#one of the biggest issues we have is the plot pacing???

[blue-likethebird]

Reusing the memory system from botw for the tears of the dragon storyline in totk was such a terrible decision on so many different levels that it’s honestly kind of impressive.

While the botw memory system had flaws of its own, there was one small but significant thing that worked in its favour: botw’s memories were largely separate from the main plot in the past, and have absolutely no bearing on the story being told in the present. Aside from a few specific instances (ie the calamity striking, the ceremony, Link and Zelda becoming closer) the memories are all self-contained moments that emphasize character development over driving the story. Because there’s no major narrative throughline between them, it gives players more freedom to discover in any order regardless of how much they’ve progressed through the main quest without running the risk of stumbling across a memory that ruins something else later on in the game.

(This got long so the rest of my analysis is going under the cut.)

The biggest change between the memories from botw and the dragon’s tears from totk is definitely what kind of information these cutscenes relay to you as the player. Botw’s memories are primarily snapshots of small interpersonal moments that hold very little significance to the greater narrative taking place in the past. Totk’s memories are the greater narrative. With only one major exception -that I’ll touch on in a sec-, every cutscene in the dragon’s tears shows a crucial moment of story development with no time left to explore the characters driving that story forwards. There’s no organic moment revealing, say, a quirk of Rauru’s that Mineru finds annoying, or Sonia’s sense of humour, or any of our literal Main Villain Ganondorf’s motivations for going to war with Hyrule. If there’s any moments of character focus they only happen in ways that advance the plot (meaning the only real character focus is on the characters totk wants the entire universe to orbit around, namely Rauru and Zelda), and as such it’s harder to bring myself to care about what happens to anyone.

To illustrate the point I’m trying to make here, compare the memories of the champions Link regains during the divine beast quests to the conversations with the ancient sages at the end of each temple. The memories make passing mentions of the ongoing preparations for the calamity, but the real purpose of those scenes is to showcase who the champions were as people before their deaths and give us a reason to mourn them, even though we know at the start of our journey that they’re all long gone. In contrast, the conversations with the ancient sages are all about the events of the imprisoning war and their promise to Zelda that their descendants will come to Link’s aid in the future, very obviously copy pasted for each of the five times that cutscene is brought up (which is a particularly egregious moment of bad quest design but that’s a rant for another time) in such a way that none of the 5 incarnations of that cutscene reveal anything new about the ancient sages as characters, to the point where none of them even show their faces. I care about Daruk because the game shows me that he cares deeply about the wellbeing of his fellow champions and brings out the best in others. So why should I care about the nameless, faceless sage of water? What’s there to move me about their struggles if my only interactions with the sages are a series of exposition dumps? If the game can’t give me a reason to sincerely care about its main characters, the whole rest of the story is meaningless.

(As an aside, I get the feeling someone on the dev team caught on to the issue I’m describing here, because the tea party memory sticks out like a sore thumb from the rest of the dragon tear cutscenes. It’s such a jarring change of pace to have the otherwise plot-heavy dragon’s tears come screeching to a halt for a scene where Sonia sits down with Zelda to have a cute little tea party and talk about absolutely nothing of significance that the whole thing almost seems like it was hastily tacked on to the story later. Given that the next (chronological) memory sees Sonia fall victim to an unceremonious death by chiropractor, it feels like someone realized that Sonia really doesn’t do or say much in the scenes before she dies and threw together the tea party scene so players would have at least one moment to look back on fondly when she’s fridged. But I digress)

The story told in the dragon’s tears is a highly linear one. But the open-ended nature of botw’s memory system remains, meaning that these tears can be found and viewed in any order. At first this doesn’t seem so bad, since the first two tears you’re likely to find if you follow the game’s intended path are also the chronological first and second of the memories you can discover through these geoglyph tears. But after those first two, the game kinda gives up on guiding you towards these tears in a way that flows well with the story they wrote: the closest tear geographically to the two the game initially guides you towards correlates to one of the penultimate scenes of that entire storyline, while the next scene chronologically is found almost halfway across the map. As such, it’s all but guaranteed that you’ll spoil yourself in some way without using either a guide or the (somewhat unintuitive and never fully explained by the game) little map in the forgotten temple. Finding memories in order didn’t matter so much in botw because the scenes you could find still worked well as standalone scenes before you discovered every memory and pieced together the full picture, and the game is never trying to surprise me about the characters’ fates at the end of this storyline: hell the first memory you’re guided to shows the calamity striking. But in contrast, viewing a dragon’s tear at the wrong time can completely ruin the story they’re trying to tell in those cutscenes. During my playthrough, for example, the first tear I found after the game stopped guiding me to them showed Ganondorf removing Sonia’s stone from her dead body. At this point I had known Sonia existed for all of like an hour, so every subsequent appearance she made was ruined for me by the fact that I already knew she was nothing but cannon fodder to be killed off for the sake of another character’s pain (Rauru and Zelda a-fucking-gain). I expected to be pissed that it was so easy to spoil myself, or maybe sad in passing that a character with her potential was so underutilized, but instead I just felt… tired. I wasn’t even halfway to the first settlement and already I was completely numb to the story the game was trying to tell.

But the worst was yet to come. And oh boy was it ever a low point for storytelling in the Zelda series. Remember how I said up above that the memories in botw had no connection to the story in the present? Let’s just say the same cannot be said for the dragon’s tears.

It’s May 2023. I’ve just finished the sage of wind questline. I still have hope that the story the game is trying to tell will be good. Deciding that I’ll go to Goron city next, I head towards the Thyplo skyview tower to expand my map, catch a glimpse of a nearby geoglyph from the air, and glide over to check it out. This geoglyph shows me a memory that not only recaps the entire dragon tear storyline, but also ends on a bit of foreshadowing about Zelda’s fate that’s about as subtle as a brick to the fucking face. By exploring -the thing the game claims it prioritized above all else in the design of its world and quests- I’d once again been hit with spoilers for a major story detail.

My main objective in this game is to find Zelda. It’s the only driving factor behind my journey towards all these different regions. The current big mystery I’m supposed to solve is why Zelda’s causing so much hell for the people of Hyrule. I now knew exactly where she was and what the deal with her appearances in other parts of Hyrule was, and I’d found it completely by accident by doing something the game says over and over again that it wants me to do. Unlike with Sonia’s death, this time I was a mess of emotions. I was pissed the fuck off that this open-world game had punished me twice already for trying to explore. More than that, I was disappointed that a game I had been so excited to play, from a series I had so many fond memories of, had let me down like this. With every subsequent quest where the sages and I chased a Zelda I knew was fake to our next objective, and every NPC wondering where she was that I couldn’t tell the truth to, that disappointment grew. The entire rest of the main story was ruined for me before I had progressed past 1/4th of the regional quests and a third of the dragon’s tears. There was no more sense of anticipation or mystery. I finished the rest of the game with a bitter taste in my mouth and haven’t touched it again since.

Do I think this story could have been good? Honestly, I don’t know, and by now I don’t really care either (that’s a lie. I care so so much and that’s probably why I hate totk as much as I do). But it’s all irrelevant, because like Cinderella’s stepsister cutting off her own heel so she can cram her foot into a glass slipper that’s never going to fit, totk is sabotaged by the devs’ insistence that everything fit itself into a world they custom-made for botw. This isn’t a new formula that the series is following, it’s Nintendo slapping a new coat of paint on an existing skeleton, and I’m not optimistic to see what this particular approach has in store for the Zelda series. Especially not at the price they’re charging for it.

[deeply-unserious-fellow]

I've been seeing a lot of people talk about how Hazel is a boring protagonist(or I guess more like... people complaining about how other people are saying that? Idk I'm not on Twitter), and at first I kind of agreed with those takes because all I had seen were random clips. BUT, now that I've watched the show, I disagree. I don't think Hazel is a boring character, at least not conceptually. I think the issue is that the majority of her RELATIONSHIPS are really boring.

Hazel on her own has a lot of potential. She's caring, she's funny, she has a tendancy to overthink, her design is really good, she has realistic problems most people can relate to... she's just all around a really well built character. The problem is that almost none of the characters she interacts with consistently have any depth, and that causes her relationships with them to fall flat, which causes HER to fall flat because at the end of the day, a character is only as strong as their relationships with other characters. We're TOLD what her relationships with others are like, we're TOLD what the other characters' personality traits are, but we're never SHOWN those things. I think the episode where they deal with Jasmine's fears is probably the biggest offender. Jasmine herself acts as more of a plot device then anything else, with her fears being used as a stepping stone to teach HAZEL a lesson, rather then allowing the episode to focus on Jasmine overcoming those fears. The scene where Jasmine actually FACES those fears ends up being just thrown in at the end as a way to solve the conflict, which tbh wasn't that engaging in the first place because Hazel had no personal attatchment to any of Jasmine's fears... that's just kind of a bad episode overall tbh it's where all of the shows flaws are the most prominent but I DIGRESS-

Another really good example of the poor relationship building is her relationship with her brother, Antony, who we literally don't even get to SEE until well into the second half of the season. I haven't actually gotten to that episode yet, so I can't really judge Antony as a character, but I CAN judge how they've been setting him up so far! Which hasn't been very good! Instead of SHOWING US Hazel's relationship with him through flashbacks or something, the writers just have Hazel TELL US how she feels about her brother and things they used to do together. It just doesn't have the same impact as actually seeing their relationship play out would, y'know? They've been telling us about Hazel's relationships with other characters instead of showing us those relationships, and it's been hurting Hazel as a character.

