#oooooh i’m so ready for s2

[necr0mancers]

kay’s first undercover mission (failed)

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

[this week’s T5F was requested by anon]

Top 5 Worst Choices That Didn’t Matter

“This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play.”

......Yeah okay, Telltale. 

There are a lot of important choices to make over the course of the twdg series, but as we all know, not every single choice matters. One of the biggest things people tend to complain about Telltale games is the illusion of choice and “my choices don’t matter! We all get the same ending anyway!” which is fair, I get it. 

I personally try to look at the choices in a more positive light. Like, yeah it doesn’t matter if you cut Lee’s arm off or not. No matter what, you can’t save him and he’s going to die at the end of S1. Except that choice does matter, just not in the way we wanted it to. It matters because it shapes the story we the player want to tell. 

Who is your Lee? Is he willing to do anything to rescue Clementine? Including cutting his own arm off if it means giving him just enough time to get to her, even though it’s going to hurt like hell and could possibly leave him worse off? 

Or is your Lee someone who won’t risk that, even if there is the smallest hope that they cut it off in time and he could live? He’s willing to let the infection spread and kill him because he needs both arms and all the energy he has left to get to Clementine?

Sure, it doesn’t matter in the end-- Lee still dies, but two armed Lee isn’t the same man as one armed Lee, and that’s important to your story. Plus, that choice is memorable as hell. 

But these kinds of choices that are impactful to your story in various ways? Yeah, we’re not talking about those today. Nope. Today we’re talking about choices that meant absolutely nothing. They never came back, they didn’t impacted the story in a meaningful way, they’re forgetful, and they’re just the worst. I don’t like ‘em.

Before we get started, just wanna shoutout @pi-creates​ for helping me bounce all these choices around and reminding me of so many things I forgot.

5.  Telling Clementine to bring AJ back to Richmond

One of the last choices you’ll make as Javier Garcia happens during a conversation with Clementine. The two are talking about AJ and Clementine’s wondering if she was a good mom [which still don’t love the direction they went there for okay ANF] and Javi has the choice to tell her to bring AJ back to Richmond, or to leave him at the ranch. 

And funny enough.... this means nothing. It does nothing. It’s said and nothing is remembered. Clementine never brings AJ back, she never mentions Javi telling her to bring him or leave him... all we get is a single line in TFS during the ranch flashback where Clementine says that they can’t go back because it’s a warzone that way.... but she says that no matter what. 

It also doesn’t help that this come at the very end of the season but isn’t a huge choice the affects the endings. I dunno if they were trying to plant ideas that “Ooohh this choice could decide whether Clem sees the Garcia’s ever again! Clementine’s story isn’t over y’all! The Garcia’s could come back and we could see Richmond again!”

But then TFS happened and they were like “Ha, that’s stupid, no one likes the Garcia’s.” and they are never mentioned by name again. 

4. Helping Sarah in the green house

Ugh, okay.

So, there’s this point in S2 where you’re trapped in Howe’s and put to work in the green house with Sarah and Reggie. Y’see, Sarah isn’t doing so good at this. Carver got pissed at her for talking earlier and forced Carlos to slap her... which he did, and it knocked her on her ass, and now she’s in shock. 

Then ya got Reggie who keeps talking about how he’s on thin ice with Carver but also he’s this close to being let out of the holding area, so behave and all will be chill. He gives you a task to trip and pick berries or whatever, when you notice that Sarah is just kinda standing there.

So you got a choice: Do you focus on your own work, or do you help Sarah out?

Well, it doesn’t matter what you pick. 

It.... it literally doesn’t matter. Sure, you could argue that it helps Sarah out and adds friendship points with her.... except no, not really. It’s never brought up again. She doesn’t even guilt you if you don’t help her, which is something you’d expect from these games. 

Oh, and Reggie dies no matter what. Yeah, Carver comes in and thinks a couple of berry bushes is the perfect reason to throw this man off of a rooftop... but then he doesn’t do anything to Clementine or Sarah either way. He doesn’t get mad if you help, he doesn’t go after Sarah if you don’t.... and it’s never mentioned again. Reggie’s death is, but your specific choice isn’t.

3.  Stealing from Arvo 

Oooooh boy, gotta love the Arvo choice. 

So, you and Jane are trying to find a safe place for Rebecca to have her baby when you see this kid walk up carrying a bag. He’s pretty harmless, and he’s more scared of you than you are of him. Jane gets the jump on him, and you check out the bag he’s carrying. 

Turns out, he’s got a shit ton of medicine.... medicine that your group could really use. Arvo panics and begs you not to steal from him, claiming it’s for his sick sister. You gotta decide if you want to rob him or not.

And it doesn’t matter. 

The best I can do to defend this is by kinda comparing it to when you steal from the Stranger’s car in S1. It’s more of a moral choice to shape Clementine, y’know? Except it doesn’t really do anything..... Clementine isn’t branded a thief after this, she doesn’t go around just stealing shit [though she can steal Pete’s watch but that’s another story]. But if you do want to keep stretching, then the next entry on this list could be seen as a continuation of Clementine’s thieving ways if you so choose.... but that choice is here, too, soooo take that for what you will. 

