#this isn’t specifically the location of 5-S it’s just inspired by it

[stellarmoth01]

They are allowed a moment of calm as a treat

+closeup

This took me days of almost constant work. Happy pride month gay people eat up

[calling4glaives]

Guard Post: The West Gate

Aside from a deep dive on Nyx himself to match the ones we did for the other glaives for Legends, this spring we’re going to focus on the locations where Nyx does guard duty, to give a better idea of where he spends his time.

The first of these is the West Gate, where Nyx is assigned as punishment after the opening battle. Though Drautos doesn’t name the location after the battle, he does when he pulls Nyx from gate duty just after he assigns Crowe her mission - “And, Nyx: you're off the West Gate. You've been reassigned to the castle guard. That is all.”

(Interestingly, the West Gate is also where Ardyn approaches from, according to the guard who interrupts Drautos’s report on the Diamond Weapon. This and a sign seen above the highways are the only references to it by name.)

[The pictures for this post were captured by the lovely @starjunco unless otherwise stated.]

The gate itself is rather ornate, especially for its size. The massive wall appears to be made from either limestone or concrete, and is kept meticulously clean, especially compared to the more blocky concrete building in front of it, which might be some sort of customs or processing office. Or possibly the local Gate Guards/Crownsguard station.

The wall itself appears to have buildings inside of it. The massive windows appear to be open - possibly for air circulation - but show a blank wall behind them, so some of this space could be mere ornamentation. The lower bank of windows, at least, seems to genuinely be in use, which makes sense. As massive as the city is, it must have horrible overcrowding issues, and efficient use of space is economical and logical.

Nyx and Petra (and another pair of guards) are guarding the exit through the Wall [NB: Lucis drives on the right], though both sides are seeing oddly little use. This is after Ardyn has come but before the treaty has been announced, but this lack of traffic does seem odd. [Perhaps it was done to save the animation budget and was then made a plot point, but it still is a bit odd]. There appear to be only three lanes on either side (plus an ungated exit to what might be a parking garage in the wall), so read into that what you will about normal traffic patterns.

The metallic tollbooth/inspection area has flimsy barriers and no real guard booths, but matches the structure overhead very nicely. The yellow, red, and white crash barriers seem the most modern, but it is interesting to wonder how long this structure - and also the cars it seems designed for - has been in Insomnia. The fact that this passage is so high up on the wall raises further questions about how the Wall itself has changed over the years.

Here’s where the real questions start. By this view, it looks like the Citadel is very close. Probably 5 km close even with elevation, which is far too close to even be the flat sides of the outer wall of Insomnia.

This might indicate that this isn’t the outer wall, but the wall to the Citadel district itself. There are several signs that indicate there is a Citadel Wall as well as the main one. If Nyx’s neighborhood underneath the massive bridges is 5km from the Citadel, as the signs at his train stop indicate, an inner wall near the bridges could maybe be as close as this view implies.

[Insomnia Concept art by Paul Chadeisson, from his site.]

A 5km central district gives Insomnia in general a radius of about 40 km, which while not the massive continent-spanning impossibility seen on maps of the whole continent, does fit with the size of cities like Tokyo, which was likely the main inspiration for the city.

But things can never be that logical, especially when it comes to Square and maps in this game specifically. 

Because, this appears to also be the gate Luna comes in through - the buildings seem to match, and Petra is even stationed there. This could be why Luna's car was able to drive this far - she was driven through the outer regions of Insomnia before Nyx took over - but the signs and route Drautos drives Nyx to get here implies it is the outer Wall. This could just be saving animation money again (or Insomnia standardizing crossings), but Petra's presence seems to count against it. Then again, the man does seem to show up everywhere and be rather highly ranked, and if Luna's arrival was anticipated...

The shots from this scene also show a little of the buildings in the Wall that flank this checkpoint, wherever it is. There are trees and elevators, and seem like they probably see heavy usage.

What do you think they are - shopping, defensive positions, office buildings for Insomnia’s sprawling bureaucracy, bypasses for the less defensible straight tunnel in the center, something else? And how do you solve the Perspective Problem?

We hope this helps you in your brainstorming and creative endeavors, especially for Nyx Week (a mere seven weeks away)! Let us know what you think and anything we might have missed, otherwise we'll see you weekly for the polls and in two weeks or so for the next deep dive.

[plaguedocboi]

More scary waters, by popular demand!

Since my last post ranking bodies of water really, really blew up, I decided to make a second. Some of these were suggested by people (in which case I’ll credit them), and some were just ones that didn’t quite make the cut for the first list.

I’ll also be doing a third list ranking the most toxic bodies of water in the world, so stay tuned for that.

Also, keep in mind that these aren’t ranked by how dangerous they are. They’re ranked by how scary I, personally, find them. So if the rating seems off, it’s due to which ones inspire a visceral reaction in me and which ones don’t.

Silfra Rift, Iceland

This one is something that I actually find very beautiful rather than scary, but it still seems like something that others might be freaked out by. The Silfra Rift is the point where the Eurasian and North American continental plates are pulling apart, creating a crack in the earth that filled with water. The water here is incredibly clear, and you can see all the way down to the bottom even in the deepest spots (which are almost 200 feet down, by the way). It’s the only place in the world where you can put your hands on two different continents at the same time! I’ve had the privilege of snorkeling here, and although it’s definitely deep, I wasn’t terribly scared due to the fact that the rift is just so beautiful. The only danger to swimmers is the temperature; it stays between 35-39 F year-round, meaning anyone getting into the water needs a full drysuit to avoid getting hypothermia or worse. I give the Silfra Rift a 1/10 fear rating because I thought I would be much more freaked out by it than I was.

Dragon Hole, China

While not as visually striking as the Great Blue Hole in Belize, this sinkhole in China is the deepest “blue hole” in the world. This pit descends 987 feet down. This earns a 2/10 purely because this is just a goddamn hole in the ocean that’s almost 1,000 ft deep and I don’t care for that.

Lake Tanganyika, multiple countries (suggested by @iguessiamhere)

This lake didn’t quite make the cut for the first list because it comes in second to Lake Baikal. It’s the second-oldest, second-deepest, and second-largest (by volume) lake in the world. But someday, Lake Tanganyika may be number 1, because just like Baikal, it’s a Rift Valley. It’s getting bigger every day, and in a few million years when Baikal is an ocean, Tanganyika might be the largest lake by default. Its 4,820 ft depth earns it a 3/10.

Lake Superior, US/Canada (suggested by multiple people)

This is the largest of the Great Lakes, and the third-largest lake in the world. It reaches depths of over 1,000 feet and has a surface area of over 31,700 square miles. Lake Superior is the site of over 350 shipwrecks and contains roughly 10,000 dead bodies. The reason these bodies are never recovered is because the lake is very cold, and very deep. The lake bottom is essentially a sterile environment, where bodies are preserved for eternity instead of floating up as a normal body would. This lake holds onto her dead. 4/10 for sheer danger and alarming amount of dead bodies.

