#revisiting a planet we've not been to before

[reachingforthevoid]

Doctor Who: Timelash

I rewatched this serial on 7 May 2023. It’s a mostly enjoyable, rather silly story told with such seriousness it is delightful. 

In the TARDIS, the Doctor is looking at star charts. Peri wants to go to a place to relax, and of course that’s not going to go well. They become trapped in a time corridor and end up on Karfel where the Doctor’s been before, not that we’ve seen that visit. Jo Grant went with him, and from what she says in Death of the Doctor (the Sarah Jane Adventures), it sounds like they enjoyed a pleasurable visit.

Meanwhile on Karfel, three young white people want to escape from the Borad: under his rule, Karfel is a dystopian nightmare. The three youngsters are terrified of what they call the timelash, which is what awaits them because of their rebellious talk. It doesn’t take long for the three of them to be caught: the two men are thrown into the timelash, and the woman is dragged by a giant blue-skinned and white-haired android to the Borad. I love the androids in this story and their odd speech cadence.

There are lots of political shenanigans, both on Karfel and with interplanetary neighbours. One of the politicians is archly played by the splendid Paul Darrow.

For reasons, the Doctor ends up in the Highlands of Scotland briefly and meets a young man named Herbert. Herbert sneaks aboard the TARDIS and travels to Karfel. This prompts one of the best lines in Dr Who: “To be perfectly frank, Herbert…” Geddit? There’s also a joke about the Loch Ness monster. I prefer the Skarasen.

Little plug for Candy Jar Books who are doing a range of stories pairing Professor Travers with a chap named Herbert…

[desultory-novice]

"Evigheden"

"...I'm sorry..."

.

-

"...Hee! Noir, you smell kinda moldy." "Yeah? And now you're going to smell that way too."

"...Because I'm not letting you go for anything."

-

Sometimes, the collar is a metaphor...

-

[Apologies AU Masterpost]

Also sorry if the first panel is unclear. Adeleine isn't trying to clumsily remove the visor, she's reaching in to touch his face to let him know she's there, as Noir is blind and deaf in this particular form, outside of what information the petals take in and transmit to him. They can't recognize qualities of the voice, ie, that it is his beloved little sister, simply that "some" voice is talking to him. They are also what transmits his "voice" (more like a droll, ghosty monotone) outwards.

-

Anyway, I was revisiting some of my favorite fairy tales, including HC Andersen's "The Snow Queen" (where the title originates) when I realized just how well parts of that story fit Adeleine and Noir.

In seconds, I'd written up a fresh script and was drawing this. It's a little rushed/uneven because I pushed myself to finish as quick as possible so that this could be my official last art post before my surgery tomorrow, figuring it was a good note to leave things on.

Call it ~fairy tale magic~ (although I imagine this is set sometime AFTER the Dark Matter Trilogy rather than during. Perhaps after Zero's "favorite tool" was discovered to be broken beyond repair and with Zero itself destroyed, 02 and the rest of the Dark Matter cut him off from the hive and left him to starve to death in the ruins of Shiver Star, where Adeleine eventually discovers him after revisiting her journey with the others) ...but at least we've got x1 Noir saved now!

(...How many more to go...? ^^; )

-

Because I know you folks care about lore, drone-type or unhatched Dark Matter "feed" off energy provided from the Hive Queen and they will burn in the light without their queen's protection.

Main game Shiver Star is actually MANY years removed from the Shiver Star Adeleine and Noir grew up on. (Adeleine fell through a dimensional rift halfway off planet and wound up on Popstar YEARS later than she left. It's a...complicated...story I'll tell later, while Noir has been Dark Matter for much longer than it seems) So, in addition to there being no more people there, there is significantly less of the kind of light that harms Dark Matter. (Is it, in fact, DUE to the lack of living creatures on the planet?? Dun-dun-dun?!)

Speaking of lore: "Wasn't there a literal parasite inside this version of Noir?? Like, an eyeball in his chest? Is that just gone now?"

Fufufu...

It is not GONE, for no one goes through life without some consequences. Though it was starved into hibernation and made further dormant by ~the healing power of love~ Noir does retain some piece of Dark Matter living inside him. A creature inside that grows stronger feeding off his negative emotions. 

He will simply have to learn to control it instead of giving in.

...Just like the rest of us humans. ^_-

[descendant-of-truth]

Okay I waited to get this out there because I didn't want to be a bummer the second it released, but. The story in Shadow Generations was... kind of nothing. Which sucks, because it had literally everything going for it.

Shadow gets plunged into a white space where people and places from different points in time are unceremoniously dropped in due to the power of the Time Eater, and that means Black Doom is here to try to manipulate Shadow again. Shadow starts developing alien mutations that mess with his sense of identity and only make Black Doom stronger, but he's determined to use them to take him out for good.

At the same time, Maria and Gerald Robotnik are here, and of course the first thought on Shadow's mind when he discovers them is how he can find a way to save them from their original fates. So he's got two goals: defeat Black Doom, and save his family.

This setup is really good. It's immediately engaging for all sorts of reasons, from the surface-level "whoa cool alien powers!!" to the heartbreaking implications of Shadow being forced to say goodbye to Maria and Gerald again. (Because naturally, we've seen where the games go from here and we know the timeline isn't changed that drastically.)

And it's clear to see that the people involved in working on this game were passionate about it, too. The animation and cinematography is quite good, and while I have my critiques (I still don't think the character models are that great), so much effort was put into making Shadow the coolest guy ever, and I think it paid off. He's both very cool and shows a wider range of emotions than we've seen from him in a while, which is always a plus for me.

I mean, goodness knows that Shadow needed his character to be revisited and given respect after, what, over ten years? The step up that this is can't be overstated.

And yet.

The story itself is so empty.

Let's go in order:

The game opens with a narrated recap of Shadow's basic history in order to catch people up. I can't say it doesn't technically serve its purpose, but given the fact that the premise of the game is exploring Shadow's past, it's a little weird to spell it out at the start like this. If you're a newcomer to the series and don't know much about Shadow, wouldn't it be cooler to find this stuff out by progressing in the game?

It also leaves out crucial details that, while they could arguably bloat the scene, provide a lot of relevant context that a first-time viewer isn't privy to.

"At the last moment, Shadow remembered Maria's final wish... to protect her beloved planet and all who lived there."

The last moment of... what, exactly? What made him remember, what made him forget in the first place?

In order, these are the answers the scene doesn't give you:

The last moments before the ARK crashed into the Earth, which would've caused catastrophic damage.

Amy was the one who pleaded with Shadow to give everyone a chance, which echoed what Maria told him, triggering the full memory.

It's actually unclear if Shadow forgot what Maria said as a natural trauma response or because Gerald messed with his memories on purpose, but this would have been a great opportunity to clarify.

It also leaves out the fact that Shadow teamed up with Sonic to save the world after he tried to destroy it, so that's two connections with other characters he has that are completely left out in the recap. I know we're finally getting back to showcasing Rouge and Omega as his best friends, but he does hold respect for Sonic and Amy, too. Plus, his interactions with them in SA2 were so iconic, why leave them out?

Then again, I suppose Rouge and Omega aren't in this recap either... which is really weird, the more I think about it.

But even as it's describing the moment he chooses to be a hero, they don't show him in his super form alongside Sonic, he's just... what, on fire?? I don't know what that's supposed to be depicting, it just looks cool.

"Shadow didn't understand why Black Doom expected him to be the vanguard for his invasion of Earth."

A fine start, but shouldn't we have gotten a passing mention of Shadow's amnesia somewhere in here? He spent two whole games trying to remember who he was, and Black Doom's whole tactic was to exploit his desire for answers. That's important characterization for both Shadow and Black Doom that we're missing out on, here.

"Shadow the Hedgehog. The lone, dark warrior who judges the world by his own code."

This is maybe best addressed in a separate post, but. does anyone else find this description of Shadow kinda odd? "Lone warrior" I get, even with his friends he's not big on groups, but it's everything else.

Yeah, he judges the world by his own code, I guess, but his actions are all in service of following Maria's code. It's Sonic that lives solely by what he wants without much influence from others, not Shadow.

And what exactly makes Shadow a "dark" warrior? He's been explicitly characterized as someone who doesn't kill as recently as the prologue animation to this very game, where he goes out of his way to save a pilot when he doesn't need to. His entire life's purpose is protecting the world, and this doesn't involve killing or torturing people, so... what exactly is the dark part of his morality. Nothing about this recap has given me reason to believe he's anything but a heroic person with a traumatic past, and the subsequent game will only reinforce that.

