

He sounds as if someone just died. What is this dialogue? Who says that in response to a kid expressing dismay at getting a character magnet they don't like?!

15: Freddy's tone deaf response to a setback

After this, Freddy directs Gregory to use the magnet "hack" the machine to get a party pass. The machine unexpectedly spits out a Daycare pass instead.

Gregory is dismayed but Freddy says, "That's good news" as if totally tone-deaf. He does not explain WHY it is good news, just tells Gregory to meet him there. It's almost like he is stalling for time...

Are you convinced something doesn't add up yet? Let me know in the comments! I'll add additional notes to this section if anyone has any questions/suggestions/evidence.

Next time, we'll move on to Daycare and the clues will start to add up...

[sapphire-weapon]

Worst Aeon take that I've seen was someone insisting that the jet ski part of trailer proves that she must've brought it along to island in an elaborate plan specifically to save Leon. As if she's a fortune teller who must've known he'd be there, knew exactly how the entire mission would turn out, knew that he'd turn down the helicopter ride and that he'd need to quickly save Ashley from the explosion before she arrived. Did this person even play the god damn game or know anything about Ada at all?

I'm so scared that when they realise SW has seized the opportunity to actually make her a character and give her an entire story that isn't about running around in the shadows saving him, there'll be so much uproar that Capcom won't continue on the current path. It's irrational, but god DAMN these people are so fuckin loud that I'm terrified they'll ruin the experience for fans who actually like her and enjoy the new timeline.

in their defense

that's literally what happened in OG's Separate Ways.

OG's SW reveals that Ada planned everything in RE4 -- even down to the point of somehow making sure that Leon would be the agent assigned to this mission in the first place. because OG's SW was fucking garbage. and that's also why Aeon stans are so obsessed with the idea that Ada left a little love note for Leon in the bear keychain, since it has that zipper in the back -- because it's not implausible, because she knew all along that she was going to toss him that key eventually.

but if it helps at all

the average dev cycle for an RE game these days seems to be about 6 years. whatever follow-up game to RE4make they're making, it's already well in development. DG said to expect the next title in the Remake series no sooner than 2025, but more likely 2026. the backlash to SW would have to be RE6 levels of outrage for Capcom to scrap 3-4 years of development.

and Capcom seems to be acutely aware of the fact that SW is going to cause a shitstorm. I was thinking about this yesterday, actually. it is so beyond bizarre that they sat on the confirmation of SW's existence for literal years, when everyone knew it was going to be a thing that inevitably happened with a remake of Resident Evil 4 -- and not only did they sit on the announcement and refuse to confirm anything, they only gave a seven day window in between announcement and launch.

from a marketing perspective, doing that is making a deliberate choice to hamstring launch-day sales for the sake of withholding information. the sweet spot for this is usually 3-6 months between announcement and launch, because it's enough time for people to talk about it and spread the word but not so much time that people get fatigued/distracted and forget about it. but to keep the game in the conversation, more trailers and gameplay videos and interviews need to be released consistently in that 3-6 month window.

doing it this way means that Capcom consciously chose to deny themselves that crucial window for word of mouth to spread, because they'd rather have a highly curated pre-launch marketing campaign where they only have to show under sixty seconds of story content and never have to talk about it in interviews -- because they don't want people to have enough time and/or information to become suspicious or start speculating about just how drastically the story is going to change, because they know that diehards and purists are going to be fucking angry.

they basically made a calculated decision and came to the conclusion that it was financially in their best interest to try to prevent people who would otherwise normally buy the DLC from deciding they didn't want it, as opposed to trying to spread the word and rope in as many new sales as possible. their goal was to prevent loss, not promote growth.

which is

kinda nuts when you consider what the fucking point of paid DLC is in the first place.

[into--folklore]

okay i listened to the leak dont @ me

i only listened through once because thats what i had time for tonight but ill be listening more over time lol

anyway it has some good songs it has some bad songs and cringe lyrics but eh ! overall its alright. i would say middle tier tsw*ft content. i would say it would fall in my rankings here atm:

folklore > rep > midnights > evermore > speak now > ttpd > 1989 > lover > red > fearless > debut

spoilers i guess for implied TayLore but uh its implied joe not only suicide baited her but also love bombed her, abadoned her in their home alone and then cheats on her possibly multiple times while continuing to love bomb

some folk are saying that its prob m*tty he*ly that did the suicide baiting but i dont have enough context to dissect the muses of each song. idk it feels weird to have ur title track song be about your apparant fling from last spring and not the 6 yr relationship guy

eh again i need see written lyrics to really dissect each song like. just in terms of lyrical analysis (outside of the implications of her actual life too bc i think that gives for more personal connection to the songs)

again everything with a grain of salt bc we never know whats real and whats not. but i can "Understand" that for lil billionaire tsw*ft that having ur partner suicide bait u fucks you up a lot and why she "can" consider herself tortured because of it.

i mean i would be hypocritical to say otherwise bc my current art project is navigating the same feelings. or again, at least the feelings shes projecting in this music

i think its good at like. being her obviously trying to process these emotions honestly. of course from the perspective from someone so out of touch with "normal life" but still. who are we to tell someone how to grieve a complicated toxic relationship

im seeing some sw*fties say they really cannot relate but idk i could and can find myself relating to it more over time. it feels like an album that could be more of a grower over time than an immediate banger

florida is so good and its absolutely because florence has such a big part of it and shes such a vocal powerhouse. i wish we can get a full florence cover one day 🥺

top songs from first listen are: florida, whos afraid of little old me, and i can do it with a broken heart

^ florida ofc bc of florence but the other two have this like. angry manic episode energy that feels similar to rep. like genuinely i told my partner whos afraid of little old me reminded me of florence's dream girl evil. and i.... love dream girl evil

but really wild for multiple songs in this with lyrics about t*ylor wanting to kill herself bc she feels so bad. girlie.. relatable...

[minimareanie]

SO

Just watched the last episode of Ahsoka, and I have some thoughts. Some of them are good, some of them are bad. Here goes.

Ahsoka, as a character, has been very devisive since she was first introduced in the Clone Wars movie all the back in 2008 (ugh), and has remained devisive all the way to her portrayal in live action. I myself fully admit to being biased towards liking her, having grown up with TCW. However, I also admit that there are some notable flaws that have found their way into Ahsoka (the live action series) and now will attempt to frame my thoughts.

Things I liked

1: The choreography for one is leagues better than anything we have gotten in the ST, and I find myself quite pleased with the fight scenes.

2: The soundtrack is stellar, especially the end credits.

3: The special effects/costume is pretty good, though I make the slight nitpick of wishing Ahsoka's montrals/lekku looked more they did in animation.

4: Episode 5. This episode alone is enough to bump the overall score up.

Now, you've probably noticed I have been praising the shows superficial aspects more than anything else. Which leads me to what I either did not like or otherwise found to not gel with water I was hoping for.

Things I did not like

1: The pacing. Especially in the last three episodes, it feels as though the series slows to a crawl with the main cast barely getting anything done. A few conversations take place, we get to watch some funky Nightsister shenanigans take place, and we finally get to see Sabine and Ezra reuinite, but other than that it feels like there is little to no sense of urgency.reunite, Ahsoka does not suffer from this issue as much as the other SW live action lineup, but it is still noticeable.

2: The characterization, or rather the lack of it. So.e of the arguments I've heard regarding this point tend to rely on the fact that this series is set years after the last time we saw these characters, and so would mellow out and mature as a result. I get the logic, but at the same time, it would be appreciated to see these characters be a little more lively as opposed to standing around looking at each other.

3: The overrealiance on the audience to know what is going on. Now, I am an avid SW fan; I've watched all of TCW, so I at least do not feel lost when I saw the Mortis God's or Morai or when the main cast expressed how important it was to find Ezra and stop Thrawn. But from the perspective of someone who has never seen either TCW or Rebels, the show does almost nothing to inform the audience of who these people are and why they are so important.

At the end of the day, I still enjoyed the show. I went into it with not very high expectations, and I think it was good of me to do so. The show has issues that stem from several sources, and while I do wish it was better, I'm still pleased.

If I were to give a number rating. . . Probably 7.5 out of 10 is what I would be most comfortable leaving it at.

[ma-lark-ey]

Lark Liveblogs Literature episode 3: Six of Crows duology

As we did with Harry Potter, Shadow & Bone Trilogy, and will be doing with The Mortal Instruments when I get back around to them I am liveblogging my reactions to Six of Crows.

What I know prior:

- We’ve got a guy named Kaz, he’s got a cane. My younger sister tells me I’ll adore him so I trust her judgement.

- There’s also a guy named Jesper, who one of my mates stole the name from for a water genasi. He’s queer??

- we also have someone named Wylen. My sister loves him a lot and tells me I will also love him though I am sceptical.

1.) Six of Crows (5/4/23— 10/4/23)

(8/10)

Right off the bat, I really love Inej! Her perspective is really lovely and her affection (/p) for Kaz is very clear from the get-go. It’s so juicy to meet our main protagonist from the perspective of an admirer and NOT themself. I’m obsessed with that.

I’m very respectfully in love with Kaz and did not say I’d makeout with him in the groupchat in front of god and everyone. No, sir. I am the most normal about Kaz Brekker.

Moving on from my goof, I really love Kaz just as a character. Having a disabled protagonist, much less one that’s Top Dog and very clearly feared and respected by his peers is SO GOOD. And quite honestly I think he’s the first disabled protag I’ve seen that wasn’t like, pity porn or magically nullified (at least in books. Love you Toph of Avatar fame). So if anyone has good reccs of other disabled protag books, drop ‘em. I’d love to read more.