The only relationships she has that we actually get to watch her BUILD are her relationship with Cosmo & Wanda and her relationship with Dev, which, while the ladder is genuinely really well done and interesting(aside from a couple pacing issues but honestly the show is chock full of those so whatever), the former ALSO falls really flat because Cosmo & Wanda aren't really... characters. They're iconic, sure, and they're really funny, but they're also mostly just plot devices. They're here to grant Hazel's wishes(aka cause the plot of the episode) and be funny. That's it. Which is fine, those kinds of characters obviously have their place, but when they're the only ones your main character consistently interacts with? That causes some problems. It's like if, in the movie Aladdin, instead of focusing mostly on the relationship between Aladdin and Jasmine, they focused entirely on his relationship with the Genie. The Genie is mostly just here to move the plot along and say funny things, so having him be the character Aladdin interacts with the MOST kind of breaks the movie. Having a story where almost all the interactions are between the main character and the comic relief just doesn't work.

Honestly I think the issues with Hazel's relationships are probably why people are more drawn to Dev as a character then they are to Hazel, because while Hazel almost exclusively interacts with characters who could be replaced by cardboard cutouts and nobody would tell the difference, Dev doesn't. Dev's relationships are a lot more engaging because all of the characters he interacts with are SIGNIFICANTLY more fleshed out then the ones Hazel interacts with. His relationship with Hazel is engaging because it's an emotional rollercoaster for both of them. His relationship with Peri is interesting because Peri is much newer to being a fairy godparent then Cosmo & Wanda are, meaning he's more likely to make mistakes. His relationship with his dad is interesting because it's literally the main motivation for his character, and we actually get to SEE WHY THEIR RELATIONSHIP IS THE WAY IT IS. His relationship with Irep is more interesting because Irep is a weird little shit who's mostly just using Dev to take over fairyworld, and he also has an interesting dynamic with Peri! Dev's relationships are all WAY better executed then Hazel's, and honestly I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that Dev is an antagonist who mostly interacts with other antagonists. He's at the center of almost every single ongoing conflict in the show, which is often times what makes a character and their relationships interesting: conflict. I also think he benefits from getting expanded on LATER in the show, since by that point all of the writers would've had a much better feel for all of the characters, making it easier for them to actually show what his relationships are like instead of outright telling us skgnvkdmfkekfndn

Now, was the point of all this to say that I think Dev would be a better protagonist then Hazel? No. Absolutely not no- he has a more interesting, better executed story then Hazel does so far, sure, but he just. Wouldn't be able to carry an episodic show like FOP on his own I'm sorry- we've seen the kind of wishes he makes, they're not particularly interesting. Because he's a rich kid who can do basically whatever he wants. Plus, his conflict with Peri just isn't really built to be stretched out over an entire season, which it would HAVE to be if Dev was the protagonist of a Fairly Oddparents, because the entire premise of the show is "this kid gets a Fairy Godparent, what kind of wacky hijinks will they get up to now?" Plus there's the fact that the narrative has been treating his parental neglect with a lot more gravity then Timmy's ever was, meaning if the show was from his perspective they'd have to tone down the things that make him interesting to keep the show from getting outright miserable- Dev is not a good character to make carry that kind of show. Dev should not be the main character. HOWEVER! Do I think the show would be more interesting if we got more episodes featuring him and Hazel hanging out together? Yes absolutely. They bounce off of eachother incredibly well, and once Peri is introduced we also get to see Peri's relationship with his parents and how THEY interact, and it's just. So much more interesting then seeing just Hazel and CosWan. Or Hazel's cardboard cutout friends. Honestly I'd go as far as to say he should've been Hazel's dueteragonist instead of just a recurring character, kinda like a(hopefully) better executed Chloe. It'd give Hazel a more interesting character to bounce off of then Cosmo & Wanda. Either that or I think Peri should've been Hazel's fairy godparent instead of Cosmo & Wanda, because he has more room to grow and develope as a character then they do, making his potential dynamic with Hazel a lot more interesting. Idk just in general I think having Hazel interact almost exclusively with Cosmo & Wanda was a mistake-

Also should be noted; I am saying this as someone who has never seen the original Fairly Oddparents. I don't know if the original show had these issues aswell or not, everything I know about the original comes from random YouTube videos I watched out of curiousity/boredom. Either way if the original DID have issues with Timmy's relationships being really boring then uh. That's not an excuse for A New Wish to do the same, I guess. Idk where I'm going with this... also sorry if this essay is incoherent! I have a lot of thoughts about how Hazel's relationships are really poorly executed and I just needed to get them out skfnvdkdjfndn- if you want me to elaborate on anything feel free to leave a comment or send me an ask :)

[guiltycorp]

Damn i really want to know tf happened in the writing room of arcane s2. Some of the downgrades were inevitable due to the show's corporate limitations (not being able to progress the class war story in a meaningful way, having to tie things back to league of legends in terms of making playable characters more appealing to well, play... rip Mel and Viktor in particular), sure. But i still feel like it's even worse than that? There are so many bad decisions that i couldn't even start listing them all... the characters, plot, pacing, themes, it's just such a mess? Even the dialogue writing, it feels much more mm Marvel at its worst i suppose. What i am most bothered by is probably just the straight up harmful messaging so um... Cycles of violence and abuse can be broken by individual decisions to become a better person! Got nothing to do with systemic oppression, living conditions, mental health issues, you can just conveniently ignore aaall the social context, live laugh love and then things get better automatically yep, oppressors famously stop oppressing you when you show them that you're harmless and won't put up a fight anymore. Literally three out of three suicidal characters dying to redeem themselves? Not even in a tragic/cathartic way but in a bittersweet 'they finally atoned for their mistakes' way? Groundbreaking lmao. Romantic relationship between Vi and Caitlyn including no communication about their biggest fight, just conveniently skipping to sex and getting back together - would have loved that if it was framed as the unhealthy fucked up thing that it is, skipping over Vi's hurt and her background to once again become a cop, her girlfriend's direct underling at that (!) due to her not having any other support systems... But nope that was our cute lesbian romance wrapped up, a good thing all around, not concerning at all. Jayce telling Viktor that what he 'always admired about him' was his disability and his deadly disease (??? from a character who spent the whole s1 and first act of s2 desperately trying to help Viktor find a cure? sure) and that those imperfections don't need fixing, just wtf truly. Magic bullshit was also weird, some implications of 'natural magic is ok, but achieving that power through other means corrupts you into a crazy robot bitch or just wilts your trees i guess', but tbh it was written in such a weird and inconsistent way that we can skip this one... Yeah actually a lot of things were just such a mess that I feel silly pointing to specific moments or lines I didn't like, I mean duh, it barely makes sense as a story at all... I am happy we have s1 which comparatively was a masterpiece, and i also really enjoyed s2 act1, i truly believed it would lead somewhere good at the time, my mind still kind of cuts off the story at that point when i think about it, that WAS the open ending of the show to me (is it possible that there were rewrites? targeting act 2 and 3? idk, wishful thinking perhaps). Despite my extremely negative feelings about this season's conclusion i remain glad that so many people appreciate the show regardless, it is clear that there was STILL a lot of love in the process of its creation (although i'd argue that even some of the visual aspects of the show suffered in quality, once again i have to wonder about behind the scenes mood of it all) and i get very upset when i see creatives online despairing over reception of their projects even when i'm absolutely in the disgruntled crowd hahaha... ...however yeah, this wasn't great In a world that increasingly grows more and more right-wing politically... we really needed something different i think.

[roz-ani]

I think that rushing the plot is Hazbin's biggest flaw so far. Certainly, one we can already see. We've only got 4 episodes, and so much has happened already. It might just be my personal interest in the overlords etc., but I kinda feel like we're not focusing that much on, we'll, the show's title. The Hotel.

Episode 3 shows it pretty well, because what can you tell me about Carmilla? I mean, what you knew about her character that wasn't presented in the episode. Same with Vaggie. I thought this episode's plot was about her learning how to trust people other than Charlie. That's how we started, then she had a rushed identity crisis related to being useful in her girlfriend's plan, and somehow she came to the conclusion she should start working on her trust issues. Only one thing was hinted at in the pilot. Vaggie and Carmilla shared a song in episode 3, and I can say with all confidence that it was unnecessary. Telling a character's story through a song doesn't mean they progress faster. Not in the way this show intends to. They did manage to do that with Angel in the next episode. I suppose they could've given the song to Vaggie and postponed the Carmilla reveal. After all, why should we focus so much on her while having so many Hotel residents?

When it comes to Alastor, for example, I believe it's much easier to enjoy his character because we don't really know what his deal is. We have yet to find out why he was gone, we can watch out for his rivalry with Vox and how he's gonna use the information about the exterminator's death. I don't know if it's the pressure, but it seems like we're expected to already know everything about the characters and just enjoy whatever the creators promised they'd do with them. And this is only the first season. There's a reason why these are used for establishing certain aspects of the created world and let the characters develop later. Like, I sincerely hope we're not done with Angel Dust's story arc because the 4th episode basically told us what his problem is and made him change his mind about his situation.

The show certainly suffers due to its format - 8 episodes and roughly 20 minutes per one. It seems like it's not enough for what they've planned, or, perhaps, the other way around. We have half of the season left, and it doesn't seem like the show will have time to improve on its pacing. We can only have hopes for a better-planned season 2.

[briefhottubcoffee]

Hey so I love spyxfamily, yet I have some issues with the pacing lately. I miss The Forgers like crazy and I am desperate for more Yor content. I suppose that’s what I’m most worried about, she’s not getting fleshed out enough and being used to her full potential. She’s such an amazing character!

That said, I do have complete faith in Endos storytelling capabilities. He’s created a truly amazing story with compelling characters (side characters included) awesome world building, and both light and dark themes. I think, in pointing out the slow pacing and lack of the Forgers recently, we’ve forgotten all the awesome directions the story can take with all the different plot points Endo has set up at this juncture of the story.

I feel like, based on the narrative, the story is about to reach a big climax, a change in the status quo for the Forgers. Exciting things have happened, but nothing has truly changed the status quo, or the relationship dynamics between the main characters. Since we have reached 100 chapters, and the way the narrative is propelling upward, I think we are due for a big shift. Not the biggest, but a change for sure. Just remember all that’s been set up! Here are a few things I’m fairly confident is gonna happen soon to the Forger’s in the story:

Manga spoilers obviously!