I guess he did kill all the Black Arms, but that's not something the game ever treated as an immoral action. Shadow blows up Black Doom and the comet his people live on and all of our heroes cheer as he does it. It happens in the True Ending and everything, where Shadow's supposed to be proving himself as a hero for real, so that can't be the example of him being a Dark Warrior.

Is it because of how he treated Infinite, a character that this game doesn't acknowledge despite featuring a level from Forces? We'll never know. They just want you to accept the idea that he's Darker and Edgier than Sonic based on his surface-level demeanor alone, which... given that the objective of this game is to showcase Shadow's nuance, this is really out of place. Overall, not a great scene.

That said, the first real cutscene is pretty good, and it immediately showcases how unnecessary that recap was by showing how excited Maria was to meet Shadow for the first time. From that scene, we learn that Shadow was artificially made, that he's "the Ultimate Lifeform," that Maria was likely close to him, that this happened on some place called "the ARK" which is in space, etc. Why did we have a narrator tell us all of this a minute ago when we were just about to see it for ourselves?

I do have one nitpick, though - Shadow claims that he arrived at the ARK "an hour ago," and Rouge on the other end of the comm is already at Sonic's birthday party. Rouge only agreed to help Shadow get to the ARK if he would go to Sonic's birthday party afterwards, but how was Shadow supposed to have time to do anything up there if Sonic's party was that soon? I was under the impression from watching the prologue that Sonic's birthday was at least a week away, because how else would Rouge expect him to conduct a full investigation and potentially fight some huge battle before then?

Oh and the Time Eater shows up in two places at once (at Sonic's party and on the ARK), I feel like it would've made more sense to have it grab Shadow after it was done with everyone else. Now I'm gonna be forced to ask "why doesn't the Time Eater multiply" for the rest of the game. Whatever

Moving on, our first real sign of things to come is the fact that Omega does not have a proper speaking role despite showing up in the first cutscene. He's right there, conveniently next to Shadow, but as soon as you think they're going to talk to each other... you're dropped into the hub world. Speaking to Omega results in text bubble dialogue, wherein Shadow is mysteriously hit with Silent Protagonist Disease and we don't get to hear anything he says. Effectively, Omega just. talks at Shadow three times, saying nothing of interest. and it's completely optional.

I repeat: all of the dialogue from one of Shadow's best friends is OPTIONAL, and Shadow himself says nothing to him. Yeah, we're off to a great start.

(Omega even says that he's going to assist Shadow, and I just. I have to laugh. I'm so sorry Omega but in terms of physical actions, you're genuinely going to do less here than in Forces)

Shadow: "No. She's gone. I'm seeing things."

Pardon?? Seeing things??? I'm sorry but there is no way that Shadow can see and recognize Maria from that distance but not from ten feet away with her back turned. He's also never been implied to have super-vision, so the whole scene just doesn't make sense, and frankly adds nothing to the story.

Even if he doesn't mean literal sight, then 1) why did he phrase it like that, and 2) I kinda don't care. He doesn't need to be able to sense Maria's presence or whatever's going on here, because he's just as shocked when he actually sees Maria properly later. It builds suspense I suppose, but I feel like it would've been more impactful to discover that Maria was really here the same way Shadow does; in the cutscene where he saves her.

But before they can reunite, we've got the first proper cutscene with Black Doom:

Black Doom: "You defeated us, but the Black Arms live on. And this temporal anomaly has accelerated my plans to revive my forces and consume the world."

I'm gonna be real with you guys. I have no idea what he's talking about here.

The game makes zero attempt to really explain how the Black Arms "live on" despite Shadow blowing up their entire comet along with Black Doom himself, and going into the game, I kinda thought it was just... time displacement. Maria and Gerald are brought in from a time they were alive, so I thought it would be the same with Black Doom, but no - he revived himself before the Time Eater even got involved.

Which I'd be willing to accept if they gave me an explanation for it, but they didn't, and the whole foundation of the plot suffers for it.

Plus, what the heck does he mean that the temporal anomaly has "accelerated his plans to revive his forces"?? The Time Eater's powers don't... accelerate anything. At all. They pluck things out of time and freeze them in a void. How does that help Black Doom's plans whatsoever?

If the idea is that he's going to pluck his own forces out of time and bring them back that way, why not just say that? Why are they withholding such basic information from us? It doesn't create intrigue, and the story doesn't even treat it like there's a gap in our knowledge to begin with. I think it's genuinely supposed to be the whole explanation, and that's a problem because it explains very little.

Then you've got the Black Moon, and this thing annoys me to no end because guess what?? Despite gradually opening more eyes and cracking open every time you complete a level, it's never once explained what it is or what it's for. All it does is turn the white void into a red void and open a portal to Even More Radical Highway. Maybe I'm forgetting something from an optional piece of dialogue, but that only creates a different problem, which is that you should never lock basic understanding of the story behind optional dialogue.

Why does it have eyes? Is it a living creature or some weird bioweapon? It's oddly mechanical for a creation of the Black Arms; even their weaponry is organic, as this very game tells us through Omega, so what's its deal??

You'd think it would have something to do with time, considering the framing of this scene:

Shadow says "perhaps I can change their fate" and then looks to the Black Moon as though it may hold some relevance to this new plot thread, but. nope. it just takes you back to Radical Highway.

And hey, look at that, I was so busy complaining about the moon that I seamlessly transitioned into one of my biggest issues with the game: Shadow says this. and never follows up on it. EVER.

I'm not kidding, there's literally NO point in the game where we're shown Shadow trying to do ANYTHING to change Maria and Gerald's fates. There's no scene where he attempts to understand the void better, he never investigates anything, he makes exactly zero attempts to accomplish one of his main goals. of BRINGING HIS FAMILY BACK TO LIFE.

What is the point of them being here, then.

No, I'm serious, literally why are they here if we don't get to see Shadow try to save them?? By the time the final cutscene rolls around, they start fading away back to their own time, and suddenly Shadow's like

(WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED, YOU DID NOTHING TO PREVENT THIS OUTCOME)

But I'll talk more about Maria and Gerald later - for now, since we're on the topic of Shadow having odd reactions to things, how about those stages and bosses, huh?

Well guys, I'm pleased to announce that despite there being dialogue in some of the stages, absolutely none of it provides context to the locations Shadow visits or his thoughts on them! If you didn't play Heroes and have no idea that Bullet Station is where Shadow found a destroyed Shadow Android, kickstarting a new layer to his identity crisis, then congratulations, this choice of level will mean nothing to you.

And before anyone tries to be like "the Sonic Generations levels don't get commentary from Sonic on their significance to him, either," it's a problem there, too. But it's an even bigger problem here, because they went out of their way to choose levels that have real emotional significance to Shadow and then proceeded to do nothing with it.

Isn't this the game where we revisit Shadow's story up until this point? Would it have been so hard to drop a line of dialogue indicating that Shadow's not thrilled about returning to Bullet Station? Maybe add a brief cutscene where he finds the same broken android from before, and says something like "hmph, I can't believe I let that thing make me doubt myself for so long," thus demonstrating his growth?

Here's a fun fact: Shadow has zero cutscenes that happen inside of levels. This is something Sonic beats him at, by having one cutscene that takes place in a level (Chemical Plant). This should not have been a high bar to clear, but they fell short somehow, anyway.

(Space Colony ARK doesn't even use the Final Chase music. The Shadow game starts out with a song exclusive to Sonic rather than him. He actually has more ARK-related music than Sonic does and they still didn't use any of them. How did they mess that up)

This problem only gets worse when they start pulling in levels from Forces and Frontiers - games that this Shadow hasn't experienced yet and wasn't there for, respectively. Once again, on principle, this is a cool idea! Shadow getting a peek into what his and Sonic's futures have in store? The confusion over when these events take place, if they're even connected to him like the others have been? Great stuff

And hey, if he's going to Chaos Island, and we saw from the trailers that the volcano is exploding in Act 1, then maybe we could even see Super Sonic fighting Knight in the background in Act 2! The debris from their fight could even act as platforming challenges, can you imagine how cool that would be? What will Shadow think of the advanced tech on the island, or of seeing Sonic fight something so massive? Surely this is a great opportunity to elevate Frontiers even further--yeah of course they don't do that.

No Knight fight in the background, which is... fair enough, I guess, but then why bother with the volcano exploding? It only does that moments away from when Sonic is about to fight Knight. Yeah, it looks cool, but we didn't need it. The more egregious problem is still the fact that Shadow has no observable thoughts or opinions on being sent to unfamiliar terrain in the future, though.

