#they had such a good opportunity for a good power

[bridgetoesoteria]

🌛Empowering Messages From Hecate🌜

(top to bottom)

I have been wanting to post a spirit guide messages reading for awhile, but this idea really clicked for me.

For those of you not familiar with the goddess Hecate, she is one of the bad ass goddesses. She has a really interesting story for anyone that is into greek mythology.

Pile 1

You have more options than you realize. You are more powerful that you allow yourself to be. Some of you may have a domineering figure in your life that you are trying to separate from. I think you will probably know who or what this is, because it is a chapter you know you need to close out. If you have been fighting some kind of uphill battle it is okay to walk away. There are good things waiting on the other side of this decision. Amazing things that you deserve. There's nothing wrong with being your own person. Sometimes you will have to go it alone.

Affirmation Card: Today I am resourceful; Today I will turn anything into an opportunity.

Pile 2

You should stand in your power fully. I'm not sure what that means but the vibe I am getting is that you have a lot of internal strength you can rely on. I think right now would be a good time to manifest some bigger things, because I keep hearing "ask and it is given". For some of you, this could be you milking a certain situation and getting what you can out of it. For example, your job didn't appreciate you much before, but now you have another offer from a different company. The ball is in your court now. If you wanted to stay at your current job, you could ask for anything you want and probably get most of it. So, I think this kind of energy is surrounding you at this time. This could honestly be your energy in general but you don't tap into it often enough. Start using your gifts and connections to benefit you!

Affirmation Card: Today I am adventurous; Today I will get out of my comfort zone and try something I've never tried before.

Pile 3

All piles kind of had a theme of "standing in your power", but I guess that makes sense given the topic. This pile seems to have more fear. Fear of letting go. Some of you want a divorce or to back out of a wedding? That is what the imagery looks like. For others of you it's like someone is coming back around, trying to make you second guess leaving them behind? You are being encouraged to remember who you are, and who you are becoming. Don't regress to past versions of yourself or let the pain of the past keep you chained up. If there is happiness and ease entering your life, embrace it. It doesn't mean something is wrong, it means things are going right! Finally, you don't owe anyone shit. You have new, amazing things to look forward to. You have every right to move on.

Affirmation Card: Today I am brave; Today I will step up to every challenge with courage. (Accidentally pulled two cards! I confused myself). Today I live in the present; Today I will start with a smile. I am in control of my attitude

I hope you enjoyed your reading! If you would like a personal reading, check the pinned post for info.

~ K

[possiblyreallyme]

Sabo's a flirt

warning: smut, flirty Sabo.

You wouldn't expect it from him, but Sabo's a flirt. He won't catcall or grab, but he'll most certainly ask for their hand on the dancefloor and dip them low to the ground, give them a wink and ask for their name with that damn toothy grin of his, chuckling whenever the girls inevitably blushed and gave right in.

Of course the ladies swoon— from shy village girls he meets on his way to missions, to the most confident dames of the big city. Who wouldn't, really? When you have an unreasonably handsome blond acting like you're the hottest thing he's ever seen, it's impossible not to clench your thighs when he gives you that look from across the room.

"Sabo," Koala would chastise when he bowed in front of you— a girl he had never met— like a prince trying to win over the lady's heart, rolling her eyes at the way he smirked up at you and ignored her in favor of kissing your palm.

She was used to this shit, and though it was deeply annoying when her friend went on these little flirting sprees, it sure was interesting when the switch was flipped. She raised a brow when she saw Sabo's face go pink out of the corner of her eye, wondering if maybe you had flashed a tit to get him to go all red. But no, all you had done was smile and gave him a giggle, and the boy was hooked.

He tried everything in his power to win you over, from cheesy smiles and pickup lines to seductive glances and lingering touches— when he was flirting with those other girls, he had nothing to lose. But now, he couldn't stand to fumble the feeling of how your hands felt in his, or lose the opportunity to hold you close at night or bury himself between your thighs like he dreamed to. He had unintentionally found a goddess, and thank God he was smart enough as a man to know that.

"My beautiful girl," He purrs now, having won over the right to call you his long ago. "Spread your legs for me, nice 'n wide."