Cenote Angelita, Mexico ( @olive-k wanted a cenote, and this list has two!)

This is a cenote with an underwater river running through it. No, I’m not kidding. Underwater rivers are actually quite common, but they rarely exist in places that humans can see them. Usually they’re caused by a current moving in a different direction than the majority of the water, or a boundary between water with different density (as is the case here). The “river” appearance in Angelita is enhanced by dead trees, giving the appearance of a bank. For the first 100 feet, this cave has regular freshwater. But a little deeper lies a layer of hazy hydrogen sulfate, and beneath that is 100 feet of salt water. This ranks 5/10 because can you imagine descending towards a hazy patch of water and branches that you assume is the bottom, only to pass right through it and see a gaping black expanse beneath? No thanks.

Devil’s Hole, Nevada

As a biologist, this is somewhere that I actually want to visit. This tiny waterhole in the desert is the only place that the endangered Devil’s Hole Pupfish lives. But we’re not here to learn about cute fish, we’re here to read about unsettling waterways. And hooo boy, this one is pretty weird. Because despite its appearance, this isn’t a little rainwater pool. It’s the opening to a huge cave system, which reaches depths of at least 500 feet. We’re not totally sure, though, because the bottom has never been mapped, and several people have died trying to attempt it. 6/10, since it’s very deep, hasn’t been fully mapped, and is apparently haunted.

Eagle’s Nest Sinkhole, Florida

There is literally a sign in front of this sinkhole that reads “STOP. Prevent your death. There is nothing in this cave worth dying for” accompanied by a picture of the Grim Reaper. Need I say more? Probably not, but I will anyway. This sinkhole is the only surface opening to a cave system that stretches several miles and plunges to over 300 feet deep. Miles of twisting, confusing, narrow passages with only one exit make for an extremely dangerous cave system. For some fucking reason, it’s a very popular dive site. At least 11 people have died here since the 80’s, and is referred to as the “Underwater Mt Everest” because of how dangerous it is. 7/10.

Zacatón, Mexico

This cenote was literally considered “bottomless” for a long time, because no one could find the bottom. Multiple expeditions were attempted, including one where a man died after reaching 925 feet without finding the end. It took a multi-million dollar operation funded by NASA to find the bottom of this hole. I’m not kidding. Turns out, it’s 1,099 feet deep, making it the deepest cenote in the world. It disturbs me that it took NASA and a robot designed to map alien moons to locate where this hole ended, so it earns an 8/10.

Saltstraunen, Norway (suggested by anon)

This narrow strait is home to the strongest tidal currents on the planet. Roughly 110 billion gallons of seawater move in and out of this corridor every six hours, creating violent currents. These tidal movements are so strong they create a phenomenon very similar to the whirlpool in Scotland—the Saltstaunen Maelstrom. This vortex is 33 feet across and forms four times a day as the tides go in and out. Although this whirlpool is only 16 feet deep (very shallow compared to Scotland’s) the currents alone would probably destroy you if you ever fell into this strait. 9/10 because damn.

Blue Lake, Russia

Despite having the least creative name of all time, the Blue Lake is anything but boring. Like the Zacatón, this lake had a reputation for being bottomless for a long time. A diver died after descending to 394 feet, and another barely survived after going down to 685 feet. Neither found the bottom. Eventually, the bottom was discovered and it came as a surprise. The lake itself is only 770 ft by 426 ft, but it is 846 ft deep. This lake is deeper than it is long. It is also a constant 48 degrees F, making hypothermia a risk for any swimmers. If that’s not bad enough, it’s also full of hydrogen sulfide, which makes the air around the lake potentially dangerous. However, people do still dive here on occasion (mostly for research purposes) and the lake is surprisingly beautiful beneath the surface. Still, that doesn’t make it any less deep, cold, and poisonous, so this is a 10/10 for me.

Honorable mention: The Mariana’s Trench, because although it’s not really a specific body of water it’s the deepest point in the ocean, at 7 miles below the surface!

[lokiondisneyplus]

Yes, Loki series director Kate Herron knows about your fan theory about the show, the analysis you posted to social media. No, she won’t tell you what she thinks about it, or whether you were right.

“I follow all the conversations on Twitter,” Herron told Polygon in an interview shortly after Loki’s season 1 finale. “I don’t always weigh in on them, because I made the show, so they don’t want me weighing in like, ‘Actually, guys…’ I think that’s the whole point of art — it should be up for debate and discussion.”

[Ed. note: Spoilers ahead for season 1 of Loki.]

Loki has been a hit for streaming service Disney Plus — episode 6 of the show, the final installment for this season, was reportedly watched by more households than any of the platform’s MCU finales to date. The series has been a popular source of fan conjecture and argument, with one particularly big rolling conversation focusing on whether the budding romantic relationship between trickster Asgardian Loki (Tom Hiddleston) and his alternate-universe counterpart Sylvie (Sophia Di Martino) is a form of incest.

Herron is willing to speak up about that one. “My interpretation of it is that they’re both Lokis, but they aren’t the same person,” she says. “I don’t see them as being like brother and sister. They have completely different backgrounds […] and I think that’s really important to her character. They sort of have the same role in terms of the universe and destiny, but they won’t make the same decisions.”

Herron says thematically, Loki falling for Sylvie is an exploration of “self-love,” but only in the sense that it’s Loki learning to understand his own motives and integrity. “[The show is] looking at the self and asking ‘What makes us us?’” Herron says. “I mean, look at all the Lokis across the show, they’re all completely different. I think there’s something beautiful about his romantic relationship with Sylvie, but they’re not interchangeable.”

Directing the final kiss between the two characters was a complicated process because it had to communicate something about each of them over the course of just a few seconds. Herron says the primary goal was creating a safe, comfortable environment for Hiddleston and Di Martino, and after that, she had to think about how to bring across Loki and Sylvie’s conflicting goals in that moment.

“It’s an interesting one, right?” she says. “Emotionally, from Sylvie’s perspective, I think it’s a goodbye. But it’s still a buildup of all these feelings. They’ve both grown through each other over the last few episodes. It was important to me that it didn’t feel like a trick, like she was deceiving him. She is obviously doing that, on one hand, but I don’t feel the kiss is any less genuine. I think she’s in a bad place, but her feelings are true.”

Herron says directing Hiddleston in the scene mostly came down to discussing the speech Loki gives Sylvie before the kiss. “That was really important, showing this new place for Loki,” Herron says. “In the first episode, he’s like, ‘I want the throne, I want to rule,’ and by episode 6, he isn’t focused on that selfish want. He just wants her to be okay.”

Loki writer and producer Eric Martin recently tweeted that he wished the show had been able to focus more time on two of its secondary characters, Owen Wilson’s Time Variance Authority agent Mobius M. Mobius, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw’s Ravonna Renslayer. “I wanted to explore her more deeply and really see their relationship,” he says, “But covid got in the way and we just didn’t have time.”