The bosses all have dialogue, though, which is a step up on a technicality and little else. Most of the dialogue from Shadow is just him being a self-aggrandizing badass who doesn't see any of the bosses as threats - even Neo Metal Sonic, who he should really not be so confident in beating all by himself, considering that he. didn't do that before. It actually took eleven other people to defeat Neo Metal, including Super Sonic, but I guess he just doesn't care at this point.

If they wanted to, it would've been easy to make him overconfident on purpose due to his new Doom powers, make an arc out of it, but no. Shadow's just Like This now, apparently.

There's a similar power scaling issue in Sonic Generations too, where Sonic can somehow defeat Perfect Chaos without his super form, but the game had dropped location-specific cutscenes so long ago that it was hard to feel like it was even canon at a certain point. The game never cared about making sense or really being anything, but Shadow Generations doesn't get that excuse. The bosses having the most mid-gameplay dialogue tells us that they're Definitely Happening, and so I care more about them as a result.

Which takes us to the moment that I truly realized that this game had no interest in doing anything with its material: the Mephiles boss fight.

Shadow: "What's this? A seal of some sort?"

Okay real quick before I get into my big issues with this fight: I know it's a magic glowing artifact, but what about it actually looks like a seal, specifically? Does Shadow just have a sense for this kind of thing? I don't recall him ever demonstrating that ability before.

I feel like this line is just here to clarify what it is for people who don't know, but since Shadow also doesn't know, it's just kind of weird. I'm not even sure why he's in the Scepter to begin with, considering that Shadow's sealing attempt in this room was a failure, but whatever.

Of the three bosses in Shadow Generations that precede the final boss, Mephiles is the only one that can both speak and had a relevant dynamic with Shadow that would be interesting to revisit. The Biolizard is cool but doesn't have a personality, and Neo Metal had no real opinion on Shadow. (In Rivals 2, Shadow and Metal Sonic have a developing friendship, but this has unfortunately never been brought up again. If they did so here, it would only have been on Shadow's end, since Metal hadn't gotten to that point yet.)

But Mephiles? So much of his character revolves around Shadow. It was Shadow who sealed him away originally, and it was Shadow's form that he took when he broke free. He's the main antagonist of Shadow's story in 06, and even though his primary goal is rejoining with Iblis, he takes a vested interest in trying to manipulate Shadow over to his side by showing him the worst of what humans will do to him - not unlike Black Doom, honestly, though he was focused on Shadow's past instead.

Plus, it's been so long! We thought we would never get to see Mephiles again! What have you got for us, game?

Mephiles: "I will defeat you, then restore myself to the timeline." Shadow: "I don't know what you're talking about, but I will crush you all the same." Mephiles: "What? Did you forget about me AGAIN?"

*deep sigh*

Contradictory dialogue back-to-back. I see. Cool.

Mephiles should not be surprised that Shadow doesn't remember who he is, because he literally JUST SAID that his goal is to restore himself to the timeline. He KNOWS that he never existed, and therefore SHOULD KNOW that nobody he encounters will remember him. I'm convinced that he only reacted this way because the writers thought it would be funny, and that's it.

Even if it made sense, though, Mephiles isn't supposed to be funny. He's supposed to be ominous and threatening. For as much care that went into recreating this environment and his powers/body language from 06 (and I gotta say, this whole section looks extremely nice), none of that same care really seemed to go into his personality. He's just as drab as Neo Metal, occasionally repeating lines from 06 so that you know they played it and not much else.

The end of the fight features some absolutely unhinged dialogue from Shadow for no reason, though.

Mephiles: "No... I want... to exist...! Shadow: "There is no future for you. Ever."

Look, I get it, they've done nothing but fight this whole time . But Shadow has no personal beef with this guy. Even if they're going with the idea that Shadow wouldn't care to learn what Mephiles is rambling on about (kind of boring, and why wouldn't he be curious about why someone like this has it out for him), there's no reason to go so far as to say he'll never have a future. Is this the "dark" part of that "dark warrior" thing they were talking about in the beginning?? Kind of a random place for it to jump out of him, if so.

The kind of intensity coming from Shadow here would be justified if he remembered who Mephiles was, but he doesn't. As it stands, it gives off the impression that he didn't actually process a single thing Mephiles said about wanting to exist and restore himself to the timeline, and just said the first cool, edgy retort that came to mind. Which makes the sentence both less cool and even more out of character.

After this boss finished playing out, all I could feel was disappointment and a creeping sense of emptiness. If this was how the game was handling Mephiles, of all characters, if this was the extent of what they were willing to do with an idea... the rest of the game suddenly seemed much less exciting. I got to this point, realized how comparatively little of the game was left, and thought oh no.

Now, uh... where was I in the story, again?

Oh right, Shadow was about to go save Maria. I actually have no notes on that scene, it's pretty good and I liked that Maria was immediately thrown off by his aggressive fighting style and whatnot. It implies a lot about what Shadow used to be like without really showing or telling us, and that's pretty neat.

The following cutscene where Gerald explains how Shadow's growing powers only make Black Doom stronger in the process is also fine, there's nothing super specific for me to gripe about it in isolation.

And this good streak it has going is immediately interrupted by the worst, most nonsensical scene in the entire game.

Sonic: "I found you, Shadow!" Shadow: "The blue hedgehog... of all places..." Sonic: "You have something I need." Shadow: "You can wait until my business is finished." Sonic: "Yea sorry, but that Chaos Emerald and I have a date with a monster!" Shadow: "Well then, it'll be a date to die for."

This is. a really stilted conversation, no matter what way you look at it. On one hand, it's repurposed dialogue from two different scenes haphazardly mashed together, neither of which should represent their current dynamic anymore since they were both antagonistic at the time. And on the other, it just... completely lacks character from both of them. They're so unbelievably dry despite their attempts to sound quirky, it's actually impressive.

I have to ask - have the script writers not heard the incessant complaints from fans about there being too many references in modern Sonic dialogue?? Because this scene plays out like an actual parody of that trend, the kind I would expect to see on twitter or something. I initially saw the animation for this cutscene without audio due to leaks, and I thought it looked pretty cool because the animation was nicely done.

Boy, when I tell you I was stunned to discover that THIS was the actual, official dialogue. What happened here?? Why is this what Sonic cutscenes are turning into?? In a game that costs $50-$60??And people are saying it's the best Sonic game???

Somehow, the god-awful dialogue isn't even the only thing that's wrong with this scene, but I'll compile the rest in bullet points to speed it up a little.

Shadow suddenly shows up in Sonic's section of White Space, despite it not being visible from a distance and therefore giving no reason for Shadow to venture out that far

Sonic says he "found" Shadow as if he was looking for him, even though the only people Sonic has seen here other than his and Tails' past selves are people who were at his birthday party

Classic Sonic is neither seen nor mentioned despite the extremely fun potential of having him interact with Shadow

A purple portal conveniently shows up in front of Sonic and Shadow while they're talking for no reason

The boss fight with Sonic is just a cutscene (lame), and Shadow gets taken out completely by one solid bonk from Sonic (even lamer)

The fake Chaos Emerald switcheroo, while clever, is presented as if it was done deliberately when it was clearly a coincidence that it got knocked out of Shadow instead of the real one

(I guess this technically happens before the Mephiles fight so my faith in this game was already plummeting, but I was willing to tolerate this scene being bad because I could understand them not wanting to add too much to Sonic's side of things. They had completely free reign with Mephiles and still delivered nothing, which is why it really cemented itself in my head)

The one thing I really liked here was seeing Shadow almost use his Doom powers to defeat Sonic, deciding against it, and his hesitation being what lost him the match. Shadow refusing to fight Sonic on unequal terms is some really good characterization that I was happy to see.

Black Doom: "The promised time is nigh upon us, Shadow. Soon, you will be mine."

So did we ever learn what the "promised time" was, exactly? I've played every route of Shadow the Hedgehog (some more than once) and still can't remember. If he's referring to the time when Shadow awakens his full power then I guess it makes sense, but otherwise it's kind of an oxymoron considering that time doesn't exist in White Space.

Gerald: "He has grown a new body, and used the nebulous nature of time in White Space to accelerate his plans for revenge."