He hasn't stopped his flirting at all, at least not with you. He'd still woo you every day if he could, act as if you were someone he had to impress, even though he had been holding back your hair while you graciously sucked him off not but an hour before.

He's not subtle, and he doesn't want to be. He wants you to know, as he's fluttering kisses across the inside of your thighs, that you're desired and cherished more than anything else in his life.

He pulls your panties to the side and licks up your dripping folds to part your labia and collect all your mouth-watering slick, pressing a kiss to your clit just as passionately as he kisses your mouth when he's been gone for far too long, moaning at your taste and already humping the mattress to ease the rock-hard problem in his slacks.

Gulping down your juices with a sweet mewl into your cunt, he hooks his hands under your ass to pull you closer to his face and keep you still while you writhed, moaning and groaning while you tugged on his hair. No man should be that good at eating you out, but you couldn't even be embarrassed when you came on his tongue in less than five minutes, not with his praises sending vibrations from your fluttering entrance up your spine.

He's everywhere all at once when he's finally thrusting his cock in and out of you, after making you cum on his tongue a few more times and dragging out each orgasm until you were wondering if the liquid dripping down your oversensitive folds and puddling on the sheets was his drool or your own squirt. He's intertwining your fingers and pressing your hands into the sheets, then he's playing with your clit and kissing down your neck to leave deep purple hickeys on your collarbone, before sucking your hardened nipple like a candy while he's bullying your cervix like a jerk with the tip of his fat cock.

But you're always too cotton-stuffed by then to do more than let your head lull to the side, moaning his name and whining while he coos down to you like you're his toy, flirting with you and whispering the sweetest things in your ear as he wipes your drooling lips and fucking abuses your lower half with the sharpest slams of his hips against yours he can muster.

He'll cum again and again, until your tummy is puffy with all the seed in your womb and he's pushing down on the bulge to watch it practically squirt out of you, but he's not done yet.

No— he's just going to fetch the vibrator, and he'll be right back.

[suzukiblu]

Day twenty-five of “obligatory sugar baby Kon” behind the cut. prev: (( chrono || non-chrono ))

Also then he fucking ruins his best non-funerary/non-gala slacks with ground-in gravel, rips a hole in the upper sleeve of his button-down, and nearly wipes out three times but only actually wipes out once, which ends up in him on his back and out of breath with Kon leaning over him and grinning down in delight as he reaches down to offer him a hand up. 

Tim takes it, because why the hell would he ever turn down the opportunity to hold Kon's hand? 

“That fall was sick,” Kon says as he pulls him to his feet, grinning wider at him. Tim isn’t really sure how to take that, considering. Like, Kon seems happy, but also he doesn’t love that Kon’s first comment was about him fucking up, so–“You’re really good at it, bet if you got tossed off a bridge you’d be super-easy to catch!” 

“. . . uh,” Tim says, vaguely bewildered. “Thanks . . .?” 

“And your balance is killer!” Kon continues enthusiastically, grabbing his other hand too and squeezing them both instead of letting go of him, and Tim realizes that Kon was, in fact, actually complimenting him with the comment about falling, which is . . . really weird, okay, but does make him feel better about the first comment thing. And, well . . . it does actually kind of make sense that Kon would be more impressed by examples of control, rather than strength or superpowers or stuff he sees every day. Like–technical skills over just throwing raw power at a problem until it stays the hell down, which is definitely what Kon’s used to. 

But also it makes literally no sense at all, because it’s Kon. The idea of big and bright and flashy Kon who does everything he can to take up space and get attention being the type to appreciate things like the fiddling little balance adjustments he did on the fly and the way he controlled his wipeout just feels, like–weird. 

Maybe it's just another example of a thing Kon is too busy acting cool to show Robin, but doesn't mind showing Tim Drake. 

“Thanks,” Tim says again, briefly wondering why Kon is completely incapable of putting up with Robin getting technical or detailed but can appreciate it in Tim Drake. 

. . . admittedly, the fact Kon wants to make out and, uh–take pictures with Tim Drake probably does make him more inclined to not find him annoying. Also Tim Drake isn’t the one in charge of both him and their entire team in regular stressful situations and there’s no one around who Kon might perceive him as stealing the attention of. 

