#i havent even done a lore post abt him yet i got an ask but the lore

[vigilskeep]

brief pause there while i thought abt parsifal and alistair and mortifyingly got so emotional i had to get up and walk around.

[rogueshipagogo]

ppl have been asking me my opinions on space channel 5 vr... and i guess since i bought a vr headset off craigslist just so i could play it and speedrun it before work the day it came out... i should talk abt it now... i dont rly think i’ll be able to separate it into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things i think i’m just going to do a rambly stream of consciousness bc i have a headache... but i DO have good things to say abt this game... so st.... sta stay t tune  d

right off the bat, the thing i appreciate most abt this game- i like that space channel 5 vr doesnt have cash grab vibes. i Do genuinely believe that they Wanted to make this game For the people who are still obsessed with it, and that they ultimately did what they set out to do when they intended to scale certain aspects of the series up conceptually to match the way the fandom perceives it nowadays. but like i’ve said before... i’m not going to Disagree with the very common conclusion that it Needed to be longer, or at Least more intricate plot-wise. one of my fun and fresh excuses for sc5vr being as short as it is is because you arent really supposed to be playing vr games for too long anyways, its really disorienting and kinda painful, but even that doesn’t account for why so much of the game that we got is a rehash of old settings, concepts, songs, and characters. [i dont even have a problem with reusing old songs, i just think the ones they chose ended up being misleading]

for example i think it makes sense that the first report is a remake of the first games first report on the surface, it’s meant to take you back to the way the first game felt and give you an idea of what it means that the games classic scenery can be rendered in actual high quality detail now [same with the recurrence of events like encountering the space pirates in the asteroid belt/the last battle against a villain being singing to it about what it’s done wrong], but i really thought, like, report 1 was going to end up being a simulated scenario for the benefit of lou and kee’s training... which i dont think ended up being the case??? i think they really did write ‘ok here you are in the first game’s setting again, fighting the old enemies again, because... :^) ok have fun playing report 2!’

and then whats report 2... you fight another old boss from the first game... but theres Still no clear villain or motivation for anything thats happening... and there wont be until like... basically the end of the game...

like, glitter is a really cute character, but its kind of underwhelming that shes just a random citizen who was kidnapped by an entity that we NEVER LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT... like part 1 was extremely notable for being about corporate greed and corruption, part 2 honestly wasnt that political in comparison but at least made you do a think wrt purge’s motivation and his methods, and this game just has a plot device that feels like it’ll do smth but then ends up not doing anything beyond what we already learned about it from the information on its character bio before the game was out. if it turns out that cell x is actually relevant again in a future entry in the franchise and they do have a more developed concept for what cell x Is in mind, i’ll do an entire backflip, but for now its just chalked up to being the result of More Space Hijinks that dont need to be explained

ESPECIALLY WITH ALL OF THE ALLUSIONS TO CELL X BEING AN ENTITY THAT FEEDS OFF OF DANCE ENERGY... it had me thinking that there would have to be some New Method of fighting it off that didn’t just lend it more power in the process, but nah apparently just tacking on the disclaimer ‘*this dance energy is not for glitter’ is enough to turn it from smth it can consume for power into big attacks you can use to kill it... like honestly it sounds like im asking for a lot from a game that has Never made too much sense, but considering that in part 2 they could add details like ‘oh didnt you know purge can open pocket dimensions? ulala is capable of manifesting tangible dance energy and the only other person who can do that is purge???’, its not like they havent come up with weird new shit for dance energy to do within the plot before. they just didnt do it in this game fsr

like did anyone else think that cell x/glitter was going to be the result of tossing purge out into deep space and him encountering the sc5 universe’s equivalent of an eldritch alien creature, smth more bestial than morolians?? even if purge wasnt part of it, when you say ‘uh oh, this guy Eats this society’s only source of energy!!!’ i expect the stakes to get HIGH, and i want the ramifications of it to be kinda STARTLING, because blank wanted money and purge wanted to ritualistically end the world but something this near to an ecological disaster that would force an entire paradigm shift hasn’t occurred yet in the series?? its totally new!!! there’s a lot they could do with this but OH DONT WORRY ABOUT IT EVERYONE ulala knows how to make dance energy kill cell x instead of feed it she’s got this we’re good no need to investigate more into all that