If you steal the medicine, you have this pill bottle that you can give to Rebecca but that barely matters, too. They don’t help or harm her when she’s giving birth, they do nothing for AJ, and no matter what you do.... Arvo’s squad ambushes you.

And it means nothing.

Arvo will always claim you stole from him, even if you didn’t. Rebecca will always die and someone will always shoot her, causing a shootout to happen where no one in your group dies.

Yeah, no one but Arvo’s squad dies. Mike gets shot, and so does Luke but that’s it. 

Oh, and stealing from him is never brought up again after that.... because it doesn’t matter. 

Even if they did something where if you stole from him, then one of your group members dies because of some bullshit reason, then it would mean something but as it is now? Nothin’.

2. Injecting AJ with medicine 

Oh hello, ANF, you’re back. 

This flashback is annoying on so many levels... Alright, AJ is sick and everyone has told Clementine that there’s nothing anyone can do to help him, but she gets her hands on the name of a medicine she thinks will help. So she sneaks around and finds the medicine, but of course, she can only give it to him as an injection. 

Instead of doing the smart thing and taking the medicine and moving away from the group to give to AJ in a safe location where she won’t get caught, she sticks around for Lingard to wake up, and he’s high outta his mind so that’s fun. 

He tells her that it’s not going to help him and to just put it back. She knows what they do to thieves around here but he won’t tell anyone. It’s up to you, do you put it back or inject AJ?

Well, guess what? 

Clementine gets caught either way and the drugs are either in AJ or smashed on the floor, David becomes a flipflop with his “We shoulda abandoned AJ long ago to die >:O but also you can’t take him because he’ll die out there!” and they kick Clementine out for being a dingus. 

And here’s the kicker.... AJ is alive no matter what. He gets through whatever sickness he had and went to the ranch. You injecting him or not did nothing... no side affects, nothing. I’m sure they didn’t want to go super dark by killing AJ off [except they kinda did since there’s a lot of scrapped concepts with a dead AJ] depending on if you injected him or not..... but at least it would’ve been something. Hell, maybe no kill him since we need him for TFS, but maybe it would affect if he went to the ranch or not to begin with. Maybe if he got worse, they sent him somewhere else and that would affect where Clementine went to get him back for the flashbacks in TFS.

Again, you could look at this as what Clementine would be willing to do for AJ........ but it doesn’t enhance the story in any meaningful way.  It affects what Clementine you get in the end, but that’s just some text on the screen. 

I dunno, this choice could’ve done something... that’s all I’m saying. 

1. Teaching Sarah to shoot

Once again, Sarah finds herself on my dumb lists... and not in a good way. Sigh. 

Alright, you wanna talk about the worst choice that meant absolutely nothing? Nothing at all? 

You get back to the cabin in S2 after leaving either Nick or Pete, and Carlos asks you to watch Sarah while they go out to look for the rest. You find Sarah, you can take some pictures, and then she asks where her dad is. 

She gets anxious and sits on the floor....but then she does something interesting. She pulls out a gun she found. It’s not loaded or anything, but she asks Clementine if she can teach her how to use it.

And you’re probably thinking, “Oh, that’s a good idea. She should know how to use a gun, but her dad is too over protective. This could help us in the future.” or “Oof, no, Sarah isn’t ready for a gun. What if that comes back and bites me in the ass? What if she shoots someone I don’t want her to shoot?”

Well, don’t worry your pretty little head because nothing comes of this.

Nothing.

You teach her to shoot, and it does nothing. She never picks up another gun ever again, she never does anything with what you taught her, and nothing happens. 

Just.... wow. 

At the very least... with the other picks on this list, you could stretch and make some sort of excuse for it having an impact on the story.... but this doesn’t do anything to further your relationship with Sarah, Carlos never finds out about it, there’s never a point where Sarah admits she found the gun, she doesn’t use it, she doesn’t give it to Clementine or anyone else to you, and it does nothing.

This scene could be completely removed and it wouldn’t change anything... which honestly, is something I can’t say for the rest of these dumb choices. 

That’s what makes this the ultimate pointless choice. 

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Dishonorable Mentions

-Asking to go with Mike at the end of S2. Arvo will shoot Clementine no matter what and it’s dumb. -Keeping quiet about Mari when David asks you to. It doesn’t affect anything other than David being upset for two seconds, but you get thrown out and it doesn’t matter. -Trying to help Christa in S2 ep1. Either way, she gets shot at and you never see her again and it just doesn’t matter. -Honestly 400 Days.... just all of it. The only thing you get is pointless cameos if you get everyone to go with Tavia.�� -Being nice to Larry. He still treats you like shit and accuses you of being a bitch to him anyway soooo.... yeah.  -Fixing the swing in S1 ep2. If you don’t do it, then Andy will.