OH I LIED ACTUALLY I READ STORMRUNNER!! I just didn’t get a chance to finish that series entirely so sorry I forgot about that. Love him SO MUCH. he and Kaz are my besties.

Inej 💖💖💖

Thats all.

Also the Banter!!! I’m not even a hundred pages in but the banter in Six of Crows is SO much better than Shadow & Bone. Bardugo has really grown as an author between these two series and it shows. The characters feel much more solid in this. Whereas Shadow & Bone’s characters (minus like, Alina, Nikolai, and Mal) felt extremely 2D at times (in my opinion) and I can see layers to Jesper, Inej, and Kaz right off the bat.

MATTHIAS H E L L O TOXIC MAN OF THE WEEK. im going to eat him.

My sister is fighting for her LIFE defending Matthias but I. THIS MAN IS A CONVICTED SLAVE TRAFFICKER??? SHE SAID ITS NOT HIS FAULT. girl. Get help.

Forgot to update this. Kaz is SOOOOO downbad. He’s DOWNBAD. just kiss her idiot. IDIOT. Wylan is funny, I wanna flick him on the forehead and ruffle his hair. He’s so goofy.

I’m not fully convinced Jesper ISN’T in love with Kaz.

THIS FIREPOX FLASHBACK IS A SPECIAL KIND OF FUCKED UP !!! “Together, they drifted, Jodie’s distended body acting as a raft.” Kaz…..

PIECED TOGETHER WHY KAZ HAYES TOUCH IM LITERALLY GOING TO CRY

EVERYONE IN THIS BOOK DOWN BAD FOR EACH OTHER!!! LOVE HEXAGON FR.

The Jylan Wesper whatever the fuck this shipname is development is literally such a tone change from Kaz I’m LAUGHING.

Kaz: This is how my brother died, audience.

Jesper, boutta catch himself a twink: cowabummer.

Nina. Nina you’re better than this. Nina how could you get the alarm sounded. NINA.

Okay debriefing after part five. I’m so. So. So.

Kaz and Inej better kiss. Jesper stop flirting you are about to die. Matthias I almost killed you alive. I wanted to burn you at the stake fr. Nina you’re a queen. You’re theiving. Kaz dont die so you can admit emotional vulnerability for the first time ever. Jesper so proud of you for overcoming tour cringe crush on Kaz. Hurry ip and makeout with Wylan this tension is PAINFUL.

THE ENDING THE ENDING THE ENDING SHSBSBSBSB THATS SO MUCH IM GOING TO EAT WYLAN I LOVE HIM. BOY OF ALL TIME. ILL MAKE OUT WITH YOU.

2.) Crooked Kingdom (13/4/23-17/4/23)

(9/10)

Listen. Okay. My Tumblr was glitched out for the first half of this book so I couldnt say anything but I can NOW.

All of this is WILD.

Kaz Brekker, you are stupid and dumb and I NEED you to be honest about your emotions for ONCE. i swear to GOD you pathetic little WORM.

Wylan’s mother what the HELL. what is HAPPENING. This is so fucked up I hope Jan Van Eck gets his life fucking destroyed by Kaz fuck him UP.

Kuwei i love and hate you so much you cheeky fuck that was so sly but also how fucking dare you do Jesper like that. Little shit. You’ve been too heavily influenced by these deceitful little canal rats.

Wylan babygirl I love you. I’ll kill you if you ACTUALLY spilled to your dad. Honestly thank god Kaz barely tells you anything. I love you. Rot in hell for this one.

STURMHOND 💓💓💓 NIKOLAI LANTSOV 💖💞🖤💚💞 I DIDNT EXPECT TO SEE YOU IM SO HAPPY YOURE HERE I MISSED YOU BESTIE MWAH MWAH MWAH MWAH IM SUCH A NIKOLAI GIRLIE YOU GUYS.

Oh update on Matthias I’m neutral on him now. Sorry for my Matthias slander earlier. I do still have beef.

Everytime a plot twist happens in this book its like “YES. MICHAEL. what do you want now? More money? A check? My SOUL?”

Okay Wylan. Sorry I cussed you out so bad. You’re good. We’re friends again

MATTHIAS DIES????

Wild ride through and through. Obsessed with this. I would’ve liked to see more of Inej’s closure than we did— but I’m not mad at it. I think Pekka being the closing chapter was. I dont know. I have neutral feelings on the Pekka chapter.

I do think I like Crooked Kingdom more than Crows? I really liked it a lot !! And. I will be honest with myself and admit its because of the Sturmhond content. I know myself. I can admit when I am foaming at the mouth over my #1 bestie babe of all time Nikolai Lantsov.

That’s. All. I suppose?

Really did enjoy it !! If you have a fic where we see more of Inej and her family reuniting. Drop it. Or recs in general. I need more recs. I dont know the tag culture of this fandom yet <<3 scary <<3

Next series: All For the Game, Nora Sakavic.

Bonus:

Here’s my ranking of the Crows, btw. I love them all but some. Significantly more than others not sorry.

1. Wylan Hendricks

2. Inej Ghafa

3. Kaz Brekker

4. Jesper Fahey

5. Nina Zenik

6. Matthia Helvar

I dont know if this is a hot take or not. I just. <<3 Wylan and Inej <<3

[destiny-smasher]

Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is a Damn Mess

Strap in lasses, lads, nonbinary finery, and everyone around and inbetween. This one's a doozy. I won't be describing any post-game/end-game details specifically, but I *will* be mentioning in vague terms some of the late game stuff, in case you're sensitive to spoilers.

This rant starts with things I liked (which it does have!), then goes full tilt into spicy rage. So avoid it if you're for whatever reason sensitive about an unfinished game being talked about like it's an unfinished game. Do not try starting some argument with me, these are my personal opinions and not a scored/professional review. Enjoy your game if you're enjoying it and ignore this grumpy 90's era gamer.

TLDR bullet points at the tail end for those that benefits.

So I've put in 16 hours into Pokemon Scarlet. Did like, 2/3 of the main story badge quests, I would say, caught a bunch of mons. Aaaaand I'm done with this game. I am not of the opinion that without the tech performance issues, it would magically be this super amazing Pokemon game. Personally, I'm just not impressed with it. And we'll get into why I just don't think it's a well designed or well made product or RPG.

But first, the things I liked, or even loved. Because there are definitely some things I did like and love about it, especially after checking out the story (I recently watched all of the main story scenes from where I'd gotten to the end credits).

Opponents have never had this amount of personality put into them. When stacked against other peers in the gaming landscape, it's still kind of laughable how limited these characters are in a lot of ways, but SV goes to further lengths than any previous game in giving opponent trainers and story characters specific designs, bits of life in their animation, and even some mid-battle dialogue, on top of some of them even having…more than single note to their personality! Crazy, I know. It does still feel a bit flat without voice acting (we'll touch on that later) but it is SOMETHING. Character models look much improved from Arceus, and they do much better and more interesting things with what story there is, for the most part -- the one area I will concede I think this game clearly beats Arceus in, objectively.

The music is inconsistent imo BUT the songs that are bops are great, and naturally they're reserved for fights. I blame Toby Fox for this and Sw/Sh having some truly fun tunes, but I'm sure the other people working on music are doing work. Pokemon has never had TERRIBLE music, it's always been at least good if not awesome, and at least the Switch games are pushing things somewhat forward. My favorite tracks in the game are probably the Gym Fight (the opening part with the brass, before the vocals kick in), the Star boss fights, Nemona's Battle Theme, which I love that we get a few variants of (reminds me of Marnie's theme, my fav from SwSh). And speaking of Nemona…

Nemona is probably the best character in the entire Pokemon franchise at this point, at least to me. I mostly write YA fiction, sometimes from a perspective of trying to sift through the silt of my youth and identify who I 'truly was' as a youth given how like half of my personality was stifled and suppressed. And Nemona's the first time a Pokemon character has felt like someone I would write myself, felt like someone who reminds me of why I like the things I like. She captures the essence of the gameplay of Pokemon into a passionate youth who walks a fine line between teaching the player the ropes while alluding to her being much better at fighting than she's letting on, all because she just loves doing it, loves growing and learning and being impressed by others doing the same. Pokemon games struggle with their rivals usually, and even their gym leaders, because they honestly aren't that great at Pokemon battling, usually? But with Nemona, they've found a clever solution to that issue: they can allude to her experience, but her context with your character is that she's 'senpai,' she's the older student teaching you, so naturally she's going to go easy on you. It's a shockingly elegant solution to a problem the franchise has basically always had.

Beyond this, she just has a cute, cool character design that's pretty recognizable despite wearing the generic school uniform (she at least squeezes some bits of uniqueness with her green highlights and arm guard). She's a bit of a one-track mind but within the world of Pokemon that honestly fits right in. I have some personal bias here that I tweeted about already, but I just really like her, and I love seeing a character so overtly passionate about battling and looking to your player character to grow to be a fitting rival to her. She specifically says this, but it's clear enough before that point -- and it's also funny how ironically BAD people in this world are at Pokemon battling, so honestly, can you blame her for being desperate for some real competish? She does still lay flatly on the side of being fully supportive of your character and not truly feeling like an actual rival, something the series seems honestly afraid of at this point for some reason. But at least there's context. She's adorable and I like her a lot, she reminds me of my younger self. And as someone whose favorite genre is fighting games? Her motivations totally speak to me. Even her intro animation to a battle feels like something out of a fighting game.