- Twilight is going to continue to try to distance himself from the family, because of the Wheeler stuff, but he will be challenged on that and face a work vs family thing. This is a big theme of the series obviously, and it will take a lot to break down his walls. But it will happen.

- Twilight will learn something about Anya’s past. Most likely related to her knowledge of classical language. Perhaps her history with other families or where she is from. I doubt he’ll learn about her mind reading, that would be huge, but I’m honestly kinda hopeful he does because I don’t want Anya to have to hide anymore. Whatever he learns will affect him and hopefully bring him and his daughter closer in the end.

- This means we will finally get the Anya backstory Endo’s been hinting at for a while! Again, I expect this to lead up to a sweet family moment that brings them closer.

- A new Yor arc. We are truly due for one and I don’t think Endo is ignoring her purposefully. It just may take a while to set up because it will be a big climax of the story. Perhaps Garden lore. A big assassination that affects her character or the plot.

- Yor will get closer with Melinda and maybe find out what the heck is going on concerning her relationship with the other Desmond’s.

- As this happens I think Garden will come into play. I don’t think they like the Desmond pro war agenda. Yor may report her findings from Melinda to them or something. This would be a continuation into that one panel of the Shopkeeper when Yor brought up that Loid was interested in their politics. They will start questioning Yor’s husband as well.

- Damian will confirm Anya can read minds, but will keep her secret. Maybe Becky finds out as well. Dimitri will come into play somehow. I would love to see Damian stop bullying Anya so severely and truly start treating her like a friend, while still struggling with his crush.

- Some Authen’s chapters with some information on their backstory. Are they related to Anya’s mind reading stuff?

- We were recently introduced to Chloe! Yuri’s co-worker and potential romantic interest. I think we will see more of Yuri x Chloe. This will hopefully help him in his crazy obsession with Yor lol.

- Yuri maaay become more suspicious Loid is Twilight (a reach I think). He may also start to like Loid more! (an even bigger reach lol).

- BUT I do think Endo is setting up a funny chapter where Yuri has to stay over and Loid and Yor will have to share a bed! That’s been hinted at several times!

- I also think we are leading up to a big moment between Twilight and Yor. Some type of physical affection. (I’d love a hug, but I’ll take some erotic hand holding once they’re forced to share a bed or something) It’s not a reach, the setup is there for a shift in their physical relationship. This will obviously change things between them. Again, Twilight will be confronted with his feelings after the Wheeler arc and struggle with his feelings for Yor.

- Yor is definitely going to realize she is in love with Loid.

- Finally, after the Wheeler arc, Handler gave Fiona some important patient files for Twilight. I think this will lead to a big break for Strix. He may also meet Melinda as Loid Forger in this capacity.

So yeah, based on basic narrative storytelling, we are due for a climax and change in status quo in sxf! I’m excited to see which way the story goes, there are so many different directions. I’m confident some of these points will happen sooner rather than later. Of course Endo could throw us for a huge loop. But he has setup all of these points and it’s bad storytelling to leave them open ended with no closure or shift in the story.

We have to remember Endo is setting up a truly big story! We should be excited about that. I think it’s fine to criticize the slow pacing (and lack of Yor) but I can only hope it is just building to something big!

[gold-rhine]

Inazuma Rewrite part one

This is bullet points rewrite for Inazuma general plot structure, bc I think it had so much potential, but was horrifically scuffed in game. If I keep something from canon unchanged, I’ll just say so without retelling the entire thing to keep the length down, bc it’s gonna be A LOT already.

Some disclaimers: I’m not trying to fix every single problem, just what I see as major structural failures. I will reference my problems, but you can read my explanations on them more in depth in my “inazuma ranting” tag.

This is also not envisioned as free for all fanfic where I can write whatever I want, but aimed to be actually feasible to see in game, bc it’d be unfair and I want to show that Inazuma could be improved in the same constraints that hoyo writers had. So please don’t ask why I didn’t do wildly inconsistent thing that would be cool, but genshin would never actually do.

I’m aiming to retain all relevant lore and achieve basically same worldstate in the end, including character arcs, for the most part, because I presume them to be integral to the larger strategic plotline of the game. Which means I can’t drastically change characterization and major plot beats like the decrees, rebellion, Raiden has to be a sympathetic ally in the end, etc. I’m also trying to keep genshin’s general tone and modus operandi, bc like, target audience includes 13 yolds and I can’t just “make Inazuma good” by turning it into like, a gruesome and complex power struggle of political factions like Fallout New Vegas.

List of main issues I want to address: pacing in general, rebellion pacing especially, lack of impact and continuity of effects of vision loss on people, lack of setup for the stasis vs transience aka ei vs makoto conflict, character arcs: raiden, ayaka, kazuha, kokomi, yoimiya, kujou sara. And more! 

Initially I wanted to make a single post, but it’s already 3k and I’m only up to Raiden’s first duel and I plan to cover post-archon quest content too, like Raiden and Yoi story quests, so I decided to split it up instead of posting like 20k monstrosity. So remember, this is for now mostly a setup.

EDIT: Part 2

Raiden’s motivations\Reasons for vision hunt

Ok, so one of the biggest principal changes is that vision hunt and sakoku decree are active Raiden’s decisions, instead of Fatui’s plot that she’s just passively allowing to happen. Raiden closed the country, but she’s ok with Fatui starting a civil war and selling delusions, bc it doesn’t “affect eternity”, like??? I honestly think that the current plot of her people dying in a civil war meant nothing to her is much worse than her starting vision hunt decree out of misguided plan to ultimately do better for people.

I mean ok, we have to have closed borders to reference Japan’s history, sure, but like, the whole point of isolationist policies like this is to prevent the outsiders’ influence on the country. So she should not be ok with Fatui schemes at any point.  

I mean, if it was fallout new vegas AU, I’d keep it to show that dictator doesn’t not care about foreign powers exploiting it’s people as long as it profits the empire and helps to keep people subjugated, but like. Then raiden can’t be uwu waifu. So we gonna give her good intentions and integrity, but misunderstanding of humanity due to closing herself off instead.

Now to why would she close the country and institute sakoku decree. I want to tie this in with another plotline that is just. Kinda floating at sidelines at the moment, but I think could work nicely in tandem. The Scaramouche destroying Raiden Gokaden, the five schools of weapon smithing, which were canonically highly valued by Raiden.

I’m not gonna recount Scara’s entire plotline, but basically he went on a misguided crusade against Raiden Gokaden and managed to cause fall of 4 out of 5 weapon-smith schools.

Game says that he like, tampered with the schools and covertly led to their ruin, which like?? They never found anyone guilty, like the most prized weapon art smiths of your country fall apart and you’re like oh well, I guess Yashiro commission is just bad at it’s job?

There is a plot point in this story where Isshin weapon smiths, unable to replicate a faulty design that was Raiden’s commission tampered by Scara, were scared of Raiden’s wrath and decided to flee to Snezhnaya. I want to change it to be that there is an event, where ALL weapon schools receive same commission at the same time, and Scara tampers with it.

Just as in canon, scared smiths, but now from 4 schools, not one, are manipulated by Fatui to flee to Snezhnaya, But we add a new NPC, the most talented blade smith who had a vision. Fatui frame him as the ring leader, as if they were running not to save their lives because of the tampered design, impossible to fulfil, but that this was a betrayal because of his ambitions.

After this, Raiden has legitimate cause to feel like her eternity is threatened. She sees weapon art schools, one of the most prized country’s traditions being ruined in a moment because of what she thinks is ambitious hubris of one vision holder, who colluded with outsiders. So she closes Inazuma and declares a vision hunt, to prevent this from ever happening again.

But ironically, in truth it was the fault of not just Fatui, but specifically a puppet without a vision that she herself created and failed to supervise. This brings the main idea of the plotline from “Fatui evil, Raiden passive” to “Solipsist goddess who doesn���t understand humanity tries to protect her people by locking them in stasis and taking their ambitions, but the real case of tragedy was her negligence and lack of empathy all along, and this is what needs to be changed.”

Interlude and plot setup

We start with similar plotline. Traveler tries to go to Inazuma, learns that it’s closed, talks to Inazuman NPC to learn more. Here we’re introduced to the general idea that Inazuma was closed off due to one traitor blade smith with a vision who sold off Raiden Gokaden to Fatui.

We go to Beidou’s tournament, which goes basically the same, we meet Kazuha and watch a beautiful cutscene about his dead friend who challenged Raiden to a duel, and now Kazuha tries to find someone who can reignite his vision. I will actually add changes to Kazuha’s storyline, but it be will later.

then we arrive to Inazuma, go through the same bureaucracy loops with Thoma on Ritou, to show the barriers to outsiders and also to illustrate how Thoma is the best fixer when he manages to drop a fee from 1 mil to like 10 gold by promising to have a dinner with government official.

But we’re cutting the second part of Ritou, with the boring plot about like merchant from Mond scamming people with the local police and then Traveler delivering love letter or whatever. I mean, we can keep this as an optional side quest, if like hoyo thinks the lore about love letter is essential for the Ayato’s quest or smth, but not as an Archon quest.

Instead, we put a part of Yoimiya’s quest there. I think Yoi’s quest is relevant enough to stay in the Archon quest, unlike Ayaka’s, but it’s slapped into a place where it ruins pacing. So instead, we’re cutting it up in parts and inserting it into main storyline.

On Ritou, while doing bureaucracy bullshit, we meet Yoimiya, and play the part of her quest about her helping a guy with a vision to escape from his former best friend, who is now a guard hunting him. It helps to show the rift that vision hunt brings not only with the outsiders, but with inside of the country as well.