Shadow, buddy, your animation is positively kickin' right now but Gerald, I'm gonna need you to do literally anything other than just repeat the same lackluster explanation we got earlier as if that's going to make it any less confusing. What ABOUT the nebulous nature of time? Is time not largely just frozen here?? We're somehow around 3/4s into this story and I still have NO idea how anything works

Maria calms Shadow down from his frankly justified anger by holding his hand and talking about how she doesn't want him to be driven by darkness. They find a way to throw in the fact that apparently Maria named him "Shadow" because the presence of a shadow can show you where to find the light, and it's... nice? Very wholesome, but it feels awkwardly placed and I'm not sure anyone was seriously asking why he was named that. Like, of all the questions to spend this game's limited screentime answering, "why is he named Shadow" was probably not at the top of most people's lists.

And before you have a chance to think about it, we're already at the endgame.

Shadow: "I'm letting go of that destructive anger."

Wow, and in the very next scene after it was brought to your attention, too! You sure do grow fast, Shadow!

Okay, all jokes aside, there's not much I can say about the pacing in this game other than It's Rushed and Bad, but I think it's finally time to talk about Gerald and Maria.

Gerald first: He's mostly just here to give out exposition. His relationship with Shadow is much less focused on than Maria's, which I find to be really frustrating because I always had a lot of questions about how those two interacted. In SA2, we only know him as a grieving, hate-filled man who was heavily implied to have scientifically messed with Shadow's mind - not long after they had both just lost Maria - in order to make him inclined towards Gerald's revenge plan.

In Shadow's first game, we see a side to him from before then, when he really seemed to care for Shadow and we got some clarity on the purpose of the Eclipse Cannon and whatnot. But what were their average interactions like? Who was in charge of Shadow's training? If it was Gerald, did that ever create a sense of distance between them? Shadow never has warm, nostalgic flashbacks of him, so I assumed their relationship either wasn't as close or he has too many conflicting feelings now for those memories to be very comforting.

This game decides to lean into Gerald being a kind, supportive man, but regardless, Shadow's feelings should be a lot more complicated, no?

I'd imagine that, in a way, it's a relief to have this Gerald around again. It would make it easier to pretend that the man who used him in an attempt to destroy the world and go against everything Maria stood for was just... a fluke, or something.

But still, Shadow knows that he would do bad things to him if Maria died. It's already happened.

Dark Beginnings also suggested that either Shadow was there when he shot down by the firing squad (unlikely given the context), or he watched the recording that played at the end of SA2 enough to be able to see it in his dreams. Neither of those are good for his psyche, and would only add to the number of emotions he has to suppress whenever they interact. There is, of course, none of this nuance within the game itself, despite it being right there and ready to be worked with.

Then you've got Maria, and. hoo boy.

I take no real issue with any of Maria's traits that are on display. Her being a nice girl with boundless energy and goodwill does not make her boring, and I've always been fascinated by her character. So, I need you guys to understand that it's with a heavy heart that I must say that Maria is... barely a character in this game.

And like, she doesn't exactly have a history of being deep or complex. But we've also only ever seen her in Shadow's memories up until this point, and that means this game was a unique opportunity to flesh her out more.

When a character is as idealized by another as Maria is by Shadow, and we only see them through that lens, it's natural to assume that the depiction isn't completely accurate. I was never in doubt that Maria was kind and gentle, or that she was always there to help Shadow when she knew he was struggling, but I always wanted to know what she was like outside of that. What makes her angry? What was she like on a bad day, when she inevitably got frustrated at her lot in life? How did Shadow comfort her? What was her sense of humor like?

While we technically learn more things about Maria in this game, there's never a point where she acts differently from Shadow's vision of her. She's not really shown to have flaws, and she's only really there to be saved and offer emotional support. It's like... a textbook example of what you shouldn't be doing when writing a female character, having her be defined entirely by her relationship with the male lead and never speaking up or complaining about her own problems or feelings. They don't even make a point out of it, that Maria tempers herself to be "perfect" for other people or anything like that.

Why don't we get to see how she and Shadow would handle an argument or something like that? Especially this Shadow, who's all shaken up by everything? Wouldn't it be beneficial for both of their characters for Maria to be seen as herself, the way she was in life, rather than just the nicest moments she and Shadow had together?

I'm gonna make a comparison here that people aren't gonna like, but... I think Elise is honestly shown to be a more nuanced character than Maria is. And this is coming from someone who thinks that she was also mishandled in her game.

Similar to Maria, Elise is genuinely a deeply caring person, and lives mostly isolated with a condition of sorts that makes her life difficult. Her most important relationship is also with the male lead of her respective game, but she doesn't exist solely for his benefit. (Amusingly, Sonic actually seems to be there primarily to further her arc, so it's a bit of a role swap there.)

But we see more from Elise than just Being Nice all the time. We see her being resolute and bold in the face of danger, or disappointed when she has to go back to the castle. We watch her try her hardest not to cry and retain her strong, regal exterior when faced with overwhelming emotion.

We get to see her open up and laugh and become more confident, we watch as someone who's been forced to put her feelings aside for the convenience (and safety) of others her whole life finally break down and shout something selfish for once. And then we watch her ultimately choose to do the right thing, anyway. Her strength of character is shown to us by putting her in situations that challenge her, and the narrative never once shames her for being imperfect; it's actually encouraging her to be her real, flawed self.

Why does Maria not get this same treatment? Why don't we get cutscenes of her being excited about the new environment she's in, or frustrated that her symptoms are making it difficult to do anything here? When does she get to be selfish? Why can't she get upset at people treating her like she's frail, even if it technically "makes sense" for them to do so?

We're told, in Gerald's journal, that some of the people aboard the ARK doubted that Maria was really sick due to her symptoms not being clearly visible. Because it's his journal, we only get to hear his feelings on the matter, but in the full game, we never once get to know how it makes Maria feel, the person this is all about to begin with. They absolutely could have incorporated this into a cutscene somewhere, but they didn't.

Once again, I have to ask: what is the point of Maria and Gerald being in this game if this was how they were going to be written? Not only does Shadow fail to even attempt to save their lives, he doesn't even walk away from the experience with renewed understanding of who they were as people.

So what even happens in this story, then?? Every single aspect of it is dragged down constantly by the game's refusal to do anything with what it has:

Shadow revisits places from his past, but has nothing to say about them

Shadow visits places from the future, but has nothing to say about them

He has nothing relevant or interesting to say about any of the bosses

Mephiles trying to restore himself to the timeline is a plot point that exists solely within his boss fight and nowhere else

He doesn't struggle with any of the bosses, emotionally or physically, turning them into a boring power trip

He barely struggles with his Doom powers, the things that are supposed to be giving him an identity crisis

Sonic is not a playable boss fight and he also says nothing relevant or interesting

Classic Sonic doesn't even get a passing mention

The Team Dark friendship is supposed to be a highlight but Shadow never speaks to Omega, who also never shows up in cutscenes, and Rouge is just kinda there

Maria and Gerald never meet Rouge and Omega, or anybody else on-screen, despite it being extremely easy for them to run into each other

Shadow's relationships with Maria and Gerald are barely explored past their surface

Most importantly, Shadow is never shown making any sort of effort to save Maria and Gerald from their fates, despite it being one of his primary goals

...Oh yeah, I forgot to complain about how Shadow barely struggles with his Doom powers. I was gonna go on a whole spiel about how it would've been super easy to make into an arc and how it was wildly underutilized despite being a major selling point of the game, and the only real consistent conflict whenever Black Doom isn't on screen.

Well. Anyway. Once the White Space becomes Red Space (something that once again makes me question how far away Sonic's area is, to not be able to see this happening), Shadow magically gets over his "destructive anger" and goes to Radical Highway one last time for the epic final boss.

And it certainly is epic, I can't deny that. A massive technical improvement over the first fight against Devil Doom, and I'm not about to sit here and act like the wings aren't cool. But I can't say it feels very rewarding, since I never really understood what was going on and Shadow didn't really struggle that much to get to this point. Not to mention, he's still acting all high and mighty during boss fights, which makes it feel stale really quickly. Black Doom isn't really that interesting by himself, so Shadow kinda needed to carry that fight, but no, it's just more of the same.

One last point before I wrap this up:

Where was Emerl???

Correct me if I'm wrong, but a promo animation for a game should, in theory, provide you some idea as to what kind of things to expect in the game itself. While a lot of them take their share of creative liberties, I don't think they're in the habit of putting spotlight on entire characters who never appear in the game at all.

This is THE GAME where we bring back the people from Shadow's past that he's lost, and Emerl most certainly qualifies. He's from the more recent past, yes, but Shadow still cared about him and absolutely would have been affected by his death. There's no way that, had he been in the story, Shadow wouldn't have been determined to save him as well. But no, he's just there to be a cool lore detail in Gerald's journal.

