#the ending is just one aspect thats ridiculously well done

[boughkeeperdain]

Honestly Naoki Urasawa's 'Monster' is such a well written story on so many levels.

My favourite part about it is that it's cyclical- the way it ends calls back to how it began. (Spoilers ahead)

Kenzo starts, and continuously stays this way, as someone who stays true to what he believes. He has a strong moral compass and won't really stray from it. He has the firm belief that all lives are created equally, which ultimately leads him to save Johan's life as a child.

Johan on the other hand believes that humans are only equal in death, and his end goal is to get Tenma to be the one to kill him, to understand the monster inside of him. If this were what happened then even that woukd be good writing- it was Tenma who saved him, and Tenma who would end him. Almost a poetic end for Johan, and would completely break down Tenma's morals and personal code of ethics.

But this isn't the case. Even when faced with Johan's likely death after he was shot (once again in the head), Kenzo makes the effort to save him- to go out of his way. Its comparable to the trolley problem on a way, and Kenzo takes the decisive action to try and make a change.

All lives are equal in the beginning, and all lives are equal at the end. An infallible ideology for our main character and brings us back to the start of saving Johan's life. And then we get the perfect end and callback to the start with the empty hospital bed, a mirror of Johan's first time in the hospital.

I quite like the ambiguity on whether Johan did survive or not, because both outcomes would have such different weight to them.

[lunar1an]

while i tend to be uncharitable towards pale (seeing a story you really like go directions you don't want that you think actively hurt it while watching people uncritically praise every new development and meme character for three years tends to make you jaded!) i do think some people get a little silly about dissing a web serial they haven't read so like. to just put it down here.

i do think early pale is objectively one of wildbow's best works. like. the rotating three perspectives are used extremely well. the characters read as convincing and likable children, the cast is excellent, especially the starting Others. it's an alternate, lighter look at a dark setting and it works. the fact that the mystery isn't the premise so much as figuring out the problem of "how do we handle that some of these Others want to get rid of us". or later "how do we properly confront these people without being too cruel because society's already done that to them".

that's like. arcs 1-3. arcs 4-7 are also, i think, good, even if it's ultimately a diversion and some of the simplified messaging around Other treatment is a bit eh. alexander and bristow have a lot of character and while they're more straightforward pure antagonists it's fun to watch them be petty. the trio interacting with traditional practitioners is fun.

8-10 is like. pretty good. but some of the cracks start to show with arcs 9-10 dragging on a bit (it has melissa though so thats good). the new cast members are fun and interesting and tie into the conspirator plot. 9.9 is excellent if a hard read.

11-13 is like. where the dragging on elements intensify. a lot of Diversions happen that kind of get in the way of the trio Solving The Mystery(tm) and while a lot of those diversions are chocked down to one conspirator's work it feels more like it takes screentime away from the main plot and core cast which you're Really invested in. 12.z and about half of arc 13's chapters including the Break interludes are really good though, bringing a kind of like. pact-y vibe and atmosphere to the story which was sorely missed.

after arc 13 though its like. at this point it's less three rotating perspectives that each lay their eyes on the main plot at specific points with an intent to highlight certain aspects of the story (avery focused on connections, lucy focused directly on the mystery, verona focused on the Others). and more three separate web serial protagonists with their own plotlines loosely connected. and things get bloated. and start escalating beyond reason (70+ practitioners attacking kennet???). and the Practitioner = evil colonialist oppressor stuff gets silly. but i think like. at least the story still cohered. musser still continued the trend of jerk practitioners who abuse the system even if he's just a TwitchPlaysPractitioner stream that does things arbitrarily like a ghost or a dog. the founding sequence towards the end of arc 17 was cool even if i was a bit disappointed with how kennet found turned out.

i think if you were really invested in the trio and their story you could probably stop sometime around there and be satisfied. not a good or a clean ending, and you probably were better off stopping at arc 13, but it works.