Ghost of Makoto\Transience setup

another key point that I think is integral to fixing Inazuma is planting seeds for Makoto’s reveal from the start. I really like the Stasis vs Transience conflict from raiden’s second story quest, where raiden believed in eternity as lack of change, a perfect state maintained until the rest of time, while her twin Makoto believed in eternity as never-ending change, where people’s dreams constantly evolve, nature of them chasing these dreams never changes.

but it feels like it came out of nowhere and raiden just speedruns character development in like an hour, so a lot of people ended up feeling like it was just about Raiden mourning her sister, instead of raiden coming to understand makoto’s belief system and through that unlocking makoto’s final connection and then being able to let go.

so we need to first of all, introduce makoto’s ideas of transience from the start, and also empathize the conflict of them with raiden’s stasis.

and it doesn’t mean we’ll spoil the reveal about the second raiden shogun! we don’t have to ever use makoto’s name, just her title as a raiden and sprinkle her ideas throughout the land. We know hoyo area designers can do that stuff really well (guizhong’s relics being scattered all over liyue, rukkhadevata’s shadow in the aranara quest).

like, it’s strange that Makoto primarily ruled and shaped country by herself while Ei was just a warrior, yet we do not have Makoto’s influence visible. We need to add ideas of transience into fundamentals of Inazuma,

“Transience is the dream of the nation of thunder. We find the greatest joys in mortal life in fleeting dreams, for is life itself not like the shadow of the thunder? Pursue your dreams into the clouds if you wish, and enjoy the unexpected silence of the dim lamp-lit nights.” - Guide to Transience talent book.

add these ideas all over the place, esp near sakura. And let’s draw player’s attention a couple of times specifically to the internal contradiction of these ideas of transience being integral to inazuma and raiden’s current hatred of change.

like, we need even 13 yolds and twitch streamers to remember this, so lets make paimon say like

“Huh, this shrine to raiden shogun says that eternity is the pursuit of fleeting dreams, but doesn’t raiden shogun fucking hates dreams?? I wonder, what made her change her mind about them to the total opposite!“

this and more subtle puzzles\locations with focus on transience for people who pay more attention will add the much needed setup for makoto’s reveal

Kamisato siblings

ok, first things first, Ayato being absent without any explanation while his little sister is plotting treason and his malewife Thoma is about to be executed on the streets is unacceptable.

like I know it’s marketing or whatever and he’s not being released but we need his model, hoyo. If we 200% CAN’T have his model, we need to come up with solid excuse why he’s not here. Like idk, he’s helping the war refugees or smth

And we need hints at his presence\influence throughout the story. Like oh, here’s group of refugees who were helped by Yashiro commissioner, they are relocating to new homes, I guess Ayato is really busy. Oh, here is Fatui’s camp where everyone is slaughtered and boba tea cups are littered around, I wonder what is up with that.

and also, Ayaka is organizing resistance behind his back, and we never meet him bc Ayaka actively tries to hide traveler from him.

bc like, Ayaka doesn’t have a development arc in archon quest. She’s just kind of there, being perfect. Like in her story quest that hoyo makes you do at gun point, you like, go on a date, learn that she’s lonely and has trouble connecting with people due to the pressure of having to project an image of perfection and societal distance, do an investigation to uncover her late mother’s fox fursona roleplay diary which she used to cope her with own societal pressure. Which like. Ok, sure, but but this wet socks quest is not an archon quest material. It should be just a normal story quest.

no, Ayaka’s real conflict is wanting to prove herself to her brother, bring real difference to the world. This is her ambition, she literally gained her vision while fighting Ayato in a training, she wanted to show him that she’s strong enough to handle responsibility, he named her Shirasagi Himegimi after she won that fight

but during a civil war, watching people suffer, her role as a cultural figurehead is not enough. She wants to help, but she’s afraid to act, because this will undermine Yashiro Commission and her brother worked so hard to build it back up after Raiden Gokaden fall. so she organizes resistance behind her brother’s back in secret, to help, but without compromising Kamisato name

this basically tracks with what happens in game, but we spell it out and expand on this later.

Getting Traveler to help

next, let’s throw out the weird edging introduction where traveler is not allowed to see Ayaka the first time. like??? bro, we’re friends with 2 archons and heads of their governments, you’re not that important. and it can’t be to protect her identity, bc like. You go to Kamisato estate! You’re told who she is! If you wanted to betray her, that would be enough already.

another awkward thing is that Traveler, who agrees to do every stupid quest they meet, suddenly refuses to help the resistance.

I think we should reframe their convo a little, like Traveler says hey I’d love to help, but my primary goal is to get info about my sibling from an Archon, so I don’t want to go against her.

To which Ayaka says oh, I totally get you, you see, I am myself a culture figurehead and a nominal princess and I can’t speak up against the decree, bc that will hurt Yashiro Commission. But I’m not asking you to fight Raiden Shogun in a duel or smth, I’m just asking you to help people with the resistance, which we do totally in secret. No one will know! Also, how are you going to see Raiden? She’s locked up and doesn’t appear in public. But my big brother is a head of the Commission, if anyone can get you an audience, it’s him. So help me help people and I will ask him to help you see Shogun!

she secretly believes that after traveler sees ppl suffering, they will change their mind and help willingly, same as in canon, but she’s more subtle about it

Rebellion connection

my other problem with vision hunt is that the 3 quests they force you to do about meeting people who lost their visions are like. not good. The concept is interesting, but they are just kinda boring and meandering. They lack dramatic impact. They could do better. So we’re not doing these 3 quests rn, but don’t worry about it, we will get to the effects of vision loss

Instead, ayaka sends us to help Yoimiya and we do the same quest we do in archon quest - help her to free someone from prison dungeon. It goes the same, we get to the dude being mistreated by cops, Kujou Sara steps up and lets us go

But then it’s like, we need to get this dude out of Inazuma city. Cops know he escaped! They will just come for him again! There is only one place that will take him and it’s the watatsumi rebels.

Common complaint about Inazuma is that other countries feel like found families and Inazuma doesn’t, bc characters from resistance and rebellion basically don’t interact, and it’s true. And like, we can get them together! Thoma knows Kazuha, Kazuha knows Gorou, Gorou in canon went to recoinsanse missions to Narukami island.

So, Gorou visits the tea house to pick up the Vision Dude, and the gang has the hotpot meet up. Everyone is there (except Kokomi bc ok hoyo, we’re saving up for dramatic battle reveal, and i think her reveal would fuck up banner schedule). Ayaka, Thoma, Yoimiya, Kazuha, Gorou. and Teppei! Who is here bc he was recruited by Gorou. He’s actually from Narukami island, not Watatsumi, and he had nothing to do with visions, but he’s an idealist, he believes in freedom, so he joined rebellion. fun times are had, Ayaka tries to play srs bsns lady host, but breaks into giggling at The Shenanigans, Gorou is overly polite but adorable and apologizes to Ayaka about The Shenanigans in which everyone but him participates, Yoi is a life of party and the Shenanigans and later has to be bodily stopped by Kazuha from organizing fireworks right here, right now, Thoma and Teppei both get sick from eating Ayaka’s nasty cakes that she threw into soup, bc Thoma is just into oral stuff and Teppei is so earnest and eager to prove himself and impress ppl, haha comic relief, look how sweet and funny this guy is and all characters get along so great with him

bc like, I think Teppei has a problem of a) not having enough screen time b)not having any interesting characterization moments to make him stand out 3)not having other playable and already likeable characters interact with him

so this scene can serve not only to bring that “unlikely bunch of people becoming friends and working together” connection to life, but also to endear Teppei to the players

Vision Loss Effects\ Yoimiya and Thoma

ok, next Ayaka asks Traveler to do that one quest about martial arts master losing their vision. I think it’s the one quest from 3 about vision loss with most drama, but the real reason is that it introduces Yae Miko and we need to do this before leaving for the rebellion. Like, in theory, it could be switched to another, better quest that lets us meet Yae Miko, but honestly, this is not one of Inazuma archon quest problems so I can’t be arsed. Feel free to imagine a cooler intro instead.

when we go back to tea house, we learn that Yoimya’s vision has been taken away. She has been recognized in that last prison raid and the guards came for her later, and she didn’t fight bc there were kids and her old father around.

She’s completely changed. Her innate optimism, her belief in people and their dreams has been drained from her like a sunshine from a dark cellar. But she’s still Yoimiya!! She came here to warn you bc she still cares even if she had her own joy taken from her. She tries to smile and reassure you that it’s ok, she’s fine, but her smile is visibly strained, she’s never had to fake it before so she doesn’t know how. She wears a vision, but it’s a fake one, because her pops said that maybe having it here would help and she agreed, tried to pretend for him that it does help, bu. It very obviously doesn’t.

Ayaka is horrified. She apologizes to Yoimiya, tries to think of ways to help her, but Yoi just laughs humorlessly. “It won’t ever touch you, princess.”

She’s immediately disgusted at herself and apologizes, tries to take it back, this isn’t her, she would never say this, and not to her friend! But also, it’s so hard to care now and she can’t remember why it’s so important to care at all.

Ayaka is shaken. Bc it’s true! She is a privileged noble, vision hunt will not come for her! She is playing at the resistance from the safety of anonymity, while people like Yoimiya actually risk themselves and pay the price!

And this is when the news that Thoma was arrested and about to be 100th vision taken at the feet of the statue comes. Tenryou commission truly strikes back.

Ayaka is in uproar. She’s ready to go herself and fight for Thoma, especially after Yoi’s words. She’s sick and tired of being a perfect princess, she can’t allow any more of her friends, her family come to harm because they don’t have her protection. Clearly Thoma being a theatrical execution is a blow specifically against Yashiro commission and Kamisato family in particular, and if Shogun has beef with her, well, she can settle it with HER instead of going after her friends!

Traveler stops her. This is what they want. If Ayaka openly moves against the Shogun, the entire Yashiro commission falls. Even if Ayaka is in the right! No, it’s the Traveler who will go to save Thoma

But traveler needs raiden’s good will for the info, they can’t confront raiden openly, it was the deal from the start!

But at this point traveler has seen too much, the divide in the country, the change and suffering of their own friends, and they can’t allow all of Yashiro commission take the fall.