Which means this is yet another depiction of Emerl where we refuse to acknowledge his personality. Do they seriously think Emerl is more interesting as an emotionless killing machine that Gerald researched in his spare time? Where's the fun-loving kid who mimicked everyone around him, splicing things he heard them say together to communicate and creating funny tonal whiplash? Where's the robot with the soul that Gerald gave him, that was nurtured by Sonic and his friends?

Not in this game, apparently! They went out of their way to canonize Battle and still managed to treat it with zero respect. Kind of impressive, really, and just another footnote in the trend of this game not actually caring to do anything with Shadow's past.

There are definitely moments in this game that I like, but that's kind of all they are: moments. The game's total cutscene runtime is around 30 minutes, and that means there's not enough time in any of them to get anything done. A scene that's good in isolation is tainted by the fact that it's all there is.

And it's just... so baffling to me. There are so, so many points in this game where you could have fit additional cutscenes in. We could have had one after each act, or at least after each level. Give us more cutscenes after activating things in the hub world or something. I mean, a game that claims to be this story-driven doesn't usually need an excuse to throw cutscenes at you, and they certainly didn't need to force each scene to be so unbelievably short.

If they really needed to downsize on cutscene length for some reason, then maybe they should have just made a less ambitious story. The game wants to do so many things at once, but it doesn't have the time to do any of those things justice. We could have gotten a short, sweet, well-done little story, but instead we get a story that easily needed at least two hours to tell crunched into a measly 30 minutes.

I mean, Dark Beginnings in its entirety is half the length of the full game. Think about that for a second.

This game's story was supposed to be something, man. It's getting so much praise for what feels to me like the bare bones structure of a story, and it's frustrating because I know this series can do better. The writer of this game can do better, and I know that because I've read his other Sonic material and it feels much more complete than this does.

I was genuinely looking forward to this game, is the thing. I really didn't think it would be this lackluster, because like I said at the beginning of this post, it had everything in the world going for it. But no matter how nice it feels to have a Shadow who isn't wildly out of character for once, that alone can't carry an entire story.

Shadow Generations is a mess of good ideas executed in the least interesting, most nothing way possible. Its only real saving grace is its animation, and the fact that Shadow generally feels like himself.

Except for when he's talking to Sonic. What the heck happened when he was talking to Sonic

[thefirstknife]

Please tell me you've read the lore on the new Trials items??

I have and I haven't stopped crying since.

It starts with the new Trials ship, Valiant Memory. It's the opening Lightfall cutscene but told from the point of view of Reed-7, the Titan from the Trials fireteam of Reed, Aisha and Shayura. They were a constant background lore characters on Trials gear. Here's a brief post I have about them from before. Since then, Shayura has been re-captured, gone to therapy, healing and reunited with her fireteam. Among them, Reed was a really sweet Exo who was known as "Strike dad," basically the heart of the fireteam, really sweet and warm.

The ship lore tells us that Reed, Aisha and Shayura were in the battle in space at the start of Lightfall when Pyramid fleet attacked. As the lore tab progresses it becomes increasingly clear that these three are the fireteam we've seen in the cutscene. Specifically, the Titan we've seen sliced? Reed-7.

The Witness is nothing more than a sliver of dark shearing through a field of white, but even at such a distance, Reed can feel its eyes on him. A chill jolts down his spine the moment the reticle locks on. His Exomind throbs with the sense-memory of a migraine.

He immediately knows something is wrong. He turns to his Ghost. His Ghost looks at him, but it's already dead. The world separates into slices.

And

so is

he.

I don't think I will ever emotionally recover from this. Aisha and Shayura survived for unknown reasons. Neither Aisha nor Shayura know why their Ghosts were spared; possibly because they both toyed with a version of Darkness. Aisha was a stasis user and Shayura's issues led her to killing Guardians. We don't know.

Either way, after the ship lore, I suggest reading the Ghost Shell, Hero's Wake. Immediately knocked out by the flavour text:

"He was like a father to us both." —Aisha

The lore tab itself has Shayura grieving and preparing to go therapy.

Next on the schedule for the emotional breakdown is the sparrow, Survivor's Journey which shows us Aisha personally traveling to Titan to tell Sloane about Reed. This also shows us that Sloane knew this fireteam, which is neat. But yeah, Aisha is devastated and had to tell Sloane in person.

The final bit is the Trials glaive, Unexpected Resurgence. Shayura is in the Tower and she has the remains of Reed's Ghost. She is approached by a woman who introduces herself as Sister Faora. Faora was the leader of the Cult of Osiris, but now introduces herself as an "outcast." The link between them is that Shayura and her fireteam were Trials regulars. Faora gives Shayura the glaive and offers to be her friend. No clue why Faora is an outcast. Maybe the whole Cult of Osiris has been somehow restructured, disbanded or made defunct after Osiris' ordeal with Savathun and after he lost his Light. It would be nice to get an update on it!

Outside of the assault on our emotions, I am curious about Faora's reappearance. Paired with them mentioning Vance again (albeit jokingly), I wonder if this is meant something more than just randomly dropping names. Vance is the only remaining "missing" vendor that we have yet to learn more about and Mercury is a potentially very interesting place to revisit, if we can, given its ties to Darkness through Lighthouses (which emit Darkness-aligned tones; the same tones that are being emitted by Pyramids and the planetary anomalies, as well as very likely egregore). Maybe a hint for a future season? I would love to revisit Mercury and get some nice lore reveals about the Lighthouses, Vance, Mercury's secrets (the planet houses a prediction engine!) and the Vex.

But until then, pain and suffering even. Goodbye Reed, Strike dad.

[earhartsease]

are you guys bodily 61 or is that an alter age? /genq

I'm curious bc of the queer stuff

good question! this human body doing front-of-house management is 61 - as far as we're aware, nobody in this system is actually 61, but ages range from around 6 up to late 50s when it comes to the humans - and as for the beyond-humans, your guess is as good as ours (current rough count is 29 individual beings, plus the accompanying inner forest)

there are a bunch of animals (we didn't include all the pets of ours and others that we invited into the forest when they died, there's a good two dozen of them! - but two animal alters for sure), two forest gods (one young, one ancient) and, well - a forest that's part of a landmass that's presumably part of a planet ecosystem in some universe, since there are stars and sun and moon in/out there

but yes, we all inhabit this 61 year old body and are trying to look after it, it's a bit fucked so we're trying to be as kind to it as toxic social conditioning will let us, and that goes for all of us really - just trying to love and listen to each other and it seems to work pretty well ☀️🌿

as for the queer stuff, given the constraints of lack of language or a safe space in which to think about it as a kid (very abusive upbringing), we think if we'd had the language back then we'd have known we were agender by the time we were 5 or 6? we certainly knew something was off in a "not really digging the boy thing, not really yearning to be a girl either though exactly, is this all necessary?" way

and certainly by the time our tweens hit we'd have known we were trans if it had been safe to know that (we didn't and don't get gender as a thing but we knew unconsciously that our body would be happier looking female) - we read a load of sci-fi with trans and queer themes all through our teens and kept revisiting the trans parts and no knowing why, for example - and at 23 we first knew we wanted a physical transition but got slapped down about it before we could look more into it - so didn't do anything about that until we were 48 in the end

but we came out as bi when we were 21, which apparently was brave in the 80s, and we finally embraced queer as a label in 2010 (after embracing genderqueer), and were able to let go of old horrors around the word and see how positive it is for so many people - and we came out as ace about a decade ago but it would have really helped if we'd known that was an option like 50 years sooner

as for all of us in here, nobody really has genders, all the humans are they/them and nonbinary, some look more male and some more female and some more *shrug* and it all sort of works?

we weren't planning to go into this much detail, but since it feels valuable for younger queer folk to know that us oldsters exist too, we figured we'd tell it out more - one thing we'd like to end with is by saying once again: none of this is set in stone - we've come out over 10 times now in the process of figuring out who we are, and we're on our tenth legal name change - and this is either it now or it isn't :D

- Irian on behalf of the emerald forest ecosystem

[tonydaddingham]

revisiting this again bc yesterday @goodoldfashionednightingale absolutely blew my mind and now is the first opportunity ive had all day to go full tilt mode on it:

i won't go into depth on the frenzy that this blew me into (just know that it did), but this had me flummoxed for a good few seconds - bc this was changed from the book and the scriptbook.