Yeah, alright, he’s asking himself stupid questions again. 

Well, alright, so everything he was actually trying to impress Kon with is literally not even anything he cares about, all his best and slightly-too-Bat-level attempts aside, but he had pretty much expected it, just hoped that–

“The rail slide thing was so cool,” Kon continues again, sounding just as enthusiastic and back to beaming at him, and Tim . . . pauses, and then–“I dunno how you even did that without flying, and you did it so fast, and–” 

Tim doesn’t intentionally time it, but he needs to disassociate a little so he’s just counting a bit in his head, and therefore he knows that Kon spends exactly forty-seven seconds talking his ear off about literally every single one of the skate tricks he just did while still holding both his hands. Which doesn’t sound that long, technically, but definitely feels pretty long. 

And also pretty mortifying, because forty-seven seconds of Kon recounting every single trick that Tim is perfectly aware of having just done to him in an excited, delighted tone with his face all lit up in delight is . . . is a thing. That is happening to him. Actively. For forty-seven seconds. 

Forty-seven seconds. 

Tim really does not know how he’s supposed to pretend to not be going insane about this situation. Like that just isn’t a reasonable expectation. 

Kon stops to take a breath at second forty-eight, and Tim decides this is actually the perfect time to be more proactive in their physical relationship without any chance of Kon feeling like he had to drop any hints first. 

Well, no, Tim just grabs Kon’s face and kisses him stupid. But the first option is how he’s gonna explain why he did that to anyone he might ever have to explain it to, as opposed to if I didn’t kiss him right then and there I was going to have to go murder the Joker at LEAST fifteen years early and I just don't think Batman's thinly-veiled excuse for mental health could handle that, which is understandably a more loaded response and might lead to inconvenient follow-up questions he really doesn’t have time for in his schedule. 

Ideally he won’t be explaining himself to anyone, obviously, but contingency plans are contingency plans.

[dragoneyes618]

On February 5th, 1840, the Syrian Jewish community was thrown into peril when Father Thomas, an Italian monk, and his Muslim servant, Ibrahim Amara, disappeared in Damascus. Despite there being no evidence of the Jews’ involvement — in fact, historians think it’s more likely that Father Thomas was murdered by a local Turkish muleteer — the good citizens of Damascus could never lose an opportunity to scapegoat a Jew. Accusations of “blood matzos” spread rapidly (a common justification for many European blood libels), and thus began what became known as the Damascus affair. At the time, the city was governed by the (anti-Semitic) French consul, Ulysse de Ratti-Menton, who ordered a search of the Jewish quarter. While his hunt did not unearth any stored blood or bodies, Ulysse de Ratti-Menton was not about to let a small matter of literally no evidence get in the way of his convictions. A Jewish barber named Solomon Negrin was arbitrarily pulled off the street and tortured until he “confessed” that the monk had been killed in the house of David Harari — a wealthy member of the community — by seven Jews, who were rounded up before they could flee.

Meir Farhi, another wealthy Jew, was indicted in the disappearance of Ibrahim Amara. The Damascus authorities were furious that he escaped before they arrived to arrest him. Determined to drive him out of hiding, they began to whip his toddler son. After being forced to watch her son receive 300 lashes, and nearly bleed to death, a distraught Mrs. Farhi gave the authorities her husband’s location (along with a bribe for “humane” treatment), and he was promptly imprisoned.

In the interim, none of the seven “conspirators” in Father Thomas’s murder confessed, despite being tortured. Wanting a “confession,” as they still didn’t have any physical proof, Damascus authorities abducted 63 Jewish children (along with their mothers) and refused to release them until someone owned up. Aslan Farhi, a brother of Meir Farhi, confessed to the murder under torture.

While the Christians and Muslims had found their “murderers,” they still hadn’t located the bodies or the blood. Investigators eventually found some animal bones in the sewer, and claimed they belonged to Thomas and Amara. A local physician refused to certify that they were human bones and suggested they be forwarded to Europe for confirmation, but the French consul decided that would be too much effort — he had all the proof he needed.

Jewish communities worldwide were horrified about the blood libel, and even more so about the fact that the greater world accepted it as justified. No one in Europe rose to the defense of the Damascus Jewish community, or even questioned the obvious discrepancies in the case. But before the American Jewish community could take action, President Martin Van Buren spoke up.

Though the State Department issued an official statement condemning the situation in Damascus, President Van Buren wasn’t content to just send his “thoughts and prayers,” and instructed his government to pressure and influence the Sultan as well.

The American consul in Constantinople, David Porter, received the following message: “…As the scene of these barbarities are in the Mahomedan dominions, and as such inhuman practices are not of infrequent occurrence in the East, the President has directed me to instruct you do to everything in your power with the Government of his Imperial Highness, the Sultan to whom you are accredited… to prevent or mitigate these horrors…”

Mr. Porter’s pressure campaign (along with some assistance from the British and French governments) forced Pasha Muhammed Ali, the Ottoman Viceroy and ruler of Egypt and Syria, to end the torture and imprisonment of the Jewish prisoners who were still alive. Additionally, the American ambassador (along with Moses Montefiore) was able to secure an Ottoman imperial decree declaring that the blood libel had “not the least foundation in truth,” and that Jews “shall possess the same advantages and enjoy the same privileges” as his other subjects — most notably the free exercise of their religion.

While the American Jewish communities arranged protests in New York, Boston, Charleston, and Philadelphia, these rallies took place two weeks after the President intervened. His actions were a matter of conscience, not the result of political pressure or lobbying.

Source

[coffeebooksrain18]

While i do think Rhaenyra cared about Alicent when they were young, she was also a little too quick to turn against her if you ask me. She blamed Alicent for marrying Viserys as if she had any other choice. From the beginning it's painfully obvious that Rhaenyra is extremely spoiled and entitled. Viserys (despite being literally the worst at everything) was actually a good father to Rhaenyra, in my opinion. As a result, Rhaenyra grew up in a bubble thinking that other women had the same freedom as she did. The freedom to fuck whoever, to marry or not marry, not have children whenever with whoever. That is not Alicent's reality though. Alicent had no choice in anything, not even her own body. She didn't choose to marry Viserys or have his children. Alicent is a victim of Viserys but Rhaenyra is too self absorbed to see it. She turned her back on Alicent when she needed her the most, watched her birth child after child and still had the audacity to be mad at her. Tbh i'm suprised Alicent tried to maintain their friendship for as long as she did, i could never. Especially since how from that point on, Rhaenyra takes any opportunity she can to rub her freedom in Alicents face. Imagine doing that to the girl your own father groomed and raped. And TB wants us to think that she's a ''feminist icon''

*btw this is obviously about the show version of the characters

I completely agree, I've talked about how Rhaenyra and her stans completely disregard the fact that Rhaenyra has also hurt Alicent, that it's not just Alicent saying rude things.

Rhaenyra is spoiled, I think she is the definition of only child syndrome and rich kid syndrome, she doesn't understand others povs can't see from someone else's perspective.

I've talked about how Alicent had no power to say no to her father, or Viserys when she visited him and married Viserys. People forget she isn't a powerful woman in that time, at least compared to the power Rhaenyra has.

And yes it was clear it was the show version anon.

[pm-my-beloved]

Durante Sin Predictions

I recall someone (I think @lu-is-not-ok) suggesting that the sins appearing in Durante are sins that both the attached Sephirath and the Sinner need/ed to learn to utilise in order to deal with their personal struggle at the moment and... Yeah I did a delve into that, and all of it just clicks WAY TOO WELL. Starting with what we have, Pigrita (sloth) for Hokma and Heathcliff. I think in this context, the thing they harness from sloth is "Acceptance"

Hokma in Lobcorp had to learn that he cannot be responsible for everything, that he can't take care of everything, and to just accept someones elses will for their path and the future Heathcliff had to accept several things, accept his past and let go of resentment with that, accept help of his companions, and finally, accept Cathy's decision.

Next, We have Superbia, Sin of pride, for Binah and Sancho. And as I said in some other post, Pride is "Conviction"

Binah in lobcorp had no conviction, she engaged in her tasks because it was required of her, until she finally had opportunity to go mad like she wanted to. But after her meltdown, she sees X's drive, part of her gains the Conviction that unlike what she believed, city may be changed. In Sancho's case, it is her needing to have conviction in the rightousness of her own dream, to be able to truly stand against her fathers will. So far it fits, so what do we have next?

I believe for Chesed and Hong Lu, we will tap into Ira, the Sin of wrath, which in this case, gives us strenght to confront the unjust.

In Cheseds case, the lesson he learned during his meltdown is, that nothing will change if people accept world as is, if they won't stand against injustice even if odds seem insurmountable. Simmilarily, for Hong Lu it would manifest in him finally having will to confront his family, rather than constantly be avoidant or accepting, he will directly approach the root of his issues, and possibly uproot them.

Gebura and Ryoshu in my opinion will be learning to use Morostasis, Gloom. For it is Gloom that lets us process our grief.

Gebura was unable to process her grief, her pain, so instead, she lashed out, she struck at abnormalities, and then at whole facility, but after her meltdown, she was finally able to accept the pain that came with her failures, instead of being a blindly striking blade. Ryoshu is escapism addict. If her backstory is accurate to Hells Screen, the core of her issue is grief over a lost child, yet she posseses no gloom. It's because she does everything she can to avoid thinking about it, avoid confronting it, but I believe that in her canto, we will see her come to terms with her pain and accept it.

Meursault and Tiphereth then, will have Gula, Sin of gluttony, one from which desire, hope and drive stems from.

Tiphereth had no expectations, she lived in now, fearing the future, but with her meltdown, what came was Expectation for better future, Hope for a better future, drive to achieve that better future. Meursault lacks such drive, he constantly adjusts himself to wishes of others because its more convenient that way, more comfortable that way, but that does not mean he lacks them. In his canto I believe he will be forced to acknowledge his wants, and gain drive to pursue them regardless of societal judgement

Next on the list is Hod and Outis, seemingly unlikely pick but, what they both lacked, is Invidia, Envy, which here translates into, Humility.

Hod may appear humble at first glance, but its a farce. Her false kindness and humility were not out of the goodness of her heart, but to feed her own ego, her belief in her own goodness, and only after her meltdown does she accept feedback of others, actually strives to improve from whom she was already. Outis also may appear humble at first, with how intensly she follows power dynamics, but that comes from her pride and sloth, she does not believe in her inferiority to her overseers, she's just following the Rightous chain of command. As we can see in the Sasha battle log, she completly and utterly refuses to accept other peoples perspectives. Because of that, I think she will have to tap into sin of envy to accept that sometimes, listening to other peoples perspectives, is needed to become better.

That leaves us with one last set, Netzach, Faust and Luxuria, Lust. This one is harder to succintly put into a single word, but I believe that for those two, Lust will manifest in appreciation of life itself.

With netzach he seems outwardly lustful, but he has no actual enjoyment of what he does, it's just one long lasting suicide attempt. But after his meltdown, and ESPECIALLY in his ruina appearance, he learns that life, in on itself, has value, that to live, is to experience, to laugh to cry etc. Its not just the ends that matter, but the process aswell. And so with Faust, with her access to Gesellschaft she is in constant state of ennui, completly bored. But as we see in warp train event, when separated, she absolutely is able to enjoy the process of learning, of discovery, it brings her happiness. So when her canto comes, I think she will learn to not focus only on results of knowledge accumulation, she will stop trying to achieve climax of knowing that would bring her satisfaction, instead, she will take joy in each small step of learning something new.

Also fast round with not theorising, In games code there is also Angst and Madness sin which can easily be thrown onto Yesod and Malkuth in that order.

[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

[ofdarknesseyes]

There was definitely no denying it. This kid was his son, it was still almost unsettling. After all these years, Toji would have thought that his son would seem like a stranger to him. Yet here they were and despite everything, Toji still saw the little baby who brightened his life even if it was momentarily all those years ago. His baby, he tries not to think but it fills his mind anyways. He reminds himself that to Megumi he is nothing but a stranger—the cold and cruel man who abandoned him and who almost killed him. He is actually glad that Megumi is distrustful and wary of him. Rather he be that than too trusting. Though he could tell Megumi was warming up to him at least a little, and then again so was he. After all, he was the one who wanted to leave again. The longer he stuck around the more he realized he may not be able to leave again.

At least Megumi still had some fight in him though. He could see the anger still simmering in those pretty eyes of his. Yeah, they were the same color as his but Megumi’s eyes were still far more pretty. Filled with so much emotion, he wonders if Megumi knows the power he has over people with those pretty eyes. Probably not… This amuses him, even though he knows his son’s anger should not amuse him. He deserves that anger, though and he will gladly let Megumi take it out on him. Might as well if he’s going to stick around. Toji can’t deny he’s curious as to why Megumi wants him to stick around. Was it really because he just wanted his dad in his life? Even if he knows his father is a good-for-nothing asshole? Or does he really think that there’s more to Toji? Sorry kid there isn’t… Fucking hell… Toji almost chokes when he notices the blush on Megumi’s face. What the hell was there to be blushing about? Why does he look so damn cute… He has to bite back the grin and the urge to pinch his cheek hard. How is it that his teenage son is still the damn cutest brat to exist? Maybe all parents feel this way but Toji is pretty sure his kid is the cutest. He doesn’t let go right away. Instead, his face is leaning in slightly a playful smirk playing about his lips as his eyes study Megumi. Finally, he releases him but not before his eyes widen slightly at what Megumi says.

“I mean I guess there’s no denying you’re my kid. But I’m not as emo nor nearly as pretty.”

He grins and pats the top of Megumi’s head before finally walking away. Grunting in response to him saying he should shower. He picks up the leftover pizza to put it away in the kitchen area of the suite. Going to rummage in the fridge for the drinks he bought. God, he needed a cigarette… He hasn’t smoked at all since being back alive he realized just now… Why didn’t he buy any at the store? Or at least some alcohol. This revelation shook him to the core. He had been so focused on Megumi that he had not once thought about what he wanted… Other than he kept avoiding the fact that he wanted to stay by Megumi’s side.

Damn it, he really was a mess. Maybe that’s what happens when you get a second shot at life if that's what this was. Do you get soft and try making up for the mistakes you made in life? Toji never thought he would be one to care to make up for anything but the more time he spent with Megumi, the more he realized that part of him did yearn for something he was not familiar with or perhaps just something he hadn’t felt in a long time. 

While Megumi goes to shower Toji takes the opportunity to lay in the bed and rest. He meant to just take a moment but he ends up falling asleep to the sound of the running water.

Father and son were easily distinguished in appearance and soon showed in the form of emotion and actions. Pensive, closed off, battling their emotions, and deep down wanting desperately to close the awkward gap between them. If the world didn't know better they might have thought Megumi was raised by Toji to learn all his mannerisms. What they had was in the blood. Even in another ten years and half a world apart, the son would be like his father. For a moment Megumi got a brief inkling of that.

For the first time since reuniting, he saw more than the similarities in their green eyes and black hair but his father, this absent man, took the wind out of those sails when he said GUMI. The nerve! As if his father had been an ACTUAL father. It twisted his stomach in knots but those knots felt loosened when the conversation returned to the serious, bigger picture which lied in front of them. For all either of them knew, this reunion would be just a reunion as either or both of them could die in the fight to come.

Very solemn train of thought was upended and a rush of heat hit Megumi straight in the face. He didn't know why. Was it the heat from the anger that was resurfacing? No, it felt different -- his father was being so brave and commanding. Megumi struggled to swallow when he was face-to-face with his father again and just as he thought about turning away ever so subtly, Toji's fingers were grabbing him. It startled him for half a second. He didn't really think his father would hit him again but he certainly wasn't expecting goofiness or fondness. Now he really felt hot all over.

“ Stop. ”

With his cheeks squished, he sounded muzzled; a wolfdog hybrid being domesticated with love he wasn't sure whether he hated or loved yet. It was similar to all the shenanigans Satoru had pulled with his overly affectionate hugs, hair ruffles, and cheek pinching, but it was different coming from Toji. His true father. Hands quickly went up to smack Toji's hands but it wasn't actually meant to harm his father... if such a thing was possible.

“ I always look like this. I look like--- you. ”

Only like a foolish teenager. Only one percent as good looking and masculine as Toji. Green eyes met green eyes and Megumi decided to maintain the steady eye contact. Part of him was curious to see if he kept pushing this relationship would it drive Toji away despite his claims of sticking around. One thing was saying, another thing was facing your son and realizing there was no turning back. His heart was racing faster and faster.

“ I should shower. I probably smell... bad. ”

[summerofofelia]

I’m going to say something controversial yet brave.

Jack & Joker did not have a good script. It was a mess. The ensemble cast was brilliant but a show cannot thrive on acting talent alone and if we put that aside the script was not cohesive. I wanted to love this show but I found myself getting increasingly frustrated at the writing choices. The supporting characters were wildly under utilised.

And I understand that a core theme of the show was forgiveness, but that shouldn’t extend to shitty, abusive fathers. The paternal figures in this show did not deserve the grace with which they were treated.

I don’t understand how Boss had this incredible, all powerful One Ring but was still able to lose all his assets and money in a game of monopoly? What was the point in even having the ring then?

And to be completely honest I found the relationship dynamics of HopeSave and TattooArun a lot more compelling and the fact that they were barely touched was an enormous missed opportunity. And I’m not just saying this as in, “uwu I wish they’d kissed” I’m saying this as in, “their relationships were so interesting and exploring them more would have only elevated the story and could have opened up some really cool opportunities for plot development!!!!!!!”

But also on a personal, petty level I think it’s kinda lame that Tattoo and Arun were teased as a couple the entire time and there was no payoff. I think that was a shitty choice. What did the writers accomplish from that?

It felt like the show was telling two different stories at times, out of rhythm with itself.

[useless-lesbian-canadian]

Ok but like the deep fake HOH would be a great power if A) they changed the way the nominations happened this year so that it wasn’t super obvious or B) Quinn didn’t tell the whole fucking house about it and actually kept the power a secret. Because just thinking about having an HOH being like those aren’t my noms and nobody knowing who did it. That would be so much better.

[winesharksea]

and what if i said that before the start of tda kit could probably count on one hand the number of times someone hugged him, what then

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Happy day one of Chatember, starting it off with strong with the Thunderclan (Jin) leader, Jin Guangshan (Lionstar)

(Name and AU credits to @clintbeefwoods!)

[that-willowtree]

“When Shah Jahan died several years later, a mirror was found in his room, angled so that he could gaze from his cell at the reflection of the Taj Mahal. - my textbook

THE STANDARDS. THE ROMANCE. IM GOING TO CRY.

[1296-very-good-year]

God yes your point that Jayce's actions after coming back only really make sense if the Future!Vik he met was a monster.

All week leading up to Act 3 I was assuming ep 7 would be Jayce going to a dystopian future with evil Viktor. That was why Jayce killed him with no hesitation regardless of the (debatable) good he was doing in the commune in present day.

And then we see that the only Viktor he met in the future was one that revealed he saved Jayce's life as a child so he could grow up to save the world with the power of love they had for each other....! In what universe would THAT make Jayce go back and try to kill him??

Also good point about Mel. If they wanted to show that Jayce knew more than he let on they had opportunities to hint to the audience with her that we could pick up on rewatch..

I will say the fact that Ekko was the only reason Jayce succeeded is incredibly funny to me. Like, Jayce came back with knowledge from the future of how to fix things... And instead did the worst job ever so Ekko had to come in clutch anyway.

Spoilers, spoilers, spoilers

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"There must be some part of you still in there."

Stuck on this line because WHAT DO YOU MEAN?!

Why are you talking to him AFTER SHOOTING HIM?!

Why didn't you do that BEFORE SHOOTING HIM?!

I'm at a loss.

Was future/outside of time/god!Viktor just like playing a little joke on his past self by having Jayce shoot him?!

[aurora-boreas-borealis]

RPM canon divergence AU where Tenaya never revealed her true identity and successfully became the green ranger instead of Ziggy

[savage-rhi]

Magenta.