This is when the Traveler decides to take a stand.

ACT 2

[eriexplosion]

Okay so something that comes up a lot in discussions of season 3 is that it's rushed or that they had a fourth season cut from production and... I do see where it comes from given how many things just Stop rather than end. But when you look at what does get resolved vs what doesn't, I just don't see it being an issue of having to cut things for time.

When writers find themselves with suddenly much less time to tell a story in, the first thing to go is the extras: the minor subplots, the story and character garnishes, the secondary character arcs. These kind of things get cut in order to focus on the main characters and resolving the primary plot.

TBB season 3 meanwhile INTRODUCES new subplots with the extended journey to get to Tantiss, the force kids, Rampart coming back and resolving his story. It finishes Emerie's subplot to the point that we get her telling us everything she plans to do from here. It takes the time to show us the Durands, the clone kids from season one, putting in Fennec and Ventress. These are the things that get cut when you're running short on time, they're not going to cut a Tech reveal, a resolution to Crosshair's guilt, wrapping up Echo and Rex's story, in favor of a bunch of tiny subplots. That just isn't how cutting things for time works. You start with the small stuff and then work up.

So it leaves us with two paths here, knowing what we did resolve versus what we didn't - 1. This was always the plan and they didn't consider what they produced to be dropping anything, or 2. The series is finished but the story isn't.

I think I've talked about it enough to be clear that I'm leaning heavily towards 2. The interesting thing about tbb season 3 is it's actually not rushed - if anything it's stalling. Getting to Tantiss was as simple as letting Omega's plan work, doing a Tech reveal is as simple as replacing saving the force kids with saving the CXs. Instead we get to drag getting to the facility an extra 3 episodes while Omega deals with this new plot point we only find out about at all in episode 10. We get a whole Fennec episode that serves only to introduce an also unnecessary Ventress episode. We have an entire episode of Crosshair and Omega on the run shenanigans.

So we have plenty of side stuff that works to support the characters but isn't strictly required for the primary plot, and we have a solid handful of main plots (Tech's death being full of holes big enough to sail through, what happens to Echo next, does Crosshair still feel guilty enough to be a death seeker, Wrecker's reaction to anything that happened, most of project necromancer) that go unfinished. In fact the only main series long plot to get resolved is Hunter and Omega's relationship.

That leisurely pace, along with several comments from Jennifer Corbett and Brad Rau about this being the end of a "chapter," is what makes me think that what ended was just Omega's POV being the primary one we experience the story from. The story of trying to find a place within the batch maybe - because regardless of anything else, she's found her place, Crosshair has at least started to find his. Echo is separate from the team but knows that they're always going to be accepted back and will always come when needed. Tech, if he's alive, still has his place on the team - its shown repeatedly that no one can do what he does, his spot is simply not fillable.

A story has resolved. But not ALL of the story. There's more that can be told, and I do think it's very likely they still have plans to tell it. Even if they don't, just going by how season 3 progressed, I think that it's very likely that the biggest change in season 3 was just squishing the original episodes 15 & 16 together into one long episode 15. I don't think that they had to make major last minute cuts for time, because the things that are missing are NOT the things that get cut when trying to cram in too much story. A cut season 4 is the one thing I don't think happened.

What did happen, that's harder to be sure of, but I'm still crossing my fingers for the rest of their story to be told with Rex and Echo's and the rest of the clones. There's a lot more possibility out there.

[mahou-furbies]

Closing thoughts on MahoNare

This ended up being a pretty uneven show, but I still have a lot of good will towards it. Also I never fully got over the fact that this was a lot lighter and comedic than I had hoped, though it's not really the anime's fault.

The story is about a girl who has always dreamed of becoming a magician, but she flunks the magic school entrance exams and lands in the non-magical track instead. However her eccentric teacher starts teaching the class magic anyway, though it's a different brand than what's otherwise used in the school.

I would say that pacing is the biggest issue. We spend quite a lot of time noodling around episodic adventures where the main cast encountered odd magical phenomena, and these events weren't that interesting in and of themselves, but I also felt that we could have gotten more interesting character stuff if we didn't need to spend time on the "let's deal with the mystery of the week" plots. And the story clearly has a lot more going on with its worldbuilding, but it feels we only got to see a sliver of it. And the transforming animals who have some kind of connection to the main character weren't even explained. The post-credits scene teases a sequel, but if we never get one, the dog boy with his mysterious lines is just annoying. And the grand finale had really weird pacing; first we ramp up to an "everyone is in big danger!" hype, but then the final episode just solves everything in the first few minutes and the rest is slice of life.

But anyway regardless of all that I did actually have a pretty good time with this thanks to the characters, the main cast has a nice feel good energy since everyone gets along pretty well. The rival girl should have stayed antagonistic for a while longer though if you ask me, but her turning into a friend was also rewarding. It's also commendable that even though the first episode introduced so many (too many) characters, they were distinct enough that keeping track of who is who wasn't that hard. I do wish this was a 2 cour show so that we could have spent more time with them!

I also really liked the setting, a straight up magic school with no genre aware winks to audience honestly feels refreshing in this day and age, plus I found the conflict between modern and ancient magic interesting (even if the resolution wasn't too satisfying). Finns were also served well with the pesäpallo mention.

The art style is absolutely amazing with the lovely character designs, glowing palettes and painterly textures. Though after a certain point the art style has to hard carry the visuals because the animation is very clearly struggling.

In the end I have to say that the story was kind of weak, but I would still be very happy to see a season 2.

[baudelairebizarre]

why the "A Series Of Unfortunate Events" movie didn't work

If you are a fan of the movie pease don’t take offence. In fact, I have a selection of compliments for it. on the other hand, if you don't like the movie, I hope you understand my few praises. in the end, I hope that fans or haters will take my points as they are, opinions.

spoilers ahead

Cast

Some of the biggest highlights is Meryl Streep and Billy Connolly. Connolly’s Monty was warm, filling me with hope for the short amount of time we saw him. Streep does amazing as usual, delivering each line with the perfect amount of fear and justification, even sounding as if she often gave kids too villains on the daily.

Jude law is fine, narrating the movie in the role of Lemony Snicket, just as he does in the books, he often appears to add suspense with his jammed typewriter. Never seeing his face, the mysterious atmosphere of unsolved questions is added to by a foggy figure. Mr. Poe, played by Timothy Spell, does a fine job. Only appearing at the beginning and end of each time they spend with their guardian, he does the best he can with the time he’s given.

As for the children, Emily browning is by far the best. However, Sunny steals the show. Her quick quips and funny jokes can bring a small light to the miserable tale. Klaus is good, no complaints or major compliments.

One of my major issues with the movie is Jim Carrey’s performance. Yes, count Olaf is extravagant, Carey takes it to a whole other level. The flamboyant performance adds a comical Layer to the character which isn’t needed. He makes an idiot out of a rather smart individual, not many people could get away with such a plot, and Carreys Olaf definitely couldn’t. In no way is he believable and would not be able to get away with such plot.

Olaf as a character is funny, his silly costumes, the accents, the ideas, even the people he surrounds himself with. He is meant to be played by someone who is enjoying themselves. For me, Jim Carey is not having fun, he just wants to seem like he is.

Costumes/sets

One thing about this movie I can praise is the sets. Each distinctive location is given a distinctive colour palette, letting certain colours pop against the overall gloom of the story. The buildings are all marvellously done, the warm yellow hues surrounding montgomerys home and outfits contrasts the cold tones of Josephines house. Count Olafs house is dark, dirty and I believe they could’ve gone further with it. It looks messy, but clean and organised messy. As if he meticulously placed each item to look chaotic.

The 40s/50s Americana sketches from the book are turned upside down for this gothic, victorian aesthetic they decided on. Not that I’m against this change, I just find it interesting. As the books never specified when they are set, they are up for interpretation. The dark glow of the costumes add to a miserable feeling of dread. One costume change I did not like was them not giving Klaus glasses. His whole schtick was the fact that he read so much he needed glasses. Not to mention that the fourth book revolves around him wearing glasses, further proving that they never intended to adapt any more of the story. Also violets hair was a whole choice.

Why it was never going to work

Shoving three movies into one would never give the satisfaction that the books or show does. Around half an hour per guardian, the bond is never formed deep enough to make the falling apart have such impact. Moving the wedding to the end caused a dragging pace with having to add a whole other scene where they almost get hit by a train. Making Olaf get punished pushes even further that a sequel was never in consideration, also showing absolute cluelessness to what makes the books so good. The fact that he never gets punished adds to it individuality and its charm. The movie makers clearly didn’t understand it and that’s what makes it so disappointing.

[3gremlins]

it's not in the game anywhere that i have found/remember but i think it's interesting that solas has a 2nd wolf form and the other evanuris don't (like they have the dragons but the dragons are separate beings they possess i believe? it does feel a little muddled in the "canon" now tbh-i feel like we got the cliff notes version in veilguard and i really wanted more time spent on it). I was thinking that maybe he found it easier to be in animal form versus the humanoid form (tho did humanoid forms exist before they took shape? like who else is running around thedas beside the titans at that time? please bioware i have questions. like where do humans and qunari and so on come from? are they all from elves or are they from elsewhere?*) and was eventually coaxed to take a more humanoid** form like the other evanuris (by mythal). like that's a general shapeshifter trope that i always enjoy, where animal forms are easier in ways because their complexities have different priorities to humanoid forms (but can also be too attractive b/c you get lost in it and lose your sense of self- discworld, animorphs, etc). Idk it was just a thought i was having about why solas would have a wolf form at all and why he'd get that moniker (because otherwise it doesn't make a ton of sense for people to call him mythal's lap dog in a rude way). I guess I just wanted a bit more lore with that and how he gets to be the dread wolf in the dalish stories like the bits we get in veilguard are so FAST and squished together lol. I also found his final wolf form kinda disappointing after all the years of the spooky, spectral one we had lol but that's okay.