so, the show itself? warlock (young baby) was indeed born first. the spare baby (dowling baby - heavily implied to be greasy johnson) was born afterwards:

however! this was changed from the scriptbook, which essentially lifted it out of the book itself:

both in the present participle. if we consider that everything since the earth was created is running late, that would indicate that greasy was born later than 'scheduled', but warlock was on time. god knows what it might mean - especially if thou subscribeth to the greasy is jesus theory - but nightingale raised an excellent point: would the baby mix up have happened if everything had been on time?

the other thing i wondered was exactly why things might be running behind in the first place. i had a half-baked idea in the original post but couldn't back up, but i think there might be some puzzle pieces falling into place; i have to wonder if aziraphale was at the centre of it.

we know this from the BTB scene:

"Well- you've heard of Earth? ...Ah. Blue-green planet? It'll be over there somewhere, when they roll out that quandrant- now, that's where the 'people'... that we're currently designing are going to be. I've seen the plans, oh! We're going to start out with a breeding pair, and pretty soon there'll be oodles of them!

which makes it all but confirmed that aziraphale is part of the team that was developing, or possibly even overseeing the development of, humanity. maybe not directly related, but we've also got this from neil on where aziraphale was headed when AWCW called him over:

which confirms nothing concrete, i completely agree - but i do feel that, combined with his speech in BTB, aziraphale having a hand in the pinnacle of earth and humanity's creation may be a fairly solid bet. but in terms of speculation on how aziraphale might have been involved in this hypothetical delay?

idk about you but i find the thought that there are occasions where aziraphale is just utterly incapable of being on time - even all the way back before the beginning - completely hilarious

so @theeminentlyimpractical and i were yodelling at each other in the DMs last night talking about general time-fuckery stuff in s2 and trying to riddle it all out, and i mentioned that i had noticed something that only now seems obvious from the s1 scriptbook (and im sure that someone pointed it out in 2019 but im wondering how relevant it still is):

everything is running late.

working backwards chronologically in s1, we have when newt arrives at jasmine cottage:

unfortunately the line isn't in the show, but in the interest of pooling all resources, the scriptbook says the following:

NEWT - I swerved to avoid Tibetans in the road. At least, I think I did. I've probably gone mad.

ANATHEMA - If you have, noone's going to notice. You're twenty minutes late.

we then know that crowley was late for arriving to collect the antichrist:

which the scriptbook doesn't elaborate on/give a timeframe, and may be extraneous to the previous and next example, but the antichrist is reportedly part of the Great Plan, so im including it for the moment.

but the kicker is agnes nutter, right?:

a precise and accurate prophetess who doesn't foresee that pulsifer would arrive late to execute her? how?

so when it came down to it, i started to wonder where something might have happened that has shunted the timeline along, between 10-20 minutes... maybe something in eden? but no - laure cracked it:

GOD - Archbishop James Ussher claimed that the Heaven and the Earth were created on Sunday the 21st of October, 4004 BC, at 9:00 a.m. This too was incorrect. By almost a quarter of an hour. It was created at 9:13 in the morning, which was correct.

now. all of the times don't match up completely, but the general sense is that the world may be running a little behind schedule, compared to what it should be - ie. the timeline that agnes predicted, and ussher/his team calculated.

we know that adam reset everything at the end of s1, but:

given that he's not omniscient, would he know that the world is 15 mins behind schedule (and therefore, when s2 starts, are we still running late)? probably not, so does he revert things back but keeps the world on the original clock, so to speak?

alternatively, did he reset the clock, and is the universe that we see in s2 actually on the correct time?

this might not mean much, if anything at all (see: it's just all for The Bit), in the grand scheme of things... but im now starting to wonder if it does. because what would have happened if everything had run on time? because maybe it's not so much thinking about individual events, and how they would have played out otherwise if the world had been on the 'correct' timeline all along, but maybe just the sheer possibility that there is an 'alternate reality' in which those 10-20 minutes meant things played out very differently?

ive talked about the chair (x), and ive talked about the sideburns (x), and ive talked about how crowley somehow seems to be existing at a different time to everything else around him (alternatively - whickber street itself is running in a different... reality? timeline?), as well as the random moments where time seems to disappear entirely/the clock swaps its hands around in ep6 (x). about crowley's comment about it being "too late", and how he seems to act slightly odd just before aziraphale tells him about the metatron's offer (x)... but is it all somehow interconnected? and connected to the 13-minute delay?

and if it is... what caused it? what might have delayed god by 13 minutes, or what might have gone wrong to cause the delay, that has then had a hypothetical knock-on effect, whether it be because adam did fix it, or didn't fix it?

[bluntblade]

The Force Awakens thoughts because my current WIP is bumping up against it:

The more distance I get from The Force Awakens and the more film/script literate I get, the more I feel like JJ Abrams really coasts on the intent of his stories and is let off the hook for never really following through with what he seems to want to do.

Like, revisiting A New Hope and even The Hidden Fortress (an Akira Kurosawa film which massively influenced Lucas, do watch it), that film does so much more on a character level than TFA. Abrams traffics in a kind of writing where lots of stuff happens regularly, so it can be easily seen as a refined and more efficient version of those early Spielberg/Lucas pictures (they're off the planet in less than half an hour! In ANH they haven't even met Han yet!), but it's kind of a mirage.

In the same time that Luke has learned about the key factors in the plot and had a (brief) Refusal of the Call, only to he's lost his home (the kick out of the door), Rey and Finn have mostly been chased a number of times (they won't have a clue/care about the Starkiller until some time later, so unlike in ANH it suddenly just appears in the plot from the heroes' point of view). At the point where he had taken an irrevocable step and we've embarked on new conflicts between them and Han (and then Leia too), they're either just conflicting together in the same way or being led along by Han. They're running, but mostly running in place.

Film Crit Hulk refers to this move as the old "just then bad guys come in with guns" but I think of it more as hitting one snooker ball with another. Abrams' characters are very reactive (especially Rey, but actually Finn too) and so beyond the plot necessity of getting BB-8 to D'Qar, they aren't propelling the plot themselves. Believe me, I love both characters and feel glum saying this. So periodically in comes a smallish threat to nudge them along for a bit, but it's gone and then they halt again. There isn't really an evolving conflict here, and in terms of action causing character change it doesn't really go beyond "they get along better now."

Equally, revisiting the strict text of the film, the whole thing around Luke is distinctly odd. I would argue as a TLJ diehard that Johnson adhered to the letter of TFA but not the spirit, but that leaves the awkward sense that Abrams was setting out things he didn't seem to believe. Luke grew disillusioned because he felt responsible for the destruction of the temple, but Abrams doesn't want to dwell on that. It'll be fine, no need to even discuss what he might think when Rey pops up.

But maybe that's also par for the course with a filmmaker who will milk a scene for pathos and then discard it, with minimal consequences for what comes next. Which is to say that Finn's five minutes of PTSD work better than Carol Marcus watching her dad get his head crushed in Into Darkness, but that's not a vast achievement really.

In the final stretch there's a tangible unwillingness to tie a bow on anything; instead the film makes a couple more promises and then seems in a mad rush to hand on the baton before it's asked to give a real thought on the themes that it's flirted with. It's content with fascimiles of growth and meaning, but it wants someone else to grab the lightsaber and do the actual work.

[danwhobrowses]

Power of the Doctor - Quickfire Thoughts

So it's time for a New Doctor to take the reins

It's been a mixed tenure for Whittaker - by no fault of her own, moreso the writing - but let's see how her final effort goes

Spoilers for the Episode

Hang on, isn't that Luther from Umbrella Academy?

Didn't expect the Cyber Masters to be back, let alone be shot down by laser blasters

Bit reckless from the Doctor to drop her 'fam' into a Cyberman raid

They were still opening the box, this is not the time to do the speech

Ace the poor museum lady's not gonna tell you some alien shit is going down with the painting

Inevitable write-off for Dan even though we've had a whole season to come to terms with mortality, y'know to push the whole Doctor and Yaz thing he was thirdwheeling

First time? Dalek Sec Doctor? Rusty?

Of course the Master is Rasputin

Got some classic stuff going though; Kaled mentions, Tegan and Ace, Master's hypnosis and action figuring, referencing the Second Doctor's Forced Regeneration someone has been doing their homework

Joker was here and he stole a TARDIS!

Doctor you do have a Time Machine, time should be all you have

How polite of the Master to message UNIT at that exact moment

Vinder! Why aren't you with your girl?

Sacha Dhawan's Master is at its best right now, but seriously how many times do you have to bring the Master into a secure and sensitive facility for it to be part of his plan before you think twice?

