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wickedpact · 3 years ago

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A ranking of all the TTT stories in order of how much I liked them.

(Oh god this is so long)

1 My Mother's Axe

BABY ANDYYYYYYYYYYYY. Honestly this one had the trifecta of developing a character's motivations, developing a character's backstory, & developing their personality. The story starting out with Andy teaching Nile to use the axe was so charming and fun, and you could feel that chemistry they had in Opening Fire, the way they teased and bickered with each other so naturally. I loved the wedge between them on the subject of the axe, how Nile was perhaps a little too young to understand Andy's feelings about whether or not its the 'same' axe. I also love how the axe is obviously the symbol of the franchise and hugely important, but you never get a sense of exactly how important it is to Andy until you read the story.

I love the entire Ship of Theseus theme, and how it feels so natural that for Andy she has to get attached to the idea of things rather than the things themselves because she'll always outlive the things themselves-- the axe is symbolically her mom's axe, even if physically it isn't. And I love how she clearly clings to that concept so tightly. "This is the labrys she held in her hands...." IT GETS ME.

And the fact that this sense of BELONGING, of FAMILY, of CULTURE is so important to Andy that she clings to it (figuratively and literally) with both hands. And of course it's important to her, she spent so long alone that the woman doesn't even remember her birth name. That axe (or the idea of that axe) is all she has left of her mother and that family/culture she was born into.

PLUS on that note I love how Andy doesn't remember if her mom was her actual biological mother, but it doesn't matter to her. This woman was her mother in all the ways that counted. And how her mom BETRAYED AND KILLED Andy but Andy loved her so much that she avenged her and carried her axe for thousands of years. THOUSANDS OF YEARS!!!!!!

I also loved how the story transcends the timeline of the whole franchise and seeing Andy through the years. Loved seeing her with the varying squads and with varying axes. Also baby Andy was so cute. It was cool seeing her so young. like holy fuck. Andromache The Scythian, Immortal Warrior (but smol). Love that.

Also I think this one is one of the few ttt stories that doesn't suffer from length problems.

tldr: goddammit greg you've done it again.

2 Zanzibar and Other Harbors

Zanzibar my beloved. I've said before, but it's downright comedic how little regard there was for Joe and Nicky's character designs in this story. The same person who does the colors for the regular comic did the colors for this one too, and you can tell, every panel of this story was Beautiful.

Ik there was A Lot of criticism of this one (lmao @ how the fandom had no idea what was to come) but I thought a lot of The Discourse was a bit dramatic. I did think Nicky came off as a little oblivious to Joe's feelings in this story, but I've said before, I honestly think that was a 'tone not translating' thing. It felt like Nicky was nagging Joe for [checks notes] saving innocent people, but Joe was so amused by Nicky's complaints I really do think it was supposed to come off as teasing.

Plus I know the 'Joe running off into danger and Nicky reluctantly following' dynamic wasn't popular (I'm a pretty meh on it meself) but I did love how Joe's impulsiveness (if you want to call it that) was interpreted as heroism and not hot-hotheadedness. All of the examples Nicky and Joe talked about included Joe explicitly saving people. (and it also took A Lot for the nazi to actually provoke Joe).

I also feel like their characterization here was closest to the movie canon-- the bit where they hear the woman scream and Joe goes running in to save her while Nicky swoops in on Joe's heels to comfort her while Joe and the nazi were fighting reminds me of the train car scene. Joe had suggested First that they go find Nile because she needed to be protected, and Nicky later added that Nile probably also needed emotional support. Similar reactions.

But it was So Good, the themes of queer community and the enduring nature of queer culture are Not themes you see in media that often and it was such a delight how it was done. Also it's one of the few more modern TTT stories that has a completely valid excuse for taking place when it did. Chef's kiss.

3 Passchendaele

I love the Duality between seeing baby Andy and then seeing Mama Andy in the very next issue. This story doesn't have a ton of meat to it, but the entire concept of Andy adopting a war orphan straight off the battlefield PLUCKS MY TENDER LITTLE HEARTSTRINGS, and I think it's especially poignant for comic!Andy. I think most people wouldn't think twice about movie!Andy doing something like that but comic Andy is so hardened and almost cruel sometimes, and seeing that even for her the world hasn't beaten all of the compassion from her yet is SO!!!!!!! this woman contains MULTITUDES okay, she's violent and angry and tired and Done but she's also so kind and compassionate and THE STRENGTH OF HER!!!!! Also the idea of her and Yitzhak co-raising a kid together is so damn cute. It was #mysterious pre-Yitzhak-story but now it's cute. holy fuck. It's cute.

& the headbonk panel of her and Zeus lives in my heart. anyways.

4 Many Happy Returns

I Know people weren't thrilled about Booker being in this one, but I've developed a pet-peeve about that: this story was *not* booker-centric. Booker only exists in this story to the extent required to explain the importance of the gesture Nile makes towards him. If there was a story about Booker making some grand gesture of kindness to Nile no one would be saying it was Nile-centric. bc it wouldn't be! Booker exists in this story to explore Nile's kindness, its not about him. I saw that a couple times and it bothered me. anyways.

AAAAAAAAAA I loved this one, the art was beautiful, I loved how Andy Nile and Booker were drawn (like their comic selves but.. more looking like actual people). I loved Andy and Nile's Bants, how Andy wanted to jump right in and Do Violence but Nile was basically telling her to hold her horses.

I feel like I'm just repeating the post I made on this story a few days ago, but I LOVED how Nile's plan revolves not around violence or Cool Mercenary Skills but on Nile's own life skills (as she canonly did a lot of minimum wage job-hopping before the marines in comics canon). Her plan used her skills, not the skills of an immortal warrior, and HER SKILLS were in fact more useful for the situation! lov to see Nile's resourcefulness and planning skills.

AND HOW NILE WAS PROBABLY WATCHING BOOKER??? it's so Much bc 1.) nile knew booker A SINGLE DAY and yet he made such an impression on her emotionally that she had to keep an eye on him and 2.) she said in the movie she wanted Booker to get off free with an apology. Yes she's a member of the team but that doesn't mean she's necessarily going to follow orders like a good little soldier. I also love how she convinced Andy to go along with it. her HEART, her KINDNESS, her THOUGHTFULNESS, UGH.

5 The Bear

Honestly I have like no negative things to say about this one other than a.) character design issues which is less about the story itself and is more of a 'tog comic in general' criticism and b.) too short, but it was supposed to be a tease, so.

But I loved Yitzhak, I wasn't expecting to really like him at all but like I said in my other post, he tickled me. I love characters who are Kind™, especially if they have little reason to be so given their backgrounds. Chef's kiss. Lov him.

6 Bonsai Shokunin

I know this one was a little controversial bc of the outsider POV but whenever I see people upset about that they never point out that the Outsider Guy (the samurai) existed as a reflection on Noriko. His ideas are explained in the text to develop hers. The whole story follows how she gave mercy to a scared young man and in response he murdered Noriko, repeatedly! Who gave him the right to inflict such pain and suffering on the world? In his opinion, the lack of response from the gods was his permission. And for Noriko-- over and over again she dies and suffers because she gave mercy, which lines up with her ideas in FM about how it's their fate to rule mortals and if they don't align with that plan/fate/whatever then they suffer. It shows some background to those ideas and how they developed in her mind outside of Ocean Madness™. Additionally, his idea of 'the Gods have done nothing to strike me down so it's fine if I do these things' kind of explains how Noriko may justify her own morally corrupt actions-- she's died so many times and it's never stuck. Maybe if she did die any of those times, or while she was in the water, maybe that would've been a sign she was doing something right, or at least doing something normal. But she hasn't died. Fate isn't done with Noriko yet. And maybe there's a reason for that. In her mind, it's just not a very pleasant reason, is all.