I kinda liked the idea that the wolf form is the one he feels best in, and maybe retreats to when things get rough. Like his favorite, default form (of physical forms).

(i think it just dovetails to my biggest issue with veilguard's pacing/plotting in that i wanted a little more mystery/less information so fast- like i wanted to find it out myself, slowly over the narrative the way you do with a murder mystery. I wanted to be scared/unbalanced a little bit more and not have people right off the bat be like "oh yeah, the gods are just these guys you know" which would make the reveals have a little more narrative weight. Likewise with the solas stuff, I wanted a little more breathing room with each reveal on him and maybe a little more on him as a person, and less as him as an idea i guess? like a vignette of him being a person with those statues and not a "here's a memory, go fight a thing") *wacky human origin- the humans come from SPACE, they portaled through a worm hole and are actually all from the mass effect universe/timeline. they showed up on thedas all dragons of pern style! i mean it's not that wacky, we know the universes are connected b/c of the krogan in the winter palace and the ogre in me2 (i think that's the game it's in). **technically elven-oid? but you get it

[sonicasura]

Let's be honest with ourselves that Transformers Earthspark has its issues. It isn't uncommon for the series to have a few messy iterations throughout the years. However those at least have something going for them.

Bayverse is a junk pile yet there's a lot of material you can build off on and some pretty interesting concepts. RiD15 is an awful sequel to Prime but does decently well as a standalone although there are much needed changes to be had. Earthspark... Well, it's just there.

I can be lenient with the plot holes and poor pacing as Nickelodeon is notorious for interfering with any show that isn't SpongeBob to the point of cancellation. The issues truly land on the characters themselves. I'm gonna try to simplify it without devolving into a rant like the previous draft.

Edit: Gonna add some further edits as I wrote this in the middle of the night. Plus my simplified version skipped some key details.

Robby. Somehow they made a human character I actually dislike instead of be neutral about. In the official Transformers wiki, he's labeled as a big brother who cares for his siblings but his actions so far say otherwise. Robby literally ran away in the first episode because they moved then decided to try and hide the Terrans from his parents.

Yet he rarely gets enough consequences for his actions. I think we don't just need less Emberstone saves not just because of plot armor but force actual character growth on him. Like a life changing to one of his siblings as consequences for his actions and strained relationship until he gets his head outta his ass.

Edit: Yes, I know Robby is a teenager but that isn't a decent enough excuse for his behavior. Seen the trope about big brothers who do act closed off or at some points rude but they haven't done shit that put their family in serious danger. No, I didn't try to purposely forget the times he was injured badly.

There honestly needs to be less of those and his consequences be adjusted to it affects someone else badly. *

Next issue is lacking confrontation with Optimus choices alongside the obvious misplaced trust in the 13 Primes. Quintus Prime literally emotionally manipulated and scarred Mo through a fake bad ending reality because she doubted herself. No good person would do that, much less an actual ally. Even moreso on a child.

I seen this shit in Trollhunters but at least Jim, the main character, was a teenager. (It still was wrong though.) We also got remember that Liege Maximo and Megatronus/The Fallen are Primes. Yet somehow it is best to trust them.

Don't get me started with some of Optimus' choices when it comes to GHOST. He probably did it to protect his Autobots but what about the Decepticons who are locked away? Why are there so little of his companions with him especially since Bumblebee had fucking went into hiding before the show began.

There needs to be tension between Optimus with his Autobots. Someone is bound to snap and Bumblebee would have the biggest impact. The man clearly isn't okay as he's doing things that even Megatron admits ain't like him.

Mandroid needs to be written differently. He has the making of a sympathetic villain but oh boy. First off it is clear that his depiction is ableist aligned since the reason he doesn't like Cybertronians is because he lost his arm. Major thing to change right there.

Give him a narrative where his interest been genuine but slowly declines as the Autobot/Decepticon war increases the number of destroyed lives. Let him become a victim to this than just 'I lost my arm so death alongside experimentation to all Cybertronians'. Also don't make Mandroid ignore the obvious fact that the Transformers parts he puts into his body is slowly poisoning and instead come up with ways to fight the infection. Kinda like in Ironman 2 where Tony's arc reactor began to do the same thing.

Edit: Mandroid's negative views on Cybertronians are about the war and he's aware of the Energon poisoning. It is just that it is poorly portrayed to the point you rarely see it over his Arachnamechs/his ruined life.

Have the man present various evidence of destruction the war caused by both sides at the Malto children or anonymously spread such info around town to sew discontent with the townsfolk. 'These are the people who you consider heroes. Who you see as family and friends. Or should these tragedies be forgotten?'

Do a Baxter Stockman where you frequently see him try to fix the Energon poisoning than just simple dialogue. Even have testing on organic subjects to see how they react and find ways to counter it. Don't keep these key points as simple dialogue. *

I don't think Karen needs much changes either. 'But her taking over Cybertron doesn't make sense!' It actually does for one reason: hubris. Have you ever seen what happens when you give a control freak power? Their behavior becomes more erratic as they begin to think they deserve more. She is xenophobic in nature so imprisoning Decepticons and ordering around the Autobots is a drug to her.

Karen wants to treat them like slaves so the next step in her mind is Cybertron. Her death is well deserved and well played. Just like Icarus, the bitch flew too close to the sun.

I think the last major issue, other than out of character racist Shockwave, is the Terrans. No offense but they need a bit less screentime so the rest of the cast can shine. We barely see Alex and there's unclarified issues involving Bumblebee with Arcee if he's uncomfortable around her.

I also want their flaws to be at the forefront. Thrash is the only one who gotten such character development from his encounter with Swindle. We need more of that! Like Hashtag's overreliance on the Internet biting her back as she is forced to use real world skills.

Edit: I accidentally put in Terrans when I really meant Twitch. The screentime for everyone needs to be balanced mainly for the Malto family. Alex alongside the three younger Terrans rarely get involved or their characters further build upon. Twitch needs to get benched more.

Also the Dad Number 2 should really be addressed. Wheeljack was clearly uncomfortable when it been brought up. Plus it is way too fast to even consider such ideas unless you plan to have it addressed properly. Like 'Kid. We barely know each other yet somehow I became a father figure in an instant? It's best not to do that until you truly certain "Dad Number 2" doesn't mean harm or feels comfortable with it.' *

Earthspark clearly has potential but these problems need to be handled better. Addong the deleted scenes help add some clarification but canon needs to present it. We are supposed to get a second season so hopefully some of these are addressed.

[soundwave-starlight]

One thing that I need understood (not that anyone is necessarily misunderstanding, I just wanna bitch about something thats bothering me) is that when I complain about short episode count in a season, it is not the act of having few episodes that bothers me. The problem is that a lot of newer shows that have really short seasons do not have compatible plots.

Over The Garden Wall is a perfect show with a singular season consisting of 10 episodes because that's all that is needed to tell the story trying to be told. OTGW is a perfect example of a short story and its episode count can be short because the STORY is short. However a lot of shows clearly want/need MORE time to explore all of the elements that it is providing us.

The biggest flaw with Hazbin Hotel (in my opinion) is that the story trying to be told is smooshed down into 8 episode seasons, a story that in my opinion would benefit from more screentime to explore all of the things it has to offer. This longer form story is being pushed into a short story format and that is what I think causes the pacing issues and some of the telling instead of showing in some scenes.

The only con that I see in this immediate moment is that they'd have to revise their format of 2 songs per episode, which honestly I wouldn't mind. All of the songs in Hazbin are good, I just think the buildup for a select few of them is little to non existent and I think with more time to SHOW instead of having to TELL we would get a lot more out of it

This quickly turned into a critique of Hazbin... this wasn't supposed to be but I'm going to leave it because Hazbin is unfortunately one of the best examples I have of a story unable to explore all of its elements due to limited run time. I still love the show I just also happen to see the missed potential due to some flaws. I will be happy with what I get (like I'm not gonna ask them to redo season 1 that would be unreasonable) because I love the show and the story being told.

But Hazbin is not the only series that suffers for this. The Owl House's final season and the second half of season 2 also suffer from this due to time constrictions forcing the pacing to pick up and the quality to be impacted. I personally think season 3 did its best with the time it had, but I won't deny that the finale would have been infinitely better if they had time to actually make a proper finale.

I'm just tired of whoever's on top making shows with long stories short. Not everything can be OTGW or part 1 of JJBA. Some stories NEED more time to develop themselves.

I understand that some of this is in part due to attention spans getting shorter, but I don't think that tv shows should follow that path. You should be enticing a longer attention span, not contributing to the decline of it.

[beevean]

What if Netflixvania had a novelization? A small series of books that not only retell the show's events and add more details to the characters and lore, but also fix characterizations and motivations that didn't make much sense, give the underutilized more to do for development, add and remove characters, improve the pacing and plot cohesion, clean up some bits of immature dialogue and overly grim or gross content, overall salvaging everything promising in it that begged for better execution?

You know what? I think it would benefit from it. Actually, I think it would sorely need it.

One of the many issues of the show is that it has a terrible time management. Season 2 is the most obvious example for me, as, while dragging its feet when it comes to the actual progression (esp with the protagonists), it conveys the information it wants to convey in a bunch of flashbacks and infodumps that leave very little room for impact (Hector's, Isaac's and Carmilla's pasts, how Hector and Isaac came to know Dracula, Dracula being a murdering fuck before meeting Lisa, Alucard's description of what Dracula will do to the world, Leon's story and how Trevor got his name), while skipping over things that would help the story, such as, you know, the entirety of the Tepes family and how they loved each other before Lisa's death. I still can't believe that Alucard would rather tell the others how his parents met, something that he obviously wasn't around for and we viewers already know about, than a personal memory with his own mother. In her four scenes, it doesn't even look like Lisa was aware that she birthed a whole son. No wonder she was happy to ditch him in the finale :V

Or maybe the entirety of the Styrian council? Who turned them, how they came to meet Carmilla, where their different philosophies come from (I find laughable that Lenore's backstory is simply "I don't like war because I lived through war when I was 5", you are two centuries old, I'm sure other factors influenced you), how they used to feed before Carmilla's plan, how they rule the kingdom - in fact, how does Styria see this castle of vampire queens? I would like to see Styria as an actual place where actual people live! Or Dracula's own council! Whomst the fuck are Zufall, Sharma and Raman? Was Cho really nothing more than a mute arrogant ruler? Why even bother having so many designs when you do nothing with them!