but then pale keeps going and does a complete paradigm shift to make the literal Red Menace Revolutionary the antagonist. and has to justify the also purportedly revolutionary kennet opposing that antagonist and shit just goes sideways. and by now you start running into the more ridiculous stuff like "avery compares goblins to human minorities" (yes. i know the intent of her statement. it was still silly).

like. it just stopped cohering or being consistent or anything. plots and characters get introduced and discarded just as quickly and have little to no impact despite how hyped up they are initially. it's not good, and it actively hurts the material that came before it (retroactively making charles worse, for example).

even the setting stuff is like. early pale had some silly things like a technomancer being able to set up a worldwide magic jstor or this one glamour-drowned dude being wayyy too powerful with glamour for someone who wasn't even a fae or practitioner. but it was like. you could excuse or justify or ignore it if it didn't agree with you because at least the rest of pale was good. but then every Path turned into a whimsical video game level (among many other less ignorable things) and pale stopped being good.

and like. man. even despite that i still think about the carmine alcazar chapters and the story of a Beast who lived in a world that had long left her behind. and the trio in the back of a truck practicing runes with their magic hat. pale was good. it was good! but then it had to keep going.

[ghost-town-dwellers]

im writing a full smpronpa review because honestly that fic kinda changed my brain chemistry. this will be bullet point format as i am lazy

okay, so disclaimer- i havent seen smplive so i cant talk about those streamers characterizations. HOWEVER, i had a 3 year long derange danganronpa phase and have been abnormal about technoblade since 2017 so i do consider myself a bit of an expert on those aspects. oh also im taking the poke route and replacing that guy with yahi 👍

- gettin the techno things outta the way. first off, really likes his characterization and how it didnt fall into the trap of “overly bloodthirsty and unemotional” technoblade while still keeping his hitman status from tekkitlive i believe? and his deadpan demeaner. A+

- on the negative side, i will never get forgive the author for missing out his speech quirks like dropping the “g” at the end of words or constant use of “bruh”. additionally, plotwise, i feel like technoblade as the hitman sent after schlatt and co was disregarded a bit too quickly? and also came off as weird considering no one was meant to have any memories?? like why did schlatt and co and techno remember that part??? idk that just confused me but its danganronpa so whatevs

- the talents. they didnt.. feel like they had much of a purpose? like they didnt feel like they added much to the characterization, but that does add something interesting to the fact that the talents were a fake concept all along so i will not say if this was good or bad and will leave it up to you

- speaking of, was there a reason we never found out ty or travis’ talents? like they died and we just never found out what they were or why we didnt know. like. that confused me

- on the OTHER hand. the fake talents imply that yahi made HIMSELF the ultimate comedian which is objectively hilarious. big obama giving obama a medal energy

- poke. girl they did so little with him that i REGULARLY forgot he was there. bro just do SOMETHING with him. however, this is also a classic danganronpa experience so i will accept it

- the third trial kinda went crazy. i liked the twist on two victims to instead be two killers. genuinely an interesting version of the third chapter, and ryan was like.. a weirdly compelling character, especially after that trial

- half of the end twists were just straight ridiculous. im not.. really a fan of the “it was joko actually it was yahi actually it was cooper” thing, but its very sdr2 core so tbh thats fair. on the other hand, what in the world exactly happened to joko????? like he was at the final trial for like a Minute but he was dead beforehand in the flashbacks???? was he a robot????????? im so confused

- also, what was the purpose of charlie fakin his death? once again, very danganronpa of them but fundamentally kinda weird and unnecessary. i understand the in universe explanation but like.. out of universe why was that decision made?

