#the other half is justin case storyline btw

[theno1joelhater]

oh hi um here’s a ron doodle

[sleepymarmot]

I still have about 200 queued posts (bear with me... and sorry followers on mobile), but I want to quickly publish some of my post-binging thoughts before the new episode comes out. (Because I get overwhelmed by other people’s opinions and can’t remember what my own were unless I write them down. It’s easy to recall which parts I simply loved for what they are because other people did too and I can reblog their posts; it’s harder to not forget my own perspective outside of that.)

I didn’t actually expect to post these opinions because I don’t feel comfortable criticizing TAZ the way I tear apart big franchises like ME. But I did write it down, so what the hell. Let’s start with the biggest piece of negativity then. I can't name a favourite arc but I think the last place is Petals to the Metal. The racing sequence was spectacular enough that I didn't mind the pacing that much, but the final episode was really disappointing. A combination of not actually explicitly confirming the pairing in canon (I seriously expected that would be the culmination of the arc) AND Bury Your Gays (yes, I know Griffin dealt with the feedback gracefully, that doesn't fix the actual story though) AND some extreme railroading AND deus ex machina/Power of Love (at least the latter was retconnet as in not retroactive continuity but retroactive context). That actually put me off the show for some time. I think this moment encapsulates my problems with Hurley's writing pretty well. She really comes off as a Mary Sue written by a self-aware male writer who feels the need to put female characters on a pedestal -- certainly not the most objectionable phenomenon, but still makes my eyes roll. I feel the same about Carey and Killian in The Crystal Kingdom and the recurring remarks about "competent women". (I mean, I understand the gameplay reason for that, it's not that I'm asking for super detailed fights between NPCs, but I didn't like the way it sounded in the story.) Thankfully Carey got some development with Magnus, Killian had a good introduction before that glorification thing started cropping up, and their relationship's good obviously; plus, thankfully, Lucretia is completely free from this (she actually might be my fave NPC in terms of writing).

I think my least favourite part of The Suffering Game is the final past bosses battle? It's not just repetitive -- this repetition, needless in this case, devalues the other instances of our heroes facing the past. The first big one was Noelle (great: surprising, touching, important for the overall plot as we now know), then we had the three robots (I was pretty delighted to see Jenkins and Magic Brian again) even it was more about combat than meaningful facing of past mistakes, then the destruction of Phandolin was seen again in The Eleventh Hour, and only a bit later the setting of the first arc will be revisited once more. So even not counting this scene, it was starting to get a bit navel-gazey, and the complete lack of story relevance of that battle diluted things even more. It kind of sounded like running out of ideas -- I'd prefer any other challenge or just a repeat of the random monster generation. (Btw I totally expected to see the crab from Rockport Limited in that lineup. It's kind of special to me because back I went "Ah a floating crab, yeah feel you boys, I hate fighting Praetorians too, at least this thing doesn't shoot lase--" and then it started shooting fire, lol.)

Back to what I wanted to talk about: I have lots of thoughts/feelings about consequences re: the last episodes. The spoilers I've seen gave me so much anxiety! Like I've read that Magnus loses memory so I completely expected him to lose everything. So I spent a lot of time in complete dread, and when I read "Magnus forgets" in the summary my heart dropped, and then it wasn't that bad at all so I thought "that's it?" and felt relieved until the fucking clone tank. At which point I thought "No, this is it" especially because all of the players interpreted it that way. So I was very surprised and relieved that he kept everything, and that Griffin was so kind to him. But that kinda brought me to another problem -- that the new body undid Magnus's sacrifices. He didn't lose a finger or 10 years of life; the only loss was the identity of his nemesis which a) is a sad thing and he might be happier without it -- I would; and b) the boys promised to take care of that. Meanwhile, Taako and especially Merle have to live with their sacrifices. That's unfair. I was pretty thrilled when I realized the sacrifices were For Real, and was feeling real dread and anxiety about them (can't say if in a wholly good way) and I don't like devaluing that. Though of course I'm pretty jazzed that the character who is at the moment my favourite got treated so well. That scene was cathartic as hell! But back to the sacrifices: I'm intrigued by the problem of balance of hurting the character in a way that's good for narrative and/or game balance (yeah the intent of "let's nerf them a bit" was easy to see) but not compromising them as a piece of writing. I didn't give a shit about max health or dexterity penalties, but the story significant things about losing body parts and especially memories sounded brutal and cruel to me. I actually laughed when during one of the commercial breaks Griffin said something like "I hope this isn't causing you too much anxiety" because I was rushing through this arc because of that anxiety! But in the end, as it often happens, the half-misinterpreted spoilers made everything sound worse than it actually was. And I was very glad and relieved to hear Griffin specifically clarify that he's not going to take away important parts of a character.