Or the Japanese not-twins! How did they live in Japan? How did they suffer to the point of becoming that paranoid? How in the world did they come to think that sexually assaulting someone in his bed would be a good way of murdering him? You can absolutely foreshadow their betrayal more properly!

Or the Adventurer Lady! I hate this theory that she was deliberately presented to us as nothing more than a pretty face because St. Germain never saw her as a real person! Yeah, how convenient that the fridged lady is never shown to have a personality! You can show us that a guy is a sexist jerk without being a sexist jerk yourself! (and bro I would so cut his "God is going to have sex again" line, ughhhhhh who thought it was funny)

Or. You know. My beloathed six-week time skip in S4 that lead to Alucard getting over his attempted-murder-induced funk without a struggle, Isaac becoming Jesus and Hector becoming besties with his rapist owner. I sure would like to know what happened then. Or speaking of S4, maybe I would add more scenes in the Styrian plotline that wouldn't make the council look like the biggest fair-weather friends to Carmilla, or Lenore like a massive useless crybaby - even them trying to sort things out with Carmilla and getting violently rejected, I don't know, something to show that they care. Oh, how I would love to rewrite Hector's shitty ass "mastermind" plan that only exists to make Isaac's life even easier and to "show" that he "loves" his abuser. I'm sure it could make sense and serve his own character, in an alternative take.

I'm not asking much. Obviously, a more in-depth rewrite would go against the point of a novelization, so some parts I dislike would have to be kept, like Carmilla's whole existence derailing the nearly perfect plot of the CoD prequels lol. Characters might have to still act like cunts because that's the appeal of the writing, apparently. I am genuinely wondering what would be the best course of action when it comes to the sexual parts of S3: eliminating them would feel like "sanitizing" a product that is inherently edgy, and I don't want to be like the classic American "I can excuse eviscerating a child, but I draw the line at some petplay!", but i just. don't think they're well written lmao. I complain a lot about Lenore deciding to rape Hector out of spite and sadism because she could have gotten what she wanted by simply asking lol, but the worst example will always be the Japanese not-twins behaving irrationally and not coherently with what we see of them through the season. Rewritting those parts would require one hell of a compromise - for example, I could tolerate a tad more easily Hector getting molested if he showed more of a spine and had a more solid friction with Lenore, making it feel less like narrative bullying. But yeah, a complete rehaul of the dialogue, let alone plot points, would go against the point of a novelization, maybe, so let's focus on adding stuff, kinda like Prince Hans from Frozen got a whole book about his backstory (sorry for the random example lol)

Point is, without the limits of tot episodes per season, or having to churn out content in little time, there is definitely a lot that could be fleshed out to create a more cohesive world, story and characters. Some of the ideas are good! That's what drives me insane! Maybe we could get an actually good story that doesn't need to be fanfictioned! Hire me Powerhouse Animation Studio, I can fix it all, I promise!

[petitprincess1]

What critiques do you have of Hazbin? I'm wondering because I keep seeing a lot of criticism and hate towards it and I don't Wana get into something that's possible waste of time. Srry if thats rude

Dude, you're perfectly fine. I'm gonna keep it to like five points bc some things that I have problems with are mainly nitpicks. None of this, imo, is a dealbreaker for me. However, if it is for you, fair.

This is one that everyone has talked about and I fully agree with. The pacing is whiplash-inducing. I still do believe it's better than HB S1, but there is just so much information being thrown around that it's mind-boggling. The songs definitely help to slow things down a bit and introduce more info in an engaging, catchy way. However, I feel like there were some eps that either needed to come sooner or later in the series. I get they were fighting the clock, but still.

Lucifer and Charlie's relationship needed better explaining. Without going into spoilers, from what it felt like in the Pilot, it seemed like they were building up to something a bit more confrontational. I always figured Charlie possibly embellished Lucifer's words, but now it makes it feel like Charlie was talking to a completely different man. Someone that isn't even her father. Lu acts so much like Charlie, or vice versa, that it seems almost impossible to misinterpret his words.

NO FILLERS! The closest episode to a filler is the 3 ep, but even that brings up information and moves the plot along with key points. Now, that's not a bad thing entirely. It keeps you engaged. But this show very much lacks any breathing room. There's so much being thrown your way. Either things get overly talked about or not talked about enough. Which brings me to my next point-

The world-building is both fulfilling and empty. You do get a good sense of Heaven and Hell in this universe, especially Hell. You get an idea of the hierarchy and even some hypocrisy. However, we also don't really know how Heaven nor Hell operates. Like Lucifer appeared to be a shut-in. Yes, Lilith was the one inspiring demonkind, but what about when she disappeared? Is that why everything is garbage now? How much does Lucifer influence Hell? Where are the archangels? Was this conflict not important? Is there a "God" even in this show? What is Heaven's hierarchal system? There's so much being said, while also nothing being explained.

This one is the lowest for me bc I'm a bit torn on it. I've seen a few people complain about how the main characters are introduced as if you're supposed to know them. I didn't get this feeling, but I'm also a fan of Hazbin. I try to go in with a fairly "empty mind" so that I can view the material without rose-tinted glasses. However, it felt like some of the characters were given decent introductions at times. Idk. I'd like to know other's opinions on that.

Another one that I want to add is probably more diversity in the body sizes in the show. I'm not too worried about it bc Helluva Boss does a great job with body diversity, but Hazbin seems to be fairly stick and slender. But, again, I'm not too worried about it.

All in all, those are my biggest issues with the show. Like I said, none of these are dealbreakers, especially since we'll be getting a S2. Vivzie seems to listen to criticism, judging by the differences with HB S1 vs S2. So, I'm really hoping that we finally get to relax and actually get to know the characters more. Like, Adam shows the 7 Deadly Sins, while Charlie shows the 7 Virtues. I hope Adam isn't permanently dead bc I feel like this would be a good wake-up for him. He'll become the being that they were exterminating. But only time will tell.

Majority of this can be blamed on Prime and A24 for only giving them 8 episodes. I feel like either a longer run-time or more eps would've helped the show. Hopefully, they'll have learned from their mistakes in the next season.

[billveusay]

I watched Gundam Unicorn and...

...and we're back in the hot take zone, probably the hottest yet. Fine, yes, I didn't like Unicorn. I didn't hate it, but I still have a lot of issues with the whole Newtypes concept, at least when it's played straight (I have it on good authority that X does interesting subversions with it). And this is the "oops, all Newtypes" show.

I went into it knowing almost nothing about it, and what I knew wasn't encouraging. I saw gifs of the Unicorn going destroy mode in full CGI, which always makes me feel robbed of pretty 2D animation, and I knew there was an actual char clone named Full Frontal with a ridiculous hairdo and a collar that made him look stupid. However, by the end of the first episode, I was actually pretty invested. Large chunks of the plot were the same as always (young kid finds himself piloting a Gundam while his colony is getting attacked, etc) but the pacing and presentation were much better than F91, really did a favour to Unicorn by watching them back to back. And the first fight was entirely in gorgeous 2D and one of the best choreographed space combat scenes I've seen so far, dynamic but easy to follow.

However, most of my goodwill came from all of the mystery it was setting up. Oooh, what's the deal with this girl? Oooh, what's Laplace's Box? Oooh, political intrigue. Put the problem with catchy set-ups is that the pay-off must not be disappointing. And I was disappointed. In fact, captain something echoed my reaction pretty well.

There is so much wrong with this box.

So. If I got my UC history lessons correct, 60 years before Zeon Zum Deikun made his theory about Newtypes, and 80 years before they turned out to be a thing, every world leader not only agreed, with no basis, that maybe living in space will turn people into mutants, but also that it will probably be for the best if those eventual mutants are given ruling positions.

And... I'm absolutely not opposed to the idea of something impossible or highly implausible happening in sci-fi stories, that's what they're for. I don't mind you telling me that living in space makes some people psychic in your universe for some reason. But even though Newtypes are an integral part of the UC that we and the characters now take for granted, we have internalized that fact only because we were presented with concrete evidence of it in 0079 and all of the subsequent pieces of UC media. But it feels like the writer was so caught up in his grand and deep message about humanity that he didn't realize how much he took it for granted, and how weird this concept sounds when presented as purely hypothetical. And besides...

"Okay, I know that we, the ruling class, have sent you, the underprivileged, into space by force. And I'm really sorry about that. But to atone, I make you a promise: if you evolve into a new, space-adapted race, we will give you priority in government affairs"

"...can you stop oppressing us now instead?"

"Naaaah, you gotta prove that you're worth it. So chop chop, get evolving"

Moreover, the prime-minister decided to add that at the last minute, and every world leader was okay with it? And when they got hit by the terrorists and went "well now I'm not doing it", they managed to erase every trace of it besides the charter? In one of the biggest events in the history of mankind, and therefore one that was probably highly mediatized?

And finally, we're expected to believe that this thing had the potential to uproot the whole Federation and allowed the Vist Foundation to blackmail them for a century? Did they really think that the spacenoids would not only believe that this clause is real (how hard is it to fake a big slab?), but also be convinced to revolt by it?

"Oh my god! I could excuse the Federation oppressing us, but going back on a promise to give us rights if space turned us into mutants, and subsequently hiding it from us?! That I won't accept! To the streets!"

Even after the One Year War, where the existence of Newtypes is proven... well a spacenoid rebellion already happened. And then several more followed. So it's not like revealing the content of the box would have made much difference, people are already revolting against the Federation for much better reasons.