- i would like the give the author massive kudos for the actual murders and trials. as someone who has participated in and even RAN danganronpa fangame rps, that shits HARD. it was pretty well done! not perfect, and some parts were hard to follow but i have ABSOLUTELY seen worse

- i also started really liking angel as a character. i liked the choice to have her actually be a detective lying about her “ultimate” and she felt very genuine and interesting. schlatt also came across as a pretty interesting antagonist with canon-typical confusing motives

- also whatever the fuck joko and cooper had going was gay as HELL. like idk what was up but it was deeply homosexual

- i also liked the way the ending had a sort of commentary on fan culture and the increasing escalation of entertainment for the cruel enjoyment of the masses. very yugioh arc v z-arc core for the like two people who get that reference. im not entirely sure on how WELL it was executed especially within the wider context, but i still found it interesting

thats the general review! ill update this if i realize i forgot stuff but all in all thats what i wanted to say

[mulling-over-milgram]

my personal interpretation is that its about fuuta’s toxic relationship with justice/cancel culture rather then with lover. Deco*27 writes lots of love songs so usually take the love aspect of the covers less literary.

“I compared the fluid that leaked out of the wound to “love” → “I compared the fluid that leaked out of the wound to “justice”

how his pursuit of justice ended up killing the middleman schooler and how her social death from the canceling was in his mind justice

“Lack of compassion and mating without love is Similar to the entangled relationship between us Yet, “I love you” → “Lack of compassion and attacking without consideration is similar to the relationship between myself and justice, “I love this”

the lyrics are about comparing a the pov’s relationship to one that doesn’t have love but yet they still love their partner but through this justice interpretation its an exchange with out justice/with out consideration for the consequences or other person is compared to what fuuta was doing yet he still loves practicing in the cancel culture/the camaraderie that comes with cancel culture

“What’s wrong with me loving you” → “what’s wrong with me pursuing justice”

in fuuta’s mind whats wrong with punishing these people whats wrong with me enjoying canceling them i’m just pursuing justice

“So nobody can touch you” → “so nobody can hurt me” / “so nobody can touch my idea of justice”

”This is fate as well, it will disappear” → “this is fate as well , they will disappear”

the people he’s cancelling in his mind are bad people who have done bad things so its only right they get whats coming to them. They have done bad things so they deserve to disappear (the social death / ridicule that comes from cancel culture)

“What should I call shooting out my thirst while still not knowing if this is greed or love” → “what should I call my thirst for justice while still not knowing if its greed or genuine”

Fuuta questioning if his actions are a pure desire to see justice up held or if its the the camaraderie that comes with cancelling people and maybe the power of being able to make change?

“I will drink up all the tears that you gave me you gave me a sweet lie that “it’s ok to be a coward”, have I been able to escape?”

The you in this case being the others who were involved with the cancellation / the you being the act of canceling someone. The sweet lie of cowardice being canceling someone behind the safety of a screen.

“Is this called “I loved you”? Where I struggle to cling to you , What’s wrong with killing me, me who you hate” → “Is this called “justice”? Where I struggle to cling to it , What’s wrong with killing me, me who I hate”

or at least thats how I think of it ^^

hey has anyone ever figured out why fuuta's t1 cover song was mozaik role actually because i have been confused about it since the beginning

because out of the cover songs that ive seen the lyrics for most of them do have some kind of correlation to the character?? like coward montblanc and neo neon make sense for kazui, liar dance and delusion tax make sense for shidou, vampire makes sense for yuno, android girl makes sense for haruka, monopoisoner makes some sense for mikoto. when you look at animal within the context of amane's character that one makes sense too. hell, for how funny it sounds in concept even salamander the cup noodle song DOES fit fuuta because of its constant references to the addicting heat of spicy cup noodles and that you need to blow on it to cool it down or itll burn you

but i dont know what's going on with fuuta and mozaik role??? isnt mozaik role about toxic relationships?? you'd think of all people they wouldve given it to mahiru. or did i miss another interpretation of the song? what's going on here man

[melody-sy]

changes i would make in a super paper mario remake:

DONT replace the combat with ttyd style battles. that would strip the game of its identity you cant do that to her...... keep the action rpg platformer aspect, but refine the platforming physics to feel more familiar to modern 2d mario-- something like how it feels in new super mario bros games. i think this alone would singlehandedly make this game so much nicer to play >w>.