But despite what I just said, when I started The Suffering Game arc I was actually amazed because it was second arc in a row built around my personal favorite tropes! I really appreciate Doctor Who-ish journey through genres (that doesn't take itself seriously but also has an epic underlying plot. All my fandoms are the same...) Murder on the Rockport Limited also counts in that category. So if I had to pick a favorite, they'd probably be among the candidates? Well I don't know how to count Reunion Tour for that. I really liked The Eleventh Hour, time travel/time loop stories are like my #1 fave. And it's a closed room mystery too (like Rockport Limited). That was the point where I started listening much faster because I needed to learn the truth. (Also, the Lunar Interlude before that arc, with the three separate stories, was freaking revolutionary and started a new level of character development for the show in general.) But I was kind of disappointed by the lack of a Holmes speech-type explanation of everything in the end. Because a big part of enjoyment was the expectation that it'll all click together beautifully in the end -- and some pieces still didn't fit. I'm still not sure if I missed something or that wasn't explained. Why was Isaak, like our heroes and unlike everyone else in the town, aware of the temporal loops and free to act? What was the interaction between Taako's spell and the code word -- did the spell have any effect other than almost drowning everyone, would "Junebug" have worked by itself? I had some more questions I thing, but right when I was going to pause/think/rest, everything was swept away by the freaking Red Robe Magnus cliffhanger, so I continued to run forward internally screaming "Explain! Explain!" like a Dalek, and then that was joined by the aforementioned Suffering Game anxiety. And that's the story how I marathoned the last part of the show three or more times faster than I planned to.

I really loved listening to TTAZZ, both of them, it was really good meta! I think I started to appreciate the show more after the first one. I can see where the fan criticism re: representation is coming from, but I myself also belong to the category of people who can never visualise their own (or anyone's, really) characters and therefore really love the freedom of interpretation. I'm also a bit sad about the commentary on racism in the new one, which, in addition to the comments about the Taco Quest in the first one, made me pretty sure that storyline/running joke is not coming back. I found it really funny back then in the beginning of the show -- more so because I, myself, have no freaking idea what tacos are actually like. I mean, we might have some mexican food places over here, but I've never been to one. And I intentionally didn't look it up after starting the show because it was funnier and kind of immersive this way lol. But they sound pretty committed to non-committance about the enthnicities, and raising the topic in canon again would force the issue, so I think they're just quietly abandoning it. Story-wise, I'd love to hear something like "Taako had invented a dish and named it after himself, but the voidfish baby ate the recipe so he couldn't recreate it until now" because I'm a sucker for justifying jokes and tying them into the main plot/emotional storyline. But in general I'd prefer any option that offends people the least. I was kind of surprised when Justin talked about abandoning Taako's early "dumb" characterisation, because I hadn't actually thought it was "officially" thrown away. I assumed Taako was just really bad at paying attention, and got better at managing that as a part of organic character development. I actually found that kind of relatable, plus "absent-minded professor/wizard" is a classic trope. Also TTAZZ made me wish even harder for the lost awesome adventure of Magnus and Kravitz in the astral plane. And it was already slightly souring my excitement about the totally awesome & touching scene we got instead.

I didn't really get the exposition about the planes in The Crystal Kingdom, and the long explanation in the latest two episodes require more attention than I gave them. Hope today's episode will make things clearer. Some things I hope to hear explained soon:

Why has Merle died more times than Magnus or Taako?

Also, looking forward to the promised explanation of how Gundren can be Merle's blood relative lol

Why was the Chalice so much more self-aware and civil than the other Relics? Is it related to the fact that its creator has some special connection to the (a?) voidfish?

Was Magnus a wizard before? Being a lich, creating a Grand Relic... If so, why doesn't he have magic now?

If Magnus is a lich, can he one day die and stay in the astral plane with Julia like an ordinary human, like he wanted? If not, that's a pretty big and tragic turn of events for him. (Granted, this might be more of a D&D mechanics question...)

(I actually just found a Reddit thread starting with the same question, discussing whether all 7 are really liches or not, so these two points might not be even valid haha)

(I also saw someone theorize that Lup invented the taco recipe -- and damn I really do want to see that now. Imagine trying to figure out something and later realize that it was created by your dead sister who named that thing after you.)

(I was confused about LichBarry’s reveal because I thought at the end of PTTM he was mind-controlling Captain Captain Bane to poison THB. Someone had the same question and another person answered that Barry’s spell was only to make Captain drink the poison, and the murder attempt was on him. I totally didn’t get that. Between this and my question about “Junebug”, either mind-control spells are not very clearly explained in this show, I suck at understanding them, or both.)

(Shit, this list has transformed from future episodes wishlist into reactions to Reddit lol)

Since I was talking about Taako and Lup, here’s another passing thought: remember how Taako immediately wanted to be Like Them when he saw the lich duo? You know, the elven brother and sister?!

Not related to anything, but I just realized I can wear jeans as a stealth fandom reference and it's delightful :D