As dangerous as jumping a train full of Cyber Masters Yaz?

Oh so the Lone Cyberman is just a pawn again? Bit of a waste

UNIT aren't aren't so ready if they just have simple machine guns...

To be fair the garb works

United in a common goal and all you could get is Daleks and Cybermen? I mean, the Pandorica had a bigger alliance

'Yo Dalek is this a bop?'

So does Sacha technically become the Fourteenth Doctor or are we gonna count this the same way as War Doctor and Metacrisis Doctor? I mean he's even wearing a wardrobe mismatch of other outfits, even the flute and celery.

I mean, couldn't this have been achieved by just...changing your name?

CGI Hartnell (well, David Bradley but a bit of work done), also irl Colin, Davidson, McCoy and McGann

McGann could still play the Doctor I'm just saying

Guess no CGI Pertwee, Troughton or irl Baker, no Eccleston, Smith (guess he is housing dragons at this time) or Capaldi either

I miss Osgood, anyone else miss Osgood?

Okay so if they can shoot through the window what's stopping them from escaping the building?

Sorry Ace it's kinda a NuWho thing; River, Clara, even the sentient piece of jet fuel

GRAHAM!

So UNIT has a laser shield but not a laser gun?

Technically he never accepted the terms...

So does the original Master just chill in a box forever?

Wait, how can the AI turn into Fugitive Doctor? Yaz never met her didn't she?

We're...just gonna leave the Master there?

Guess Kate isn't liked enough to have AI Doctor helping her out

Daleks can survive bullets but not a baseball bat

Good thing Vinder was here to shoot the Master once

Won't doing that still disrupt the tectonics on the planet?

What about the other Brother Eye Death Star thingy?

Aw man no more Graham :/ if we were just gonna cameo it would've rather we just swapped him and Vinder for Dan and Karvanista

I mean, you were hit with a laser from a being of pure energy

The fact that we will never get Dan and Graham as a comedic companion duo is the true tragedy

Companions of future past being cameo'd too, would've thought there'd already be a support group

DAVID!!??

So he's not a past iteration for the special? I guess the Curator did say we'd be revisiting a few old faces in the last special

So is DAVID counted as the Tenth AND Fifteenth Doctor or is this also gonna count as another War Doctor or Metacrisis Doctor?

If we had a penny for every time the Doctor unexpectedly turned into David Tennant again we'd have two pennies, which is not a lot but it's still surprising it happened twice

So there we have it. I liked the episode, but I didn't cry. I think it's just that I wasn't as attached as previous, part of that does come down to me never really being a fan of Yaz. Even in this episode the most impressive thing she does without help is pilot the TARDIS with the help of post-it notes, I could've told you from the get-go that the episode would find a way to write out Dan as well. It was nice seeing past companions like Ace, Tegan and Graham, but most of them had a limited role, also UNIT were extremely ineffective, as were the Daleks and the Cybermen really, especially the lone Cyberman who was just a named redshirt. The plot felt a bit convoluted as well, the interesting stuff didn't get as much time you know? We could've had like a full 3-parter on this to flesh it out more, the train stuff at the beginning was a bit meh, plus the CGI and wiring were a bit iffy.

But it was still good, end on a surprise and we had a lot of fanservice, a lot of clever callbacks, we'll have to see in 2023 how Tennant course corrects to Ncuti Gatwa

[kidmachinate]

Not All Is As It Seems

**SPOILERS BELOW THE PICTURE**

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“Rey…Skywalker”

THAT’S NOT HOW THAT WORKS!!!

My literal reaction to the very end of the movie. Much like The Last Jedi, I don’t have an issue with this as much as the majority of the internet and think it was a fun watch…however…two things. As a Star Wars film, which is what it is, man did they mess things up. Also, whatever plot complaints people had about The Last Jedi? Rise of Skywalker basically says, hold my beer. Let’s get into this.

This was the most obvious thing from the beginning with the trailers but Emperor Palpatine? Why is he in this? Kylo just gets the shaft at the end of the day because he’s “Supreme Leader” until THE supreme leader comes in, which brings him back to the temper tantrum angry kid he is. Still taking orders from someone ultimately and can't rise to power. Poor Kylo. Guess we've gotta kill Palpatine. Everyone wants to anyway. I suppose this all needed to happen in order to set up “ReyLo” but the inclusion of Palpatine at all just seems like a huge copout. Should have just kept Snoke. Replacing Snoke with another main villain after he was killed off by Kylo makes that scene pointless in the previous movie. Palpatine for the Final Order apparently has a bunch of literal planet destroyer ships. Cool…so…pulling the strings all along over the last two movies is pointless. Just execute the final order and forget going through all the trouble? The final battle was cool upon first seeing it, but just doesn’t feel like a satisfactory payoff at the end. The more it dragged on it went between predictable and cringeworthy. Rey gets shown the space battle just like he did to Luke back in Return of the Jedi to try and make her lose hope and embrace her dark side because…you know…evidentially Rey is a Palpatine. Isn’t this Rise of SKYWALKER? Maybe we should look at it from Kylo Ren’s perspective instead and it makes more sense? All these force families are related in one way or another and cross over and such so I’ma give that a pass. The way the ships just fall from the sky when things are over just seems absurd. Lando Calrissian must be one hell of a charmer to have gotten the army he did to help out. There ARE things I like, I swear. Call this nitpicking but these were my thoughts through the movie. Take it or leave it. There’s more.

The ending overall was probably my least favorite part of the whole film. The awkward tension between the three main characters towards the beginning felt forced, and I think we could have done without as well. The force link of sorts between Rey and Kylo was kind of annoying and awkward as well in the previous movie, but I think was done much better in this one. The ways Kylo tries to manipulate Rey or extract info from her is front and center. Parts of the fanbase don’t like Rey. Well I do, so fuck them. Just kidding, we all have opinions. That said, for as much as I actually don’t like Kylo Ren, this trilogy might as well have been his journey. He is probably the only new character fleshed out to their full potential. He actually gets progression through the movies. Rey is basically the equivalent to Superman and just can’t be stopped. Struggling with the dark side and her humility keeps her “human” but her sheer power just makes things very predictable. She throws down against Kylo in The Force Awakens with NO FORCE TRAINING and wins. It is actually one of the reasons I thought he was kind of a joke. This is his trilogy…then he dies. But hey, awkward kiss from Rey before he dies. Guess there goes ReyLo. What they were building up to all these movies…fanfic achieved…short kiss…no more ReyLo. I’m almost done with the bad I swear…

Finn. What the hell were they thinking? What is his role in this film, really? In fact, what is his role truly since Force Awakens? He’s clearly force sensitive in some way and they really don’t get into what that could mean. Easy character development that just doesn’t really happen. He has heroic moments in The Last Jedi as well but in this movie…he’s just not interesting and mostly ends up just being worried about Rey but never able to do anything about it. He also “has something to tell her”. He never does. The topic even gets revisited between Poe and him. Still doesn’t say anything. Guess there’s no resolution there. Oops. Also, real quick, we knew Leia would fall just like Han and Luke. One per movie. But we don’t kill off Chewy although we tease it. I was happy about that. Droids are fine too. Humans gotta go though. Guess human don’t sell as well as toys. Alright, we’re done here. Onto the good stuff.

I just mentioned Chewbacca so his emotional reaction to Leia’s death was really well done. Leia was treated the best way she could have been with what they had to work with, in my opinion. The tiny gripe was referring to her as Princess instead of General but I guess we will give that a pass too. The force ghost scene with Luke and Rey was both great and nostalgic. That X-Wing was sitting there the pervious movie and to see him raise it for Rey to use was one of the grand moments of the film. This along with him catching the lightsaber as if to say, I was wrong and was scared when you first approached me about training. Or maybe this was to shut up angry fans about the fact that he threw the saber in the first place in The Last Jedi. I found that great personally. Fans need to get over themselves sometimes. The Han Solo retread with the famous “I know" line was another highlight. People will nitpick this and say Han never had force powers so shouldn’t show up in this way. Clearly it was just Ben recalling memories as if to be talking to himself, to his Dad, and being offered forgiveness. A highlight of the movie for me as well. This all brings things to where this post started. Just before that however, I want to recall thoughts from a previous post of liking what they tried to do in this sequel trilogy and prove that the force is more than what we saw it as and isn’t “just blood”. Even the dark side can be converted. Offered redemption. There are just several places where this all could have been done much better. They also could have put Mara Jade in the movie. Just saying, totally not salty, let’s wrap this up.