There were things I was kind of meh about tho. I did kind of wish we saw something of Noriko and the team, or smth explaining the way she was before her dip in the pool-- personality, likes dislikes, etc. but it wasn't bad or anything. It was super vague tho, I had to read it a few times before I got what it was going for. Liked the art. Liked the bonsai metaphor. And of course I Respect the decision to use the 1300s (1200s? I don't remember off the top of my head) rather than using the last 200 years.

7 Strong Medicine

Honestly looking back, this one made me kind of sad because both this one and Bonsai Shokunin explored character's ideas on Fate and The Divine and how that intersects with immortality and I totally thought that theme would be continued, especially with Love Letters. But Then It Wasn't™.

Admittedly.... I had to re-read this one to remember most of it. I liked Booker's ideas on God, 'The conductor of the symphony just may not be very good at his trade' but the plot itself was kind of forgettable. Some fuckin cowboys try to kill a doctor (their second) because he couldn't save their sickly brother. Book tries to stop them, gets killed, and then comes back and kills them all before they get the doctor. Alright. I liked the artstyle because the characters were ugly in a similar way that leandro's are, but way more bearable.

I love the Irony of Booker concluding that there is no such thing as fate or destiny and nothing has meaning, AS HE UNKNOWINGLY SAVES MERRICK'S GRANDFATHER FROM BEING KILLED. Booker getting fucked over by life/god/destiny yet again. It also kind of explains about where the fuck hell Merrick's interest in immortal mercenaries even came from.

I originally had this one a lot higher and then I thought about it and moved it down like two spots.

8 Never Gets Old

I liked seeing Booker interact with his kid. And we got a name for the kid! Philippe was a little bitch though, he was a little obnoxious. I liked how Booker was so thrilled to experience a restaurant with his kid (and since we know he was there before, it can be assumed he went with all of his kids and yet he was so charmed each time). It fits with his line to Nicky in the moon landing story about how you don't appreciate beautiful things 'unless you have someone to share them with'. It was charming to see Booker interact with his kid, and to see him so happy. Also lmao @ Booker's big fat Ye Olde Crush on Andy.

However at the same time it was like.. of all the things to write about,,, I guess? Booker's Night Out...... alright. Especially since Book had so many stories.

I don't know, it was alright. The old man killing him really came out of nowhere, (but the 'Salut, asshole!' panel was funny tho).

9 How To Make a Ghost Town

I've hit a point where talking about these stories has gotten less fun. I liked this one but I felt like Achilles getting lynched was not really necessary for a story that was already tragic (a story that already involved Achilles doing a lot of suffering at the hand of bigots). When we first got the blurb for this story I thought it would be about Andy returning to the squad and making friends with Booker after losing Achilles and them butting heads on the idea of family and when to cut off ties. So a little bit of my underwhelmedness about this one might be just my expectations being different.

Honestly I was pretty interested in Andy and Achilles' relationship and I would've liked to see more of them-- like, what was their dynamic like? What did they love about each other?

But anyways Andy leaving and Achilles getting killed anyways feels so pointlessly tragic (which I suppose is the point..... I don't like tragedies) she left to save him and yet people killed him anyway. Meh.

I did love the bits about Andy wanting to have a domestic life (Andy and her multitudes again) and the little detail about how she buried her axe near the road but he buried his guns under his bed-- he was an escaped slave, he never had the luxury of assuredness like Andy did. It was a sad story.

10 Lacus Solitudinis

'You put this one above love letters crim??? how could you???' easy, lmao.

There was stuff in this one I liked. But to talk about stuff I didn't like: (I'll keep it brief, I know ragging on this story has been done time and time again)

UH, setting aside the 6 year cold shoulder between Joe and Nicky, I thought their chosen method of conflict resolution was... bad at best. Nicky's inability to talk about his feelings was also annoying, especially since the entire point of this story is a fight Joe and Nicky had, and yet we don't get both sides to the story, which is...... important? That fact is especially annoying bc in the absence of Nicky explaining his side of the story, it's absolutely a possible (and admittedly probably unintentional) interpretation of the text that we do get that Joe routinely resolves conflict between him and Nicky by simply cutting Nicky out of his life entirely until Nicky just. caves? Even if it takes years?

WHICH i could get into that interpretation and how fucked up i find it. but im not going to. out of restraint.

I don't know, I think there are a lot of interesting ways to go about this conflict but 'Nicky wants to kill a guy and Joe refuses to acknowledge his existence until he stops because he thinks Nicky is too much of a Good Boy to get his hands dirty like that' ('I wont watch as the world turns his (...) compassion into something ugly'. ) wasn't.. how I would've done it. (I mean you know Joe doesn't give a shit about what Nicky is doing in a moral way, because Joe doesn't even care or mention that Booker is killing those cops too. Joe only cares because he doesn't like the idea of Nicky changing in a way he finds undesirable.)

admittedly I've said before, I do like the emphasis Joe's reaction puts on Nicky's kindness. Joe has a complete inability to cope with Nicky simply Not Being Kind. It speaks to the steadiness of Nicky's compassion all those years. but still that fact doesn't make it the conflict feel worth it

hm. I said I would be brief and I wasn't.

oh well. basically I thought there was interesting conflict potential there but it wasn't done the way I would've liked, and the way it was done leaves a lot of disturbing (and again probably unintended) interpretations to lie.

What I did like? Andy and Joe having that pessimist/optimist dynamic. Joe nerding out about science. Andy not being impressed by The Achievements Of Man. I loved Booker needling at Nicky about his outdated slang and also trying to give him Older Brother advice practically in the same breath. I loved Booker giving The Worst relationship advice ever and Nicky being like 'I Will Not Do That, Ever, Thanks.' the family vibes were so good. The Joenicky vibes left a lot to be desired tho.

11 Love Letters

I talked about my problems with Nicky in this story (and Lacus Solitudinis). I don't know, the story isn't bad but I do hold a little bit of a grudge towards it because its very existence begs the existence of a solo Joe story and we didn't get one. If we never got this story, then we could happily count Lacus Solitudinis and Zanzibar as The Joenicky Stories™ and move on with our lives. sigh.

I remember when we first got the blurb for this story I was really curious about why Nicky specifically + the setting, and the answer kind of feels like 'the author had an idea for a story like this and saw ttt as a good enough place to utilize that idea'. Plus I was really underwhelmed by the Romantic Sentiment in the letter. If you look at it line-by-line, the majority of the letter is actually Nicky talking about how lonely and disturbed he is, rather than actual,, yknow,,, Romantic Sentiment. I mean, compare the van speech and this letter and this letter is just kind of meh in comparison. I liked nicky calling joe wise! and I liked the brief sun/moon metaphor! and otherwise it was eh. It didn't even have cute squad banter, which is why Lacus Solitudinis is above this one.

12 An Old Soul

Nun orgy. Nun orgy?????? Nun orgy.......

The whole story felt like a setup to have a nun orgy. Why did Booker have abs? Why did they do that to Andy's nose? ?????? the art was good at least.

nun orgy.