Asked if Loki and Sylvie’s relationship suffered from similar necessary edits, Herron says it’s true that the show’s creators and audience still don’t know everything Sylvie went through to make her so different from the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s original version of Loki. “We’ve seen her as a child, but she’s lived for thousands and thousands of years, in apocalypses on the run,” she says. “I think there’s so much more to delve into with Sylvie […] You’re filling in the blanks. You see [her on the planet] Lamentis, and it’s horrific. And you’re like, “Well, what kind of person would she be, growing up in apocalypses? What kind of personality would that give her?”

Herron says Sylvie’s backstory actually reminds her of the 1995 movie Jumanji, where a young boy is sucked into a magical board game in 1969, and emerges 26 years later as a full-grown man, played by with typical manic energy by Robin Williams. “It’s such a weird reference, but…” she says. “He’s a little boy when he ends up captive in that game, and when he comes out, it’s obviously been a life experience. With Sylvie, it’s similar. She was a child when she had to go on the run, so she’s had a very difficult life. I would love to see more of it. As Eric said, she’s a rich character, there’s so much to be explored.”

Herron says, though, that during her time on the show, material about Sylvie was added rather than cut — specifically, those scenes of her as a child, being kidnapped by the TVA. “This was before my time, but I know in the writers’ room, there were lots of avenues exploring Sylvie on the run and what her life was like,” Herron says. “I wouldn’t want to speak more to those, because I wasn’t there when they were being discussed. But something wasn’t in there that was important to me — I felt we should see her [history] in the TVA. Me and the team were talking about how it made complete sense, because episode 4 is all about twisting the idea that the TVA might be good on its head. And so that’s something that came in later, once I joined, was seeing her as a child. I think we needed to see that, not to understand her completely, but to get an idea of her motivations, why she’s so angry at this place.”

Talking more broadly about the series finale, Herron says the last few episodes weren’t as heavily referential as the first episodes, which she intended as “a love letter to sci-fi.” While early images like the TVA’s interrogation rooms had specific visual references from past science fiction, episode 6’s locations were drawn more from collaborations with the crew.

“The idea of the physical timeline being circular, our storyboard artists came up with that,” Herron says. “I had in the scripts, ‘We move through space to the end of time,” and then me and [storyboard artist Darrin Denlinger] discussed how we could play with the idea of time, while also adding MCU nods. He was like, ‘What if the timeline is circular?’ I think that’s such a striking image, like the Citadel at the End of Time is the needle on a record player. I just thought that was such a cool image, but it wasn’t necessarily taken from anything.”

Episode 6 focuses heavily on the mysterious figure He Who Remains and his citadel, a space she says was largely conceived by production designer Kasra Farahani. “I remember he brought in the art of the Citadel, and I thought it was beautiful,” Herron says. “He said, ‘The Citadel has been carved from an actual meteorite,’ which I thought was such an inspired idea. And He Who Remains’ office is the only finished portion of it.”

She says there are only a few direct homages in episode 6, including the zoom shot through space, which directly referenced a similar sequence in Robert Zemeckis’ 1997 film Contact.

“And then I have my Teletubbies reference for episode 5,” Herron says. “I wanted the Void to feel like an overgrown garden, like a kind of forgotten place. And I realized I’d pitched it as the British countryside. I remember trying to explain it to ILM, who did the visual effects, and saying, ‘Oh, you know, it’s like the Teletubbies. It’s just rolling hills, but they go on forever.’ That actually was quite a helpful reference in the end, which is funny.”

Asked for her favorite set memory from shooting the season, Herron says it comes down to Tom Hiddleston starting a mania for physical exertion before takes. “Sometimes he runs around set to get himself in the right mindset before he performs,” she says. “He does pushups. You know, you’re going into an action scene, you want to look like you’ve just been running. And it became infectious across all the cast. We’ve got so much footage of — I think Jack [Veal] ended up doing it, who plays Kid Loki. I’ve got [shots of] him and Sophia doing pushups and squats, just to get ready. It was so funny watching that echo across all the cast. I think all of them ended up doing those exercises with him at some point. It was so funny.”

“That might be my favorite set story, but it’s honestly, not a sweet one,” she adds. “I would say my favorite thing is his enthusiasm. He’s a very kind empathetic person. We were filming this in quite tough circumstances, a lot of people were far from home and isolating, and he brought this warmth and energy and joy to the set every day. And I think that made everyone feel very safe and very bonded. I’m forever grateful to him for doing that.”

[quinintheclouds]

YES YES YES YES YES

Spoilers for RWBY Volume 8 Chapter 6

THAT WAS SO MUCH MORE THAN I HAD EVEN LET MYSELF HOPE FOR

It really looks like this is the Volume the writers realized how many answers we’ve needed for years and years, and is answering them now. I wish it’d come sooner, of course, but since they can’t go back and fix the pacing or writing, I’m really impressed and optimistic about how Volume 8 is going!

BUT MORE SPECIFICALLY

I would like to GUSH about how they handled the Oscar and Ozpin scenes. We have needed, nay, BEGGED for this sort of development, and it’s finally here. There’s too much I want to rave about so bullet point time! 

[Note: I love the farmboy so this wound up longer than expected -- have a read more for your scrolling convenience -- TL;DR at the end]

We got confirmation that Ozpin has been pleading with Oscar to let him take over so he can burden the pain and torture instead. Oscar is the one refusing, choosing to take it himself because he knows Salem and Hazel will be much harsher on Oz. I thought that was the case, but I’m so glad they addressed it because otherwise we’d be wondering why Oz hasn’t offered. It does make me wonder, is Oz still able to take control without asking? Oscar was able to fight it in vol 6, and he’s come a long way.

Hazel is holding back -- at least, Oscar says he can tell that he is. This would keep in line with the battle at Haven, when Hazel was suspiciously playing defense and stalling by letting Ozpin monologue, then letting Oscar give a little protagonist speech... I mean, it sure doesn’t LOOK like he’s holding back. Look at this kid:

moving on before I cry,

Ozpin suggests he take over and try to escape.

Oscar says no, he has a better idea. “This is our chance.”

Oz: “Hm. Maybe you’ve taken one too many hits.” I like this for two reasons: one, because it gives us a taste of the ol’ lighthearted Ozpin humor we’ve missed since he’s been gone, and two, because it shows that he and Oscar think differently. They have different thought processes, ideas, etc. Oz didn’t immediately know what Oscar was planning.

Oscar explains that Salem can’t take on everyone at once, and thus has been sending people to infiltrate all of remnant first, to attack from within. 

I LOVE that they had Oscar come up with this, because it is so in line with his character development in Volume 7. Not to mention how in volume 6 he was the one to figure out how to defeat Cordovin’s mecha. It’s cool to see him as a strategist, because while he’s a sweet kid from the middle of nowhere, he’s proven to be really smart and quick.

Plus, this gives him agency. People wanted Ozpin to return and save Oscar, but this is so, so much better. Oscar’s idea, Oscar’s choice, and Oz gets right on board. They’re agreeing to work together, despite their unresolved conflict. “Ozma learned the importance of living with the souls with which he’d been paired.”

AND THEN, A MOMENT I CANNOT THANK RT ENOUGH FOR:

The captions don’t show it, but Oscar AND Ozpin said this in unison. Now, this and the few seconds that follow were a rollercoaster of emotions. Let’s break it down:

When they said this together, I was positively GIDDY with excitement: they’re leaning into the “like-minded souls” thing and calling attention to the situation! Surely this must be a sign that Oscar and Ozpin will indeed both exist when their souls are one, as they are both equally parts of the combination of lives that is Ozma. Well, maybe not equally (yet?). 

Then, my elation was replaced with dread. What if this was actually an indication of them “merging” in the way some of the FNDM interpret it will go, rather than how I think it does? Or what if that’s not what RT is doing, but what if the FNDM takes it as a sign Ozpin is taking over?? I can’t last the whole break without knowing!

AND THEN!!! Ugh, this made me so relieved. Ozpin says, in a slightly amused tone of voice with a trace of a laugh, “We certainly are similar, you and I.” YESSSSS more references to them being like-minded souls!! But still having differences!! 

“Maybe we have been presented with an opportunity.” I’m really glad they went the route where Oscar is changing Ozpin’s mind on things. Oz no longer thinks he knows best, and is allowing Oscar to come into his own. Now he’s seeing how far Oscar’s come and the person he is.

Related note: The commentary for the vol 7 finale said that it was Oscar’s speeches to Ironwood about fear and trust that made Oz realize he’s been keeping secrets and hiding out of fear, and inspired him to come back. This is so promising for Oscar’s character going forward.

[Side note: Would love more info on what Oscar meant in volume 7 when he said “these memories... you’re back, aren’t you?” because? Is he just referring to the scenes with things like how he talked about Atlas’ history as if he were there, or does he have access to Oz’s memories now? 2 chapters ago we saw that he doesn’t yet know the location of the Beacon Relic. So unless he was lying really well, he doesn’t have ALL the memories yet. So which ones does he have? RT EXPLAIN]

Next,

I would like to call attention to the fact that Oscar smiled here. After Ozpin said they were similar, I was worried Oscar would react the way he has in the past: sad and conflicted about his identity, worried he’s becoming less of himself. But no. Like we saw in Volume 7, THIS is who Oscar Pine is. His development was his own, and we get to see that when Ozpin returned because Oscar had made him rethink his choices. Oscar Pine is more himself now than he’s been at any other point in the series. 

It’s really brilliant how the writers have used these last 2 volumes to show that Penny, the robot, is one of the most human characters on the show; and Oscar, the boy cursed to death and rebirth with a soul that was not his own, is one of the most individualistic ones. It’s just really cool how they’re playing with our expectations of the characters. (They’re doing great with Salem, too!)

[Side note: Penny’s soul/aura was given to her by Pietro, and they still have distinct personalities and identities. It’s possible that’s a parallel to Oscar’s situation, but I do feel the merge’s completion will result in one remaining soul/identity - just not a “taking over” situation]

Okay, that’s the last of that rollercoaster I mentioned. 

Time to get on a new one!

At long last, this episode finally gave us something we haven’t had since chapter 4 of volume SIX*:

*(I am not counting the one second of "Oscar." *glowy eyes* *Oscar blinks and is back in control* in the vol 7 finale)

OZPIN IS BACK!!!!

First, HELL YES I WANTED THIS TO HAPPEN!!!

Second, wow, they can change really quickly now. At first it took effort and was super visible, then just shook Oscar up a bit with the glowy eyes, and now it seems almost effortless, seamless. The eyes glow and the transition is smooth. I like it.

We didn’t get to hear Oscar’s thoughts after Oz said “Oscar, please,” begging him again to let him take control. So we don’t know whether Oscar allowed it out of pain, exhaustion, their plan, or a decision to trust Oz and work together here. Alternatively, Ozpin may have simply taken over of his own accord. I wish the writers would give us more insight to Oscar’s thoughts, because those scenes already have him talking inside/to his own head, so leaving some of his thoughts out can seem intentional and open-ended, which could mean more dragging out answers, but I think this was fine. Not the worst case of this by far lol

WHEN! HE! SPOKE!

I was hoping for this with all my heart. Over the course of volume 7 in particular, we saw Oscar’s voice, mannerisms, and speech patters start to resemble Ozpin’s. However, he still sounds and feels like Oscar. Going back to Volume 5, heck, even Volume 6 (which is when we last saw Ozpin in control), the voice of Ozpin speaking through Oscar is similar, but distinctly different from how Oscar’s speaking now. So I’ve been theorizing and hoping, and it CAME TRUE! Ozpin sounds more like Oscar now, while still managing to clearly be Ozpin.

Right from the first “Hello,” it was noticeable. It sounded almost like Oscar. I know it’s the same voice actor when one of them is in control (same body, same vocal cords), but that just makes it even more impressive. This is the first time we’ve heard Ozpin’s voice speaking through Oscar since QRWBY yelled at him in the snow in vol 6. And I was NOT disappointed.

“Why do you follow her?” I’ll keep saying it, but he sounds so much like Oscar confronting Ironwood. 

“I know how you see me. But her? Look at what she does, how is she the answer, why not stop her??” This gives me serious deja vu to Oscar’s speech towards Hazel in the Battle of Haven (and his speech towards Ironwood in v7′s finale). That speech had given Hazel pause then, and this one does as well, now. Ozpin sounds angrier, though, more aware of just how far gone these people are, but knowing they can change.

Hazel calls Ozpin out for the same thing the FNDM has been, and honestly, it’s been a long time coming. Hazel’s motivations are extremely misguided, Oscar was right to stand up for Oz/Gretchen at Haven, and the show really needed to reinforce the Ozpin-isn’t-bad-actually thing. Now it’s all out in the open. But it’s Ozpin’s response to this that elevated this scene even more:

That’s it. Ozma has spent countless lives fighting a war that may be impossible to win. But if no one tries, no one will survive. The gods will destroy all of Remnant. Still, every single lifetime, he chooses to try. Like Oscar said in volume 5 (about Hazel’s sister but writing-wise also kinda about Pyrrha), “She made a choice! A choice to put others before herself. So do I.” Like-minded souls.

AND THIS!!! Good gods I’m glad he said this. The show went way too long before anyone even questioned the “You can’t” answer from Jinn. Nora mentioned it in passing earlier, which I liked a lot (though this really should’ve been discussed in volume 6, but better late than never). But here? We see that Oz never gave up, never planned on losing, not sending people to a battle he “knows they can’t win.” While Salem is immortal, she is not infallible. Not even the gods were. Salem can be fought. Even Hazel has a moment of hesitation, perhaps even realization, before Salem enters.

Salem manipulates Cinder, offering her the maiden powers she wants so badly, and Ozpin interjects. “You’ll only be helping her bring about the end, for all of you!”

I just wanted to show these shots because again, just as we’ve seen Oscar’s mannerisms become increasingly similar to Ozpin’s, now that he’s back, we get to see the other way around. Look at the surprise and fear on his face. Look at how he widens his eyes and raises his eyebrows instead of narrowing/furrowing them now. Listen to the sounds he makes when tortured or thrown about. Listen to the desperation and earnest passion held in his pleas. He’s no longer hiding -- he’s being honest with the people who scare him most, and truly trying to help them see the light. 

[Side note: Cinder is not showing remorse in this scene, but I wonder how she’d react to Oscar, not Ozpin, being tortured. In the same episode, we have Cinder being tortured with a shock collar, AND we have Oscar decide to try to appeal to the humanity left in these villains. Last time we saw Oscar, Salem was torturing him with intense, almost electric magic. She might not care, but I wonder...]

ANYWAY I’m done for now. Have a TL;DR that wound up being long too

TL;DR: 

Basically, I’m super happy with the writers for the detail put into these scenes: 

they confirmed Oz has been begging to take over and bear the torture instead

had Oscar come up with an idea himself instead of getting rescued or immediately escaping

had Oscar view his dire situation as an opportunity, reminding us of his optimism and capabilities as a strategist

had Ozpin not know what Oscar’s plan was before he explained it (this might change as the souls become one, but it at least shows they think differently)

Oscar’s plan to appeal to the villains’ humanity and infiltrate Salem’s forces from within lining up with his volume 7 character development

had Oz trust Oscar and put his faith in him, which is progress for Oz

Oz and Oscar speaking in unison and agreeing to work together

Ozpin’s comment about them being similar, not the same

had Ozpin take control to speak to Hazel

Ozpin’s speech to Hazel and Cinder as parallels to Oscar’s speeches to Hazel and Ironwood, which CRWBY said were the reason Oz realized his secrecy is out of fear of trust, and Oscar’s points are what inspired him to come back.

Ozpin sounding and acting more like Oscar just like we’ve seen happen the other way around (though with Oscar, he’s holding true to his own ideas/morals, with Oz meeting him there)

established hope for some of our villains to defect, setting it in motion.

[loser-writings]

Hey what is omegaverse?? (I’m just kinda curious on what it is)

-Hi! Don’t worry, I’ll give you a quick rundown over some of the basics of Omegaverse, what it is, and some of the popular vocabulary that’s used in it. 

Omegaverse is a popular fiction Alternate Universe, or AU. Many suspect it to be kink based,and for many it is, but that’s not the case for me as I personally enjoy it for its hierarchy and some of the headcanons, theories, and other things that come from it. It tends to be used mostly in Gay fanfiction since one of the biggest appeals is Male pregnancy, or Mpreg. This specific AU is also known as A/B/O since everybody are usually divided into 3 Categories. Alpha, Beta, and Omega. Also your gender doesn’t affect if you are an Alpha, Beta, or Omega

This is how I personally see each of the three, but this is just my opinion. If you want to see other examples or opinions, there are plenty of Omegaverse blogs like @omegaverse-professor and @omegaverse-seeker​ that you can reference for more information, but none of these are “Official” since omegaverse is up to ones own interpretation. 

Alpha: Alphas are usually written to be bigger, stronger, and the more dominant people in Omegaverse. These are the people who are able to impregnate a Beta female or an Omega, and their scents are usually not that sweet, but it can truly range since no two people can have the same scent. Alphas are stereotyped to be more aggressive, protective, and quicker to pick a fight. According to these stereotypes, Bakugo would be a great example of somebody who would usually be classed as an Alpha due to his hothead personality and his physical strength. Finally, Alphas have something that is called a rut. Its pretty much a heat cycle that all Alphas go through for a varied amount of time, I usually write about 5 to 9 days, and they can experience a wide variety of symptoms. I usually say they are extremely aroused, and sometimes can loose their sense of reason around Omegas. When they are experiencing a rut, it isn’t uncommon for an Alpha to lock themselves in their room, only coming out in between waves to get food, drink water, or go to the bathroom. 

Beta: Betas are pretty much your everyday human but with a few exceptions. Some write that betas do not have scent glands, but I personally enjoy writing that their scent is just weaker than that of an Alpha or an Omega. Male Betas can have children with Omegas or Female Betas, and Female Betas can have a Beta male or an Alphas child. I would personally say that Denki or Ochaco are the first people I think of when I think of a Beta. These are just your normal, everyday people like you or me.

Omega: The main appeal of Omegas is that they can get pregnant no matter their gender. Their scents tend to be sweeter, they are often depicted as soft, submissive, delicate, and even feminine. They are also the most discriminated against when it comes to the 3 due to their stereotypes, their heats, and the classic trope of Omegas being more of a “Stay at home” Parent. If I look at class 1A, the one that stands out most to me would be Aoyama due to his feminine nature and more submissive personality. Omegas also go through something called heats. They are sort of similar to an Alphas rut, but are quite a bit harsher. As an Alpha in a rut may only experience Arousal and possibly mild discomfort, an Omega in heat can have many issues. Look in the Vocab for more about that.

Now I personally challenge these tropes by writing more submissive Alphas, Dominant Omegas, Alpha x Alpha relationships, Omega x Omega relationships, even Polyamory relationships. Not saying that these tropes are bad, but I use them more as foundations to build off of instead of relying on.

Now for vocab and definitions of terms you will hear me write about a lot.

Heat(s): A heat is the process an omega goes through when they are at their most fertile. I write that their heat will usually come in waves, so in between these extreme waves, they will usually eat, take care of themselves, go shower, and might text a trusted friend to let them know they are okay. When they have a mate, the time of their heat significantly reduces to about 3-7 days most. Without a lover, they are extended to about 12-14 days. Symptoms of a heat may be things like Fevers, discomfort, body aches, extreme arousal, dizziness, weakness and forgetfulness. During this time their scent also becomes much stronger, which could attract the attention of unwanted alphas, so they usually lock themselves in their bedrooms. They also spend the majority of their heat in their nest.

Nest(s): A nest is something that an Omega will build in order to cause comfort during times of stress, or relief before a heat begins. They are often depicted as piles of clothes, blankets, pillows, or stuffed animals. They are usually also made in places like the corner of the room, beds, or inside of a closet. In fact, This Post by user @golden-abo is an amazing example of nests.

Growling: A sound often created as a way to intimidate or show irritation. Usually created by pissed off Alphas, or an Omega when somebody gets too close to their nest.

Purring: Purring is a noise created by Omegas when they feel safe or content, but it is also a noise that can be created by Alphas when they are happy or feeling pampered.

Courting: Courting is often described like dating. The way I personally write it is inspired by @plainbrunettelbl since her Omegaverse writing is hands down some of the best I have ever read. In my version, you usually have somebody give their love interest a series of gifts as a way of expressing their interest in them There will always be a handmade gift as well, since it is seen as a huge compliment for one to take so much time in order to make you a gift. Alphas will usually make things like meals, bracelets, blankets, or stuffed animals to give. Betas often make things depending on the interest of who they are courting, and Omegas often make clothes, food, and usually will ask their love interest to scent things for them.

Mates: As said perfectly by This Post By writer (@Creating_Quaintrelle) on Wattpad or @otaku-omegaverse here on tumblr, “Mates are when two individuals have created a strong romantic and sexual bond with each other that usually entails an Alpha or Beta placing a “Mating Mark” On their Significant others neck by using their sharp teeth on the others Scent gland to establish that this person is their mate” In other words, Mates are pretty much an extreme marriage. You become mated with somebody during sex as well by biting on their scent gland with teeth until it usually bleeds. After, it will scar in a way that lets others know that the person with the mark, has a lover.

Scenting: Alphas, Omegas, and Betas all give off a very specific sort of scent as a way to claim things as their own. They all have the ability to scent another person or object by a process that is often described as rubbing their scent glands, often located on the neck, wrists, and inner thighs, against whatever it is they want to scent. I also write this as a way some show affection, the first step of dating or “Courting”, and as a way to calm somebody when they are stressed or upset.

Suppressants: Medication given to Alpha or Omega in order to stop things like heats, ruts, or calm ones scent. Omegas often use suppressants in order to pursue jobs, or if they are just uncomfortable with their heats or the idea of having children. Think of it like Birth control for everybody.

Pups: A term for children in general. Children as in newborns, toddlers, and preteens.

Knot or Knotting (More NSFW): A Knot is often described similarly to a ball of tissue or muscle that appears at the base of an Alphas genitalia, regardless of gender, during sex. A knot is what an Omega in heat usually craves, and a  knot will lock the two people in place during an orgasm to help increase the likelihood of conception. These Knots will also lock the two parties together for up to an hour before it deflates. 

Slick (More NSFW): A word describing the self-lubrication that Omega creates when aroused, but is created intensely when an Omega is in heat.

I hope this pretty much covers everything! Please feel free to ask me about any other things you could want my opinion on though. Also, please check out those who are linked in this post because they make absolutely amazing content that I recommend for those interested about Omegaverse. 

[wannabecatwriter]

Story Process Challenge by @herpixels

Thank you for the tag, @dynastiasimss!

Tagging @shhhushhh​ @simcatcher​ @dandylion240​ and @kymmaisims​, but only if you want to do it.

1. Your writing process

I used to write chapters before hand and take pics later. Then I realized this wasn't working for me. I would just not write. So I started taking pictures first. Sometimes, going in game and seeing the setting helps me visualize what happens next. I usually write in the Tumblr post itself. How long it all takes? If it's a scene I already thought through before, it comes along pretty quickly and I can churn multiple ones in an hour. If it isn't, well, that's when I end up taking long breaks from posting 😂

2. Scene building

This changes all the time. I figure I want a scene to go one way, but once I get to actually writing it, I realize my original idea no longer makes sense for it. Physical settings are easier to figure out. Sometimes the in-game locations of things change how something will go. Other times, the game itself throws me something funny. For example, in Chronicles, Anna lives on the corner of two streets. The name of one of the streets? Jasper Street. I regret not noticing it sooner, because it certainly would've made a fun addition to the story.

But generally, I don’t build the environment in game as much as some of the other simblers. Unless I need something specific, I just work with what the game gives me.

3. CC/Pose Making

I only make poses and CC specifically for the story if it's something I can't find already in existence. Other times, others' poses and CC inspire stuff to happen in the story. 

I have way too many poses, from all over the place in my folder.

4. Getting in the zone

The toughest part of the whole process, for me at least. I don't really have any specific thing I do for it. I just have to be in a decent mood and focused enough to write. Some days it's easier than others.

Most of the time, I write late at night though, because otherwise, there are just too many daytime distractions.

5. Screenshot folder

Organized outside of the game screenshots, divided by categories. 

6. Captions

I think the only time I did captions was when I made the photo challenges for Halloween. And let me tell you, it sure made me respect those of you who do them even more, because it took a while

7. Editing

I rarely, if ever edit pictures. In part because I'm lazy and in part because I'm not that good at it. I tried to use a filter for Elsewhere, to make it more spooky, but forgot all about it after a couple of chapters.

8. Throwback

Here’s one of B+S being themselves, in the good old days 😜🤭

And another one.

[iron-touch]

Polnareff’s Ghost Mechanics

First of all, no, Polnareff did not become the turtle after part 5. He is a ghost living inside the turtle room. I've had this debate multiple times and I am not opening up that bag of worms again. Moving on.

When writing how Polnareff functions as a ghost, I'm mostly taking inspiration from Reimi from part 4. Both of them are in very similar situations; they are ghosts bound to a specific location who can only just barely leave it (Reimi can be seen right outside the alleyway whereas Polnareff can poke his head out of the key). I think she's our best frame of reference as opposed to something like Burning Down the House or anything we see in Dead Man's Questions.

So let's run down everything we know about Reimi's status as a ghost and apply that to Polnareff.

• Both Reimi and Arnold retain the injuries they received upon their death as ghosts. This means that Polnareff would also keep his donutted torso and mechanical legs (more on that later).

• Reimi is shown touching and being touched by the living. This implies that ghosts can physically interact with the living. Notably, Rohan holds up Reimi's head even while she's unconscious, implying that this tangibility is their "default" state. We only see Reimi use the standard ghostly ability of phasing through objects on another ghost, so either this is something that can only be done on other spirits (unlikely) or it's an ability that they have to actively use (likely).

• Rohan uses Heaven's Door on Reimi. This tells us that ghosts can be affected by other Stands.

• While not a Stand, Arnold is shown biting ghost Kira's arm off at the end of part 4, implying that ghosts can receive physical damage (though it doesn't seem to harm them; if Kira got the chance he could probably just reattach his hand the same way that vampires and Pillar Men are shown regenerating their limbs). Since Stands can also affect ghosts, this means that a Stand could also most likely damage a ghost.

• Reimi has all of her memories from when she was alive intact, so we don't have to worry about Polnareff not remembering his own life.

Really, the only creative liberties I'm taking with Polnareff as a ghost are his legs. Him being able to walk around, even on his "prosthetics," are a reference to phantom limbs. Basically, it’s a sensation amputees get where they still feel their missing limb(s) despite them not being there. Since Polnareff is no longer bound by his physical body and is roaming as a spirit, his lack of real legs isn't a problem. His current form is just a projection of how he was when he died. He still knows how to walk, and now he's using his own "phantom limbs," in a more literal sense.

Either way, him being able to walk around rather than wheeling around on a wheelchair isn't something that majorly impacts the direction of the story, so it’s not a big deal either way.

[lesserfandomappreciation]

Hello! It's been a while, hope you're doing well! I have returned for some more sweet sweet headcanons! Can you do date headcanons for Arthur, Jack and the tripplets?

Hello hello! I’m doing well! How are you?

I can absolutely do some for the sweet boys, they’re wonderful!

Date (RSaT7D)

Arthur

Canon-wise he’s the only character we have any clue about when it comes to dates. Golden Goose Avenue has been his go-to for quite some time! When Merlin ‘I have the dating experience of a chipmunk’ the Wizard teases somebody about date locations, you know that Arthur has probably gone their for every single date in the past two years.

Having said that, that’s all  before the events of the movie. His character grows a lot during the movie and likely, his date location preferences and activities have changed accordingly. 

In the past, it was all about getting to show off himself. Going to Excalibur to boast, Golden Goose Avenue to show off how much of a good time he can show them, go in for a smooch. Rather unoriginal but consistent if nothing else. Nowadays though, his dating style is less about showing off about himself and more about tailoring it to the person he is with.

It’s sweet! But he’s not super good at it yet. It takes time spent with another person for him to really get how to do that. At the start instead of doing one or two things the person likes, he tries to fit everything he knows they enjoy into a single day. That’s a lot. His date wouldn’t be an evening, it’d be a whole-day event, one that only his date would have the power to stop. Well, assuming they know how to without being destroyed by Arthur’s sad puppy face.

Practice makes perfect and the more dates he goes with his crush and/or s/o, the better he gets at it. 

It should be noted that he will still find some minor way to show off, but it would be in context to what his partner likes. Ex: He can carry all their library books, climb whatever needs climbing to get something from a high spot, etc.

Jack

Smooth. Loaded with common sense. Charming, even. Jack has got it all. The emotional intelligence alone should make him an easy winner when it comes to dating. He’s even got the connections to some of the best spots in town - he’ll strut into the best restaurant like it’s nothing.

If only oh only it wasn’t for that ridiculous ego of his. The reasoning is unknown but it appears that every single member of the F7 have an inherent habit - nay, need - to show off as much as possible in front of someone they’re interested in. 

The mad lad thought that a good first gift to a woman he just met was a giant diamond ring the size of his fist. That’s not tame. That’s completely going wild with cash, somehow guesstimating a stranger’s ring size and going right off the deep end. 

Dates with Jack are (before and after the movie, he’s still got some learning in him) chances to flex hard. He’s not going shopping on the first date; the prince is a self-made prince, he recognizes that there are those who would take advantage of that. He gets to know them in a restaurant. The best one in town. The 5 star one you need an appointment for. And fancy wear. 

Subsequent dates are no better. The more he trusts and genuinely cares for someone, the more he wants to provide for them. It’s his love language, he can’t help it. S/o is going to have to be the one to pump the brakes and get him to slow down - especially if they’re not 100% comfortable with that. 

Pino

A date? Like, as in the fruit? No? Then he’s got no idea what anyone is talking about. Pino may be the eldest of three and the most mature of them, but he’s never really had time to pursue a love life. A lot of his time has been spent on inventions and his family, both his brothers and the F7, so dating is out of his circle of experience.

Dating is about getting to know one another right? So... maybe he should invite them to somewhere that really shows who he is. That’s brilliant! Let’s go with that! Pino’s logic is sound enough leading him to inviting s/o on a date to place that shows who he really is - his area in the workshop!

This only works because he was able to get Noki and Kio out for the day. It didn’t take much persuading either - once they knew it was for a date they stepped out of the way willingly. He needs all the help he can get. 

His invitation isn’t to see what he’s working on. That’s no fun! He invites them to help him work on it. Pino takes the lead on the project but the two of them work together to fix each part. The project takes time. Not that either really notice. A project needing completion is the time where Pino is most comfortable talking to another person; conversation flows naturally without him worrying about tripping over his words or making an ass out of himself. 

The date ends with a wooden creation fully functional and ready to go. He congratulates them on completing the design though he does say the project is in the experimental phase and requires more work. Work that would definitely go by faster if they were inclined to give their aid once more. If they felt like it. Up to them, really, no pressure.

S/o had better say yes before he blabs himself into a corner. 

Noki

Noki is not only experienced in romance but he’s also ridiculously excited. Picking a place for a date? There’s so many options, how’s a man to choose just the one?! His notebook is chock-full of scribbles of possible date locations, some with checks, some with x’s. The possibilities are endless here!

Unless s/o is the one to select a location, Pino and Kio are in for a long night. Noki does not rest until he’s gotten a place in mind, and his brothers know better to let him do this on his own. Staying up throughout the entire night is no way to survive anything.

An energetic ball of energy is going to want to do something that let’s him get his energy out and hang out with his s/o. What better place for that than the market square in the middle of a festival? People are everywhere with all sorts of sights and sounds to explore. It’s the perfect date spot!

The couple sets off into the festival center intent on seeing every corner of it. Ever-flexible, Noki will be down for any festival activity his s/o is interested in. Festival food is delicious, rides are a blast. 

Trying out the game booths is always fun but comes with a double-warning. Noki is no better than Arthur about showing off and as a marksmen, he’s got a mean aim with a crossbow. Should s/o’s eyes wander to a prize he’s going to compete for it. If the game is rigged, which given this is a festival booth it undoubtedly is, the nerd part of him is going to be indignant and he will take time to calculate on how to beat it anyway. 

Overall, his dates are light-hearted and fun. Getting to know each other will open up the door to other energetic fun dates.

Kio

What Kio needs is an occasional break from his brothers. Dates absolutely count as breaks. That’s why he doesn’t tell them where he’s going for a date. Actually he doesn’t tell them he’s going on a date - it’s assumed/well-known that as the youngest, they get protective and he’s just not in the mood to deal with that when going on a date. 

Any date that is quieter is Kio’s preference. He’d rather leave it up to s/o’s preference, but any location with less people is his choice. The F7 are noisy enough as is - a nice break from that would be greatly appreciated. Nature walks are a good one. Nature both inspires future creations and is inherently more peaceful than any overcrowded town square. 

A walk over to a wonder of nature would be a good date for him. They would head off in the cooler part of the day, wandering down the trail with sunlight spattering the forest floor on the occasional breeze. The entire walk conversation flows naturally, with quiet moments to really enjoy the sights and sounds. 

That fact that he chose the woods specifically because of Noki’s intense pollen allergy and Pino’s inherent need to mother his brothers when one of them gets ill is a factor he need not mention. If it throws them off from watching his dad, it works. 

By the time they do reach their destination - be it the side of a mountain or a simple meadow - Kio is whipping out the picnic basket and sharing a good meal with them. It’s impossible to not enjoy the afternoon with this sensitive soul as they enjoy the day away. It truly is a nice break for them.

[popculturebuffet]

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: The Master of the Mississippi! or “How Much Satisfaction Can There Be?”