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It’s pretty telling that this T5F is just S2 and ANF choices.... sigh. Like sure, there are a lot of choices that don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things in S1 and TFS but most of those I can justify as being there to shape your story and are impactful in different ways..... but boy, there’s just something about S2 and ANF and their choices, isn’t there? 

Anyway, what do you guys think? Do you agree with my choices or nah? Do you have a choice you don’t like and think is meaningless that wasn’t on the list? Lemme know, I’d love to hear it! 

Have any suggestions for future T5F’s? Feel free to send ‘em in! :D

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Next week’s T5F Top 5 Reasons Javier Garcia’s Pretty Great

[floralovebot]

Hi! The anon here to answer your question from your tags. I think, my favourite thing about Aisha is despite her added later in the show, she spends a lot of energy and effort to become friends with other girls. She bonded with them one by one which I think it's nice thing. During my childhood I related to her because of this. I'm very introverted person but seeing her breaking her shell makes me do better in my personal life. 😭

YES!! That's one of my absolute favorite things about Aisha and i think it's something that's so underappreciated about her!

Something that really stands out to me about how Aisha bonded with the Winx (and even the Specialists) is that each one was unique to the relationship! The way she bonded with Stella isn't the same as the way she bonded with Musa. And that's something that we didn't get to see a lot with the first five Winx because they all met around the same time and became friends together. With Aisha being a newcomer into an already established group of friends, it would've been so easy for her to withdraw or not get as close to some of them, but instead she bonded with all of them!!!

Like obviously she bonds with Musa over their shared interest in music and dance. They also relate to each other in a lot of ways with the whole Never Having A Solid Friend and having trouble making friends thing. Musa is one of the first people that recognizes Aisha's feelings and makes a move to comfort her and let her know she's not alone. It's literally no wonder the two of them are so close!

Then with Stella (and occasionally Bloom), Aisha is able to bond over both of them being princesses. Stella understands all of Aisha's feelings about royalty and her troubles with the throne (like constantly being watched over or having to act a certain way). We already know that Aisha didn't have a lot of friends besides Anne, plus with everything she knows (multiple languages etc) she would have spent a lot of time studying. And while Stella can partially bond with Bloom over being princesses, Bloom didn't grow up in that lifestyle and doesn't feel the same way about everything. Stella and Aisha's friendship is so important to me because despite how different they are, they were able to become as close as the others through shared experiences and inherently understanding things about each other the others would never get.

THEN!! Aisha's bonding with Bloom literally makes my head explode because sure, they were nice to each other in S2 and they made an effort to become friends, but there was nothing really there to spark that interaction besides being around each other for the mission. BUT THEN, s3 comes and Valtor's being a little prick (affectionate) in Andros and Aisha is naturally freaking out and worried about her family and people. And Bloom, bless her heart, realizes that Aisha is once again trying to do everything on her own and says, "hey listen. we love you and we're not letting you do this alone. you can't get rid of us let us help. also i kind of understand what you're going through and i'm not gonna let this happen as long as i live." LIKE??? she literally just met Aisha a year ago and she's already ready to die for her. wow...

The way Aisha bonds with Flora honestly makes me a little teary because it reveals so much about her. She literally breaks into some guy's room just for this girl she just met, and only because she genuinely wants to be friends with them. Aisha literally gives so much of herself and is so ready to do anything just for her friends... I'm in love with her and the people who call her boring make me want to scream.

Aisha's bonding with Tecna is definitely an underdeveloped segment. The writers were more focused on exploring her relationship with some of the other Winx so we really didn't get a lot from them at first. BUT THEN!!!! You can see throughout their first (well second) meeting that Tecna is already flexing her Natural Smarts and Aisha is like Oooooh.. she's cool 😍. It's so funny because their bonding is literally just them impressing each other. Like, Tecna will say something techy and Aisha is in the background like.. Hmm Yes Very Interesting. Then Aisha will say something smart or do something cool and Tecna is also in the background going.. HMMM YES VERY INTERESTING. They just kind of naturally fall into a routine and by the time S3 comes around Tecna is literally okay with sacrificing herself to save Aisha's planet like.. who's doing it like them.

Not Even Gonna Mention How Aisha's bonding with the specialists is literally just her being mildly annoyed at them and then occasionally being impressed when they actually do something well. And how the flipside is just her being herself and the guys going WOW She's Amazing I Love Her

And like yeah anon, you mentioned being an introvert and seeing her makes you do better in your own life and literally,,, SAME 🥺 Aisha helped me so much when I was younger! And honestly she still helps today! It's so inspirational seeing this young girl going from virtually no friends at all to a strong group of close friends all because they put in the effort to genuinely get close. And like I said in the beginning, it would've been so easy for Aisha to just.. not get along with them, especially with the varying personalities already going on. And she just,, didn't,,, she took the time and effort to get close to these people all because she genuinely liked them and wanted to stick around them.... and they did the same thing because cmon man It's Aisha... i just.. love them... all... so much.....