i can’t explain why the game is like this. and i dont expect grounding to address it in any meaningful way either. i’m sure they’re Aware of these complaints by now- the game reviewing community has Not been kind to sc5vr specifically due to all of these shortcomings [i didnt even touch on the issues with motion sensing and how many of the games mechanics were removed in favor of smth presumably easier to program yet much less satisfying, like Secret Moves just being mini quicktime events and Turning Your Ratings Into Stars just being replaced with the standard Three Strikes You’re Out method of scoring], but the pr team still seems very enthusiastic abt the game and is still promising dlc and potentially even more games in the series after this one- heres hoping that they’ll at least take these grievances to heart and consider making the experience not only more accessible [aka it will... go back to being a rhythm game with controller input.... and not... an exclusive vr experience...], but also as immersive and detailed as the old games, with less reused plot beats. i can let some of it off the hook in this game simply because i’m aware that it began its life as a tech demo that was only supposed to be that initial first report from the first game But Happening All Around You!, but i Really dont think they could get away with doing this little to expand upon the groundwork set by the first two games again. not with the way people remember part 2 being such a vast upgrade from part 1... the bar had been set so high that this just felt like a huge backslide into something even sillier and harder to take seriously than part 1 before we had any idea what kind of staying power the franchise would have as a hallmark of sega’s quirky antics. like... this game is what i think space channel 5 looks like to people who don’t understand the appeal of the first two games. and that scares me

but i guess for the most part, aside from wishing they had done more to revitalize the setting and the lore of the sc5 universe itself, im kind of glad it didnt do a lot to change the existing storylines the characters have kinda forged for themselves- here i was stressing out that they would pull out some plot development that would utterly and drastically change the way we talked abt the series for the rest of time, but so little happened and so little was added to the bank of sc5 lore that we can kind of all just carry on as usual and keep having the same headcanons we always had.

BUT!!! there ARE a lot of cute little details here and there that make the experience feel wholesome and like i said not an utter cashgrab- like so many of the character profiles referencing previous games [all of the references to npcs in this game being relatives of the npcs of the last games made me lose it] and how often ulala changes her expressions up and looks right at you and talks to you. the new music they wrote for the game also all slaps and everyones redesigns [if they got a redesign... rip pudding] are stunning

one of the most important things they did in this game was give a nice sort of Update to every character.... for example explaining that ulala isn’t a rookie reporter any more like she was in the first 2 games, that she’s moved up to being in charge of training new channel 5 reporters, and that while pudding is still somewhat stuck on her rivalry with ulala her career isn’t stagnant either, she was just cast in a romcom series as the lead... which is really nice considering how in the past she was portrayed as somewhat of a loser with almost no remaining fans left from her idol years

and you knew i was going to bring up jaguar at some point HES ALL OVER THIS GAME AND IT LITERALLY MADE ME FEEL LIKE MY LIFE WAS WORTH POWERING THROUGH THESE LAST FEW YEARS AND ALSO LIKE IM A GENIUS FOR SPENDING SO LONG POSTING EVERY SINGLE DAY ‘NO REALLY, HE’S THE SECONDARY PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY, ITS ABOUT CHANNEL 5 AS A COMPANY AND THEIR IMPACT ON EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER ENCOUNTERED THEM AND THAT INCLUDES JAGUAR AS WELL AS ULALA HES INTEGRAL TO THE PLOT BC SHE WOULDNT BE ALIVE IF IT WEREN’T FOR HIM’ i feel like it’s really incredible how in this game he has genuinely nice energy and doesnt withhold praise from ulala just to be helpful in a mysterious way later and he like HAS FRIENDS now. like consider how he went from disgraced former ch5 employee who got mad every time he saw them, to kidnapped robot henchman kinda humbled by the fact that now the turns tabled and ulala had to rescue Him, and now 3 years later his bio is all about how he has a new tv show thats super popular and he has a new entourage of ladies who he considers his '’’’’’comrades’’’’’’’ within the station he founded??? AND AFTER 20 YEARS THEY WERE FINALLY ABLE TO GIVE HIS MODEL JUICY ASS CHEEKS??????????????? NO MORE PANCAKE BOOTY???? THE BOY HAD A GLOWUP AND NO I WONT STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