don't limit 3d mode-- let mario stay in 3d for as long as he needs to...

make the return pipe two-way-- you can return to flipside, and then warp back to the place you used it in. also get rid of the cursya that teleports you back to flipside...

more healing items in the levels please! also, get rid of the constant beeping when at low health-- just one little warning beep is enough i promise

speed up a lot of the sloooow animations. stuff like when solving a puzzle and watching stairs or something appear, or those rotating weoooow thingys in 1-2, or riding the minecarts in 5-3

also. make some changes to the puzzles where you have to memorize a really long solution-- namely mimi's vault code from 2-3 and the overly long block combo puzzle from 5-1... for the vault code, make it a key item you can check at any time, or a sheet of paper that appears on the "enter the code" screen. and for the block puzzle? it can stay overly long because that's funny, but once you know the code the block you need to hit next will sparkle or glow so you don't need to actually memorize it

speaking of 2-3... maybe rework 2-3 entirely? maybe this is a bit controversial but i always saw it as ttyd chapter 3 but without the good parts... i KNOW it's supposed to be "mario must work mindless labor to earn money" but that doesn't necessarily mean it has to be boring on the player end...

i actually have an idea for this. i propose we replace the electricity blocks and hamster wheels with a series of chores... mini-quests that are to be done in a scripted order, like Go kill the enemies in this room! Go retrieve the item from this dangerous area! ......they get progressively more absurd (Bake a cake for me! Jump in this specific location to check the floor quality!) but give you just enough rubees to pay the guy and get the vault code just before the tasks start to become utterly ridiculous (Write "I will not break Mimis pottery" on the chalkboard 1,000 times! Make a slideshow explaining how great it is to work here! Do a triple flip and meow!)

thats the best i can come up with, at least... it'd require remaking the entire level layout, sure, but i think its something thats gotta be done... i think this solution fits the scenario and the game's humor pretty well

4-1 can also use a few improvements... specifically, make each room more visually distinct and do something about all that empty space... i know the level literally takes place in space but it's reaaallly easy to get lost in here and that's not very fun...

this goes for quite a few locations in the game actually... a lot of places with visually similar rooms could use some landmarks 'w'

cut back on the motion control action commands, and im saying this as a motion control enjoyer 'w' shaking the controller to get a Nice is a bit too much and so is pointing at the screen just to tattle

i kinda lost my train of thought somewhere....

i think, if super paper mario ever gets a remake... it should be more of a reimagining... keep the story and characters and artstyle and everything else that makes the original great, but fix the janky gameplay and weird game design

[trashworldblog]

RIGHT?? and since we dont have almost any info on his backstory (how old is he? how long has he been time traveling? how many trips?) theres really no way to guess what can come next. which means we can get REALLY silly with it. i always thought he based his episodes on his travels. so its possible that the puppets that the genie knows about are only the ones that were on the show. or maybe the genie did a Really good job and found ALL the puppets and there really is no puppets left.

yeah i think the items being shelved is interesting because its a good way to represent something happening in the past. especially since its LITERALLY behind ryan. like in his past and physically.

oooh i see. thats really good! maybe ryan had to give something of the professors in order to save him. the satchel really is the only thing i can think of that would be important and irreplaceable to the professor.

another caveat i was thinking of is what if the professor only had a limited time on earth or if ryan / the professor now owe the genie a favor. or if the professor had to promise not to make anymore puppets and is now breaking that promise and the genie is gonna fucking get him again.

yeah i think the hat might be back but he isnt wearing it on his head? and its probably due to logistics puppeteering or with lighting.

also! last season i thought the puppets looking different was just due to madison being ridiculously talented (and she is. i mean LOOK at the meteor!! so cool!) but i thought it was just an artistic choice and not lore relevent, but they ended up all being holograms! and now the most recent puppet has more of that puppet history vibe so 👀 maybe things that seem to just be logistical choices/not lore relevant may be! idk! keep an eye out!