Nemona represents pursuing your passion and letting yourself LOVE the things you love, letting yourself get EXCITED about having new people in your life to share those things with, and I just love her so much for it. I didn't expect going into this game that I'd end up having such a strong emotional reaction to any of its characters but Nemona made me cry tears of happiness (literally right now, thinking about and writing this up after watching the ending of the Victory Road path) because I GET IT, girl. And she's going to help kids out there feel OK with pursuing their passions, pursuing bonds with others, pursuing mutual growth and self improvement, and that makes me extremely happy.

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Arven's story takes that well-tested shortcut of 'make audience feel sad for a dog,' but it's a plotline we've not really seen in the games, and it's great to have here even if it's a bit on the nose. It also gives his rough exterior at first some depth when you realize what he's trying to accomplish, and why, once you learn about his backstory. It's a sweet side story and I also liked how it tied into your movement abilities out in the field. And Penny's side plot…well, it's a little convoluted and undercooked but it is something different, as well, brushing against a pretty meaningful topic without ever diving deep enough to do much with it. And Penny herself is fun, with a great character design, with the Team Star members being certainly recognizable and just wacky in their very high-school-esque, over-the-top premises and personas.

The Star gang is amusing enough, Penny's role was not at all a surprise but that's fine because it just made sense and added up nicely. Penny as a character is great, too, it's actually refreshing having someone prominent in a Pokemon game who...just doesn't seem to love Pokemon the same way everyone else does? Who's jaded and cynical. I like that. Honestly, she looks a lot like my wife and shares a lot in common? (her name is even Jenny so, funny coincidence)

I also loved Car- I MEAN CLINT. What a fantastic character design/concept (yet again), just awesome and fun. Pokemon needs more of that -- just embracing the goofiness. And also just older characters who persist in the narrative without staying back in your home town or whatever. Moreso than any other Pokemon game before it, SV actually has what I'd say is the best cast of human characters. Now, without getting full on into the negatives just yet, bear in mind…this is still Pokemon as you know it. Very limited interactions, very basic scenes, bare minimum animations, no voice acting, barely any character development. It's still clearly going for the designs first and foremost, and they are varied and appealing, for sure. The 'Normal' type gym leader with his Nick Cage ass businessman schtick had me chuckling in a way no Pokemon game has made me react to an opponent trainer. Just seeing Gym Leaders being presented as PEOPLE who have…LIVES…and JOBS, with the Pokemon battling being like a side thing, or like a new job, that's such a huge change and it's refreshing.

There's only a handful of truly animated cutscenes in the game, which have that weird hollow feeling to them with literally no voice acting, but it's more than Pokemon games have really done before. The human characters actually look pretty good even up close, too, and do many of the Pokemon -- and touching on that, I think a lot of the new mon designs are great. GameFreak seems to have figured out hair physics, and HOO BOI do they make sure you know it with the many overdone, strange, wacky hairstyles in this game. And they also seem to have actually figured out mocap, from the looks of it -- during the brief actual cutscenes, the characters actually animated naturally and look pretty good (even if there's still a lotta rough edges in the presentation otherwise).

As for the story itself, it's again, pretty barebones, super basic, but still a noticeable step up than previous games. Like some degree of effort beyond the norm has gone into story this time, which I can appreciate, even if none of it reaches what is standard for other high profile JRPGs these days. Having multiple threads you progress at your own pace, and then tying them together is nice - and they do weave the main characters of all three together in a way that's simple but effective and organic. I have to wonder what they might have been able to do had they focused their energy into telling ONE story instead of three. Like having them more tightly threaded together to form one plotline, I mean. But what's here is at least more interesting than previous games I've played (I skipped the DS era but I hear people liked that era's worldbuilding). Even when I felt done with the game, I still looked up the story scenes I missed as I was just enough invested and curious to see what they did with them. Pokemon is, for better and for worse, squarely targeted at kids in its design and presentation, and I think what's here is certainly more substantial than what the series has done before, both in visual representation and the basic but relevant to kids plots it has going on.

I will say that after looking up the final hour of the game, I do get what all of the hub-bub around it is. My wife and I were literally talking about how a Pokemon game could be so awesome if it functioned more like a traditional RPG with actual party members, inter-party dialogue, that whole shebang, and while it's…extremely ROUGH in its execution due to the technical problems and lack of presentation, you can totally see a glimmer of this in Area Zero, and even what little is here is honestly pretty cool, interesting, and has a complete mini-story-arc going on. I want to play a full Pokemon game that has something more like this all the time, with multiple humans, each with their own teams to manage, even -- it'd make for a great spinoff imo, but what's here is…at least different, trying new things that actually have good ideas. GameFreak certainly seems to have lots of good ideas they are struggling to implement, yet they clearly are in over their heads on how to do it.

And on that note, that's it for the positives. You may have noticed I have barely talked about the gameplay, and predominantly have been talking about the characters, what bits of world-building there are, and story. That's because as a video game, I just found it really boring. Time to get nitty gritty on why I personally didn't even find a very engaging video game buried beneath all of the tech issues.

I will not dedicate much time to this game's inexcuseably poor optimization and tech issues. For a first party Nintendo game, this is a new low. I have never seen a Nintendo published game look and run this awfully, and I'm sure many have been startled, shocked, and disappointed by this. By now, if you're reading this, I'm sure you're well aware of these issues. I personally don't expect most of the problems to improve even with patches, in part because a lot of this stuff just isn't 'fixable' in a post-release sense, generally speaking, AND the companies involved have like zero incentive to meaningfully address or even explicitly acknowledge them. But it's a big deal, and I'm glad it's been talked about. Let's move on to the gameplay.

This is an "open world" game, yes. In a technical sense. In a barely functioning sense. But it is a far cry from understanding what makes for a compelling open world game, or even a modern, by-the-numbers one. It at least is attempting something, but bleh. It's so hollow. There's basically two types of open world games at this point. ones like Breath of the Wild or Outer Wilds that basically leave everything up to the player to decide where to go, what to do, and give them a vast array of unique locations, landmarks, and the like to pique their curiosity, with baked in interwoven systems that can be learned and mastered over time. Then, there are by-the-books open world games, with vast maps populated with a bajillion icons, a giant checklist of tasks to do with a trickle feed of rewards and a linear story to complete, where player experience/strength is measured more with numbers than knowledge. Pokemon Scar/Vi is neither of these types of games, really, but is trying/pretending to be both, and fails at capturing what either does well.

All it really has going for it, in my opinion, is the same old song and dance we've been doing for decades: the core Pokemon formula of discovering, catching, and raising teams of creatures to fight. It sure does do that, and in a more traditional way that Arceus, with the more traditional trappings and mechanics all accounted for, plus the obligatory time-consuming gimmicks. Even just some level balancing could've gone a LONG way to making the experience really feel more open-ended, and giving opponent trainers, especially gym leaders, some more bite, especially if they scaled their teams to how many badges you had (like the actual Pokemon lore) would have been awesome. But it wouldn't save a lifeless, boring husk of a world map from being oddly unpleasant to navigate back to the world, though, while it IS very good that they have opened up that world for us to explore more at our own pace, it's got major problems imo. Let's start with the map…'design?'

The world doesn't really have much design TO it, really. It's a series of pathways with hella empty space in-between, with lots of artificial divides that discourage exploration, locked behind the movement unlocks you complete in Arven's story (or maybe jumping backwards up a fucking hill because lol game's unfinished). It doesn't feel like one giant level laid out in themed zones, with environmental 'puzzles' to work through. It's just…a big mess of shapes. A giant circle of places to go to accomplish tasks -- and while you CAN technically do them in any order, you are basically punished for trying to do them outside of an intended order, due to the strict, linear levelling nature of Pokemon. Shit isn't designed or balanced around numbers-based combat in an open-ended scenario. Nothing seems to scale, at all, in any way. In Elden Ring or BOTW this is fine because you can use cleverness, strategy, items, summons, friends, WHATEVER, to tailor the experience, and when things are too easy it's usually still fun because it's a great measure of your character's growth, often due to overcoming things balanced against you to get that extra edge. You can summon your friends into Paldea which IS cool but what can you DO together? Those raid things? Which are boring, slow, and easy as fuck and the screens before/after take longer than actually playing them (which usually is just spamming your Super Effective move repeatedly when it's even functioning correctly). Trainers don't stop you in your tracks but what is the damn POINT of them, even? Everyone's got like one, MAYBE two monsters, and gym leaders don't seem to put up much of a fight at all, either. I GET hella kids will play this but that was true on GB and they had SOME more there.

In fact, backtrack to the GB games. I still distinctly remember exploring Mt. Moon for the first time. It was a maze. It was full of fucking Zubats and Geodudes, and trainers who had Pokemon my Fire starter and normal types struggled against. It was memorable as a challenge, as an environment to work through. Most Pokemon games have locations like that, at least in older gens. This game seems to be lacking in any of that despite the open world format being ripe for putting things like that in. I don't remember locations really, apart from a handful of small landmarks shrouded in buildings in the towns. I, uh, stumbled upon a neat cave tunnel one time, which had…some of the usual Pokemon you'd expect, maybe a TM or something, and that was basically it? Nowhere else in my 16 hours of playing felt like I had DISCOVERED anything, save for the single ominous glowy nail stuck in the ground I saw. And yet multiple times in Arceus I experienced at least a sense of discovery when I found a unique patch of land with a wisp to collect or an Alpha Pokemon tucked in a cranny somewhere you couldn't see from a distance, or a nice place to stock up on certain items, or a shiny Pokemon that made its presence VERY VISUALLY APPARENT the second it was on screen, from at least some amount of distance (rather than you tripped over it when it pops in three feet in front of you with a color so barely different from the norm you don't even recognize it as a shiny). I'm sorry, this world is mostly hollow, vapid, and boring for me to navigate, worsened by the performance issues really hampering things.