#tales through time spoilers #obviously #long post #seriously dont open that read more unless youre committed to scrolling past all these Words

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rachelbethhines · 4 years ago

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TTS Songs Ranked Worst to Best

Someone asked me to rank my fav and least fav TTS songs a while back, but I’ve since then relistened to the soundtrack and there’s a whole bunch of songs that just forgot about, so here’s a more accurate ranking now that the songs are more fresh in my mind

32 . Life After Happily Ever After (Reprise)

This song is infuriating, because the finale is infuriating. Listening to this song just makes me angry all over again because it reminds me just how unsatisfying the ending to TTS was. I wanted to turn it off at several points. I barely can get through it despite it being so short. It doesn’t help that the soundtrack leaves all the dialogue in there and fails to actually end the song. It just cuts off before the final note.

31. Hook Foot’s Ballad

Does this even count as a song? Why is it here on the soundtrack but not the Hurt Incantation? Did Menken really waste his talent writing a joke and did the showrunners really waste money and limited resources on this?

30. Friendship Song

Bland, boring, and pointless. It was clearly written as a marketing stunt for the radio disney charts and not as anything to do with the plot of the series. They just throw it up on screen to fill out the running time and don't even let the whole song play through. It’s pitiful.

29. Waiting in the Wings (Reprise)

I didn’t think much of the original song one way or the other, but the reprise is soooo dumb. The plot twist it introduces winds up ruining the whole show and sabotaging both Cassandra’s and Rapunzel’s characters. It’s not even a nice sounding song on it’s own. The kid’s voice is irritating (who I’m sure is doing her best, but really little kids shouldn’t be made to sing professionally as a general rule) and the melody just as bland as the first time it was played. The only reason to like this song is if you’r a mega fan of Cassandra’s or her VA, which I am not. (Note: this is not a criticism of Eden Espinosa, I just don’t happen to follow any of the VAs in this show)

28. Through It All

I like the instrumentals in this song, and that’s about it. Everything about this song is wrong. It doesn’t fit the story, it’s a misuse of the cast and songwriters, it’s a waste of valuable screen time, the melody is dull, and the dang soundtrack had to throw in that lame dialogue about ‘greatest threat ever’ at the beginning. If you want a pump up song in your story then you got to earn it. You can’t just tell us things are bad, you got to show it. A joyful horseback ride and everyone sitting in a bar safe and sound isn’t threatening or depressing enough to warrant a cheering up session. Plus the song itself doesn’t add anything to the overall story.

27. The Girl Who Has Everything

Sometimes I think the writers were willing trying to sabotage themselves. It’s as if they were determined to make the only two main female characters in the show unlikeable bitches in season three. Don’t believe me? The creator Chris has said this song only exists to highlight how much easier Rapunzel has things than Cass and went onto say that Rapunzel was in the wrong during their conflict because ‘she held Cassandra back’. (Oh yeah she totally ‘held back’ the grown woman who left on her own accord, returned on her own accord, and then assaulted and tried to murder a bunch of people for no reason of her own accord.) But this song does succeed in furthering season’s three narrative that Rapunzel is a spoiled selfish brat. Shame the story fails to address this setup and never has Rapunzel learn to be a better person. Rather the narrative bends over backward to tell us how special Rapunzel is without any sense of self awareness and this song falls into that same trap; making it both irritating and pointless.

26. Listen Up

Yeah, I talked about this on my salt marathon, but I just don't like this song very much. The melody is fine but the lyrics are a real miss in my mind. It doesn’t help matters that the song is indeed pointless in the grand scheme of things.

25. Livin’ the Dream

This is much on the same level as Listen Up as it features the same problems. It doesn’t add to the narrative and the lyrics kind of let it down. I placed it higher just because I like the melody a little more.

24. More of Me

This song is a lot like the Friendship Song in that it was created to be an end credit song for the pop charts and you’d be forgiven in forgetting it even exists. However, it at least got to actually play all the way through. I think this song was a real missed opportunity. I honestly believe that it should have been the opening theme song of the show instead of Wind in My Hair. It’s more built to serve such a purpose and it’s a waste of resources not to actually use it. Alternatively, I would have accepted it being reworked into the actual series as a character song. Especially since we’re missing a song in season three due to budget cuts.

23. Wind In My Hair

Speaking of theme songs, I think I would like Wind In My Hair a lot better if i didn’t have to listen to it every episode. On its own it actually has a lot of things going for it; a nice melody, interesting instrumentals, good singing, ect. Unfortunately it’s just over exposed, and none of those elements lend themselves naturally to an intro song for a tv show. In fact the theme song feels really out of place and is edited oddly to fit the shorter intro.

22. Wind In My Hair (Reprise)

Honestly the theme song is mostly comprised of this reprise, but it has the opening instrumentals from the OG song frankensteined onto it. This means that the version that plays before every episode is on fullblast all the time to keep the energy up, but that’s not how the song is suppose to go. The actual reprise that plays in the pilot builds to a crescendo, starting soft and melancolony and getting louder and more hopeful and determined. It sounds a lot better in full because of that. It’s still too overexposed though. Both these songs would probably be higher on the list of not for the theme song version.

21. With You by My Side

This song is fine. It’s nothing special, but it’s not bad either. What knocks it down the list is the fact that Lance isn’t in it, despite Lance being right there. Like don't bother hiring a famous Broadway singer if you’re not going to have him sing! But that speaks more to the poor writing of season two than anything else. This song also doesn’t really add anything to the narrative as, contrary to what the writers intended, it doesn’t actually enhance the emotional impact of Cassandra’s betrayal later in the episode. The song itself is just tacked on and doesn’t take the opportunity to lay down any foreshadowing for that plot point.

20. Next Stop Anywhere

Another perfectly serviable song. It’s not bad but nothing outstanding. It gets the job done. It’s also really ho-hum and the soundtrack keeps all the unneeded dialogue, which is a pet peeve of mine.

19. Waiting In the Wings

Despite it’s hype, I never thought much of Waiting in the Wings. It’s got nice instrumentals and Eden Espinosa gives it her all in the singing department. The problem is it’s too generic. It’s a bare bones basic ass ‘I want song’. Cassandra's movations are weak and unsupported by the narrative, the melody is boring, and it honestly doesn’t add anything to her story. I mean it should, it’s her character solo, but because she’s written so poorly the song just winds up undermining the character in the end. All I’m saying is that, this is not the song from season two that I would have nominated for the Emmys. But it’s still Alan Menken, it’s still nicely performed, and given the rest of the competition for that year, it did deserve to win.

18. If I Could Take That Moment Back

This song is also pretty generic, but it’s less boring than I See the Light, (yeah, I said it, I See the Light is boring) so that’s a win in my book. Ergo this holds the title of the only New Dream duet that I enjoy. But there’s better stuff on this list.

17. Next Stop Anywhere (Reprise)

Well no, I take that back. The reprise of Next Stop Anywhere is also technically a New Dream duet. It’s still not anything amazing, but it works for what it is. Plus, Adria’s opening dialogue in the soundtrack version doesn’t bother me quite as much as some of the other dialogues choices that were kept in.

16. Stronger Than Ever Before

I really enjoyed this song in the moment. It’s catchy and fun, and it finally has Lance doing something rather than ignoring his existence. However it is borderline unnecessary in terms of story placement, and I’m slightly mad at it now that I know that we could have gotten a Rapunzel and Varian duet but it was scrapped for this instead.

15. Crossing the Line

Keeping with the theme of ‘songs I have conflicting emotions about’, we have Crossing the Line. This song is confused. It starts and stops, the melody isn’t clear, the orchestration is playing tug of war with the singers for dominance, and it’s basically Alan Menken and the show’s creators ripping off Frozen. (I guess he’s kicking himself for leaving that particular project?) But it’s interesting. I never heard anything quite like it. It’s memorable even if it doesn’t fully work. It’s got these interesting bits and pieces to it that just never quite comes together as a whole. Some of the lyrics are some of the best Glenn Slater has ever wrote and is far better than the story actually surrounding the song. Yet there’s other lines that are total cringe. Sometimes the song is bold and catchy and gets you all hyped up, and then other times its limp and staggering and feels so awkward to listen to. Yet it’s not boring or generic and so I have to place it higher than the rest of the songs that’s come before. (Also, there’s some amazing orchestral covers out there that really pulls together the various parts really well, just fyi)

14. Nothing Left to Lose

I really don't like this song. I’ve been one of its biggest critics ever since it was leaked by the marketing team earlier this year. And yet... I can’t in good conscience place any lower on this list. All of the problems I have with it are the exact same problems I have with Crossing the Line. It’s confused, the various pieces don't line up, the instrumentals are competing with the vocals, the song’s progression is weird with it’s constant key changes, some of the lyrics are good while others are absolute shit, ect and so forth. It also actively works against the story it's trying to tell. The song wants you to sympathize with Cassandra, but her lines are as shallow as a puddle and makes her look like a sociopath. Especially when she’s physically attacking Varian through out for no reason. Also neither character learns anything from the exchange and it fails to impact the story. By all accounts this is a bad song. But I’m Varian trash. There I said it. You happy? Varian’s parts in the songs are fine, good even, and the song is anything but bland. I would rather listen to a mess then be bored to tears by a competent yet standard four chord pop song.

13. I’d Give Anything

This song is nice to listen to. Story wise it absolutely sucks and shouldn’t have been in the finale at all. But it sounds pleasant. This is one of those songs that could pop up randomly on the radio and I would just think it it a nice sad break up song. I can’t say that about some of the other misplaced songs in the show. This one however, you can very much, absolutely divorce this song from the narrative and it would be fine. Now that’s not good writing, and it’s very much a waste of limited resources, but I’m rating the music here first and story second.

12. Buddy Song

The Buddy Song also absolutely did not need to exist but it also sounds nice. Plus, it makes use of Lance so I’m a little more lenient towards it. I can’t however place it higher since it really is just Alan Menken ripping off Alan Menken. Like, I would not be at all surprised to find out that this was originally a deleted song for Aladdin or something.

11. Bigger Than That

What can I say, Lance just gets good songs. When the show bothers to give them to him. Unfortunately, it’s not the best placed. It kind of interrupts the more important drama of Be Very Afraid, and probably should have been saved for a later episode. Especially since it hinges on a plot point that is contradictory to Lance’s character. We should have gotten a Varian and Rapunzel duet here and given Lance his own episode in the second half of season three. This song could have easily been refitted into being a bonding moment for him and the girls. That would also have filled out the season’s original songs to the usual eight instead of only seven.

10. Life After Happily Ever After

Now we’re getting to the good stuff. The top ten. The best of the best. This song makes the cut for three reasons. 1. It lyrically and musically interesting 2. It does the job of furthering the story and the characters and 3. Eugene’s part is so damn good. Like this song could have easily fell down into the ranks of ‘fine but generic’ if it wasn’t for the bridge with Eugene. That puts it over the top and to my mind makes it better than anything from the OG film. (well almost anything, Mother Knows Best is still great) This is the barometer by which I measure all of the music in the series. Is it better or worse than Life After Happily Ever After? Because this is the level that I equate good musicals with. What keeps on the tenth spot and not higher is the dialogue that still left on the soundtrack and the lack of a Cassandra introduction. That and also the rest of the songs are just flat better.

9. Hurt Incantation

Hurt, Decay, Reverse, whatever you want to call it, this was such a cool fucking concept. One that was utterly wasted by the show. I place this so high because it just sounds awesome! It looks good too, and it offered up so many possibilities from a story perspective. What lets it down is the lack of follow up for it and it’s too short. There’s needed to be another verse. It also should have been on the actual soundtrack instead of Hook Foot’s Ballad. (The Heal Incantation also was sung in What the Hair, but I’m not counting it since it was written for the film)

8. The Girl Who Has Everything (Reprise)

I hate the initial song and the set up that it took to get here, but I love this reprise. It’s perfect. This is what the story needed more of. Rapunzel taking her life into her hands, and her proposing to Eugene would have been the perfect capstone for her arc. In fact I’m angry we didn’t actually get that. There’s absolutely no reason why Rapunzel couldn’t have done so and we could have had her and Eugene engaged during the second half of season three. How much better would have it been if Cassandra threatened their wedding plans and that’s why they couldn’t go through with it until after the series ended? So much more tension that way.

7. I Got This

This is a really good song that actually futhers the characters and the narrative. Moreover it’s refreshing to see the heroine not be perfect and to fail sometimes due to her own inadequacies. It’s just a shame that the series didn’t follow through with this set up, but I appreciate the attempt all the same.

6. Set Yourself Free

This is the only song in the series that’s an actual satisfying pay off for anything. Music wise it’s nothing too special, but in terms of context it just works. We were sorely deprived of such resolutions and songs with actual meaning in the show.

5. View From Up Here

This song is too good for the episode it actually appears in. We needed something like this back in season one to introduce Cassandra with. It also sadly doesn’t fit with the wider narrative after season three. However I shall still appreciate it as a ‘what might have been’ type song.

4. Let Me Make You Proud

The only reason why this song isn’t higher is just overexposure and I’ve no one to blame but myself for that. I’ve listened to this song way too many times. As such it tends to alternate between this, View from Up Here, and the next song on the list. But make no mistake it is glorious. Fantastic instrumentals, set up, and of course amazing vocals.

3. Everything I Ever Thought I Knew

Yes, I know this plot point didn’t lead anywhere, but it works for this song at least. Also Eugene’s VA is a really underrated singer. He sounds nice and he emotes really well. Though I’ll be honest, this jumped up to third place because it was fresh in my mind after listening to the soundtrack before making this list. I’ve always liked the song and I do rate it highly, but it can change places with Let Me Make You Proud and View from Up Here at anytime depending on my mood.

2. Let Me Make You Proud (Reprise)

This song is heartbreaking! Story wise it probably shouldn’t exist because it gives away the twist too soon, but who cares, it’s awesome! Varian’s arc is the most compelling in the show and the only thing that saves TTS from falling into mediocre obscurity; and it’s songs like this that help make the arc stand out even more than it already does.

1. Ready As I’ll Ever Be

I said it before and I’ll say it again; Ready As I’ll Ever Be is the greatest thing Alan Menken has ever written in his entire career! If you know anything about the multiple award winning songwriter then you know that is no faint praise and I do not dole it out lightly. This song is the reason why this show even has a fanbase. People are still getting into the series because of this song. And no matter how many times you listen to it just rocks! It’s complex, layered, moody, and with a fantastic beat and energy. The performances are wonderful and the instrumentation glorious. It belongs in the hollows of Disney’s greatest hits and not regulated to a spin-off tv show that failed to make its money back. I weep for the lost potential that this song and this show had. It hurts to know that so many people will never see this flash of brilliance that has come out of the House of Mouse, will never know the wonderfulness that is Varian. Ah, ‘c'est la vie’, I suppose. Tangled the Series got what it deserved, but it's crew did not. While I can not in all honesty recommend the series in full; I do sincerely urge any Disney fan to check out the songs at the very least. Especially this one. And that’s it. There’s my official ranking of all the songs, and I hope those of you read my Tangled reviews appreciate the hours it took into making this.

#tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #varian #rapunzel #eugene #cassandra #lance #alan menken #Disney #disney music #disney songs

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beowulfs-booty-call · 7 years ago

Note

Beowulf for the character list!

Ohhhh gosh Jordi! How are ya pal!!! (I still have to finish the other ask you gave me! I’m making it super long and detailed just for you!)

AND GOD YES, THE FAVE BABE OKAY HERE GOES

Favorite thing about them:

Beowulf’s motif and his huge ass muscles because they’re goals. Also, the wolf pelt, definitely. Oh! Oh! And his happy-go-lucky attitude because my ass be having it too omfg.

His bravery is another thing, tbh, because he just straight up tells everyone on tv that his match was rigged because he knows he’s not really a hero. He’s the people’s hero. That was the reason in the first place why he got famous! To go in front of people and explain the situation knowing full well you might get back? That takes guts.

Least favorite thing about them:

The “Wrestler Bro” attitude sometimes. It’s fine, but the dudes at Lab Zero gave him a split “Does he think wrestling is real or…?” and “He says things you don’t expect in whispers.” in fights and it’s a wasted Easter egg Imo. The game makes him act and behave as though he’s rather dim-witted, which, cool because he’s a simple guy, but they also shoehorned Annie in to save his butt time to time and I dislike the sort of relationship they gave them both.

It’s also been said behind the scenes Beowulf did take part of the nationalistic effort in the war. Now, granted, if that was the case? Why didn’t they expand upon this? If he was a soldier, I feel he should obviously be referenced too, if not, as it already seems Parasoul knew he was merely a political pawn, I feel Beowulf’s love of the Canopy Kingdom really should have been broadened on because it’s bad writing Imo that they left out these things in favor of highlighting Annie in his story mode.

Personally in my essay I wrote, I really am big on the Annie inclusion, but I feel that it took away from Beowulf’s true personality and potential. Why add in Beowulf being saved by Annie, if he was meant to destroy Grendel anyway via suplex? I feel if such was the case, have Annie take on Double in the first place after she swallows Beowulf into Gehenna and he takes on Marie Ala Squigly and Filia.

That said, the dimwittedness is rather bland to me. It’s obvious Beowulf’s intellect shouldn’t be the brunt of the joke, and the fanbase was even worse with his treatment, outright ignoring him or treating him as the butt-monkey of the cast because Annie or Minette wasn’t voted in and it really does tick me off. We could have really shown how Beowulf was obviously using the wrestler persona to grieve for Grendel. We really could have had Beowulf figuring out just how big the Medici Mafia is and him going after those who wronged him after beating Marie.

We really lost out. And that’s my biggest pet peeve.

Favorite line:

I am two hundred, eighty seven pounds of FOLDED STEEL, AND SEX APPEAL.

brOTP:

Beowulf and Adam

Beowulf and Big Band (After their fighting in the story mode and I imagine him coming back to right wrongs)

Beowulf and Annie (I feel like she should have been much more better friends with him. And of course I feel like she’d be so goddamn dirty with him in making censored jokes because he GETS it but he... He can’t man. The kid’s got him. And he can't curse because how would that look!!! You can't call out a kid who referenced how your ex was “all up on your blood sausage.”!

OTP:

Beowulf and Me aofhiefsjfa[

I’m actually okay with Beowulf and Ms. Victoria actually! I think they’d be so cute together, if anything because I use to think of me and my ex like that, hilariously enough. I.E: Beo is the sort of guy who would waste like 50$ on you at a carnival because he wants to get you the huge ass prize, but then on his last dollar, you take the shot, win it, and you give it to him and his eyes literally are just hearts.

nOTP:

Beowulf and Eliza (Realistically, she’s only gonna use him for his blood to get stronger. I feel like if anything, there’s nothing left of Eliza. So, at this point, you’re dealing with a real monster.)

Beowulf and any underage cast member - I mean C’mon. Really.

Beowulf and Annie - See above

random headcanon(s)

- Beowulf actually is really literate, and writes poetry time to time. However, no one would pay to see him go “To be or not to be… SUPLEXED”

- He likes to wear suede and you can find him walking and going about in his scarf and puffy jacket drinking hot tea and lattes because just loves winter months

- The Hurting actually is a sentient being and was given to Beowulf via his old sleazy manager Unferth (In the original tale, Unferth gives Beowulf the Hrunting, but beowulf is so strong, he breaks it.) yet it stays strong to this day. When Beowulf is alone, or when he’s really in a pinch, the Hurting opens up its maws and has long sharp fangs and monstrous tongue used to grapple opponents. Only Beowulf speaking to it can calm it down and turn back to an original chair. No one realizes a thing.

- Grendel’s arm hears EVERYTHING beowulf says, as Grendel is still alive through the arm. However, all it hears is Beowulf screaming his quotes so instead of coherent sentences its: “ALL’S CHAIR. RUNNING WILD. AWOO. I AM TWO HUNDRED–”

- Beowulf actually is a secret musical / Opera critic and is a big benefactor of the arts. He also shouts insults and screams very helpful messages to the actors.

- When out of a job, Beowulf once took up a librarian job working in Filia’s school. Cue Ms. Victoria having to attend to students and him riding on the Janitor mobile and D. Violet secretly having a crush on him. He also bench pressed many a book case. I would know. I was one of the book cases. The kids later were the first ones to see him back in action with Ms. Victoria after he got back in the game, and they gave him a crude letter to him about being a hero and boy oh boy do I love Beowulf being kids’ hero like he was to me.

Unpopular opinion:

As the only male dude besides Big Band I feel he was purposefully thrown under the bus and really, there’s not enough porn or love for him. Much less, everyone seems to have like 2 intro animations, Beo has 1. I call favoritism but, anyway:

I think he doesn’t need a paring to shine as a hero. I think he needs to be shown more so people can realize just how awesome he really is, not with Annie saving his butt all the time so he can tout about wrestling being real.

Had he not shown up, we only would know about him via Peacock’s story mode with Andy Anvil saying he came out of retirement.

Give him love! He’s earned it!

And also like, I think he is as smart, if not, smarter than the rest of the cast, he just hides it under a veneer of being a pro wrestler. No one pays for WWE style entertainment in new meridian, they want real emotion, and that’s what Beowulf’s so used to. Because of that, he whispers and talks about things, but when you really think about them, they all have some meaning behind them, like when he calls Eliza the Crimson Scourge. I hate the idea that people think he’s a dumb dude because he’s not. Y’all just sleeping on a good character.

Song(s) i associate with them:

Space Jam’s Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

Dudley’s remix: Dudley Blew My Mind

Alex and Ken’s theme from Street Fighter 3: Third Strike

Major Lazer and Ariana Grande - All My Love

Because he liked 80′s songs and because I love funk music:

Bite the Apple - Rainbow Team

The Limit: She’s so Divine (In this case, he: “When I got here in July…”)

Let’s Get Physical: Olivia Newton AKA SIDE TO SIDE BEFORE IT WAS EVER SIDE TO SIDE

Reminder: I gotta draw him in that outfit afjnlsfgs

Also!!!

Side to Side + Let’s Get Physical MIX:

Dua Lipa: New Rules 80′S MIX (Totally something he’d listen to for the gym)

favorite picture of them

Wow it’s super nsfw but I’ll crop it for the benefit of all.

Here’s my fave sprites too

Look at him, majestic creature, no?

BICEP GRAB

Ass a palooza

And finally…

( I don’t recall the source rn for this pic, but I’ll be sure to update it asap when I get a chance!)

#Thanks for asking me #Jordi!!!#I mean it pal!!!#Asks #Wulf answers #God he's something else #Beowulf #Skullgirls #Me stuff #Fave #long post #wolf-beil

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wayfaringtrainers · 5 years ago

Text

Zichi played Pokémon Sword

And he is still royally pissed off!

When the drama and controversy came out regarding Pokémon Sword/Shield, I was more and more put off by it until I decided that no, I was gonna wait until I could get a second-hand copy for it...

And then people began talking about how much they loved it and how much fun they were having with it... No second-hand copies were appearing yet, so I caved to peer pressure like the little bitch I am and bought a copy.

I regret that so much. I don’t like this game, I very much loathe it.

I was planning on doing this semi-review ever since I started the game, so obviously there will be “plot” spoilers ahead for you guys. But anyway, here goes.

Let’s start with the very few things I like about this game, start on a positive note, at the very least.

Technical Records

I actually liked this concept. In the UK, we’re currently going through the “Vinyl Nostalgia Phase” as my dad calls it. The callback of ancient TMs being turned into TRs was pretty cool, and I am very glad that they made TRs infinitely collectable through Raids. My biggest grievances with old-school TMs was the limited supply you got: usually the best TMs you only ever got once, so only one Pokémon could ever learn some of the most useful and game-defining moves available. This makes a lot more moves available...

However it would be nice if I didn’t have to open Serebii every time I was looking for a specific TR, and then pray that specific pokemon from that specific den appears. If they weren’t so dependant on luck, they’d be a lot better.

(Most) New Pokemon

Wooloo for life.

But seriously, I absolutely love a lot of the designs for new Pokémon, which is rare for me, I’m usually critical and uncertain about new Pokémon. But these new Pokémon I actually really like. Corviknight is as cool as I thought, Coalossal is awesome, and although I was ambivalent about him at first, Sirfetch’d has really grown on me.

Buuuuut we’re just gonna skip over the fossil Pokémon. Because I dislike them for a variety of reasons.

However, I reckon that that’s it for things I like about the new games, so now we’re just going to get into the meat of the problems and the things that just piss me off.

Cut Content.

I don’t really have to explain any further, let’s be honest. It’s not just Dexit, it’s the cut moves that piss me off, along with the axe to Mega Evolution and Z-Crystals. I don’t really need to say much else, do I?

Raids and Gigantamax

At first, I kinda enjoyed my time with raids, I spent a load of time raiding with @pinekaboo and enjoying the feeling of teaming up to take down a titanic Pokémon... But after the first few days it just felt like a chore. If I wanted a particular TR, a particular Pokémon, a particular this that or other, then I would be spending hours looking up information on Serebii, trying to narrow down where to find it and then either getting the wrong Pokémon or having to spend time grinding Watts for Wish Stones or fighting in other dens to reset all the active dens. So much effort just for the god damn body slam TR.

Gigantamax meanwhile, is just... The most frustratingly pointless thing possible. Not only is it locked to post-game with some limited-time exceptions, it’s apparently banned in competitive tournaments?

Why even fucking bother with it then? I spent hours trying to find a G-Max Kingler, only to learn it’s Post-Game only. And then I spent hours trying to find/catch a GMax Butterfree, only to learn a normal Butterfree is technically better. It’s pathetic.

Apparently I’m not allowed to be angry about Gigantamax bc I’m wrong, like always.

Team Yell

Sorry guys, but Team Yell is just a poor man’s Team Skull, but even less threatening.

“Oh you like this? It’s Post-Game”

This is the second biggest Pet Peeve of mine regarding the game. I spent hours looking for a Ralts before learning that all those “15% chance spawn rates” are in foggy weather, which comes in the post-game, leaving me stuck with a 2% chance. Those “Nature Candies” are locked until post-game and apparently need an obnoxious amount of BP to unlock.

What’s particularly gregarious is the fact there’s a BP trader in that town where the dragon gym leader is met pretty early on... And you can’t get any BP until end-game.

Shut the fuck up about Leon.

I don’t care about Leon. He himself is not that annoying, but every time I hear “oh Leon’s so amazing” I wanna punch something. I’m pretty sure it’s intended to make the player feel awesome for taking him down, but it just feels like pointless pandering. Like we get it, Leon’s great. Shut the fuck up about how awesome he and his fucking Charizard is.

Charizard

Yup. Charizard gets its own spot here.

The Pokémon Company has sucked Charizard’s dick enough, I say. It got 2 Mega Evolutions and a Gigantamax, and it’s the champion’s star Pokémon, and it’s hyped up to be the best thing ever.

It was only vaguely challenging to me because I decided sweeping it with Steam Engine Coalossal would be boring. So I took it down with my Gallade.

Yes, Gallade has a type disadvantage. I didn’t really care.

Empty Team slots

The only person in this entire game to have a full team has been Leon. Every gym fight I found myself depositing Pokémon just to have a fair fight.

Plot and Pacing (or lack of it).

You’ve seen me rant about this before, but I’m going to rant about it some more.

So I really don’t like over-levelling in any level-based game, because then the game feels trivial and unchallenging. But Pokémon Sword’s level curve makes no fucking sense. Sometimes I’d be training 10 Pokémon and still be over-levelled, then I’d go back to a normal team of 6 and find myself nearly getting steamrolled by Pokémon 5 levels higher than me. Towards the end of the game I found myself wondering whether I was the “right level” or not. I’d have to choose my team, save, go up against a gym leader and then reset to use XP candies on my pokemon after deliberately under-levelling them.

And then suddenly Leon’s lowest level is 62 after the previous trainer’s highest was 57. There wasn’t that much inbetween, game devs.

And I’ve just ranted about the pacing guys. I haven’t even begun with the plot.

To be perfectly honest? The whole “plot” with Rose? The game would be 100 times better if they just cut out Rose and Marco Cosmos. If Team Yell is a poor man’s Skull, then Marco Cosmos is a poorer man’s Aether Foundation.

So many times we get hints and implication that there is something going on behind the scenes, but every time we get to do nothing. We just get to hear about how great-and-mighty Leon will handle everything, so why don’t you just worry about your gym challenge?

The game spends so long focusing on the gym challenge, that I think the game would be better if it focused exclusively on that. At least then perhaps we’d have one full story instead of two half-assed stories.

Or hell, maybe if the Marco Cosmos story was exclusively post-game, that would be preferable. But as it stands, it’s just two or three vague cutscenes that something’s going on and then suddenly chucking a load of plot at the last fucking minute.

I have no interest in Rose’s energy crisis woes. I have no investment in his discussions about the future and the energy crisis we may face. None of that is interesting to me because I have had no time to get invested. The closest to investment I can possibly get is learning what is happening.

Hell, for all my love for Gen 6 and how it re-invigorated my love for Pokémon, I consider Team Flare one of the weaker villains in terms of story... and yet I was 100% more interested in them then in whatever Rose is doing and his reasons for doing it.

In conclusion, Pokémon Sword has -at its best- felt like a rushed, hashed hobjob of a game. It feels like the devs were short in staff and pressed for time, and forced to cut a lot of content in a desperate bid to make it in time for the Pokémon Company’s grand franchise plan and/or the Christmas market. They’re trying to rely heavily on the market opened by the Pokémon Go community (anyone noticed how Dynamax Dens have a feel similar to raid battles in Pokémon Go?) rather than delivering a game they can be proud in.

Inevitably, Pokemon Sharp Sword and Sturdy Shield will arrive on the markets -because these days we don’t get an Crystal/Emerald/Platinum- and I am legitimately considering skipping them over.

The “core games” are the backbone of the franchise. I doubt they will cause the franchise to die, but it would certainly be crippled if sales drop, but I don’t think I can continue with them anymore. My trust in the Pokémon Company is the lowest it’s ever been. I doubt the company’s choice in direction, I doubt the decisions they’ve made in business, industrial and commercial affairs. I do not believe they can provide me with the quality I’ve come to expect of them anymore and I don’t believe I can continue supporting them.

Honestly, this lack of faith in the franchise, it’s putting me in a strange place. I love this Pokémon RP blog I’ve built up, I love the muses I’ve created, the adventures I’ve written and the friends I’ve made through this blog and I’ve never really wanted them to end. But for the first time since nearly the start of the decade, when I first decided to try out this blog under the name pokemontrainerzefri, I’ve begun to wonder if it won’t be my depression and insecurities that kill it, but a loss of interest...

#Pay no mind to the man behind the trainer #Zichi plays pokemon #pokemon swsh spoilers

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preserving-ferretbrain · 6 years ago

Text

Nothin’ But Hos an’ Tricks

by Dan H

Saturday, 12 June 2010

Dan talks about “Rockstar Hypocrisy”~

A little while ago Viorica posted a link in the playpen to an article entitled

Six Things Red Dead Redemption Taught Me About (Hating) Women

I’ve already talked about this a bit on the playpen, so I won’t repeat myself here (so sorry if you’re reading this article in 2012 and haven’t got a clue what this is all about) but broadly I thought a lot of its criticisms were at best misguided and at worst wilfully misleading (I am still not certain it isn’t a parody, if it is it’s actually far more offensive than anything in the game).

Children of the Wasteland: A Little Gaming History

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away a company called Black Isle released a game called Fallout 2. In America, the towns and cities of the post-nuclear world were full of dirty, ragged looking children, playing in the streets and occasionally picking your pockets.

Fallout 2, like its predecessor, was a big, open-world game, in which you could pretty much go anywhere and do anything. You could also, it being an RPG, kill pretty much any NPC in the game (there was none of this “plot flag” nonsense you get so much of nowadays) and this included the kids.

For the European release, the producers were given an ultimatum: take the kids out or make them invulnerable. Making the kids invulnerable would – so the producers thought – undermine the player’s sense of immersion, as well as the go-anywhere do-anything quality which was such a selling point of their game (this was, I think, before the days of the “Sandbox” genre proper, but “exploring the world” was a much bigger feature of RPGs back then). So they took the kids out.

You can get a patch to put them back in, and on most of my playthroughs (plays-through?) of the game I’ve left the children – umm – unmolested. On the times when I’ve played an “evil” game, however, I have sometimes had occasion to take out the odd six-year old, which earned me the “childkiller” title and stopped some of the “good”-aligned NPCs from talking to me.

Perhaps I’m just dysfunctional, but I really do appreciate the choice. Having kids in the game makes the world feel more real, having those kids be invulnerable to shotgun fire would make the game feel less real. Ipso-facto I’m glad the game gives me the option to shoot them.

Go Anywhere, Do Anything, Kill Anyone

The “go anywhere, do anything, be a saint or be a mass murdering psychopath” vibe is an integral part of a sandbox game, be it a full on GTAalike or any game with a strong sandbox element. A common criticism of Oblivion was that it wouldn’t let you kill questgivers in case you “accidentally” cut yourself off from important questlines, which was probably a sensible choice all told, but which to a lot of people felt like unnecessary handholding. After all, if I’m the kind of guy who will shoot you in the face for looking at me funny, I’m probably not the kind of guy who’ll go looking for your lost kitten.

Having the option to kill anybody means having the option to kill women. In Fable and its sequels, it’s entirely possible to spend hours of gametime luring attractive women into isolated locations and beating them to death. In Fallout 2 it’s feasible to stalk the streets of New Reno gutting prostitutes (although admittedly this will put the whole town into combat mode, which might make things slower than you’d like). If you’re going to give the player the freedom to be a psychopath (and indeed tout it as a key plank of your game even – in fact especially – if your game is ostensibly making a serious point about morality) then you have to give them the option to be a misogynist psychopath, because the only way to implement the alternative would be to have no women in the game at all, or to make them all immortal both of which would be dumb.

Of course you might reasonably ask the question of why gamers are so keen on games in which you get the option to be a mass murdering bastard in the first place, but that’s a different issue for a different time.

What I do find interesting, however, is the fact that while the sandbox genre is huge, and pretty much all of them support, as a form of emergent gameplay, the option to beat the crap out of women, it’s almost always Rockstar games that are singled out for specific criticism.

Rocking the Boat

Okay, I say “find interesting” but what I actually mean is “find relatively easy to understand, but think people are often a bit too eager to get up on their high horses about.”

Whys and wherefores aside, Rockstar games do have a greater tendency to produce violence against women as part of their emergent gameplay experience. Whether it’s killing prostitutes for a refund in GTA or throwing women on railway tracks in Red Dead Redemption there’s always one or two little bits of the game where they reward killing women just slightly more than many people feel comfortable with. You can kill prostitutes in Assassin’s Creed 2, but you don’t get a reward for doing it.

For some people, this is a deal-breaker, and I’m cool with that. For some people this is something you look sideways at, and I’m cool with that too.

But I think there’s more to it than that.

If you look at Rockstar’s big titles: Grand Theft Auto, Bully, Red Dead Redemption there’s not one of them in which you have the option of having a female protagonist. It’s a small thing, almost a trivial thing, but it matters, and its indicative of a more general problem, which is that Rockstar flat out aren’t interested in women.

Rockstar games (even Bully, to some extent) are about manly men doing manly man things in a world of manly manness. Red Dead Redemption goes one step further by being set Back When Men Were Men.

Nobody in a Rockstar game is particularly well realised except the (male) protagonist. Everybody else is a stereotype or an archetype, and like it or not, that's a big part of their appeal. A sandbox video game gains a lot of its impact from making you feel like you “are” whatever you're supposed to be. The GTA games rely on making you feel like a gangster (or possibly a gangsta) and Red Dead Redemption relies on making you feel like a cowboy in the dying days of the old west.

The thing is, these settings – particularly when painted in all their broad-strokes glory – are implicitly sexist. If you've deliberately chosen to play a game in which you're a pimpin' hos in da hood, complaining about specific instances of sexism seems redundant. Similarly, if you've chosen to play a game which is set in a gritty, violent version of the old west complaining about women not having that big a role feels a little bit like protesting too much.

Rockstar just plain aren't interested in women. They like games about men being men, with women hanging around in the background to provide whatever forms of validation the player prefers, whether that comes from saving whores or cutting them up with a hunting knife. For a lot of people, this is a deal-breaker, and it's completely reasonable for it to be a deal-breaker. Rockstar games do have a faintly skeevy attitude to women, and that faintly skeevy attitude to women is an intrinsic part of the way their games work. It's slightly less integral to the cowboy genre than the gangsta genre, but it's still the kind of setting where you expect half the women you meet to be prostitutes.

Rockstar Hypocrisy

The thing that bugged me about the Red Dead Redemption Hates Women article is that it seemed, fairly clearly, to be written by somebody that played and enjoyed the game. Specifically, it seems to be written by somebody who played and enjoyed the game and wasn't massively bothered by the game's attitude to women until it got to the point where they were actually confronted by it.

For example, the article singles out for particular criticism a random encounter in which a woman asks for your help and then, if you stop to help her, tries to steal your horse. The author seems to read this as the designers saying “OMG women are all evil bitches who will rob you blind.” This, I should note, is despite the fact that half the NPCs in the game will steal your horse given half a chance.

What the author of the article does not single out is the random encounter with a man cutting up a whore. He mentions it, in fact he makes a throwaway joke about the guy maybe “having a point” since apparently the women in Red Dead Redemption are all horse-stealing bitches anyway.

The thing is, the “guy cutting a whore” scene, from where I'm standing, is far more problematic than the “woman tries to steal your horse” scene. The latter I read as a woman doing exactly what everybody else in the damned game is doing – being a low down thieving varmint. The former on the other hand uses a violent, sexually motivated attack on a woman as an excuse to make the player feel cool.

I confess here that this is one of my pet peeves, and something I'm a little bit oversensitive to, but I am profoundly creeped out by rape/revenge narratives. It takes violence against women and makes it all about men: the bad men who commit it, and the good men who kill the bad men who commit it. Women aren't a factor – there's no consideration given to how the whore feels after you shoot the guy who's trying to cut her up (except insofar as she is grateful to you, the good man who rescued her).

Indeed looking at the article, a lot of the author's evidence for the game's “hatred” of women actually seems to come from situations in which he, personally, got angry at women in the game for not behaving how he wanted (right up to his final point being that the game apparently “hates women” because the prostitutes aren't sexy enough). He seems to take as further evidence for his position the fact that he chose to vent this frustration by shooting a woman in the head.

It is perfectly reasonable to criticise Rockstar games for presenting women as nothing but victims and whores. It is perfectly reasonable to criticise Rockstar games for glamourising misogyny. It's perfectly reasonable to criticise Rockstar for mechanically rewarding people for killing women in “funny” or “appropriate” ways. It's even reasonable to criticise Rockstar for providing an environment in which people can enact violent, misogynistic fantasies without fear of reprisal.

It's not reasonable to run around shooting prostitutes, then criticise Rockstar for letting you do it.

Themes:

Computer Games

Minority Warrior

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Wardog

at 18:53 on 2010-06-12I have to say, I always enjoy Rockstar games but I think I can get away without feeling too morally uncomfortable about it because I'm a woman.

And I honestly thought that article was a hideously badly done parody...given Cracked's reputation for humour, or should that be "humour." I thought it was a poor quality satire on what somebody with no awareness whatsoever thought a feminist might find objectionable in RDR, workong from the assumption that all feminist criticism is hysterical and ignorant, of course.

In either case: I hate the article.

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Andy G

at 19:29 on 2010-06-12In Fallout, I always ended up killing quest characters because I would accidentally wander into town with a weapon out and end up having to kill everyone. It made the game incredibly dull though.

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Arthur B

at 19:34 on 2010-06-12

A common criticism of Oblivion was that it wouldn’t let you kill questgivers in case you “accidentally” cut yourself off from important questlines, which was probably a sensible choice all told, but which to a lot of people felt like unnecessary handholding.

To be fair, I always thought

Morrowind

found a really good middle ground for this sort of thing - let you kill the NPCs that give you the plot-critical quests, but if you do so you get a little message saying "You've just made the main plot unwinnable - feel free keep playing if you're cool with that, but if you're not, load a saved game". So it wasn't just unnecessary handholding, but it was handholding that represented a move away from a perfectly workable compromise.

On the main subject of the article: it's kind of depressing that it took

Saint's Row 2

to finally give you the chance to play a female protagonist in a GTA-like sandbox game. By which point Rockstar had published GTA, GTA 2, the two London expansion packs, GTA 3, Vice City, San Andreas, Liberty City Stories, Vice City Stories, GTA IV, and Bully, of which precisely 0 lets you play a girl.

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Jamie Johnston

at 19:43 on 2010-06-12

... sorry if you’re reading this article in 2012 and haven’t got a clue what this is all about...

Hello, People of 2012! You are correct, the Ferretbrain archives are much more entertaining and rewarding than the Olympic games. As a reward for your good taste, let me present for you: Viorica's

playpen post

, Arthur's

response

, Dan's

response

, Arthur's

response to Dan's response

, and that gives you the whole conversation up to the date of publication of this article.

(It was a bit of a complex process to get hold of those permalinks, though - maybe we could have them accessible from the playpen itself, as with comments?)

[Reads rest of article.]

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http://alex-von-cercek.livejournal.com/

at 22:38 on 2010-06-12Didn't the removal of the children from Fallout 2 actually keep the children in the game, just make them invisible?

So the situation became that an invisible six year old could walk up to your character, pickpocket them and then invisibly run away with your loot.

Although you could still give them primed explosives to pickpocket.

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Dan H

at 11:23 on 2010-06-13

Didn't the removal of the children from Fallout 2 actually keep the children in the game, just make them invisible?

I believe it made them invisible and non-interactable, so yeah the guys in the den would pickpocket you, but you couldn't complete the Find Johnny quest for example.

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http://puritybrown.livejournal.com/

at 11:45 on 2010-06-13My recollection is that the non-interactable-children "fix" made at least one main plot quest unsolvable unless you had either consulted a walkthrough or randomly happened to go to a place that you'd have had no reason to go to and randomly looked in the one locker that contained the object you needed. (And hadn't sold it or dropped it somewhere.)

That Cracked article was really interesting on a meta level. It looks like the author's picked up on the fact that feminist/anti-racist/etc. critiques of pop culture are a

thing

nowadays (certainly Cracked has posted a number of them), but completely failed to get why misogyny in pop culture is a bad thing or how it works. It's a pretty good imitation of the outward form of a feminist critique of pop culture, but with none of the inward essence.

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Dan H

at 17:25 on 2010-06-13

In Fallout, I always ended up killing quest characters because I would accidentally wander into town with a weapon out and end up having to kill everyone. It made the game incredibly dull though.

I've got to confess to secretly liking that element of the game. Having to remember to put your weapon away was a pain, but it added a sense of immersion.

And with that I realise I'm one of *those* gamers. I'll be complaining about fast-travel mechanics next.

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Andy G

at 17:58 on 2010-06-13@ Dan: I meant the game became incredibly dull once you just went around killing everyone, even though it let you do it. I did quite like things like that, except they did make it REALLY easy to fuck up and ruin everything (but hey, what are save games for?).

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Andy G

at 17:58 on 2010-06-13Things like that = features such as your weapons making people hostile.

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http://kingwalters.livejournal.com/

at 17:53 on 2012-10-11Thanks, JJ!

#Ferretbrain #Dan H #Minority Warrior #Video games

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