WHEN I SAY MEOW MATCH THE POSE MOTHERFUCKERS THIS BLONDE BASTARD GETS TO BE IN CHARGE OF THE HUNDRED STAGE BATTLE NOW TOO THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE SPACE PIRATES BAYBEE

[aquaquadrant]

omg, I didn't know you watched Star Wars Rebels!! That's awesome! I loved the Clone Wars series, so I was instantly hooked on Rebels when it came out! It was so cool seeing old and new characters (Nera, Rex and Ahsoka made me cry), and more exploration of the whole SW mythos. What did you like most about Rebels? Have you seen the Clone Wars series?

OHHHHHH MAN, my friend, you have opened up quite the can of worms. heads up yall, this is gonna be a LONG POST bc i havent yelled abt rebels in ages.

i think i started watching when the first season was about half-over? and if im remembering correctly i caught up on rebels, and then binged the clone wars (and cried at every clone death) while keeping up with new rebels eps, so i got to catch all the little references i’d missed before. so yeah, rebels was really the first star wars media i got into. i mean, im pretty sure i sat through at least one of the original movies when i was a kid at my parent’s insistence (prob my aunt, tbh) but it didnt rlly click. im big into cartoons tho, and when i kept seeing it on my dash i was like, oh what the hell.

CAN I JUST SAY…. rebels far exceeded my expectations. is it a perfect series? no. could they have done things better? absolutely. but the bottom line is, it was a TV Y-7 cartoon, and they absolutely did not have to go that hard. but they did, and im so thankful.

i’d have to say, one of the things i love about rebels was their beautiful portrayal of the found family trope (which is my favorite). especially from ezra’s pov as the newcomer; we got to see this jaded street rat open up to the idea of being a part of a family again, one that was already established. and then we got to see everyone grow even closer, those bonds getting deeper and stronger.

another thing i adore is the portrayal of an unconventional jedi in kanan, and eventually in ezra. kanan is nothing like the clone war era jedi, and it was so cool to see the show explore that, and depict it as not a bad thing. i honestly believe he embodies the original jedi values better than most jedi we’ve seen in canon, and gasp, he has attachments!!!! and doesnt fall to the darkside!!!!!!

i felt rebels was a great successor to the clone wars. do i wish they’d done a bit more with ahsoka? sure, bc i will stan ahsoka till the day i die. but what they did was fantastic and every ep she was in was a treat. rex too, even tho i was constantly stressed he was gonna die lmao.

genuinely, i think rebels is one of the best things to happen to star wars lore. they explained how lightsabers work and how non-force users can wield them, they went into mandelorian history and clan politics and the dark saber, and maul’s involvement with it, (maul’s involvement in general), the relationship between clones and jedi following order 66, and even the construction of the death star and the genocide on geonosis… 

and even the new elements, like the lasat people were just really well done. even if they were completely out there!! like giant wolves that fast-travel across planets!! and space whales that can jump to hyperspeed!!! a magical time traveling portal!!!!! dave filoni is a wild son of a gun but damn if he isnt a fantastic showrunner, no matter how crazy an idea might seem it just fits perfectly into the show.

and the villains. oh my god, the villains. the grand inquisitor (who decapitates two imperials just off screen). the seventh sister and the fifth brother. maul (giving him a fulfilling character arc after filoni resurrected him for tcw). and thrawn. holy shit i could make a whole other post abt thrawn, but i’ll refrain.

and darth-fucking-vader, who they did complete justice to and was iconic every rare moment he was on screen.

all in all, i thought rebels was a really satisfying show, and even if they could’ve ended it better (a few characters got the short end of the character development stick in my opinion, but that’ll happen with a large cast…) i would absolutely recommend it to anyone who hasnt seen it yet. sabine’s arc in season three is particularly compelling, and it was rlly nice to see a young woc get such complexity and development in star wars.

so yeah! i was big into rebels, i actually wrote some fic for it thats still on my A03 account. and i think the show will always have a special place in my heart (ezra is like, my original boy. my sweet son.) thanks for the ask, srry for writing an essay, @ all my followers feel free to yell at me abt rebels anytime!!!