There are giant arrow signs pointing to where you can actually go because the world design doesn't make much sense. Ladders stuck into the side of rock faces because…no reason? They're just…there. They make no sense with the design of the landscape. Doesn't feel like a world. You can't rely on the map to figure out where to go sometimes due to the way things are laid out, too, with entrances to some of the northern regions being really obtuse. Towns stutter and chug as NPCs pop in and out and flicker, they don't really have anything interesting to say, anyway. Houses can't be entered, trainers aren't deliberately in wait for you but just…standing aimlessly around, waiting to be talked to - and of course they almost always have a single mon and that's it. There's barely any landmarks to get you curious to check something out, and on the rare occasion when something visually looks…"interesting" (read: different but ugly because this game can't render for shit), when you go to check it out, it's usually just…a big blah, nothing exciting. I will say that at least there DOES seem to be some kind of neat sidequest involving glowy nails stuck in the ground (presumably to unlock a mysterious Pokemon, I assume). THAT is something! Give us more of that! That is actually using your open world and Pokemon formatting to do something fun and interesting the old style of games wouldn't be able to do the same.

Even Arceus did this way better, with all kinds of little nooks and crannies with specific Pokemon hiding in wait, motivating you to check out the parts of the map you haven't been to. It wasn't super advanced, but it was something. Here, everything feels fucking RANDOM. Even items feel absolutely random, and near as I can tell, many of them literally are. There's some TMs that do seem "deliberately" placed but not in a way that generally feels rewarding to get to, and every other item literally feels randomly scattershot around, and often seems laggy to get picked up for some reason. Also, why is everything you pick up in a pokeball again? We finally ditched this shit in Arceus, where items are actually recognizeable out in the field, and make SENSE, and you combine them and use them in organic ways. The only crafting we have now is for TMs, which IS a cool idea, but I don't really like the execution since it entails 'parts' from specific Pokemon, whereas I think it'd have been better to give you a few options per TM, and/or types, or…something less finite and rigid, given just how many Pokemon exist. That's a minor complaint, it's really fine I suppose, but I already miss the much more beneficial item crafting of Arceus, which meant I valued every healing item and pokeball I used and stockpiled until the late game, where I felt rewarded for having made so much progress so as to not even worry about that stuff.

Not to mention from a tech spec the game can't even render an open world that functions properly. Shit pops in SO close to you. And it's not just a visual thing, it directly impacts the gameplay in a negative way. Your big dragonbike will trip on the smallest mon that popped in ten feet in front of you and whoops, you're stuck in a battle now. See a Pokemon you wanna fight but overshot where it is slightly? It despawns and guess what? It ain't comin' back because when something disappears it doesn't necessarily mean it's still there, it's probably just fuckin' gone now if it's a wild mon.

Briefly, let's touch on Tera types. Fun idea, on paper. In practice...just more nonsense than it's worth, tbh. And it's patently clear they wanted a fancy new visual gimmick without needing to actually render new mon designs so hey, slap a wonky texture and a hat on their head that makes things easily interchangeable. I will admit the idea of being able to swap a Pokemon's type temporarily is a great one, though, especially given just how pivotal type matchups are to the strategy and success of the mainline games, but the implementation here is...just kinda half-baked, in my mind. Not to mention the raids somehow being even worse than before, despite having some more interesting ideas. Like they're just WAY too difficult, or WAY too easy, and/or way too buggy/laggy.

There's a new cooking system, and unlike the curry system it's less engaging to do, much more finnicky, AND is just plain unclear. Like. Someone explain to me how the cooking system even functions, why it's useful, HOW and WHERE you can even see what food effects you currently have active and for how long. Big waste of time, not to mention how comically bad the foot eating animation is, on top of how finnicky the sandwich minigame itself is (psst, GameFreak, just…just add a SHADOW, you know? so we can see where the heck objects are going to land?)

Oh and there's a day-night cycle, but it's terrible. There's no in-game clock (just a vague symbol that changes, on your map, which is easy to miss to begin with). It's not based on real-world time. Lighting will SUDDENLY change from night to day, no inbetween, seemingly. This happens during big battles, cutscenes -- you'll start a boss fight in the day, end it at night, watch a cutscene in the day, and then suddenly it's night time when you're out of the cutscene. You cannot seem to fast-forward it or change it in any way, so if you want to catch something during a certain time of day, sucks to be you, I guess. Arceus did not have these problems, not any of them as I recall.

Which brings me to probably my biggest gripe with the gameplay: it's back to being pointlessly slow, boring to look at, and generally a terribly clunky sense of flow. Arceus was laughable amidst other AAA franchise peers but it at least got lots of quality of life things improved to make game flow FASTER and more seamlessly. In ScarVi, basically EVERYTHING Arceus did to somehow address Pokemon's awful pacing has been undone. Practically all of the same bullshit is here and accounted for when it comes to battles, using items, buying things, it's all clunky as hell. Want to buy multiple lemonades at a vending machine? Have fun scrolling the text and waiting for it every single time. A mon changes stats in a fight? Watch every single individual stat change animation in sequence, every time. Using an attack that hits multiple times? Watch the dinky little animation, then the HP decrease, every single time, and of course with pointless text boxes slowing things further. ANY time HP changes in any way, you have to sit and wait a second for the bar to change. Except, actually, not always -- seemingly at fucking random it just…won't show it sometimes?

Did a move miss? Cool, just don't bother animating it! Did a Pokemon dodge? No animation for that either. Can you run away? No animation for that, either, just an arbitrary "dunno, you couldn't escape for SOME REASON" Why. Why is this shit still a thing in a top selling RPG in 2022? Arceus also did most of this shit, too, and it's pretty dumb, to be frank. Just a QUICK little jump and rotation of a Pokemon model as the text tells you it missed, SOMETHING. And Arceus actually let you RUN AWAY by just…literally running. Not to mention how seamlessly it allowed you to switch Pokemon and use items, even out in the field, by letting you sort things and use item bars. Like modern video games do? None of that here. Hope you like sifting through like ten pockets of random shit to get whatever specific thing you need, then click on a mon, play a glaring sound effect they refuse to get rid of, then wait arbitrarily for it to do its thing, and get a text prompt telling you it did its thing. I know there's an 'auto heal' function on the menu, which IS something, at least? And you are picking up healing items a lot, which does show some degree of foresight (though again, feels more random than anything). But the clunky UI and beeping and booping and ALL of this fucking waiting for plain text scrolls to describe things that don't need describing and could be SHOWN with just super basic, quick animations…this isn't charming at this point, it doesn't feel deliberate -- it feels lazy.

Oh, hey, by the way, remember how an exciting addition to the past few entries has been customizing your character with different outfits and hairstyles? WELL FUCK YOU you don't GET to customize your character as much now. No new outfits to find. Nearly every damn store sells like 10 color variations of ONE thing, maybe two, and almost all of them are so boring and bland! Want to change your hair? Hope you don't like wearing hats, then, because for no good reason the game just DOESN'T let you wear hats with certain hairstyles! At all! Just can't be done I guess! They've never been EXTRA with the cosmetics but this is devolved BACKWARDS, not even from Arceus but from games BEFORE that one.

The game is just awfully inconsistent, all around. The feel, the presentation, the animation, the MUSIC, even just the textures on things…it all feels so hodgepodge. Arceus was light and muddy and didn't look very great usually but it was at least somehow consistent. And I get it, they're clearly commissioning and outsourcing a lot of stuff, but then if that's the case, why does so much still feel so shoddy? If you're gonna outsource, fucking OUTSOURCE -- you're POKEMON, the highest grossing media franchise on the planet. Hire voice actors, hire animators, hire people who know how to make games actually run on the Switch, hire people who know how to make these potentially cool building look GOOD, hire people who know how to apply natural looking textures and polygons to natural environments.

This lack of consistency just gets jarring, especially when stacked with camera wonkiness, framerate dips, etc. And of course you can't edit options anywhere for this shit. Find the loud 8-bit chimes every time you scroll text or use items annoying? Find some songs too repetitious? Too bad. You could completely turn the sound off, I guess?

And YES, I will bring up voice acting, because YES, a series THIS huge should fucking have SOMETHING, somewhere. Not literally everything needs VO, even though just some basic sounds would go a long way. But the CUTSCENES? With named characters who even by now actually somewhat animate? Why are they all muted? It was kind of cute on the Wii when they did it with Twilight Princess, a game that was actually oozing with detail and production (by Nintendo's standards then), and characters who animated in ways that made them genuinely interesting to look at. But here, it's like…I dunno? It just feels EMPTY. Like it feels like voiceover is missing, because...it literally is. If other RPGs that sell a FRACTION of the copies Pokemon does can have two or even MORE voiced languages, why are we getting literally nothing here? It's not a "stylistic choice," it's just boring. And if people don't want the VO then hey maybe let us mute JUST the VO -- that is, if you're capable of getting that to work. Arceus had its issues. It absolutely did. When that game released, I thought it was a new low for the series, production wise. How ironic, given how much worse this game is in that department. But Arceus had a strong sense of FLOW. It was so organic and fast-paced compared to other Pokemon games, filling out the dex was more enriching and involved, side quests contributed to an overall theme and focus, everything was streamlined, sped up and improved -- even the holy battle system was CHANGED in ways that made it faster and more interesting imo. I'm not saying you need to ditch this entire classic style formula, Legends can easily be its own side series, but DANG did ya'll drop the ball on picking up what inherent improvements it made and reverting back to the slower, boring stuff, INCLUDING releasing two versions.

And lastly, why in the fuck ARE we still doing this double version bullshit? It's not cute anymore. You're not doing anything meaningful with it. It's just there to boost sales. Cut it out. Another thing Arceus addressed, by the way, and ditched. Because it's pretty dumb. Give us meaningful choices, yes -- like our starters. Remember back in the day when that wasn't the ONLY choice you'd get that would limit what Pokemon you'd have? Give us more of that, if your real goal is to encourage players to trade. But it's not -- it's to arbitrarily sell more copies to the people who will double down JUST to…own the same fucking game twice. And we still fall for it.

And in the end, isn't that how we ended up here? Because we keep collectively giving GameFreak the benefit of the doubt. We keep cutting The Pokemon Company slack. We keep letting Nintendo off the hook when it comes to Pokemon, specifically, in a way no other franchise except KIND OF Sonic gets away with. Pokemon means the world to me. I got into writing fiction because of Pokemon. I treasure those early days of the franchise, and I still treasure the POTENTIAL it is brimming with, as new kids get into it in numbers untold of, and as kids who grew up with it are adults, hungry for more -- and yet does GameFreak acknowledge that a DECENT PORTION of its audience are adults? Nah.

"But it's made for kids." Miss me. Miss me with that tired ass excuse. It's old and stale and not applicable anymore. Kids don't deserve games that run like ass, held together by tape and string, with bare minimum presentation yet a premium price tag -- oh, and make that price tag DOUBLE for lots of folks due to the unnecesary dual-release thing. You know what other games came out this year that were made for kids, and even specifically on the Switch? Kirby and the Forgotten Land. Splatoon 3. Some recent TV shows made for kids? The Owl House, She-Ra, CentaurWorld. And they're all fucking great, well produced, well made, and all pieces of media adults can easily pick up and enjoy even if they're not the target audience. And at the end of the day, people of EVERY age deserve to enjoy things they love, and deserve GOOD, well made things that money is getting spent on.

This would be an entirely different conversation -- a non-existant one, really -- if GameFreak was actually an indie team, making actual indie games. You may have blinked and missed it, but they HAVE made indie games -- multiple by now. And they never seem to take off. Just throwing that out there. GameFreak seems to want to cling to some fantasy of being a plucky indie developer, yet insistent on trying to stretch their too few workers too thinly rushing out multiple things out the door (ScarVi and Arceus absolutely did not need to release in the SAME CALENDER YEAR). I'm sorry but when you're an "indie team" operating under the highest grossing media franchise on the planet, AND you want to be producing multiple games simultaneously, AND you want to try doing ambitious things, AND you don't want to (or more likely, don't GET to) take your time on them, AND you don't want to allocate the people, experience, resources necessary to get things to actually function properly, much less look and feel good? Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is what you get.

And it's not some anomaly. This was to be expected. We could all pretty much see this was where the franchise was going when Sword and Shield happened. And there's no reason for this trend not to continue at this rate, with record setting sale numbers in its opening days.

I love the potential of this world, and other franchises that have found success have been able to BLOSSOM in beautiful ways from that success, in this past decade specifically (even just the past 5 years). I really like many of the individual characters in this specific video game. I love seeing Pokemon games try to FINALLY mix things up in meaningful ways, it's long overdue.

But I'm probably just "too old" and "too grumpy" to appreciate the shoddy quality, repetitious and boring pacing, and overall lack of foresight or game design present in modern Pokemon games. Many will gobble this game up and enjoy it, and I am honestly really happy that can still happen even with the state this game is in. I was likewise able to enjoy Arceus more than any mainline Pokemon since Gen 2, even though the game felt like a glorified tech demo. The Pokemon formula just isn't enough for me anymore, and The Pokemon Company absolutely has all of the time, money, and resources they could want to make the games elevate to the standard of quality you'd expect from a brand that performs like Splatoon, like Mario, like Zelda, like Animal Crossing -- and a franchise that reels in adults to a kid's game in ways essentially no other franchise does. It's fucking weird how scared of quality production values the Pokemon games are in a lot of ways. Meanwhile, look at what Bandai Namco has been able to pull off when given the reigns: games that look and feel like actual modern video games, still kid-friendly, but also aware that adults like Pokemon, too. Why do actual Pokemon games seem terrified of this?

Dear GameFreak: Get over your indie complex. You don't get to pretend to be indie while selling more copies of a single game than every other indie game combined, and then do it AGAIN like 8 months later. Also? A Iot of the people who put you on the map -- people who were kids years ago -- aren't kids anymore. Stop pretending your entire audience is literal children, because many of them are not, and I'm sure you know it. But even if all of them were, you used to treat kids with more respect in how you designed and balanced stuff. Stop being afraid of that, I feel like most anyone picking up a damn Pokemon game in 2022 has some idea of what they're getting into.

Dear Pokemon Company: Let GameFreak fucking have TIME to make quality games. Give them proper resources, experienced programmers and artists, hire some actual writers maybe, voice actors. YOU HAVE SO MUCH FUCKING MONEY. Stop being greedy shits rushing more and more out the door just to keep growing when you are already so huge. Your games are suffering from it and it's embarrassing given how successful you are. You invest SO MUCH into animation, marketing, cards, merchandise, and the actual GAMES -- the part the MOST amount of your audience engages with the most deeply -- are getting starved for time and resources. What the fuck.

Dear Nintendo: Ya'll are fucking better than this. You may not always make smart business choices, or even MODERN game design choices (though you're starting to get your heads on with that, small steps at a time), but at LEAST you've always been known for QUALITY. This messy product is a notable low for you. You should be embarrassed that a game this ugly, buggy, stuttery, rushed, and unfinished got your stamp of approval. If I was you, I'd be rushing people in to help patch the issues, and sitting down with all parties involved to make sure this doesn't happen again.

I know the ownership/management of Pokemon games is this weird mishmash in a way no other Nintendo property quite deals with so I'm sure there's stuff going on behind the scenes we don't know. I'm just mad, I'm tired, I'm fed up of seeing a franchise SO FULL OF POTENTIAL get this treatment. Unless something substantially improves, I'm done with Pokemon -- and that doesn't matter to the corporations involved. But it sure makes me upset, personally, and I'm certain I can't be the only one.

I did not get to the end of Pokemon Scarlet.

GameFreak did not finish their damn game, so I don't see why I should, either.

TLDR;

+ Great character designs and new Mon designs + Actual splashes of genuine worldbuilding and personality + We are technically allowed to do what we want + Pokemon formula/numbers game is addictive -That addictive formula is like 25 years old ya'll, gotten stale -Technical issues are HELLA BAD but you know this -Game is just overall kinda ugly already, WITH terrible optimization -World is flat and empty, devoid of life or anything interesting -Gameplay is slow, repetitious, mind-numbing -Basically everything Arceus addressed/improved, this walks back on

[elismor]

There are many things I agree with in this analysis but, as one of those "older fans" who is at least FIFTY, I do take issue with the assumption that we went into the prequels thinking Luke Skywalker was the Ideal Jedi.

Many of us--largely women like myself--found him lacking in the OT--even though we were kids at the time. Oh, the arguments we had with our male cousins and friends and brothers about how Luke was no jedi at all...just someone who had some skills, left his training before it was complete, had a LOT of help from his friends, decided he was a jedi anyway, and got to save the day repeatedly because the script said he did.

He only got away with that because he was The Hero (pronouns he/him). You've noticed, no doubt, that Rey has a very similar background and character arc and is put down for her abilities (pronouns mary/sue)? He might have been our brothers' hero, but he wasn't ours.

I, personally, was in my late 20s when the prequels came out and I was mesmerized by the jedi in them. Actual lightsaber fights at speeds approaching real! Witty repartee! Explanations about the Force and how it works! Glimpses into what it was like to be an ACTUAL jedi! WOMEN carrying lightsabers and sitting on the Council! Be still my decidedly now middle-aged heart.

Luke was never my favorite anything, even as a 7 year old seeing movies that were so unlike anything else at the time. Lucas had me at the crawl, but I didn't judge the prequel jedi by his measure. Adult me judged him by theirs.

Are my adult perspectives on him colored by my experiences as a woman in the world? Undoubtedly so. But when we played star wars in our back yards in the 80s none of my fellow girls wanted to be jedi, let alone Luke himself. We wanted to be smugglers and soldiers. Fighter pilots. Yours truly campaigned HARD to introduce myself as Han Solo's sister. (I failed, BTW. Gatekeeping has a long and storied past.)

So, my dude, your analysis might be spot on for the menfolk of a certain age, but I think you might have missed the mark a little on the other half of the population.

Also--and just trust me on this one--we grew up during the Cold War. We know all about slow burn conflict and how it can shape a story and how moral relativism can ruin your day. I try really hard to continue to approach all things SW from my 7 year old place. I want the clean lines between good and evil. It's part of the reason I have so many complicated feelings about Anakin.

But Luke? Those ones are simple.

Why do a lot of SW fans dislike the Prequel Jedi?

This was going to be the conclusion to this answer about "why a lot of people dislike Mace"... but it's just too long, so I decided to make it a post in its own right.

So why is Mace-- scratch that, why are the Prequel Jedi considered to be "unlikable" by a big chunk of the fandom? Especially when compared to Anakin "I killed a group of children twice" Skywalker.

Overall... I'd say it's three things.

1) Some fans had different expectations.

I touched on this in a recent post: older fans, who are now at least in their 40s, grew up seeing Luke as the ultimate Jedi.

He's Campbell's Hero With A Thousand Faces, up there with King Arthur and Superman. He's, for lack of a better term, the chosen one.

So when the Prequels were announced and they knew they'd get to see the Jedi Knights in their heyday, they expected to see something like the Knights of the Round Table.

A collective of errant warriors who go on exciting adventures, providing aid from place to place. Like Luke Skywalker.

Instead, they got this:

"A bunch of monk/diplomats who sit around talking about taxations and trading routes and measure the Force based on cell organisms."

"They're nothing like Luke Skywalker! What the hell?" (I address why this is inaccurate here)

Then the second film comes out:

"Wait, Jedi can't get married now? So were all those EU books about Luke and Mara Jade bullshit?" (also addressed in above link)

Then the third film comes out:

"Palpatine is right there, why can't they sense him or read his mind? They're Jedi!" (explanation why here)

Also Luke is no longer the Chosen One apparently? Anakin is? How does that work?

Plus, the way they speak, their jargon, is waaaaay too formal, gone are the OT characters talking informal English with American accents and quips. Even the way these new characters speak - and not just the Jedi, the Queen too - seems detached from reality and makes them harder to relate to. (but we're talking about diplomats and royalty, so how else would they be talking?)

2) How adult audiences perceive "morally pure" characters.

Even if one didn't have the pre-concieved notions about the Jedi... they don't seem to impact the adult viewers the right way.

Then again... neither does Barney the Dinosaur.

Many are the conspiracy theories and negative discourse surrounding him (there's even an upcoming documentary about it). You know why? Because he's not meant to be a character for adults, who have outgrown morally black or white characters and are unable to relate to them... his target demographic is children.

They see him and go "I love you, you love me". We see him and go "What the fuck is this guy hiding? What darkness lies beneath that mask of optimism and joy?"

Same goes for the Jedi.

So I'd say what we have, here, is a similar situation as the one in the recent Rick and Morty episode, "Juricksic Mort".

In the episode, a bunch of dinosaurs return to Earth and it turns out they're incredibly selfless, diplomatic, moral and spiritually advanced (kinda like the Jedi!)

Rick's reaction is - you guessed it - "what the fuck are they hiding?"

The dinosaurs turn Earth into a utopia, ending all wars, removing all conflict, bringing about world peace and giving everyone the chance to go on vacation... and everybody hates them for it and eventually wants to see them fail and step down from their pedestal.

The writing emphasizes their superior virtue so much that they actually come across as uptight and patronizing. This is done intentionally, so that it's difficult to find them likeable out-of-universe, and we relate to the earthlings in-universe who react the same way.

Why do the audience and the characters react this way to characters who - again - are good and moral?

Because as Moriarty says in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows... hidden within the unconscious is an insatiable desire for conflict.

It's why the presence of conflict is so crucial in storytelling.

It's why every scene in good movies presents some form of internal, external or philosophical conflict.

It's why protagonists need flaws to be interesting and relatable. Because we're flawed as well.

Also, the protagonist will eventually have overcome their flaws through an arc.

More importantly, the basis of all conflict, in storytelling, comes from something being out of balance.

And the Jedi are trained to not be that :D !

So on the one hand we have Anakin, a flawed, conflicted character who struggles with his inner balance, and on the other we have the Jedi, who are essentially presented as flawless and balanced.

What will a chunk of the audience do? They:

Won't like the Jedi.

Will project a flaw onto them (more on that in the next section).

Side with Anakin, the one that's as imperfect as the audience is.

Sometimes all of the above.

But the thing is, though... the Jedi we see in the Prequels are not flawless or perfect.

They are, for the most part, characters who have already completed their character arcs, characters who have already confronted their own inner flaws and overcome them.

And whenever these flaws resurface? Well, they've conquered them once, and they have the training, so they do it again.

Example, here's Yoda confronting and overcoming his hubris and inner fears:

Has he done it before, in his almost 900 years? Probably, yeah. But it's not a one-and-done sort of thing.

But the Prequels are not their movies. They're about Anakin.

He's meant to be the more interesting character. And they're meant to be the ones with less flaws, because they're mentor archetypes and the Prequels show an interesting situation wherein the protagonist fails to listen to the mentors and fails to overcome his own flaws, which leads him to - instead - be doomed by them.

3) Issues with the writing.

So, for the people who didn't like the changes but want to like the Prequels, there's a headcanon that seemingly fixes everything:

"The Prequel Jedi... are intentionally written as arrogant, hypocritical moralists. They are meant to come across as dispassionate. I mean, isn’t that what being a Jedi is, apparently? You purge yourself of attachments aka emotions, and act only logically (which was typically-encouraged behavior for a long time, in the US). They've become too systemic and lost their way." And guess what? With this interpretation, "Luke is special again! He's like Qui-Gon in that he found a middle ground between the unfeeling Jedi and the Sith, who have become slaves to their emotions. Like, sure, Anakin can be THE Chosen One, whatever, but Luke? Luke has found the balance, he succeeded where Obi-Wan, Yoda (who wanted Vader dead instead of believing he could be redeemed) and the other Jedi failed. So that's what the Prequels are about: the Jedi's failure."

The issue is, though... it doesn't align with what George intended. (as explained here and here).

But it does use most of the ingredients the films give us. Which - short of unleashing a barrage of George Lucas quotes, interviews and videos - makes it hard to disprove.

Because - seeing as the films aren't about the Jedi, they're about Anakin and his own inner demons - we don't see enough of the Jedi's culture and lifestyle and day-to-day unless it directly relates to Anakin.

So George's very clear idea of how awesome the Jedi are is never truly conveyed or fleshed out and as a result they feel like a group of people who always say "no" to the protagonist. The flawed, passionate and more relatable (by contrast) protagonist.

We get glimpses of it in The Clone Wars, but then it's tarnished by the fact that the Jedi are at war.

Then there's the reads that could easily be disproved... had George been more explicit about what he was going for.

"The Jedi Council bully a 9-year-old." This read could've been avoided had the scene ended with the Jedi telling Anakin that being afraid is normal, but his fear must be conquered otherwise it'll lead to the Dark Side. Which, they do, but in a vague way rather one with a kind empathetic smile.

"Obi-Wan is always berating Anakin, their relationship is tense." The whole movie partially features an arc where their relationship is on the rocks, so removing the tension isn't an option. However, the interpretation that it's been like this for a decade (rather than recently because Anakin reunited with Padmé) could've been avoided if, instead of just a minute-long elevator scene, we maybe saw a set-piece of them on a mission, maybe showing them working in tandem and joking as they escape that nest of gundarks.

More could've been done to frame the Jedi in the positive light thy were meant to be seen under. But again: the movies aren't meant to be about the Jedi.

Though it seems that a lot of people wanted them to be. And maybe that explains the hate re: the Jedi.

Older audiences wanted to see Campbell's Hero they grew up with again, they had a preconceived notion that the Jedi would be wandering, exciting adventurers... instead they got a bunch of "stale" diplomats whose whole job is to avoid conflict and adventure.

So instead of taking the story for what it was - a movie for kids - they projected a "morally gray" narrative that said these characters were flawed and weren't how they were supposed to be in-universe, when the truth is they weren't happy with the characters they witnessed out-of-universe.

[genshinlover101]

Omg I love your blog and your writing /p how did I forget to follow you before?! Forgive me my liege ehe~ /lh

Anyway, can you please do a ‘Ningguang rejecting reader’ one, similar to your ‘Lisa rejecting reader’ one? I’d love to see your take on that!

Ningguang Rejecting You

Character: Ningguang x gn!reader

Warnings: None

A/n: Absolutely ~ I'm such a sucker for angst like this

But thank you thank you, I hope this wasn't too long of a wait :<

• Only one woman has your heart in all of Teyvat. To be swoon by such beauty and grace, this feeling was surely mutual amongst all the citizens of Liyue who had seen Ningguang in action. Her assertive glow and her womanly confidence made you crumble to your feet.

• Maybe it’s because she saw potential in you that nobody else could, she brought out the best in you. Or maybe it was her soft white hair and her expensive fragrance as she whizzed past you. Or perhaps it was the way she looked at you with cruel amusement when you couldn’t solve a problem.

• The way she looked at you from across the room as you two were the only one in the Jade Chamber made you sweat as you struggled to finish the days work. However, you heard rumors from peers that your treatment was nothing special, from an outside perspective all your fantasies was nothing short of your imagination. 

• You’d tell yourself every shot that you didn’t take, you’d miss. That was the only excuse you had for your childish crush to linger. That and your sheer admiration of the Business Woman she was. Such beauty and grace wasn’t surprising for the Tianquan. 

You sat in the empty room of the Jade Chamber, your head bobbing back and forth as you struggled to keep your eyes open. Your inferiority complex that if you didn’t reach a respectable social status then you’d never be able to confess to Ningguang with pride. “Ningguang~” you mumbled as your head hit the hard wooden desk. Your vision blurry, you had to work harder than others to stay afloat in such a competitive economy. The thought putting you to sleep as your eyes closed for an hour that only felt like a mere moment. 

That was until you felt a soft hand on your shoulder, the silk touch alerting you of someone’s presence as your eyes blinked open in confusion. “You were calling me?” the elegant voice reverberated through your ears. Jolting your body upright as if you were caught with your pants down in public.

“Madame!” you asserted. “I apologize, I’ll get straight to work,” you were shivering in your skin. The thought of your hardworking image being tainted in Ningguang’s eyes shook you to the core. Not even bothering to check the time as it was bound to be late at night already. 

“No need,” Ningguang’s hands ran along your shoulders as she adjusted her position. “Look at the time, go rest. Your work is no longer needed for the day, if something important comes up I’ll be sure to fetch you,” she stated. Regardless of her nonchalant statements, the moment you looked up at her face her expression was full of pity- as if she had just heard some disturbing news. Her eyes winced and her smile distorted. 

“Lady Tianquan...” you hesitated. “Are you alright? Had something happened?” You questioned. Your hand reached to check her forehead for a glimpse of her temperature, however, before you could reach it she had swatted your hand away like a gnat. In full surprise you gasped, normally Ningguang allowed small gestures of affection, she had never once reacted so harshly. “Ningguang...” You murmur. 

With a look of frustration, she sighed loudly while rubbing her forehead with a single hand. “Forgive me for not being as transparent as I should’ve been. This is obviously a subject that I cannot avoid,” Your heart was beating a mile a minute, what could she have meant. “Did you really mean what you said?” She asked you, looking you directly in your eyes. Despite the current environment, you couldn’t bear to reciprocate her serious demeanor. 

“W-what do you mean?” You stuttered with cold sweat dripping down your spine.

“In your sleep... you said ‘I like you Ningguang’,” Ningguang’s eyes squinted in hopelessness. “Please reassure me that I am overanalyzing your words.” You could lie... You could say you didn’t mean it... You weren’t ready after all, you were still a lowly office worker with nothing to offer but mediocre work. But if you denied it now how were you going to live with the guilt of lying to her. How were you going to confess to her after denying your feelings? 

“I do Ningguang,” Her eyes closed in disappointment. “I like you, and what’s the matter with that?” Her reaction did not please you whatsoever. No sympathy, no guilt, but anger. You couldn’t control who you liked or who you didn’t, it was just so unfair. You were grateful just to be by her side.

With a couple of harsh breaths paired with silence, she opened her eyes, her hand wrapping around your cheek as she looked at you with a somber expression. “I may have overreacted... I apologize, but please understand that what you want is impossible. I cannot reciprocate your feelings.”

A gentle let-down. The emotion faded from your eyes, you knew this would happen eventually, but not this soon. “I understand-” you said plainly. You weren’t ready, still not fully comprehending your rejection. However, unlike before you had the confidence to look her in the eye this time.

“You are well-versed and resourceful, two efficient skills that I value in you highly. To lose your friendship to such emotions would be a waste. I expect to see you tomorrow.” She raised her posture once more, walking towards the exit of your room. Giving you one last glance before excusing herself.

That night she watched the stars of her terrace, pondering on the constellations of Liyue that you wouldn’t lose sight of her. Maybe what she had said was too harsh, wondering how she could’ve reacted differently.

[fruitcoops]

Sometimes I forget that Leo is 19 and can’t drink in the states. I think he would get away with stealing drinks from the boys or having someone on the team order for him in public for a while but once the season’s started and people are actively watching the games, the bartenders and wait staff start to figure out who he is and catch him being sneaky

I only write drunkenness on a case-to-case basis because it squicks me out sometimes, but something about this ask really stuck with me. To @lalalasocks, I hope your sinuses feel better! Have some outside perspective of Coops to soothe the soul <3 SW credit goes to @lumosinlove!

TW for a drunken rookie (no explicit alcohol)

“Pots and I are going to take it up the left,” Sirius said, never taking his eyes off his whiteboard as he drew out the lines of the play. iPads were generally the more conventional tool, but he had a thing for tradition and Sirius Black’s flair for the dramatic never ceased to amaze. “Knutty?”

Leo nodded and leaned forward, swiping a drop of sweat off his temple with a glance toward the game as Talker flew past. “I’ll be in for the rest of the period as soon as Coach calls it.”

“Bien.” He tapped Remus’ shoulder pad with the end of his pen and marked a path up the other side. “Loops, the puck is coming to you fast, so you need to keep eyes on us. Once you get it, turn on the jets and get it in. Good?”

“Good,” Remus confirmed, bumping fists with James. Leo watched them with no small amount of surprise—even though Remus had only been a player for six months, their line was rock-solid. James was the powerhouse while Remus flashed down the ice; Sirius counterbalanced them both in the middle. He was grateful he wasn’t the one to see them coming at him on plays.

“1, 6, 7, 12!” Coach barked. Leo clenched his teeth around his mouthguard and got ready to hop the boards. A swish of skates, a bump of Kasey’s shoulder, and it was game time.

-----------

“I love you,” Leo hiccupped, plopping himself down in Logan’s lap and tangling a hand in his dark curls. He went to kiss his cheek, then frowned. “Oh.”

“Hi,” Sirius laughed with a gentle pat his side. “Good night so far, Knutty?”

Leo made a face. “Where’s my Canadian?”

“I have no idea.”

His lip slid out even further into a pout. “He told me I could sit on his lap,” he whined plaintively, resting his head in the crook of Sirius’ shoulder with a heavy sigh. The bar was warm—a little too warm, actually—but it felt nice to be sitting on something soft rather than feeling the sticky floor under his sneakers. And there was one more reason he needed to find Logan, one other highly important thing… “An’ I gotta give him a kiss.”

“Do you want to go look for him?”

Leo made a noncommittal noise and swung his leg under the table absently, letting the alcohol in his system lift all his post-game tiredness away. His head hurt a little from being awake so long. “How ‘bout I stay here and wait?”

“I think it’s about time to get you home.”

Leo sighed again, picking at a string on the knee of his ripped jeans. “Am I squishing you?”

“Non.”

“Mmkay.” A bright square of light half blinded him and he squinted. “Who’re you texting?”

“Finn.”

“Why?”

“So that he can pick you up and get you home before you fall asleep on me,” Sirius said, quite amused for some reason. “Comfy, rookie?”

He shifted even closer into the warmth and closed his eyes. Usually he got horny when he drank, but that feeling had already passed and a nap was sounding awful nice. “I like it when you call me that. Hate when other people do it, but it’s different with you.”

Sirius gave his upper arm a light squeeze. “Glad to hear it.”

“Used to drive me nuts,” he snorted. “Those first couple’a weeks on the team were rough.”

“…why?”

“Cause I had a huge crush on you.”

Cozy silence fell between them until Sirius moved to look at him. Leo blinked sleepily. “You what?”

“Well, Kasey was my first crush, right? I had his jersey an’ his poster an’ he’s fucking hot, but you’re the captain.” Sirius was so nice to him. Not everyone would have let a 6’4” hockey player sit on their lap and wait for their boyfriends. At the moment, though, Sirius looked a bit like Leo had thrown ice water in his face. “And obviouslyFinn and Logan are my boys and I love them so much and they were sopretty when I met them but, y’know, it’s the thrill of the captain vibe.”

“Am I interrupting something?” a new voice asked through poorly-suppressed laughter.

Leo turned his head to look up with a smile. “Hey, Loops, how’re you?”

“Pretty good.” Remus shared a look with Sirius, grinning, before taking the seat next to them. “You two look…content.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Sirius said immediately, though Leo felt his chest hitch with a laugh; he tapped Leo lightly on the elbow a moment later. “Finn’s heading over, d’accord?”

“But I just got here,” he mumbled.

“You’re in my spot,” Remus teased, sliding a glass over. “Drink up, bud.”

Leo narrowed his eyes. “What is it?”

“Water.”

He thought for a second—he wasn’t thirsty, but his mouth was getting dry—and yawned, sitting up enough to stretch before grabbing it. In two gulps, it was gone. “Aw.”

Remus bit his lip and passed a different glass over. “You can have mine too, it’s okay.”

“How are both of you so nice?” he asked, looking between them in something like distress. The music was getting too loud, but they were both watching him intently. “It’s not even fair, man. Can’t you just be an asshole for once so the rest of us don’t look bad?”

Sirius shook his head and pressed the water cup into his hand. “Been there, done that. Do not recommend. Besides, the designated drivers don’t get to be mean.”

Leo felt a little better once the water was gone; he blinked slowly, scanning the crowds for any signs of Finn’s hair or Logan’s ass. Both were identifying features he would never get tired of. “Loops?”

“Yeah?”

“Why is your hair soft?”

“I—” He tilted his head to the side in confusion. “Have you ever touched my hair?”

He leaned back against Sirius, stretching his legs out until his knees popped. “No, but it looks soft. Like Finn’s, if Finn was blonder and had curls. Fluffy.”

“It’s very fluffy,” Sirius confirmed, pulling him up a little more.

“Hey!” Leo protested. “Watch the hands, your boyfriend is right there!”

Sirius rolled his eyes with a huff. “I was making sure you didn’t slide off the bench.”

“Sure,” Leo said with a suspicious glare. “Just ‘cause I won MVP for this game—”

“Okay,” Sirius groaned, standing and detangling his limbs to transfer Leo’s weight onto Remus. “I’m going to go get your boyfriends from wherever they got distracted, and then you’re going to go home and sleep so you’re not dying at practice tomorrow. Oui?”

He disappeared into the mass of people without giving Leo time to respond, wiping his hands on the thighs of his jeans as he craned his neck to see over people’s heads. “Rude,” Leo sulked, cuddling up into Remus’ side instead.

“I know, right?” He took a sip of something lemony and Leo pulled a face. “What?”

“Aren’t you DD?”

“Last I checked, DD’s are allowed to drink lemonade,” he laughed, patting the top of his head. “That was an awesome save in the third, by the way. You could’ve got the hat from that one alone.”

“Which one?” Leo yawned again, licking his lips to rid them of the stickiness he could feel forming.

“The splits one.”

“Mmm, yeah, that was pretty badass.” More people darkened his periphery and he scooted over to make room. “Hey, mes amours.”

“I hear you were bothering our dear captain?” Finn asked, kissing his cheek with a grin. There was no alcohol on his breath, only the mint from the peppermint candies he always stole from the little container by the bar. “Come on, baby, time to go.”