It's absurd on so many levels, I have trouble wrapping my head around it, and because it's the foundation of the entire plot it makes everything else fall apart. And with how pretentious the writing is ("It was a prayer... but also a curse..."), it had a long way to fall.

On that note, again, I have trouble with the points that Tomino and this show are trying to make. Partly because I have trouble understanding them since they're presented in such a messy knot of ideas and themes, partly because what I can understand, I find wonky. Some of it is just stuff that aged poorly, like the idea that colonizing space is the way to save earth from pollution. No better way to know that you're doing something wrong than having Musk give you the thumbs up. As for the other ideas, yeah, I guess that most of our problems come from not understanding each other. But when the proposed solution is "evolving into psychics so we can communicate without misconceptions"... it has to be allegorical since that will straight up not happen, but then what is it trying to actually say? I'm genuinely asking. Because like with Evangelion, there's always a small part of me telling me that maybe I just don't get it. And if I did it, maybe it would be a transcendental experience, you never know.

BUT. I'd still argue that there are better ways to convey your big important message than having whatever character is close to hand shout it out. Then shout it out again. And again and again and agai- I KNOW that people should understand each other. I KNOW that people's souls are weighed down by gravity. Take Disco Elysium. An incredibly intelligent game that deals with an abundance of psychological, political, philosophical and existential themes. At no point does it feel like the characters step aside to let the writer tell you directly all of his very intelligent thoughts. They always feel human, their opinions and motivations coming from their personal experiences and personality, and not the needs of the (gundam) narrative.

Plus, even admitting that the message is profound and meaningful, the Newtype concept still brings a bunch of issues with it. One thing I've already mentioned in a previous review is that the pilot skills just come down to having the good pilot gene. You can just shove Quess Paraya in a cockpit and she'll turn into a weapon of mass destruction. And since MSG, I can't think of a single time a fully-developped Newtype lost to an Oldtype (there's probably some, I've watched a lot of Gundam since then), so it's back to DBZ power levels deciding everything. And overall, it just gives too much power to the hand of the author. They can brush aside any challenge they introduce by having the protagonist yell for 10 minutes. 15 minutes if it's the climax. Then the FX department goes wild with the sparkles, emotional music plays, and everything is resolved. It's not just artificial, it's predictable. I don't feel suspense because I'm just waiting for the moment the VA finally gives himself laryngitis and they have no choice but to move on to the resolution. I know this is a me thing, it's omnipresent in anime so it has to appeal to most of its audience, this is just me explaining why I don't personally like it.

Phew. Okay, I'll admit that all of the above was not just about Unicorn but most of the Gundam stuff that I don't personally enjoy, it's just the show that I found most symptomatic of it, and so it was a good occasion to discuss it. But with all of that out of the way, what's left? Well, mostly stuff that we've seen before, because this show (or the novel it was adapted from) is, like so much of Gundam and especially UC Gundam, derivative as hell. I get that often it's the point, iterating on a similar formula to propose alternative takes. But you know how repeating a word a bunch of times makes it lose its meaning at some point? That's what this reminds me of. We've already seen a teenager finding himself piloting a Gundam developed by his father after his colony gets attacked. We've seen that teenager getting beaten up into a weapon by military officers. We've seen a mobile suit battle in a populated environment wreck havoc and destruction. We've seen the protagonist try to psychically reach out to a brainwashed girl. We've seen the psychic ghosts of every dead secondary character coming together in a climactic moment, etc... and at that point, we've seen all of that more than twice for most of them, so it just doesn't hit the same.

Moreover, while the repetition in some shows could be excused because say, they're from an alternative timeline that you can watch without having watched the rest of Gundam, here knowledge of everything from 0079 to CCA is required. I haven't watched ZZ yet (I skipped it because Zeta was a slog and I wanted to get to CCA and the pretty OVAs, but now it's actually one of the series I'm the most excited for) and even if I could follow the plot without too much trouble, there was a lot of stuff I noticed I was missing because of that. So the ideal viewer of Unicorn, who has all of the necessary knowledge, is guaranteed to have seen similar events play out multiple times.

As for the story and the character themselves, I found Banagher pretty bland as a protagonist. Yes, I'm saying that while Stardust Memory remains my favourite Gundam show, and I am STANDING by it. He doesn't differ much from the previous protagonists, and while there are differences in his backstory and trajectory, most notable being his tendency to get captured and recaptured by the other side at the beginning of each episode (that got a bit funny the fifth time it happened), in practice I struggled to find something that set him apart from his models.

Mineva is probably the most interesting character, and it was nice to see her again after Zeta, but her subplot of inheriting the leadership of a violent and extremist faction while being opposed to war fell into the muddled mess of philosophical concepts and politics by the end, so I mostly think of her as good potential, but not really paying it off.

And then there's Full Frontal. Fucking Full Frontal. No. I'm sorry. I can accept a Gundam with a moustache, I can't get over that hairdo and that collar. I can't watch any dialogue scene where he's involved without imagining the other characters refraining from chuckling. Shūichi Ikeda is doing some heavy lifting to keep him charismatic, but fortunately he's an incredible voice actor so it somewhat works. Hearing his voice echo through the comm systems of the Nahel Argama was very effectively chilling. But... remember when I talked about how I like my mecha stories at least partially grounded in reality? Yeah, so you can guess how I feel about him travelling to the heat death of the universe with his psychic powers, where a ghost tells him to stop being such a brat. This is why I have trouble enjoying even the good parts of Unicorn, because at the end they all devolve into something so over the top and disconnected from reality to the point of meaninglessness (again, this is how I experienced it, can't add "imo" to every sentence) that I can't stay invested.

Same goes for the fight scenes actually. As I mentioned, the first ones were incredible, but that was because they had some restraint, which allowed them to keep it readable. But because they need to up the stakes, they make the mobile suits progressively faster, they add more effects, more sparkles, more funnels, more explosions, more CGI, and by the end... well it becomes visual noise.

Sorry, tangent, back to the characters. Riddhe... I get the point of his character, but it felt poorly executed. He wants to preserve the statu quo because he fears chaos, ok. And he hates Newtypes because of that, but Newtypes represent change in the meta-symbolism, not in the diegesis of the story. It's like if Agent Smith hated Neo because he knew that he was a metaphor for transgenderism (among other things) and Smith was transphobic. Oh, and he also hates Gundams. Why? Gundams are just a brand of high-tier Mobile Suits that just happened to often be piloted by Newtypes. And... did he have a crush on Mineva? Is that why he got so butthurt? Because this becomes wrong on so many levels, least of which being, he went from hating her to helping her escape in- say it with me now -five minutes.

Who else... Marida and her adoptive dad were somewhat interesting, though I wish I knew her backstory from ZZ. Bright is Bright, true to form, a concrete traffic cone. I liked the moment where he chats with the picture of Amuro though. And we got to see my boy Kai Shidan! He doesn't do much, it's pure fanservice, but it's nice to see him well!

Before moving on to the visuals, little side note: man, Witch from Mercury took a lot from this one. The Gund format effect looks like the destroy mode, the main theme sounds similar, and the climax also ends with the Gundam using its weird glowy power to shield a space station from a giant laser. It's far from plagiarism, but it was fun DiCaprio pointing.

Okay then. Animation wise, all of the 2D stuff is gorgeous but as I've said, I don't like the CGI on the mobile suits. I hasten to add that I have nothing against 3D animation in general, I'm in 3D animation school, but cell-shaded 3D mechs don't trigger my dopamine receptors like hand-drawn ones do. The beautiful perspective, the details, the silhouettes, each frame a dynamic pose thought out to have maximum impact. You don't get that with CG, and it always kind of breaks my feeling of a coherent diegesis. But at least it's not on every shots, and the 2D ones are beautiful. As for the mech design... for the non-gundam ones, it threads the line between great and overdesigned. The Kshatriya is just under it, the Sinanju is just over it.

But the Unicorn and the Banshee I really don't like, at least in destroy mode. The red glowy highlights should be drawing the eyes of the viewer toward the important details, but here they just cover every part of the frame indiscriminately, so nothing stands out and it becomes visual noise that doesn't feel dynamic or purposeful. I think the gundams of WfM do it much better. And that's before the Full Armor version where we kiss goodbye to any sense of identifiable dynamic silhouette.

Okay. I feel like there's still a lot I want to talk about, but I'd never see the end of it, so I'm punching out here. One final "just my opinion" for the road and let's move on.

Next is 00, and even though it's flawed on many many levels, I'll have a lot more nice things to say about it. See you there!

My gundam reviews :

> Hathaway's Spark > Mobile Suit Gundam > Gundam Zeta > 0083: Stardust Memory > 0080: War in the Pocket > 8th MS Team > The Witch from Mercury > Gundam Thunderbolt > The Origin > Turn A Gundam > F91 > Gundam Unicorn > Gundam 00 > MS IGLOO > Gundam Narrative > Iron-Blooded Orphans

[diadoesart]

Is there any plot point from any expansion that you'd write differently. Not necessarily in some "ugh I can't believe the writing here was so SHIT" way, but just like. Did you ever have a plot beat at any point that made you go "huh, I wouldn't have done it that way"

There's honestly quite a few story beats/mechanic? elements? because I feel like as much as I love XIV, the game really suffers from pacing issues, which might be expected from a 10yo mmo tbh?

To name a few: -Azim Steppe did not need to be that long, it has some really cool worldbuilding but I think it dragged on for too long.

-Remove the trolley problem in Shadowbringers. Elongated fetch quest is not fun, Blease.

-Remove the requirement to do a job quest to finish shadowbringers MSQ I feel like it can REALLY kill the pacing, especially if you take the roleplay seriously.

-I wish they'd separated the Tulliyollal/Alexandria msq elements to different expansions honestly? It felt like we were doing two different things at the same time and it was just messy for me.

And for one of my biggest gripes with Dawntrail specifically: