#this is how the story ends in canon actually

[meowmeowriley]

Next time someone tells me I don't seem autistic I'm going to instruct them to ask me about my special interests and then interrupt them before they can finish the sentence to recite, from memory, evert line of dialog from Modern Warfare 2, both the original and the remake, which are vastly different games and stories from one another. Oh why are they different? You didn't ask? I don't care. "SO they're different because-" and then I'd go on at length about how the games are so different because the industry and the audience has changed so much and how the new games were a queer-baity middle finger to long term fans like myself, and how much I hate that it worked in bringing in so many new fans to quite literally pick the pockets of. From there I'd launch into how indie games will save us, and different games engines and how coding knowledge isn't as necessary for making games as people think. By the end of it I will have thrice over achieved my own goals: prove my autism- something that should never need to be proven-, get my thoughts about the games industry's downward spiral off my chest, and most likely I will have successfully driven away whatever poor soul made the mistake of trying to make me feel better by telling me they thought I looked like a normal person.

-sincerely, someone who's tired of people thinking it's a compliment to tell me I don't look disabled, and also someone who thinks way to freaking much about how great mw2 and 3 coulda been if they'd have actually made Ghoap canon.

[charmwasjess]

That One About the Temple Clones AU

Here's an underexplored and juicy plot point in the prequels that I can't stop thinking about! Because Sifo-Dyas was killed so early in the new canon timeline of the creation of the clones, with Dooku impersonating him to handle the subsequent details, we don’t even know exactly what he intended the clone army to be.

I think there’s even an argument to be made that Sifo-Dyas intended the clones to be culturally Jedi. Raised and trained in the Jedi Temple(s), learning Jedi skills and ways of life, growing up in a shared community alongside the Jedi. The clones serving not as an emergency button to hit in case of war, but as a support to the overstretched, under resourced Jedi Order in an increasingly violent, chaotic galaxy, one that might prevent the war he foresaw from ever even happening.

To begin, I’ll briefly touch on the galactic situation immediately before The Phantom Menace. Time and time again, we’re given a picture of the Jedi Order that is being stretched to its limit. All across the galaxy, Jedi temples such as the ones we see operating in the High Republic era in the Acolyte, are being shut down because the Jedi just can’t staff them. The novel The Living Force, set immediately before TPM, deals with the repercussions of these shut downs for the people living in those sectors - destabilization, a vacuum where the power hungry and corrupt can come into the space left and make life awful for the people. Problems arise, these systems go to the Republic for help, the Republic can't help due to bureaucratic red tape and lack of Jedi resources, and this creates more bad feelings about the Jedi and a great environment to grow the Separatist cause.

"I always heard so much about the Jedi. I never saw one, but they told me that was because you saved people -- and then you left!" - The Living Force

Enter Sifo-Dyas. As a member of the Jedi Council in this era, he would have overseen dozens of these painful but unavoidable closures. More, he was trained by Lene Kostana, a High Republic era Jedi, who remembered the golden age of the Jedi, all of these Jedi outposts, temples, and cultural centers being open and thriving, and surely filled her Padawan’s head with these stories. When Sifo-Dyas foresaw a coming cataclysmic war that would destroy the Jedi Order, it's not hard to see where he might have made a connection between the pervasive problem that was a lack of Jedi resources, and the galaxy falling further into darkness. In fact, it's exactly what happens in the prequels with a little push from the Sith.

The Living Force novel tells us outright that Sifo-Dyas’s original plan before deciding on the clones was to use his role as a Jedi Seeker to fill the Jedi Order with as many new Jedi as possible to counter the coming threats:

“(Sifo-Dyas) was always in a big damn hurry. Like the Republic would end if he didn’t swell the ranks.” - The Living Force 

Wow, Even Piell, that line aged like milk, buddy!

 Ki-Adi Mundi frowned. “Indeed, sometimes those he brought to us were not even viable candidates.”  - The Living Force 

So, Sifo-Dyas was originally trying to bring as many kids into the Order as possible, and didn’t particularly care if they were very Force sensitive. An intriguing detail, when considering how closely he might have imagined the non-Force-sensitive clones to work in Jedi roles.

Interestingly, he didn’t actually abandon that “swell the ranks” plan - he got his ass fired, so he couldn’t bring any more Jedi in the conventional way. Sifo-Dyas is in a desperate situation here, he feels he's running out of time, and he needs to get as many people into the Jedi Order as quickly as possible. I think you might see where I'm going with this.

“The future should remain unseen, but unfortunately, Sifo-Dyas has little choice in the matter.”  -Lene Kostana, Dooku Jedi Lost

We know he arranged the initial order for the clones, but not how he intended to use them, or saw their role, or even if he would have agreed with Jango as the DNA donor, since that part came in from Dooku.  If Sifo-Dyas, lifelong Jedi and true believer in the Order, was creating something to help defend his people in their darkest hour, it stands to reason that he might look within his own culture for their training, instead of outside of it.

Did he see them as a secret weapon, a surprise help in the hour of greatest need, as they would ultimately function as on Geonosis? Or did he envision the clones being raised with Jedi involvement on every level of their development, growing into keepers of the peace to fill those hundreds of empty temples and outposts and restabilize a galaxy sliding toward darkness?

I think an important clue that supports the latter argument is that as Sifo-Dyas is literally falling out of the sky to his death, he is busy trying to get a message to the Council that he ordered the clones via a recording: 

I've seen a vision of the future that I feel warrants an army. You've disagreed with me, but I felt I had no choice. Therefore I have ordered one: a clone army from the Kaminoans. Something must be done, and I made that decision. - Sifo-Dyas, Force Collector

He's hardly trying to keep the (currently embryonic!) clones a secret here. He seems to think he's done his part and the Council has no choice but to take it from there, and follow through with his unmentioned plan. He has delivered the needed personnel. And bear in mind, Sifo-Dyas did not expect his death to be a 10 year old mystery. He seems to have spent his very last breaths protecting Sillman and therefore leaving a witness to everything that happened. His last words are literally “Come find me!” 

These are not the actions of a man who has set his plan into perfect motion and a magic army will appear just at the right time in ten years. This is a man who is facing his unexpected death and realizing that he needs to tell the Council, who disagreed with him but he clearly still trusts, what he did because he won't be there to handle the details himself. It's almost poignant.

-

I worried about making this post at all because I’m not actually interested in blorbo apologism. Sifo-Dyas’s story is much more interesting if he is a good man forced to go to desperate, awful lengths to keep the apocalypse from happening. Whatever he intended the clones to be, it ended in Order 66; in a way, it doesn't even matter.  And yet, I think there’s something compelling there too, and I think canon gives us just enough - at least make an argument for a culturally-Jedi clone army what-if.

[rotomartsblog]

I’ve been thinking about my version/rewrite whatever of Ever After High so I’m just gonna list a few lore tidbits about the world and some of the characters

So first things first I want to say that my version of the EAH school is more based on European secondary education than American (since I’ve decided that EAH should logically take place in Europe). Mostly N. Ireland’s secondary school system since that’s what I’m most familiar with. Anyway- EAH students go through seven years of school from around age 11 to age 18 (give or take a bit). EAH officially has two stages of education; the Freedom stage and the Legacy stage. The Freedom stage is the first three years of school and the Legacy stage is the remaining four years. The Legacy stage itself is split into two sub-stages, Pre-Signing and Post-Signing. The story begins in the second year of the Pre-Signing Legacy stage, where Legacy Day will take place at the end of the year. Students also can only room with people from their year.

I wanted to actually establish what the Curse on Wonderland actually is since that never actually gets explained in canon. Basically, the Curse takes the form of an erupting black fountain in the centre of Wonderland that leads up to the sky, “polluting” the atmosphere. It has both a physical and mental effect on the people of Wonderland, making them physically weaker while also “corrupting” their minds I guess? While the people of Wonderland have developed medicine and treatment for the curse, it’s more effective against the physical symptoms than the mental ones and it isn’t widely distributed.

Speaking of Wonderland, the Alice of the story is the only “character” that follows the Legacy system, because the rest of the characters are from Wonderland and don’t follow the same rules as Ever Afterlings. This doesn’t mean that the characters don’t have family legacies and traditions but they operate separately from Ever After’s.

Speaking of Alice, Alistair has been trapped in Wonderland since he was 10 years old. He isn’t as fond of Wonderland as his canon counterpart. Also his last name isn’t Wonderland it’s Adventures. I know that’s sounds equally stupid but it’s makes more sense to me based on the lore I’ve established.

Card people have the ability to go “flat” like a card. Also, they’re made of the same material of a playing card (specifically card stock), and they feel like such whether they’re flat or not.

Card people are limited to only two colours in their designs; white and the second colour depending on what suit they’re from (Clubs are green, Diamonds are blue, Hearts are red, and Spades are purple), except their eyes, which can be any colour. The exception to this is royal cards, which have three colours; white, black, and their suit colours (also their eye colours of course, which in Lizzie’s case is green). The outlier to this entirely is the Joker cards, which have no set rules for how they’re coloured.

There’s never a set number of Jokers for each generation of card people. In the previous generation, the parents generation, there were two: the red joker and the black joker, but in the current generation Courtly is the only Joker card.

Chess people are living chess pieces so they are made of wood.

Card and Chess people aren’t ‘born’, they’re literally made.

Lizzie, Kitty, and Maddie are the first Wonderlandians to attend Ever After High.

When the Evil Queen was imprisoned, all known entrances to Wonderland were closed off. However, new ones can be made either on purpose or accidentally. This is how Darling ends up in Wonderland.

When Ever Afterlings go to Wonderland their colour palette changes because idk I think it looks neat.

Also the Evil Queen cursing Wonderland and being imprisoned would’ve taken place like right before Raven started EAH.

Okay done talking about Wonderland onto something else. King Charming is a piece of shit human being. He’s a bad dad and an unfaithful husband who has a whole lot of illegitimate kids. Blondie is one of them.

Raven ended up rooming with Maddie in their first year at EAH because over half of the students in their year requested to specifically not be roomed with Raven.

Briar’s mum was asleep for 100 years because I don’t want to work out how it’d make sense if she was from the previous generation. Rosabella’s mum is Briar’s mum’s great-niece. Briar and Rosabella call each other cousin because it’s simpler.

Rosabella, despite what is believed, is actually the Beast in the story. The reason it’s believed she’s the Beauty is because the society of EAH is #sexist and #homophobic so the idea of the Beast in BATB being a girl or a boy being the Beauty is unbelievable. Rosabella suspects she’s the Beast because when she was younger she grew horns, though she’s forbidden from telling people this.

Briar and Rosabella’s parents are not on speaking terms because of a situation revolving around Rosabella’s horns. When they grew in, Briar’s parents had offered to babysit Rosabella while her parents were busy. Briar’s dad then dehorned Rosabella (and he wasn’t trained for it so it wasn’t a pleasant experience for Rosabella). Rosabella’s parents were obviously upset about this so they cut ties with Briar’s parents.

By the time the story begins Ashlynn’s mum is dead so she’s kind of going through it. Her dad hasn’t remarried yet.

I’ve messed around with the ages of some characters so while most of the main cast is the second year of the Pre-Signing Legacy stage, some are in different years. I haven’t worked out everyone but the important ones right now are that Dexter and Darling are in the first year of the Pre-Signing Legacy stage and Ramona is in the first year of the Post-Signing Legacy stage (and Justine I guess since they’re roommates).

Also most roommates will probably be the same as in canon since I can’t be bothered to change those.

Despite Legacy Day being when you pledge to follow your destiny, there are expectations on people whose stories typically happen when they’re young (case in point: Alistair being in Wonderland when he’s 10). Cedar often deals with people prodding and asking questions since she’s still a puppet as a teenager, though her dad also started his story late so it isn’t unique to her.

Raven doesn’t listen to Tailor Quick in my version. Sorry to swifties but sometimes you write a character and realise some things don’t work with their personality. Raven listens to goth music and dad rock. Dexter still listens to Tailor Quick though.

Speaking of music tastes, Poppy listens to Ska punk and Holly hates it so much.

Cupid was told to hide her monstrous features when going to EAH, so she’s masquerading as a Cherub. Also for a majority of her first year at EAH she’s faking her personality.

EAH’s school is specifically for European stories and there are different school in other regions for their stories.

Idk how yet but I’m planning on including references to other fairy tale authors and collectors like Andrew Lang.

I’ve planned a few arcs and mini stories for my version, some of them replace canon arcs. A few of these are a story based on A Wonderlandiful World, a rewrite of Way to Wonderland, a rewrite of Dragon Games that features two of the mention regional schools, a story I can only describe as “Cedar gets psychologically tormented by an arm puppet”, the Blood Knight story, and a story that replaces Epic Winter.

While EAH is typically only open for people with legacies to follow, there is a course available for people without legacies. However, it’s incredibly expensive and the course is kept entirely separated from the main course. Non-legacy students aren’t even allowed to be roommates with legacy students and there’s few opportunities for the two courses to interact. Poppy was originally in this course before Holly managed to get Headmaster Grimm to transfer her to the main course and the Charming family have a deal with the school so that none of their children go to the non-legacy course.

That’s all for now I think.

[thepunkmuppet]

approaching The Confession Scene and what the fuck. this is genuinely tragic like I’ve always seen it as a meme, a joke, an iconic moment in fandom history, whatever, I’m a tumblr user, but now that I’m actually here it’s just fucking SAD

season 15 as a whole is NOT bad. it’s really not. but there’s zero destiel. they rarely speak at all unless it’s plot-related, one (1) episode pairs them together, frankly season seven was ten times more focused on their friendship and that’s INSANE because cas is only in like five fucking episodes of that one. they have a mini arc midway through the season which is very gorgeous and well-done, but it then goes absolutely nowhere and nothing at all is done to make it textually romantic.

by which I mean: no episodes have dean or cas reacting personally to sam and eileen’s relationship, or any other romantic relationship they come across. we’re never shown anything even remotely romantic even in an unrequited sense (no post-realisation awkwardness, no lingering shots of cas pining from afar, etc etc). it reads like a normal season of the show, which, yeah, I think those two are pretty fucking gay regardless, but they’re always textually written as a friendship, with no explicit cues to clue the audience in that there are canon romantic feelings. and that doesn’t change here, at all.

so I guess what I’m saying is the confession scene is purely just a moment of fan service. as stunning as the speech itself is, and as well as it fits cas’s character, the writers throughout the season didn’t actually give a fuck to make destiel ROMANTIC even in a one-sided way. film is a language and as much as misha does in his acting, even from castiel’s perspective they’re still framed as a friendship within the show itself RIGHT up until he says the words I love you. they weren’t interested in actually depicting a (even one-sided) queer love story, just wanted to give fans their “okay here it is we did it guys!” moment at the end, so that way they didn’t have to actually show an explicitly romantic gay love story, they could just say some words, kill cas off and boom it’s canon! here you go people we’ve been leading on, mocking and low-key gaslighting for eleven years!

idk man it’s just so disappointing. I knew it was and I know everyone has been talking about it for years now but my GOD it’s so bad 😭 I can’t even tell you how bizzare it is to have seen destiel confession meme on here and in various fandom video essays EVERY DAY FOR FOUR PLUS YEARS and now here I am, watching it go down in real time with full context, having watched over 300 episodes of this show, invested, obsessed, and REALLY FUCKING UPSET AAAAHHH

EDIT: forgot to mention this originally. the actual concept of cas’s moment of perfect happiness killing him, while kind of stolen from buffy, is AMAZING. and the literal perfect opportunity to have a building textual confirmation of his feelings throughout the season, where he realises what that moment will be, and it ends in the tragic confession of his love. like that’s insane that’s perfect. but no it just comes out of nowhere so oh fucking well whatever I guess! they’re canon so we should all be happy! I hate this stupid bumhole show AUGH no one talk to me ever :(

[chomp-bomb]

People in fandoms really need to let go of canon pairings being endgame.

First off, a disclaimer: I am not saying you can’t like canon pairings. Obviously. I love a lot of canon ships in tons of different fandoms. This is not me saying you can’t ship them or me attacking them so please take more than two seconds to understand what I’m saying before jumping me.

With that out of the way (rant below the cut):

It is actually so frustrating how people cling to canon pairings like they’re the only valid ships to ever exist.

I’m bringing this up specifically because of the new Noxus trailer that came out yesterday. I’ve already seen the absolute warzone that it’s becoming on TikTok with people shouting about how “Katarina has a boyfriend!!! She’s straight!!!” in response to literally any mention of liking the character or shipping her with someone else.

So to the people who think that a character having a Canon partner means that every other ship is wrong: hate to be the one to break this to you, but it’s not actually a reason to invalidate other ships.

I’m gonna bring up the Timebomb vs Lightcannon debate.

Timebomb shippers have been incredibly aggressive towards any Lightcannon shippers, and are so quick to say Lightcannon wouldn’t work because it’s not canon. I’d like to remind you all that canon doesn’t mean people can’t ship Lightcannon. Timebomb being canon doesn’t make it immediately better or higher than Lightcannon. The air of superiority that so many canon shippers have over fanon shippers is completely unwarranted. Your ship is not immediately better because they are canon.

And here’s the thing: I don’t even like Lightcannon myself! I’m very much a Timebomb shipper. But just because I prefer one pairing over the other doesn’t mean that Lightcannon is a bad ship. I can recognize that, despite my own dislike for it, people are entitled to their own interpretations of the characters and their relationships to one another.

I get how easy it is to fall into the mindset of “My pairing is canon, so therefore it is the only correct one and everyone else’s is wrong.” But at the end of the day, it’s not a reason why your ship is better. It doesn’t immediately make you more correct. It doesn’t make every other ship bad. There are tons of canon ships that are downright awful, badly written, or rushed. To be canon is to simply be the creator’s preferred pairing when creating their story. It’s nothing more than that.

People have been obsessing over non canon ships since fandom’s creation. Hell, fandom as a concept itself started because of Kirk x Spock shippers way back when.. I’d say that makes fanon pairings pretty important, don’t you think?

Anyways this once again is very common sense, but I’ll repeat that I’m not trying to attack or insult anyone regardless of where you stand on this argument.

[y2ksnowglobe]

People of the jury, I do not consider myself a Glenn apologist by any means, but today I present the following argument. "Glenn didn't teach Nick to smoke, provide him directly with weed, or particularly approve of Nick smoking." Snowglobe, you say...that's a bold stance, and to that I say fair, it is, but Glenn has always been a slippery bastard when it comes to pinning him down in canon, and while I don't think this is the only way to read Glenn, it is a canon-compliant way to interpret Glenn.

So now that you've clicked on the Read More to hear me out, you might be saying "Snowglobe, this is too easy. In Episode 51 Glenn admits to showing Nick how to smoke."

Or maybe you don't say that because you don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of this show, which in that case, good for you! I'm not proud of this accomplishment!

But, back to the evidence at hand. The canonicity of any of the "Freddie being contrarian to Jodie" Dad Facts I think is up for debate. From a Doyleist perspective, we as the audience can interpret these facts to be more about the sibling dynamic between Freddie and Jimmy, and less about being true to Glenn as a character.

However, I'm not completely satisfied with just a Doyleist argument, we're getting into the Watsonian as well.

So firstly we have the implication that Glenn actually doesn't smoke cigarettes, which is interesting and a bit unexpected to be honest. However, the main point I'd argue that after raising Nick with healthy skepticism for authority, Glenn telling Nick straight up not to smoke is not going to work.

"But Snowglobe," you say, "That's still teaching Nick to smoke, right?"

"Perhaps," I might admit, "If we didn't have canon evidence of Glenn teaching the Oak twins how to smoke.

That's right! Glenn purposefully instructed the twins on the incorrect form! So, people of the court, I argue, might Glenn have not done the same thing with Nick? And furthermore, when comparing the stories of Jodie and Glenn illustrating smoking to Nick, Jodie is the one who is specified to have taken a drag and nearly hacked up a lung.

Now being a weed smoker, Glenn would likely have been able to tolerate inhaling cigarette smoke without reacting as violently as Jodie, but it could also be that Glenn didn't end up choking because he wasn't inhaling.

"But what about his point that it was so Nick would look cool?" You may ask.

You know what isn't going to make Nick look cool? Hacking up a lung while trying to smoke for the first time in front of people he wants to impress.

I feel that what Glenn underestimates is just how perceptive and observant Nick is (possibly because Glenn himself is not the most perceptive and observant) so he doesn't quite make the jump that Nick is going to figure out how smoking works just from watching Glenn, leading to...

"Oh Snowglobe, how are you going to get around Nick saying he got the weed from Glenn," because you are unaware I am constructing this argument and wouldn't have brought this up without having already considered it.

FIrstly, this is a fairly clear reference to an old drug PSA

But that's again a Doyleist explanation.

However, with how much this weed knocks Glenn's socks of with dankness, we can put together that Nick isn't literally saying he got this weed from Glenn, if he had, Glenn would not be surprised by it. So yes, Anthony was making a reference, but it's also possible that Nick was making a reference as well, indicating that he picked up smoking weed from watching Glenn, rather than saying Glenn is the reason he has the specific weed he's smoking, or alternatively, Nick took some weed from a stash Glenn hadn't gotten into yet, and is just being very upfront and honest about getting it from Glenn as opposed to buying it illegally from somewhere or someone else.

Additionally, Nick states that he thought he'd try smoking because it's something that seems to make Glenn happy and appear cool. This feels like something that would be very odd for Nick to say if Glenn had been the one teaching/encouraging him to smoke weed, and also odd if Glenn had been aware of Nick smoking weed before this.

Taking a detour back to the "Glenn taught Nick how to smoke wrong" theory, it's commented on that despite being a Nat 20 dank level weed, Nick seems to be handling it much better than Glenn, which could suggest that maybe Nick isn't properly inhaling. This one is a little bit of a stretch but after all Glenn taught Nick to smoke so he would "look cool" and here Nick is trying to "look cool" so it is a possible interpretation, though I feel not the strongest point to be made here, and future evidence is going to make it a little more dicey of a call.

Now I don't want to get into it too much in this post (because I have this post that covers it instead) but Glenn can, and does push back on Nick's behavior but also is pretty conflict averse and is violently allergic to vulnerability.

So, is Glenn going to have a full discussion, in front of Darryl and Grant who are waiting on them to get in the car, about how even though Glenn smokes weed, Nick shouldn't? No, obviously. So what does he do instead? Sure Freddie phrases it as Glenn "persuading [Nick] to let [him] take a hit" but from the practical perspective he is getting the weed away from Nick. He frames it as being because of Darryl that they have to leave it behind, but given that at this point Glenn isn't willing to admit he's a DJ to Nick, it's a lot to expect him to own wanting Nick to leave the weed behind because Glenn doesn't want him to have it, and while it is pure speculation due to being such different from the path of the actual narrative, if they hadn't all been pulled into the realms, I don't think it's too far fetched to consider Glenn having a talk with Nick about it after they got home from the game. As mentioned in the linked post in the previous paragraph, Glenn addresses Nick's swearing and Nick is fairly receptive and corrects his behavior in response to it.

"But Snowglobe," you are unable to stop yourself from saying because the second person narration compels you to continue to engage with this discussion. "Swearing is one thing, Glenn talking to Nick about smoking is different."

Well, what if I told you that, because I'm controlling your dialogue, you have fallen into my clever trap! Because I was talking about Glenn discussing weed with Nick, we don't have to consider whether or not he would talk about smoking with Nick, because there's evidence he already has!

So if you didn't catch it, it's because I argue the transcript got this one wrong. I'm of the opinion that it is Glenn and not Freddie who says, "They said everyone vapes." Who is they in this sentence? I submit that it was Nick who told Glenn this when Glenn tried to broach the topic of vaping with him and Glenn was either fooled by Nick's bluff (kid has a record for being able to pull those off, made up a lie about a wizard cursing him so his head would fall off if he left the Watermice and got everyone to believe him) or wasn't willing to keep pushing when Nick put up the resistance of that excuse.

"Okay, Snowglobe, this has all been very clever, but the trial..."

Yes, yes, the trial. There are two segments of note here and we'll tackle the easiest one first, and that's from Nick's testimony.

Nick claims he would smoke weed if Glenn asked him to because it would make him a cool guy. This is different from saying he has done that. Now this might bring into question why Nick would have potentially lied to Glenn about everyone vaping, and for that it really comes down to a simple equation. [Glenn asking him to]+[Makes him a cool guy]=[Nick is gonna do the thing]. However, considering Nick likes Minions despite Glenn claiming to not like them and Nick not liking Disneyland, we can see that at this point in his life, Nick is starting to get a sense that Glenn asking him to do something does not by definition make it cool. So I don't think this counts as an admission of Glenn being one to actively pressure Nick into smoking.

Now onto Glenn's testimony.

Right off the bat we have Glenn denying he every purchased weed for Nick. Anthony doesn't make him roll deception and no one attempts to accuse him of perjury, so we kind of have to take him at his word there.

When asked how Nick learned how to smoke weed, Glenn doesn't take credit, and given how he's willing to credit his own dad for teaching him, there's room to believe that Glenn possibly would just straight up admit to teaching Nick, even in a court of law. Also worth noting is that Glenn pivots the topic from smoking weed to vaping, which since we can surmise he's had a conversation with Nick about that, we get a sense that it's also the behavior he's more familiar with Nick doing (also emphasized by how Nick talked about smoking weed with Nick in episode one).

And no, I didn't skip over Glenn proudly admitting that Nick knows how to smoke weed, and to be fair, this is possibly one of the biggest counterpoints to my thesis, but I think when we look at who Glenn is as a character, we can see him making the choice to answer this question the way he does without it contradicting my previous points.

Glenn has a carefully constructed identity he presents to the world that he will cling to, even to his own detriment.

Some notable examples of this behavior include:

When he admits he got kicked out of the band, he claims it was because of his tour antics, however, in the episode right before this, Glenn's Dad Fact is this:

While we may not know exactly why Glenn was asked to leave the trio, we can be pretty sure it's not because of his tour antics, but he has to keep up that facade. (I'm of the belief that Glenn was missing to many rehearsals to pick up DJ gigs to help support Nick, but that's just my own headcanon)

When dared to lose his ability to play guitar and instead become a Linkin Park cover DJ, Glenn could have admitted to having already been a DJ and that pointlessly giving up one of his two marketable skills was a bad deal, but instead he trashes the very concept of being a DJ (despite being one) and makes it seem like his choice is solely based on a sense of guitar supremacy.

Argues with Nick about Minions during the trial, even though, according to the Dadturday Night Live bonus episode, Glenn secretly also likes the minions.

So could Glenn act less proud of Nick being able to smoke weed? Yes of course he could, as established, there's a possible reading where Glenn is not thrilled about Nick trying this, but is he going to break and show that while on trial? The same trial where the previously mentioned Minions incident happens? Also, in front of his dad? The dad who likely instilled all these maladaptive coping strategies in him? Of course he's not going to act like this is a thing he doesn't approve of or is ashamed of in these circumstances!

Now of course, none of this completely absolves Glenn of being, as Henry puts it, a mediocre father. There are still a whole ton of issues to unpack with the Glenn and Nick dynamic, but Glenn is a character who is left with so much room for nuance and differing interpretation, that it seems a waste not to explore the slightly less shitty possibilities, where it's clear he's trying, but his issues keep getting in the way because he's afraid that any introspection will lead to having to confront his own grief about Morgan. In a Talking Dad episode, Freddie talks about how the ending he pictured for Glenn was to have him go with Nick to Morgan's grave, with the indication that he'd been avoiding visiting it, and I think reading Glenn in the way presented in this argument is a solid base to get us to that ending, sure the dice may have gotten in the way, but I think it still shines some insight onto how Freddie was crafting the character.

[thewistlingbadger]

I'm annoyed that the many issues with canon Timebomb due to the rushed way the show handled the pairing have started to seep into the fanfic sphere too - namely, Jinx's mental illness being downplayed, Ekko having no personality, relationships or individual motivations outside of his relationship with Jinx and the Firelights being non-existent.

It's got to the point I actively seek out fics published between S1 and S2 over newer ones. They are more likely to nail Jinx and Ekko's characterisation and their dynamic where even the show's writers couldn't.

As someone who doesn't ship timebomb I completely understand your take and it is VALID. Timebomb as a concept is very interesting because theoretically you have these two childhood friends that lost each other only to be reunited later in life as enemies on opposing sides. That is some really compelling groundwork for a romantic relationship! However, the show doesn't really do anything to actually frame them like this. We rarely get to see Jinx and Ekko interact in the whole show, let alone exchange any dialogue with each other.

The timebomb "content" in season two feels misplaced and undeserved because it IS. The only time we've seen these two actually together in a meaningful way in s1 is their fight one the bridge. That fight made it clear that these two have a history that the audience isn't privy to and this one scene is the entire foundation for arcane! timebomb. Ekko has an entire episode in season two that is NOT dedicated to expanding his character, NOT dedicating to elaborating on his relationship with Jinx, but an episode that is dedicated to exploring an alternative reality where Jinx grew up to be a different person. We spend all this time with Ekko and Powder and then the show acts like their dynamic is somehow transferable to Ekko and Jinx by showing us that somehow when Ekko went back to Jinx he was able to reconcile with her and save her life and get her to fight one last time.

To me this makes no sense because episode 7 really didn't show us anything illuminating about Ekko or his relationship with Jinx. It didn't explain what happened between them, or why Ekko would have romantic feelings for Jinx. We go the whole show without ever actually getting any context as to what happened between them, so the nature of their relationship is truly a mystery. Ekko doesn't go through any major development in that episode, he stays consistent throughout the whole time. Ekko in general is unfortunately a character that goes unexplored throughout the whole show. We don't know much about who he is as a character and his goals, motivations, or reasonings. This same issue occurs with The Firelights. We know they're a group of rebels, but what do they ACTUALLY want and what are their plans to achieve their goals?

Ultimately it was decided that none of this mattered because instead of using the groundwork laid out in season one, season two only had one thing in mind: their end goal. And that end goal consisted largely of fan service, which is why we got a timebomb kiss. Not because it added to Jinx and Ekko's story (the kiss wasn't even between Jinx and Ekko lol) but because the ship is popular and they knew a kiss would make fans happy. A large part of the fandom is very happy with the fan service they received in this season and now they are, predictably, running wild with it. Timebomb has become even more popular than it already was and most of the content is very sweet in nature. I'm glad that shippers are fed and enjoying themselves. However, I cannot look past how the adoration for the ship has made people turn a blind eye to what was established prior to season two. The Firelights are important to Ekko, and Jinx killed many of them over the span of several years. Jinx was born with mental illness and her illness impacted her everyday life. Ekko and Jinx seemingly have a complex history that needs to be unpacked before they can even ATTEMPT to be on good terms again. The last time we saw Ekko and Jinx in s1 they LITERALLY tried to kill each other! This is a relationship that deserves and NEEDS time to be understood.

As for Jinx's mental illness being downplayed? 100% true. In season one Jinx's mental health was vital to the story the writers were trying to tell. They didn't want Jinx to seem like a manic, Joker-type character. They wanted her to be someone the audience would simultaneously pity and fear. But in season two, the end goal was to have Jinx reconcile with Vi and be a hero. To the people behind season two, this wasn't possible without stripping Jinx of everything that made her a fan favorite. Season one was all about rejecting the past and embracing who you truly are and what you've become. Jinx's final action in season one is sitting in the Jinx chair, proclaiming she has changed, and then nuking topside. But in season two, Jinx answers to the name Powder and says "Jinx is dead." In season two, Jinx becomes completely pacified and is no longer a murderous criminal who struggles with daily hallucinations. The erasure of her mental illness and identity has led fans to come to the conclusion that she was never really "that messed up" to begin with, all her problems were because of Silco and now that Silco's gone, she's better. This view is incorrect because we see Jinx have meltdown before she even meets Silco AND arguably Jinx reverting back to Powder isn't inherently a good thing. Powder isn't inherently the "better" version of Jinx. The fact that she even reverts at all goes completely against the message of season one and Silco's dying words, "Don't cry. You're perfect."

[buckydeservesthebest]

I really blame TFATWS' poor writing for essentially making the narratives of many of the characters inconsistent. I mean, they retconned the well known canon that the Winter Soldier wasn't activated until the 1960s, to now tell us he was at least since '51, for the sole purpose of introducing Isaiah to the story. I think with a little more thought, they could have found another more believable way to introduce him without having to change canon.

Not only was the entire script of the series written in a rushed manner, but the showrunner and writers did not have a clear understanding of the entire lore surrounding the characters. If I remember correctly, Spellman himself said in an interview that to prepare for writing the script, instead of devoting himself to watch and read about all the history of the main characters, he simply read a summary of their arcs in one of those wikis pages.

**Already in this post, it was explained very well why the plot holes and inconsistency in the narrative, especially Bucky's. But in the end, the ones who pay the price for the lack of production preparation are the characters themselves, because unfortunately they are always going to be at the mercy of what the writers want to do with them.**

But even with all the narrative inconsistencies, I think Bucky's action of assisting Zemo in his escape from prison is justified and was the right thing to do (according to the nonsensical plot), and in fact, the canonical book The Art of The Falcon and the Winte Soldier states that. Let's see:

The Flag Smashers were already a criminal rebel group involved in terrorist acts, and on top of it all, some of their members exhibited superhuman abilities, which made them even more dangerous. Bucky and Sam used the orthodox methods of tracking and investigation to capture them, without going to any extreme. It wasn't until they both realized that the FS were actually super soldiers, which meant that someone had recreated the serum, the biggest suspect being HYDRA, that the situation led Bucky and Sam to resort to more extreme measures.

I think it's important to talk about how once Bucky discovered that the existence of more super soldiers, and believing HYDRA was behind it all, he took the issue more personal, because believing it was HYDRA “his people”, he feels responsible over all the harm they may continue to cause.

In fact the Marvel Studios' The Marvel Cinematic Universe An Official Timeline book, talks about how ending the legacy of the other Winter Soldiers (evil super soldiers), was already a duty Bucky had self-imposed as part of the redemption he has always sought.

So the same applies for the case of the FS, a group of criminals born out of HYDRA's actions, something Bucky believes he has a responsibility to fight and stop.

I think some of Sam and Zemo's lines reference this as well:

Sam: I know why this matters to you, but it’s pushing you off the deep end.

Bucky: Someone recreated the super-soldier serum. I need to find out who. Zemo: You are assuming HYDRA has something to do with this, which is why you came to me, *which means you are desperate.* 

So considering that neither the government intelligence organizations nor the military have any information that would be helpful in figuring out how the serum was recreated (which was Bucky's main mission) nor about the whereabouts of the FS, that Bucky had no choice but to turn to Zemo.

Something interesting about this, and something that wasn't mentioned in the series, but was in the canonical book The Art of TFATWS. Is that before looking for Zemo, Bucky and Sam had already exhausted all available resources for their mission, with Zemo being the last and best card available to find out the origin of the serum and to stop the FS.

Another thing that is important to clarify is that before resorting to freeing Zemo, Bucky first tried to get useful information from him WITHOUT having to release him from prison, but he refused to help from behind bars, leaving Bucky no choice but to assist him in his escape.

One of the many inconsistencies in the handling of the characters by the production, was precisely Zemo, who was originally a ruthless criminal who did not mind killing innocents in order to fulfill his mission which was to separate the Avengers, now the plot of TFATWS makes him look like a kind of misunderstood anti-hero someone who always wanted to stop the creation of the super soldier serum, because he wanted to rid the world of more supremacist groups like the Avengers and the Nazis. When that was never his purpose in CW, he simply wanted to get revenge on the Avengers and break them apart, there was no interest there for the good of society like the version of him they wanted to sell us in TFATWS.

The point is that just as the plot tried to make Zemo a slightly more sympathetic character, who actually seeks the common good supposedly, very different from what we saw in CW. The nonsensical plot also made him the greatest super soldier expert in history, so in effect making him the only person in the entire series who would actually be helpful to Bucky and Sam in dealing with the FS problem, as well as figuring out the origin of the serum. So according to the canonically inconsistent and nonsensical plot, Bucky did do the right thing by assisting him in his escape because Zemo would be the only one who could provide help.

Another thing in Bucky's favor is that it is undeniable that he always intended to return him to prison, and I can bet it was always his intention to specifically return him to the custody of the Wakandans.

It's because of all this that I've always been against the idea that formed in the fandom that Bucky had betrayed Wakanda, he did NOT, because his intention literally NEVER was to harm them in any way, NOR much less benefit Zemo, which are the definitions of the word 'betrayal'.

And I mean, everyone talks about what Zemo's release meant for Wakanda, but no one talks about what having to team up with him meant for Bucky himself, how hard it must have been for him to have to interact with the one who was his abuser, who framed him for a crime and almost got him killed on more than one occasion, who reactivated the mind control that subjugated him to his will and forced him to hurt others.

For whom the release of Zemo from prison was hardest and most difficult was for Bucky himself, because he was literally the one who ended up being most harmed by his actions in CW. Yet Bucky jeopardized his conditional pardon, his friendship with Wakanda, as well as his own health and mental stability for the greater good. Because again, the plot made Zemo the only person who could help in the capture of the FS, as well as to get to Nagel and find out how the serum was recreated and stop him.

So, at the end of the day, Bucky always did the right thing for the good, even though the one who sacrificed the most and had the most to lose in all of this was himself.

"I don't ship T'Challa and Bucky".

Nor do I. You don't have to...

What do all close bonds have to result in ships anyway? There are other kinds of love than romantic/sexual and there are other kinds of bonds.

Why can't two characters have close emotional bonds without being romantically in love with each other? I say they can! I say we need more extremely close platonic/sibling- like relationships which do not involve who wants to sleep with whom.

Lol, sorry I am ranting. I love how you never pass up on a chance to shit on TFatWS though. It deserves it. Someone even theorized that the reason the scenes with the Wakandans are framed like that in the series is to insinuate Bucky betrayed them.

He would *never* have betrayed them. Bucky is not a betrayer. i'm not saying that to woobify him or because he's without flaw, but its just not in his nature to betray or backstab people. He's a protector by nature like you suggested. Not if he's able to exercize free choice and consent anyway. What he did as the Winter Soldier.. well can that even be counted as betrayal when it wasn't done of his free consent or choice?

Which all goes to show how little the writers of that series understood Bucky/just literally wanted to undermine and subvert everything about his established personality and nature. Why don't the writers just go ahead an kill him off already? Permanently this time. They clearly couldn't care less about his character at this point so they might as well. Just at least give him a heroic death....

Yeah, honestly Bucky breaking Zemo out isn’t my gripe, it’s that he’s not given a justification that matches his character. Say if the super soldiers were a threat to Wakanda, or even a direct threat to Sam (instead of them just doing their own thing and it’s really Sam and Bucky trying to stop their quest to provide vaccines for the refugees), and Zemo was once working closely with Nagel and had a direct line in, I would think that might be sufficient justification for Bucky to break Zemo out. As it stands it’s like three degrees of separation and it made no sense for Bucky to go that far, for something that had minimal returns.

I heard that Cap 4 will contain a scene where Isaiah becomes “possessed” in the manner of a brainwashed Winter Soldier and fights against Sam. I would be interested to see whether they treat that as Isaiah’s fault and something he needs to make amends for, or as something beyond his control and the fault of the person who controlled him — as it should be. Although, if they take the correct stance, given the writer is Spellman, I would question that divergent treatment of two similar characters. 

There is a subsection of series fans who believe any direct acknowledgment of Bucky’s extensive trauma or purporting he is a man with strong moral goodness is woobification. Pointing out that he is a good man who would not fucking do that is not what woobification is about.

I think there’s also a subsection of fans who prefer to characterise Bucky as morally ambiguous. It’s not the characterisation I see from movie canon, and I think it’s more in keeping with the comics Bucky who’s a very different character.

[gamingblur103s]

my thoughts on neo the world ends with you

long but probably not very good to read. spoilers and allat

i have to admit that i have a knee-jerk resentment towards a lot of the twewy franchise outside of the original game. every port and remake and reimagining of the original is simply worse off because something fundamental about what made the original experience so fantastic is removed. granted, this is often out of necessity for it no longer being a DS game, and from a business perspective, something like the anime adaptation only makes sense when a sequel is coming out practically immediately after the anime ends. still, in regards to these rereleases, i can easily see them as things that only add to the franchise rather than remove from them. the mobile port, despite screwing with the art style and the gameplay, added new music that is on par with the original game's score. the anime adaptation, despite its truncation, occasional mischaracterization, and format the story was not made for, looks pretty great and is still fun enough to be an effective recap, which was its precise purpose. it is much harder to say the same for final remix.

final remix is a port of a port; it maintains the streamlined and exponentially less engaging gameplay of the mobile version. granted, it comes with new pins which work well enough with this new base, but that doesn't change the problems i have with these fundamentals. to make up for that (as well as bridge the gap between it and neo), final remix comes with "a new day": a continuation of the story that is necessary to experience in order to understand neo.

to be blunt, a new day is where my previously mentioned resentment began. the story it tries to tell is so emphatic on its mystery that it foregoes any actual depth. as something that is expressly being tacked onto the original story rather than its own entity, its poor quality leads to directly detracting from that story.

the reaper's game (for og twewy at least) was meant to act as a symbolic prison for neku that colored every bit of his progress. yes, his character development is fairly blatant, but if anything, it benefits from that. the framing of the reaper's game actually makes the arc more grounded in how arduous it is, in how it was so much longer than neku could have ever expected, in how it hurt in all the ways he was scared it would.

it's all perfectly embodied by the fact neku is still wearing his headphones when the original game ends on the sublime emotional note of him taking them off. it's careless storytelling, to such an extent that it colors everything that came before it as the last canonical events we get to see, made all the worse by how it (and consequently, the game) ends with Neku dying. again. the only thing that keeps me from being completely outraged at the comical disregard of his arc is that it at least doesn't take away his emotional development.

there's also the iffy characterization overall, once again to serve a mystery the plot cannot afford to answer the larger reaching implications of. mind you, there's nothing outright OFFENSIVE about its portrayals (i actually think fake joshua is the best example of characterization in the whole thing; it's fun to show what a character is by what they aren't), but it's all just so vapid. forgive me for being smarmy enough to use an antimetabole, but when you go through a whole-ass video game that has its plot function in service to its characters, playing such a blatant sequel-bait that has its characters serving the IDEA of a plot feels like a disservice to those characters. if there's a connection to be felt, it's not indicated or made stronger by what happens here; it's all for the sake of hype.

i'm rambling, but hopefully that embodies my emotions going into neo comprehensively enough. i couldn't help but see a new day as utterly counterintuitive, and as a result, i had my typical territorial nature for my favorite things cranked up to twelve. i couldn't even fully trust the original staff with this game. for a while, i couldn't shake the feeling that the franchise of twewy outside the original game tarnished my experience with it. i did everything i could to convince myself to go full "death of the author": everything that isn't the original game simply isn't canon. but that didn't feel right to me, so i still kept this deep curiosity in me. then, about two and a half years after its release, i started up neo and spent my winter break exclusively on playing it through to the end (college made it so if i didn't finish it then, i'd have to wait till the summer).

this FINALLY leads me to my thoughts on the game this post is supposed to be about.

in a word, neo feels derivative. mind you, that's by no means the full story. for certain aspects, that description is either deeply unfair or outright untrue; for others, it's frankly generous. holistically, however, it feels like a continuation of what twewy had to offer, when it could've been an evolution. this by itself would make it worse than the original, but then there are times where it can't even accomplish that much.

on that note: the presentation.

og twewy didn't just have a fantastic style, but phenomenal direction. it was a multi-pronged refutation of the idea of "style over substance". the pause menu alone is so informative, yet so digestible because of its adherence to the game's style, what with its inspired choice of music and cute lil thumbnails for all the menus you can navigate to from there. there's also accounting for what players will most often check the menu for and an effort to make such features particularly accessible. the shining examples of this are dedicating nearly all of the top screen to the map and the fact that all the combat options aside from the pins (your level, partner behavior, game difficulty) are available on that screen, rather than hidden in another menu. hell, credit where it's due, the rereleases' version of this menu are all just as good; the attempt to depixelize the visuals makes it look a little too much like a gacha game for my liking, but absolutely nothing about it was changed in such a way that it becomes harder to navigate

in general, i think ui/ux design is way more important in games than it's given credit for, though that's undoubtedly changed in recent times. it's always been listed as a separate career from other graphic design jobs, and rightfully so, but for games especially, it can't be stressed enough how much they make or break a game's flow and "vibe". fact of the matter is, a significant chunk of a player's time is going to be spent in menus no matter what. i'm sure there's exceptions to this, but all i can think of is very primitive examples like pong which obviously don't apply to what i mean. as a result, making those menus feel fun and/or natural to use elevates the entire experience in ways even the most diligent game developers might not realize. an article from gamesradar has a translated quote from persona 5 director katsura hashino which really emboldened my feelings on the topic

"In Japan, UI design is often handled by new employees. ... Top level designers are usually in charge of characters and background graphics, with the UI being secondary. I think that’s a mistake. That’s why Atlus' UI designers are paid so well."

(side note: as great as the menus in p3r mostly are, the change for the in-battle menu from the revolver chamber is criminal. i know they still kinda have it, but i still prefer what the original did)

with all that said: neo twewy has three pause menus.

the first menu, which i will call the main menu, is where most of the options that relate to gameplay are. your current objective, social network (no jesse eisenberg in sight), equipment, map, and collectible progress. each of those five things i mentioned are their own menu within this menu, except for equipment which is actually two menus in threads and pins (to be fair, just like twewy).

the second menu, which i’ll call the pause menu, has all the shit that give off system setting vibes. saving, loading, going to the title screen, volume control, subtitles (always yes), voice track (we’ll get to that), the works. worth noting that this menu has absolutely no style to it. it is laughably barebones. sauceless, if you will.

the third menu, which i’ll call the combat menu, has all the combat options twewy had at the bottom of its main menu. this menu is also pretty lacking in sauce, though i suppose there’s only so much that could be done without it feeling obtrusive.

an insane person would argue this is a good translation of the immediate access in twewy’s ui. this division means less navigation is needed for certain option and it makes clutter a non-issue (in theory). while i’m sure this is true for some, for me, it became a consistent headache which would often undermine what i think are its design goals. the main menu’s subdivisions are a good example, but i actually didn’t have too much of a problem with it since switching between the menus was fairly snappy. the pin menu, however, was COMICALLY clunky. it becomes far too difficult to navigate your list as soon as week 2 starts. neo is a home console game, so there is zero need for a single pin to take up THAT much space on the screen, especially when that same pin at a different level of progress is listed separately, effectively doubling the amount of shit you have to sift through. the attempts at giving me shortcuts and filters ended up only confusing me. by the end, i resorted to exclusively consulting the full list every time, because even if it was tedious as all hell, at least i understood it and could eventually memorize the positions of things.

granted, it’s not all bad. you can actually access the combat menu while you’re in the main menu, so you can experiment with your level and view the drop rates in the noisepedia simultaneously. this version of the map, while it takes extra steps to access, also has features twewy’s map did not, namely the ability to see the kinds of noises that spawn in an area. you can even zoom in and out! for some reason!

these undeniable improvements are not only things twewy did not have, but in some cases (i.e. the map's new features) couldn’t have. however, it’s still missing the forest for the trees; the fundamental flow is still so disjointed that these features feel like a bandage on a tumor. i fully concede this next complaint is at least partially on me, but i cannot tell you the number of times i pressed the button for the wrong menu. because each menu has important shit that i need frequent access to, my muscle memory for the “i need menu things” neurons are always confused. if i’m not wasting time by going to the wrong menu, i’m wasting time by hesitating on pressing any button in case i’m wrong.

i’m being cruel here to an extent, and i acknowledge that. in isolation, these problems aren’t even a fraction as damning as i make them out to be, but when it’s something repeatedly experienced throughout the entire game, i cannot ignore how i dread having to interact with these menus and how they color my experience. granted, you could argue these complaints refute my thesis statement on neo being derivative. it may have failed, but is this not neo trying something new? to that, i would make the distinction that this is not a case of neo evolving, but rather, simply adapting.

allow me to branch back out to the more general subject of the game’s presentation.

i am by absolutely no means going to be calling the presentation of neo bad. that might be shocking to hear after me going so hard on the ui of all things, but i'm not an idiot. the soundtrack is a delight ("the beginning of a happy life" is genuinely, no bullshit, honest to god one of my favorite vg songs i have ever heard), the visuals are never any worse than ok (fret's design is by FAR my favorite, but i also liked shoka, rindo (mainly just his mask continuing the theme of neku's "hear no evil" with "speak no evil"), and susukichi), and when the two combine, it consistently achieves a familiar vibe throughout.

VERY familiar.

again, the presentation of neo is not bad. i would go so far as to call it good overall. but i genuinely struggle to think of any way it substantially iterates on what twewy has to offer. from where i'm standing, it feels like a complete copy-paste (with one exception that i swear i will get to soon cuz this is now like my third time alluding to it).

it's a bit of a mainstream example, but when you look at something like final fantasy, there's a clear throughline in the presentation of pretty much the entire series. even at its most vibrant and cutesy, there's this particular breed of gothic or sci-fi or—and i truly do not mean this disparagingly—edgy you can feel in the foundation of a final fantasy game. conversely, even at its darkest, final fantasy has its own brand of whimsy and bombast in chocobos or summons or the bajillion leitmotifs throughout the franchise. through it all, final fantasy has maintained a strong fundamental identity, but has managed to express it in a myriad of ways that, rather than dilute said identity, only bolster and refine its spirit.

i use final fantasy specifically because of its similarities to twewy. granted, these similarities are largely surface-level, but that's also kinda my point. final fantasy as a franchise achieves the variety it does through acknowledging what is fundamental to it and innovating off of that. by contrast, twewy (the franchise, not the game) is afraid to change its spirit and seeks purely to preserve it. because of that, the only way you could really differentiate twewy (the game, not the franchise) and neo at a glance is because of the hardware they are on. acquiescing to the merciless march of time, rather than embracing it.

that's why i still think my complaints about the ui ultimately fall back on the critiques of neo being derivative. while the problems with the ui in isolation seem like the developers trying something new, when you look at neo holistically, it is so clearly just an attempt at merely adapting, and sometimes it feels like neo fails even on that level. it isn't even innovation by necessity; every change feels like a sacrifice more than anything.

and on that note: gameplay.

i would say i generally enjoyed playing neo. the overworld exploration is very bog-standard, but i still appreciate it. remind is cute (it and telewarp's mechanics are obviously scripted but successfully "feel" cool to use) and dive fights are cool. i didn't mind the lack of fast travel, and in fact ADORED beat's soundsurf. having it add to your groove makes so much sense it hurts, and i love what it does to the music. but all of this is kinda window dressing when compared to the combat.

i'm sure my utter obsession with rpg (especially traditional rpg) gameplay aids my love of neo's combat, but i think most people can appreciate the gameplay loop. assigning party members to specific buttons is an undeniably fun concept. the hyper-customization of the combat is also something to be admired (to an extent); i'm sure i'm not particularly special for this, but i adore any opportunity to play a game "my way". the pin list is a teensy bit bloated with repeated ideas but with a higher number and/or different and somewhat arbitrary "element", but i sincerely love it overall. with how diverse the ideas are, there's a shocking few that i would consider objectively worse than the others. for example, the strength of the game's combo system "groove" means that a pin having a lower power doesn't actually make it necessarily worse, since less damage per attack allows for longer combos, which allows for more liberal and consistent use of the special moves unlocked by reaching the 100%, 200%, and 300% thresholds. inversely, as a compulsive grinder, the game's progression felt fairly natural even when i was pretty blatantly overprepared. fights are incredibly busy, and the boss fights especially are designed so that a single mistake can become a slippery slope of punishment. i died fairly frequently, particularly from getting too big for my britches and taking on a reduction chain i just couldn't handle. thus, fights never felt thoughtless the whole way through, which i was frankly REALLY impressed by.

i would accredit each of these compliments (or a stronger version of them) to twewy (to the point where i'm strongly tempted to derail this whole thing into how much i fucking love twewy's gameplay), but to its credit, neo does take different ways to get there in a lot of cases. to be doubly fair, though, as i've previously stated, these different approaches feel like they needed to happen rather than resulting from a distinct and passionate vision. to be TRIPLY fair, though, what's here has so much polish and depth that there was clearly some kind of passion present. my mind made a strong connection to kingdom hearts; i am not a big kh fan, so that is either indicative of just how similar neo and kh are (that someone like me could point it out) or how ignorant i am to action rpgs (accusing neo of being similar when it's really not). i'm open to either option.

the hyper-customization also feels like a double-edged sword, in that there is virtually no difference in how each of the six party members play. making your party members distinct from a gameplay perspective is INCREDIBLY important, because it's such an effective tool of storytelling. for better or worse, how a character performs during gameplay will directly influence how a player will view that character holistically. if, either by pure luck or bad game design, a character underperforms, a player is inclined to view that character less fondly. while neo's method of little if any distinction seemingly circumvents this slight dice roll, it closes off a unique opportunity entirely and settles for something that feels a little bland. mind you, this doesn't change anything about what i liked about the game's customization and customization as a whole. i do believe, generally, that the more customization the better, but that can't be an excuse to homogenize the party members.

none of how the game handles levelling up and stats really helps this. yes, characters will have different tastes in terms of food (leading to potential bonuses on top of the stat increases that food already does), and some clothes will have secondary benefits exclusive to certain party members, but it's not nearly enough.

i'm tempted to say that the solution to this would be to find a better balance, and that is still true on a fundamental level, but i also don't think making party members distinct and customization are mutually exclusive, or even necessarily things that mitigate the capacity for the other. if you want to go as extreme as what neo attempts, then yes, a focus on customization will undermine uniqueness, but there's also ways to let them heighten the other. in twewy's case, the dynamism of neku's gameplay vs the static "gimmicks" of his partners spoke not only to the personalities of each character individually, but also of neku's relationship with those partners and with people as a whole. more contemporary and popular examples of this would be pokemon (especially nowadays with nature mints and streamlined ev training) and persona (especially 5 royal).

the latter of the examples i bring up is an interesting one to me: taking advantage of a protagonist who is a canonical blank-slate (not to say joker or any persona protag from 3 onward has no personality, just that they are wild cards) to let them fit whatever mold the player wants. it's a big indicator of what i mean when i say that customization and uniqueness can coexist, because in this case, they're two almost completely separate spheres that manage to function without overpowering the other. when they DO interact, such as with the intended evolution of the mc's personas or the customization allowed for non-mc party members, it only enhances what it touches.

i should stress, despite these critiques, that i think neo's gameplay is good. i had fun with it. there are aspects of it, such as its pin selection, that i found memorably impressive. but i want to stress why i stick so strongly by my thesis—that neo is derivative—even for its best aspects.

and on that note: the story.

let's get the big thing i've been alluding to out of the way: i ADORE neo's localization. i really, truly, sincerely think there wasn't a single time in the entire game where i felt some piece of dialogue was awkward, and that is not only a compliment for the localizers, but for the writers as well. don't get me wrong, i could sometimes notice that things were localized, but that realization never jarred me. rather, it made me that much more confident about what that piece of dialogue could tell me about the character saying it, the situation they're in, and/or their relationship(s) to whom they're talking to.

i won't act like it's absolutely perfect, of course. however, my complaints come from failures to achieve the goal of localization, rather than with the innate nature of the practice. for example, probably my biggest hang-up on it is that it undersells a lot of the sentiment when shiki and neku finally reunite, though the voice acting is partly responsible for that (likely moreso the voice direction rather than the actors themselves, but i can't say for sure).

back on the positives, i do find the english voice acting pretty good. miranda parkin as nagi is my personal highlight; her performance reminds me a LOT of erica lindbeck's futaba sakura, and you should absolutely look into her work on her youtube channel "ParkinArt" when you get the chance, because she is superbly talented. shoutouts also go to xander mobus as kubo (i struggle to think of a sleazier voice) and pretty much every returning va.

in general, i am pretty massively defensive of localization and localizers; whole lotta people who don't know shit spouting, well, shit. to be fair, i'm not much better, but at least i'm on the side of the people who do this shit for a living. and i'm also on the side which appreciates those people for the work they do, because i can't help but feel like it's really fuckin hard. you're not just translating the literal words, but finding ways to synthesize it to maintain the SPIRIT. This short video by "Jehtt" about the opening line of Sonic Adventure is an excellent example of what I'm talking about.

as for the content getting localized itself, final remix (and specifically a new day) made it clear that whatever sequel comes out, it's going to be some kind of direct continuation of what's been established, rather than a self-contained story in the same universe or something along those lines. personally, i would've preferred the latter if a twewy sequel HAD to exist, and to its credit, my favorite things about neo twewy's story tend to be the things which THEORETICALLY make it stand on its own. obviously, your enjoyment is enhanced if you play the first game, but there's enough in neo to make it possible for someone who doesn't to still understand it.

for example, new characters are fun, even if occasionally half-baked. i'll get the riff-raff out of the way: the shinjuku reapers felt like goofy personifications of gimmicks that served their purposes well enough, coco is a bit less annoying this time, tsumugi is hilariously half-baked after being hyped up as much as she was, hazuki... exists, and i struggled to see any of the other team leaders as more than an impetus for other characters (though i am DEEPLY grateful kanon isn't as bad as she could've been). speaking of which, how about those characters?

my favorites were nagi and fret; i see their concepts as a bit tropey, but executed well all the same. the ways their arcs intertwine were surprisingly compelling; nagi's dislike of fret wasn't just a weird gag, but an inevitability of fret's compulsion to put up a front and nagi's keen perception and hatred of "fake" people. once nagi learns why fret puts up this act as he makes an effort to move past that instinct, they start bonding almost immediately as she tells him more about her inner workings and that she'll take care not to be so judgmental thanks to his influence. the reveal that she got fret on elegant strategy after the events of the game made me smile way more than the game trying to get me to like rindo and shoka as a couple ever did.

on that note, i could take or leave rindo as a protagonist, and in general, my interest in the shinjuku reapers (especially shoka) waned as they became more significant. that's not BECAUSE of their significance, mind you, simply that they ended up disappointing me in one way or the other (with the possible exception of kaie who was just kind of a silly little guy). it comes back, yet again, to my thesis on this game failing to meaningfully iterate. i understand and agree that there's a lot of value in establishing parallels between characters, even if the plots of their stories are disconnected. i would go so far as to say it's ideal to make a sequel expand on the subtext of what's been established like that, as long as it and what's new bolster each other. in the case of rindo, i struggle to appreciate things about him that aren’t some extension of neku when he was a protagonist. i found his arc about making his own decisions sudden and a bit inexplicable, especially with how blatantly it was stated. felt like a case of saying a character was having a specific arc without actually giving them that arc.

as for shoka, i do like her more than rindo. in fact, it’s her relationship with him that made me lose interest; it felt like all the things that endeared me to her, like her relationships with the other shinjuku reapers and her brand of snark, got pushed to the side in favor of said relationship. it dominated everything else about her character in a way it felt like it just didn’t with rindo. granted, this could just be because he’s the protagonist, and her “snark” is a surface level reason to like her. however, i don’t find that first concession to be an adequate excuse, and it was precisely her personality that got me interested in the character to begin with, only for it to feel discarded (albeit probably not completely, i’m sure there’s a cute lil moment or two i’m forgetting). considering shoka’s love of gatto nero and shiki’s presence in the game, i imagine the parallels between the two have to be somewhat intentional, including with their relationships to their respective mc. like with rindo, these parallels make it hard for me to appreciate the character, but unlike rindo, shoka’s parallels seem to actively oust the things unique to her, as opposed to rindo’s leaving little opportunity for appreciable distinction to begin with. again, i ultimately prefer shoka, as tis better to have loved and lost than to have never loved at all.

that just leaves the three elephants in the room/party: all of them are returning characters. two of them are characters you played as in twewy.

i do want to make it clear that even at my most territorial, i don't think i was ever completely against the idea of there being returning characters; if anything, my ideal twewy sequel would actually feature characters like joshua or hanekoma more prevalently than they were here. rather, much like most things, it comes down to how you implement them, and neo does so in a way that pretty blatantly relies on them. even that isn’t a necessarily a bad thing, but remember what i said about this story attempting to stand on its own?

what shocks me about their sheer prevalence is that very little of it feels necessary. i don’t get the feeling that any of the og gang were needed to make this story work on a thematic level (as happy as a lot of their scenes together made me), and in fact, as i alluded to with rindo and shoka, it actually seems to impede or dampen a lot of what the game is trying to go for. i see it as perhaps the single most blatant example of my thesis statement. neo plays with the concept of a self-contained story, but is unable to let go of what's already there, innovate enough on the franchise and original game’s core, and pull through with something standalone, because it seems generally unwilling to embrace change, and consequently, key aspects of creativity and what makes a good sequel. i understand if others don’t share this opinion, but to me, it really feels like neo only changes when it has to, and that reflects in the changes it makes as well as the ones it doesn't.

and on that note: the conclusion.

sorry this feels so disparate. i definitely wouldn't call neo a bad game, and in fact, i think given some time, i can comfortably call it good. plus, i can, after some difficulty and deliberation, say it and even final remix's existence only add to og twewy. impulsive territorialism be damned, it makes me happy to see stories and characters i love be added on to like this. the aspects i consider bad, even if they might be fundamental, are not enough for me to avoid embracing and appreciating the good. my silly little headcanons are not “threatened” by things like final remix, even if it felt like they would be in the moment. it is still possible to imagine all my favorite characters living happily ever after with each other, even that cunt with the mop for hair joshua, and if anything, certain scenes in neo only add to those delusions. i may have complained about them, and i do stand by those complaints, but i cannot deny how much i love them in isolation. i think the only thing that could've made me hate them is mischaracterization, but the only instance of that which stuck out to me (neku and shiki reuniting) seems to be a translation issue, and the real sentiment of the scene aligns far more strongly with my views of the characters.

that said, i'm still definitely disappointed by it all. neo's derivative spirit felt very pervasive to me the whole way through, and by the end, i felt a strong urge to replay twewy. that's not a necessarily bad instinct to have after playing a sequel, because it's the idea of "wanting more". it is, however, bad in this case, because it was a mix of that and the idea of "wanting better". i wanted to play something where these good ideas were new, or better yet, something where the new ideas were good. as it stands, i'm left the slightest bit hollow; just enough to be noteworthy, but i still feel like a dick for bringing it up.

i'm happy i played this game. i may very well play it again in the future. there's aspects of it i like to the point of loving. and yet, i hesitate to say i like it.

my feelings on this game continue to be jumbled, even after all this. still, writing a lot of it out definitely helped, and it was really fun to make! thank you oh so very much for reading; i hope you enjoyed it!

oh, and i would rather rip my dick off than play scramble slam again-

[epickiya722]

You know what the reactions to the epilogues to JJK and MHA taught me?

That certain cues that people who clearly feel some kind of way about certain ships can only be romantic for their ships and their ships only and said cues are only "romantic" for them and they get off feeling "right" and actually just enjoying whatever they have.

I'll explain.

There was a time that a ship had to be canon if they kissed or got married onscreen. If not that, them being canon will be stated by the actual creator themselves.

Regardless, that wouldn't stop shippers of shipping who they wanted because, at least for some of us, shipping is fun. It should be.

Shipping stemmed from characters, regardless of gender, having intense moments, or acting a certain way around another character they wouldn't with others, and sometimes even their character designs and traits will tie into another character's.

Those kind of things is what some would say a ship is implied. It could be canon, it could not be.

Implied, I say, because at the end of the day the creator didn't confirm anything and even still said cues like that can be seen as romantic or platonic.

But this also those same cues don't have to mean anything. They could just be mere coincidences because hey, sometimes the creator doesn't keep track with everything when creating characters and writing stories. (I would know.)

"Implied" cues don't just stop for same gender ships. This goes for different gender ships, too.

I'll say it, I feel like nowadays, people confuse "implied" with "canon".

Oh, yes, MHA and JJK fandoms, I am saying those ships to me feel more implied because of the openness of them.

See, what's funny to me is I have seen people say a certain green haired MC with freckles blushing at any other time will mean nothing with other characters, but with a certain pink themed space girl and I'm not talking Ashido it means something romantic.

That is entirely unfair to me. So it's only romantic for just you and your ship, but not it can't for any other ship and someone else? Why do you get to dictate that?

Personally, I see blushing as just a physical reaction with multiple meanings. It's the meanings of that blushing that may get me to go "Oh, see how he/she/they are around this character". But at the end of the day, that doesn't mean for me my ship is canon because no matter it's status, if I like it and it's my preference, I'm shipping it.

"They held hands!"

So did green boy and boom boom boy and y'all didn't say they were anon! So did green boy and glasses class president! Does that mean they're canon? Trying to figure out why holding hands can mean your ship is canon, but not for other ships.

"They got married at the end and had kids!"

First off, grandkids. Not kids. We don't know how many kids that sword-wielding, don't get no sleep, wore skinny jeans and high tops guy had. We just know he had at least one kid to who then had children of their own.

Second, if that was canon, I'm sure the mangaka would have mentioned the grandmother. But we didn't even get a hint.

"But the grandson looks like---"

Ah! But who said it was through the grandmother though? Couldn't the kid's mom or father been a distant relative to that family? Or even there just happen to have been someone unrelated to that family, but happens to have similar physical features?

"Can't believe the mangaka would betray us like this."

But how? Did our pink haired MC expressed romantic feelings at all for her? No. Not even in the middle school flashback.

Honestly, it's gotten to the point that whenever someone says a ship is "canon" regardless if they hate it or not, it's annoying.

Over the past few months I have felt nothing but disappointment. Not surprised by anything, but felt disappointment.

"Implied" is a word that does exist. And "canon" shouldn't stop you from having fun with your ships.

And people, just because your ship is "canon" doesn't mean you have to act like a complete asshole to others. You just look like disgusting, frankly. And you don't look happy.

See someone who is happy about their ship wouldn't harass and laugh at people. They would just rejoice and post cute little edits and art and whatnot.

You harassing someone like "Ha ha, my ship is canon and yours is not" is you being childish and feeling insecure about your ship. You had that fear of your ship being canon when whether or not it was you should have just enjoyed it. You harassing someone is just you being more satisfied being right than the actual ship itself.

[l1ve-l4ugh-lov3craft]

PROPOSITION ☝️

au where barty joins the ministry as a fuck you to his father but gets into some very niche but surprisingly important branch of it and absolutely becomes the MENACE of the ministry while also having way to much influence for his own good

like imagine this absolute punk DEMON wreaking havoc in the ministry but also he’s surprisingly charming so most everyone loves him

and then at the end of the day he goes home to his husband who’s working on some new (definitely humane and not at all freaky) potionist concoction :)

[rhymeswithchronic]

HELL YEAH let’s do this. I’ve had a few over the years but I think my current one is the most interesting since there’s a few layers to it

Me and my brother, boyfriend, sister-in-law, and unofficial sister all have a story universe together. As in we have a massive original series where we all write in the same universe but use different times, locations, and situations. They’re all related and canon to one another.

We discussed for awhile how, when we get published, we’d like to have our books next to each other on shelves, but we all have very different last names. So we decided to look into a pseudonym that we could all use in front of our real names so the author is credited but our books all sit together on shelves.

The longest running one we had was Kranak, as an anagram of our main characters names.

I still use this name as my artist signature, actually, but I realized HUH. Everyone is gonna pronounce this wrong.

My addiction to Don’t Starve comes in. See, Klei Entertainment, the devs of Don’t Starve, host these streams called Rhymes with Play streams, in reference to how their name is pronounced. Mixed that with the pronunciation of Kranak and we ended up here! RhymesWithChronic :3

Bonk @amberqueen01 @written-in-the-stars135

Tag game🎉

Tag your moots and ask them where they got the idea for their tumblr accounts name!

For my name it was a nickname I was giving back in middleschool! One of our teacher had a system where we worked with 'wifi' eachtime we talked in class we lost a bar of the "wifi" (was a weird joke and we never held count on that) All the kids usually joked if they needed 'wifi' , they would borrow mine if they wanted to talk more. (I was incredibly shy in middle school, I only talked to like 3 people at school;^;)

They called me Ms. Wifi because of that. I just thought it would be funny if I put 'miss' instead of 'ms' because of my terrible actual wifi connection I have at home lol.

That's my story! Now moots, only if you guys want to, tell us your story.

Tags-> @slipping-lately @firequeenofficial @noagskryf @twinklstarrrr @halfbakedspuds @polterwasteist @rokushi-san @mygedagtes +anyone that sees this and wants to do this as well

[mohntilyet]

they hated illario because he was a d1 yapper who was bad at assassinating people and was so annoyingly drunk and grief stricken at his cousin’s wake that viago had to drug him to shut him up (so what if he was also the guy who set his cousin up to die/disappear) . and also for working with the venatori and selling out the antivan crows i guess.

[yume-fanfare]

lots of monsters ☆ sweet halloween (x)

[littlestkoi-n]

the rage I feel when reading Blood of Olympus chapters 45-56 is almost equivalent in magnitude to the absolute joy I experience when reading The Last Olympian chapters 1-23.

remember when percabeth was good? when they meant the world to each other but had other people they cared about (nico, for one. both of them. so much), other worries and other storylines aside from their romantic plot? and when nico's completed arc wasn't repeated for no reason other than to dump more trauma on the youngest character in the series? when background characters were included in the story not for all the unnecessary last minute romantic subplots but because they were fun and fascinating to learn more about? and were actually friends with main characters? remember when grover was percy and annabeth's best friend forever? and antagonists were actually interesting and intimidating and had compelling goals? and the story revolved around friendship and family and loyalty? and death was definite and loss was palpable and battles were thrilling?

yeah. good times.

[kagoutiss]

oot zelda doodle i liked :’-)))