Rey’s revisit to Tatooine is a great way to end the film, the Skywalker saga. She buries the two sabers where Star Wars started in the first place and reveals the one she forged for herself. I love this. When she engages in conversation with the person who questions who she is, at the point of redeeming the ending, she mentions she is Rey Skywalker. You’re a fucking Palpatine, was confirmed, and I get that you got the nod from Leia and Luke’s force ghost, but that quite literally, is not how things work. You don’t just label yourself something and become that. Without her being a Palpatine, her struggle with the dark would make less sense. However, I do think there would have been more value in her actually being related somehow to a Skywalker that dabbled in the dark, meanwhile Kylo Ren started good and turned dark due to having too much “Vader” in him. Like two people trying to find their proper place in the world in their own struggles. Rey was always gonna be the one to live however. I personally think it would have been more respected that way. Maybe I’m dealing in absolutes here.

These are my thoughts on everything. Nothing is as it seems and Kylo and Rey both have their respective journeys realized for better or worse. Will Rey train a new generation of Jedi and tell them about the Skywalker linage while then lying to the kids about her being one as well? Since she is now a self-proclaimed Skywalker? Don’t lie to the kids. Don’t hide shit from them. You don’t want to end up with a classroom full of Kylo Rens.

[soulcluster]

Aerith had some sort of memory, it's there, it's just not here. But she is, and if she never recovered her memory Cloud was simply glad for that fact alone. She wasn't a hallucination this time.

"We did." Cloud nodded in answer, deciding for the moment to not state their affections explicitly. It might be too much.

"I'll always look for you, Aerith." Simple words spoken with sincerity. He felt like all he'd done since her death was look for her. First in the little things that made him want to keep living, and in the beauty of the planet they had saved, and then more earnestly, seeking to feel her presence in the church, in his dreams, at her side.

A field of flowers... did she mean the church? It was also where they had met again, after their chance meeting in Sector 8. He wondered if revisiting the places they'd been would bring back pieces of her memory.

It also wasn't lost on Cloud that Mideel was where he once regained his memory and now Aerith was in the same place and missing her own memories. It was an ironic twist of fate, to have her back but not remember him.

However, like her, Cloud's cheeks warmed as he realized their position. He forced himself to take a step back, embarrassed and self conscious. "Sorry..." His gaze fell for a moment before looking back to her.

"Aerith, what if revisiting places we've been to would help you remember? There's one not too far from here - the temple. It's...destroyed now, but maybe going there will help you."

"Cloud"

She repeats his name softly, her brows furrowing together. His gaze is intense, but she doesn't balk from it. Instead she attempts to hold it, until he continues on with words that seemingly might mean something to her. "I woke up in forgotten city? My mom she was a cetra. . ." The word rings in her ears, maybe the only word she can remember. She barely whispers it, wondering if he already knew. What did he know about her? "Everything is kind of fuzzy..." Aerith can feel the formation of a headache. She pushes it down, focusing on the boy with blonde hair who feels far too familiar.

"We knew each other, didn't we?" There is a twinge of hope in her voice, the tears glistening in her eyes. "I didn't know...anyone would look for me" Alone. She had been alone and lost. She might of settled in the small village, but what other choice did she have? With no recollection of who she was, she would have been wandering for who knows how long.

"I can remember a field of flowers..." Aerith glances at the discarded basket, but even that can barely draw up a coherent thought. "I'm sorry I can't....nothing rings any bells" She apologizes again, her cheeks suddenly warming when she realized they were still embraced.

"Oh, I'm really sorry" Aerith released her grip on his arms, taking an almost tumbling step backwards. Something clicked in her, that touch felt too natural to her. Was she always touchy? Had she always sought it out? If she thought about it hard enough, if she was honest, Aerith missed his touch the second she pulled out of it.

[cynicalclassicist]

Right. A lot of thoughts.

Great review! You really put down what makes this story a poor start. This is not a story to really draw people in. You'd expect that this would highlight the Eighth Doctor a bit but he just goes around meeting the other seven Doctors. I suppose it could be called like a crash course in Doctor Who? But instead it feels like... well, Time and Time Again as a book, revisiting old adventures. At least with TATA it's mainly just a page a Doctor as it was telling a story in 10 pages.

And the beginning was fun, with a great splash page of various villains on Earth.

Which brings me onto my next point...

The cocaine plot is not a great way to grab people. Going back to Coal Hill School, where it all began. Not inherently bad. But then it goes into what feels like another sort of plot. Of course, the premise of Doctor Who means it can go into all sorts of plots, so I'm not going to say that DW books aimed for a mature audience can't do a plot around drug dealing. I think that Damaged Goods did it and that sounds great. But it doesn't feel like a great way to start it off. And then it just gets forgotten for most of the book before being resolved at the end.

If you wanted something around drug dealing it could have been mentioned in passing, but it takes up a large portion but not enough to feel like it is justified, so it sits awkwardly there.

And the time-freeze... to be honest the rules around time travel aren't really consistent even among writers (hello Moffat!) but even for DW this is strange. I'm reminded of Twice upon a Time... which I prefer.

With something like The Eight Doctors you'd expect it to be more fun. Like even if The Power of the Doctor might be a bit messy in plot terms... yes, I'm criticising a Chibnall story, you must be spitting out whatever the Australian equivalent of tea is right now... it's at least kind of fun. It doesn't have anything as fun as the Master dancing to Bony M!

And had a sort of meta-commentary on fandom... which I won't go too into here. The other Doctors appearing was at least more fun.

There are some parts that could be fun. 8 and 6 in the timeline that... is there. Apparently. They do some political shennanigans but then it just goes weird. I haven't read Goth Harvest but as you said, it's basically redoing that. And it's weird seeing benevolent Rassilon when we're pretty used to Rassilon being this evil dictator, from Zagreus to Hell Bent.

And you mention Hell Bent, yeh, that's good, subverting and all that. Down to playing with the strongman idea in 12 deposing the President and briefly taking control of the planet then running away... again. I'm losing count.

But here Borusa can just come back and sorts it out and it diminishes The Five Doctors a bit, as Rassilon can just let them out, like some benevolent Underworld ruler who gives someone a temporary pass. Maybe the implication that they can be redeemed could work? But as you said, it's redoing another story.

I prefer Engines of War anywhere. That does Borusa as well and really looks back to The Five Doctors. I suspect that you'll enjoy it more when you get to it.

And the whole Time Lord to assassinate the Doctor... well, it feels like stuff we've done before.

Maybe it's like The Timeless Children in that it suffers from having too many stories. I hope that you aren't drinking Australian tea again! Though was kind of doing something... new. Sort-off. And at least that story has better villains!

Ryoth is not that interesting. Even the loathsome scheming Time Lord in Engines of War is better as a villain.

And the drug dealer guy... well, if they want him to be a villain he should have a full story!

Yes, I am aware that I sound very shallow with reasons for liking stories but what's Doctor Who without the villains?

(Also, Tumblr is much better for Gifs.)

I've already talked about multi-Doctor stories a bit on Twitter... It would be interesting to do a full Tumblr essay discussing Multi-Doctor stories. And maybe how writers have tried being a bit more experimental with them, which is kind of inevitable due to how many Doctors there are now.

Hence why The Edge is preferable. Not the first time they've done something like this in DW but it's there now!

Which makes me think how Timewrym: Revelation is a better multi-Doctor story. Not quite the seven Doctors but better.

Is that Dimensions in Time? Moving on...

Having the Doctor revisiting their past lives could be fun. You could have some character stuff. Like when talking to 2 about coming to the end of his life or whatever.

Huh, another comparison to Twice upon a Time.

3 and 8... that could have been its' own short story if Terrance Dicks wanted it to be. Could they do the current Doctor meeting other Doctors by different authors if The Eight Doctors had been a 35th anniversary piece?

The closest we got to that was Happy Deathday. Which is basically a parody of anniversary stories and much more fun for it.

It's a shame that Terrance Dicks made a mess of the start.

And the problematic stuff around women which was also in the start of the VNAs with Timewrym: Genesys. Why do they both start in such a disappointing manner?

At least The Clockwise Man is decent enough.

Well, many more to go! I hope that my own ramblings were of some interest!

At the very least, ideas for future Tumblr essays were thrown around.

I'm sure that your next read of an Eighth Doctor Adventure will be more enjoyable. And good luck for War of the Daleks!

I'm going off to watch scenes at the Edge.

In preparation for Wild Blue Yonder, why not join me as we take our first step into the Eighth Doctor Adventures with The Eight Doctors?

Oh dear.