ALSO YEAH time travel shenanigans are always super weird to explain and its absolutely okay if puppet history never goes into that becuase i dont really care about flaws in logic with that stuff and also.... its a puppet show, ive already bought into the world. i dont think anyone is gonna be upset about it. plus every aspect of this show is super good and well done so like... if the time travel logic isnt 100% accurate to ... whatever makes people think time travel logical... thats ok.

yes!! the article definitely means that they did die and death did say he remembered a little blue nerd dying in dino times. THEY DIDNT GO THRU A CANNON EVENT *cue miguel ohara theme* but either way the genie is gonna be PISSED cus not only is the professor isnt dead, hes still causing puppet chaos.

i think he might have a new satchel in the trailer, and i mean, its possible he got a whole new wardrobe becuase he's bigger now. so none of his clothes and accessories fit.

i think s6 will be chill lore breadcrumbs and s7 will have more lore stuff! maybe not the same level as s5 but 👀👀 itd be cool if it did👀👀 id like that 👀👀. i think it just depends on if shane has a good idea planned out and when s7 comes out. he had a year to make a season 5 and that seems like the right amount of time for him to make a BANGER loreful season.

YEAH I HOPE RYAN AND THE PROFESSOR CAN BE FRIENDS FOR A WHILE. I NEED THEM TO BE NICE. i dont see the prof getting revenge on ryan at any point, he seemed genuinely regretful in s5 and genuinely relived and happy to see beef boy. and yeah him and his family looking up at the stars... 😭😭😭 that scene still makes me cry. its just so sweet and sad. <3

thanks for talkin lore!

hey guys im gonna write about lore now because im a little drunk and i have Big Feelings and Ideas about the puppet show. LETS GOO!!

ok so some background: we know the substitute [the hologram professor] was defenestrated by ryan at the end of last season. we also know that defenestration doesnt ALWAYS mean that the person dies. (also can a hologram die? sources say probably not. i mean he can kick and bite but just because he can manipulate matter doesnt mean he can die per say. he can probably recharge.)

we ALSO know that the power box and victory algorithm are outside of watcher hq in the dumpster. this was revealed in 6x01 and DEFINITELY not a mistake. im like 95% sure this plays into what happens next.

so whats my theory???

i do think this season is gonna be pretty chill lore wise. i think after 4 and 5 we deserve this little victory lap and shane is gonna give it to us. im almost positive there wont be any post show lore bits (except for MAYBE the season finale) there might be more breadcrumbs along the way though! and i will be looking out for them

when we DO get into lore times, i think the most likely things to happen is something that threatens both the professor and beef boy or one of them. i think we explored alot of the internal struggles with their friendship and i think their friendship is solid and earned now. (and it feels repetitive to make them not be friends again). ive kinda been waiting for a team up, and im very excited for this to happen!!

so, my #1 theory is its probably gonna be the substitute coming back to get his revenge. probably with a little help to. top suspects are 1) genie, 2) the devil, 3) asmodeus? and 4) secret fourth thing (a character we dont know about yet) i am curious about what the substitute is gonna do with the victory algorithm. in the lore scene where hes watching the machine count, it really does seem to just be a machine that counts points like jokes and puns along with correct answers, and all it does is award a ticket for the winner. i dont see how that can be manipulated into being helpful for him.

we also gotta get those little puppets out of the wondreum arena!!! and the professor doesnt seem to know that they're stuck in there!!!! i think that is also gonna play a role at some point, but i can't quite place where it falls yet. maybe the substitute will mention it and the professor will be like ??? WHAT??? maybe that's first on the professor's priority list??? maybe they'll get them back before the substitute comes back? idk yet. but its definitely a factor and something to keep in mind. i remember the substitute saying that god said that they could send one representative to earth to figure the whole mess out anf they sent the substitute, im just curious how any puppet was supposed to do anything about that??? are they supposed to bring their now unanimated objects to the wondrium arena for the puppet souls to inhabit??? idk but im excited to see how this part gets resolved cus i wanna see the little guys get outta there.