“But Loops and I were talking,” he whined, though it only took a small tug on Finn’s part to get him to snuggle up into his soft shirt. “He was telling me how good I did in the game.”

A warm hand stroked his hair out of his eyes; warmer lips brushed his forehead, and he felt Logan’s hand on his knee. “Bedtime, love,” he said in a quiet voice, almost too soft for Leo to hear over the noisy bar. “Wanna be in the middle?”

Leo looked up in hope. “Really?”

“Ouais. C’mon, Knutty, up you go.”

He wobbled a little as he stood, but got his feet under him within a few moments with the help of Finn’s arm around his waist and waved off everyone else’s offered help. “Gonna be fine for practice,” he promised, patting Sirius’ hand with a nod. “Totally fine, don’t worry. Go—hic—go grind on your boyfriend, ‘kay? You both need it.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Sirius muttered. “I pity your head in the morning.”

“I’m fine,” Leo scoffed. He was already sleepy—there was no way he would have a headache, not after he had two whole glasses of water. “G’night.”

“Drive safe,” Sirius and Remus chorused as Logan fit himself under Leo’s other arm to kiss his neck twice, sending butterflies through his stomach. The outside world was nice and quiet; Leo barely got himself buckled into his seat before dozing off with his head against the cool passenger window.

[jedi-enthusiast]

@hurryupmerlin ok, I’m literally moving into my dorm at the moment and I’m going to be busy for the rest of the week, so I don’t have time to go into just how…wrong you are.

But, I can briefly summarize my thoughts and then point you in the direction of someone who outlines this stuff way better than I do.

—————

Firstly, the Republic Commando books are notorious for being anti-Jedi and going against what we’re shown in canon, so I’m not too inclined to believe anything they say about the Jedi.

But even if we take what those books say into consideration, you’ve already said exactly what disproves your argument of defending Ahsoka!

You said that the Jedi all agree that it’s a fucked up thing to do, meanwhile Ahsoka——in the show——just makes a snarky remark to Huyang, meant to shut him up about standard protocol.

She’s clearly not remorseful, she doesn’t seem to be affected by torturing someone, and she doesn’t even seem to care that she did that——she just thinks it’s fine.

So I stand by my above point.

—————

As for the whole “the clones are slaves” and “the clones are child soldiers” argument, I’m going to direct you to two people.

This post by @david-talks-sw that addresses both of those arguments.

@antianakin’s many many posts that, again, addresses the “the clones were slaves” argument from other perspectives.

They address that bullshit far more eloquently than I do and, again, I don’t have the time right now.

Now kindly get the fuck off my page.

No because I genuinely need to come back to this-

“Let’s just say I didn’t follow ‘standard Jedi protocol.’”

WHAT THE FUCK DOES THIS MEAN?

In my mind this can only mean one of two things and neither of them are good.

—————

1. Ahsoka tortured Morgan to get answers.

Are we seriously supposed to be on her fucking side if she did that?

Is that what we’re supposed to do?

Because the show pretty clearly framed it as a “cool” “badass” thing- “look at Ahsoka, she’s so much better than all those other Jedi that follow rules——she’s Not Like Other Jedi™️” -but like am I seriously supposed to root for someone that fucking tortures people?

—————

Or 2. Ahsoka fucked with Morgan’s head like Maul did to Jesse in TCW

Which, again-

Are we seriously supposed to be on her fucking side if she did that?

Ahsoka saw how badly that fucked Jesse up and she just…went and did it to someone else?

No remorse? No hesitation? No- “I had to do it for the greater good/to save people, but it was emotionally hard for me” ?

Just a fucking snarky remark implying that she’s better than everyone else for doing this?

Are you fucking serious???

—————

Either way, I’m already against Ahsoka and whatever the fuck bullshit she’s trying to pull——she’s not acting at all like a good person, and she’s certainly not acting like a fucking Jedi.

I don’t care how many times the characters in this show call her a Jedi, she fucking isn’t one because a Jedi would never torture someone to get answers out of them.

She’s acting like Anakin, and given my opinions on him, I’m sure y’all can guess whether or not that’s a good thing.

Hint, hint: it’s not

[mod--soul]

~ Spoilers for The Book of Boba Fett Episode 3 ~

I want to take a look at the three most discussed “issues” with episode 3 of The Book of Boba Fett from a writer’s perspective. Because to me, as someone who has both worked with editors, sensitivity readers and near editor-level readers on my original stories and read other peoples original works as the latter, the writing does not seem lazy or bad, as a lot of people suggest.

Quite the contrary: It makes sure that BOBF is not just a simple repeat of the Murder-Hobo RPG-plotline of The Mandalorian and instead shows actual consequences of such actions. Plus the continued and stacked failings and vulnerabilities of a character that stood on such a high pedestal for so long is something rarely used in modern media and is therefore utterly fascinating to me. (In addtion to all the insights into species that so far were mostly known for being "bad". )

But let's take a look at what went down this episode.

Boba’s injuries

Let’s start with the easiest one. People have been complaining that Boba did not show signs of his injuries after the fight with the Wookiee.

Well, first of all: Krrsantan ripped him from a filled Bacta tank actively flodding the floor with its content.

This in turn means two things:

Boba was drenched in Bacta-water

Every time he fell onto the floor he got a new dosage of it.

With the interference of the Mods/Cyborgs that could have been enough time to rudimentally heal the most of that awful crunch. At least to an extent that he can pretend that he is not as injured as he really is. Which is technically underlined by the fact that Boba is still in the robe hours later instead of wearing the armor and unwilling to eat. (A lot of pain usally puts eating at quite a low priority ...)

What should be questioned instead is: How the heck did they get the Gamorrean in the human-sized tank?!

(I’m also pretty sure the Wookiee is going to be an ally later on in the season, paying back the kindness offered to him.)

The Mods/Cyborgs

The major complain about this is the fact that they look shiny, new and colorful. Yet, we don’t know if

they are from Mos Vespa

the modifications are aesthetically or aids

All we know is what the weaselly water vendor told us about them - and the one comment about the eye being expensive. So it may as well be that they have only recently moved to Mos Espa after buying and installing their gear. In the new environment they then found no employment causing their funds to dry out making them unable to have access to basic necessities. And of course they would have to keep their gear clean, as otherwise it would stop functioning, which is not good considering they are used as body part replacements. Though, I really hope that it will be revealed that the modifications are aids and not just aesthetics as that would add significantly to the representation they have already featured on both shows (plus SW in general). Even if it’d again be a case of “fixing” a disability with technological means.

(If anyone is interested in more information about the topic of Science Fiction trying to “fix” disabled people, you may want to check out the Podcast “Our Opinios Are Correct” where they talk about it with deafblind author and activist Elsa Sjunneson)

Considering that Boba knows about such modifications - having installed them in Fennec - it’s pretty clear why he gave them a chance, apart from the treatment they received.

As for the colors: You do realize that Mandalorians communicate their views on life through the colors of their armor? Which could make for quite a colorful group of people.

Anyway, now for the most important one:

The Tuskens

I think we can all agree that the subtext of using indigenous-coded people for this is questionable at best, because it is too close to things that happen(ed) in real life. Something that writers should strive to refrain from reusing over and over again and instead focus on new narratives (which was well done in the previous episode). Yet, at the same time it is sometimes easier (and recommended) to tell real world problems through a fictional lens to make people understand how awful and wrong a “thing” is/was. With Morrisons apparent involvement it stands to reason that he and Rodriguez may have deliberately chosen this to show how wrong the treatment of indigenous people (still) is.

Because the thing is: Even if Boba had been picked up by, say, the people of Mos Pelgo, as long as they incorporated the train-plot the exact same thing would have happened.

Well, let’s take a look at the plot so far:

The Pyke train drives through Tusken territory, killing anyone they see on sight - with the Tusken trying to defend themselves.

Boba conjures up a plan to stop the train, which succeeds. Through that, they not just kill most of the Pykes, but also destroy the train and the spice, while ordering them to pay a toll to the tribes for trespassing/safe passage. (Basically causing major financial loss for the Pykes)

Boba then tries to negotiate the treaty and is informed that the Pykes have already hired security details (despite Boba’s insistence that the deal would be made with the Tuskens). Namely the Nikto-gang Boba beat up and stole the bikes from that then were used to destroy the train.

In that moment Boba decides and announces to get rid of the competition. Only to realize that they beat him to it. Most likely having heard the exact same words regarding the "double payment” before Boba even made it to Mos Eisley, giving them a headstart and the Pykes an opportunity for revenge.

To me that is a valid (if old) narrative. And additional fuel - and thus connecting memories and present time story arc - to the Pykes trying to take over the Syndicate and showing how they treat their “problems” by playing all sides involved, expecting the parties that stand in their way to eliminate each other instead of them having to dirty their hands. Something they, from what it looks like, also did with the Hutts and Boba by sending the assassins by using the mayor. This could even mean that the memories are a warning/prophecy that remind Boba of what the Pykes are capable of.

In short: Whoever had saved Boba would have died, because of the actions he took to repay their kindness.

It’s not a new plot, quite old actually, but it is definitely not lazy as a lot of pieces need to be laid out for this to work. Namely the involvement of the third party that was teasered but only now revealed to not just be a random view into the life on Tatooine. It’ll still be interesting to see this unfold, especially as Boba promised ten-fold repercussions (technically only for deaths dealt by the passing freighters, but that would be nitpicking a perfectly fine threat) ...

And yes, I too hope that some of the Tuskens survived/managed to flee/were taking as prisoners ...