Hello everybody. I’m back to the life of scrooge mcduck.. it’s been an eternity hasn’t it and that’s for a simple reason: I had other reviews to do, especially comissions, I kept pushing this back further and further as while I love this series i put my paid work ahead of any other projects, until Kev, i.e. the guy paying for most comissions out and out asked that this be done before I got to the rest of The Ride of the Three Caballeros. It’s also why I finally put a loose schedule in place, to keep projects from slipping so the MANY retrosectives and what not I have going can move along at a steady pace and I can slot in comissions easier, 5 bucks an issue or episode if your curious. So now things are a bit tider, i’ll try to have an installment of scrooge’s storied past up a week from now on, so keep an eye out for that, minus christmas week as I have something else planned Duck Comics wise. So with all that out of the way and any exposition able to be baked into the plot proper, we can FINALLY get back to the life and times of scrooge mcduck

PREVIOUSLY ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE MCDUCK:

A Young Scrooge got his inspiration, his start and also scared the crap out of some asshole scooby do style. Also his sister Hortense was adorable. SO there’s that. But eventually with some inspriation from what he didn’t realize was a ghost, Scrooge decided to head to america to find his Uncle Pothole. So that’s where we left off, with Scrooge heading to

Since then as the scrapbook page explains, Scrooge has worked his way up the Missippi to Louieville, Kentucky... which is where Rosa lives, and it is not a concidence it’s set here as a result. But much like how the Marvel staff being in new york in the 60′s lead to that universe having it’s unique and vibrant New York setting that’s lasted to this day, sometimes a creator using where they live as the basis can lead to really great and intresting stuff and here he had a valid reason as Louieville was one of the main hubs on the Mississippi river and thus a massive boomtown. 

Not the kind of boom town I meant but I can never say no to boomtown. But yeah it’s not only a bustling hub usually anyway, but things are extra amped up given it’s Derby time. I mean the Kentucky Derby’s no steel ball run but what could be? So naturally the crowds are booming and scroogie is impressed. I mean he’s a 13 year old boy from a poor community in Scotland. This is huge to him. But he has no time to dawdle and asks the closest random gentleman where he could find his Uncle Angus, who was mentioned last time and is the one needed for this. The guy is genuinely helpful and points him to his uncle... but as I only noticed on this read through also uses a knife to swipe his bag by cutting the handle off. It’s part of why I admire this series so much: rosa snuck so many small background gags into the margins you can always find something new reading it or always get something fresh out of it.  We also meet Gyro’s grandpa Ratchet. 

I mean there’s no might about it. David Byrne is rich and he’s the delightful weirdo we all deserve and the autistic icon I needed. 

I have no context for this, I just figured searching David Byrne in Tumblr’s Gif Search would find something delightfully batshit in that way only hec an do and I was right. 

So as the tweenager enters the gambling establishment, we find Uncle Pothole, whose playing poker with local asshole and tophat enthusiast Porker Hogg...whose name keeps tripping me up as I write this as he’s not the only pig named porker I know of but is far less memorable than this one

He and Pothole are playing cards, and while Porker can go on for days he can’t go on for eight weeks.. or even two days really and prepares to finish it. He puts up his boat the Dilly Dollar, which Angus takes offence to since Porker sank his. Angus offers up the location of the Dreenan White, a legendary, and real legend at that, riverboat that sank. Since Angus was a Cabin Boy on the boat, he knows where it is. So the final hand is dealt and Angus wins with five aces, mostly because Porker’s ace ejector jammed. When Scrooge questions if this is dishonest, Angus explains their under riverboat captain rules which basically means you can cheat your ass off and it’s not only expected it’s an insult NOT to. So Angus takes Scrooge with him, seeing the boy as a good luck charm and finding out to his shock Scrooge is his nephew, but gladly takes his newly found relation under his wing as he relates to his coming to america to find his fortune, having done the same. 

Angus is the first of Scrooge’s many mentors and easily the best part of this chapter. He’s lively, intresting but a contrast to scrooge, someone whose not AFRAID to work but wouldn’t mind an easy victory or giving up the adventure game, as he ends up doing. He’s a lively, clever guy and very charming. I”ll get back to the mentor part of it in a bit, but needless to say in a chapter that i’ll admit, and get more into the why as we go, is not one of life and time’s better chapters, he’s a highlight.  So the two get to the Dilly Dollar while Hogg decides to follow to find where the Dreeynan Whyte is. As for why he hasn’t drudged it up Angus simply can’t as the Mighty Missisippi’ s too muddy for that, making another mark twain quoted joke about it. But Scrooge mentions the clarity pills from Ratchet, meaning he has a way to do so, and Angus is now elated and decides to head there to get his fortune, specifically near Monkey’s Elbow kentucky, which while relocated slightly to fit the story, is a very real town and an objectively great name for a town, much like Forty Fort, which is also a very real town name. Hogg overhears and after being literally booted out of the boat, as we’ll see literal asskicking is a McDuck family staple, goes to recruit some hired goons. 

Yes hired goons, as every good villian needs some hired goons. And these specific goons.. are a bit.. familiar. And you’ll find out who they are under the cut!

Yup it’s the Secret Origin of the Beagle Boys. And if your wondering “Wait are they immortal too?” well. their not these are their grandpas. Also Hogg’s whole complaint about “wearing them if there yellow” just.. bugs me. They .. they aren’t cowards.. Grandpappy’s just being smart and knows his sons are excessively dumb, as is family tradition. They have no issue with committing crimes, they just don’t want to be arrested by the first Navy boat that finds them. That’s just.. common logic. This is one of Life and Time’s weaker atrributes: Due to being built around barks stories, that means most of his foes here are the random greedy asshats of the week Scrooge faced who had some loophole to his fortune or the grandparents of said assholes. With the exception of hte Beagles, who show up a few times, Glomgold and Soapy Slick who wihle a minor vilian is at the center of one of the best chapters of the story, most of these guys are just forgettable hooligans. Not terrible, and the stories around them are good enough to make it enjoyable but nothing really distinct from what Scrooge normally faced outside of his origin story. Really Barks was simply stronger at STORIES than he was at creating villians: As Magica, The Beagle Boys, Gladstone, Rockerduck and Glomgold all show he wasn’t untalented at it, it’s just more often than not he fell back on some random asshole.

Instead of using a dedicated Rogue’s Gallery of intresting baddies, most writers of most comics just used villians of the week and maybe ONE OR TWO designated hitters. Batman’s Rogue’s gallery wasn’t big enough to form their own country at this point is what i’m saying, it just meant Rosa had to build more vilians of teh week. It dosen’t drag the story down entirely, as the story is about SCROOGE and his growth: sometimes the villians are just a secondary ingrident in a good story. But it’s still something very noticable and one of the weaker parts of the story, it’s just like I said, with the story being more on Scrooge and where a lot of his personality came from, it’s something I really didn’t notice before and really dosen’t bother me now I have. The villians are weak btu the hero is so intresting and grows so much it just dosen’t matter. Their there to provide Scrooge with opportunites to evolve, and the really good ones are saved for the best moments of that and for when a villian IS needed to change scooge as a person. So it all evens out. 

So naturally the next day when the McDucks head to get the pills, Hogg’s beat them to it, and when Ratchet refused to cut cards for his stock had them beat Ratchet while they were at it. Though oddly Angus assumes he’s just passed out while Scrooge is the one to recognize someone knocked him out. You’d think a well experienced guy like Angus would know that eh whatever. Point is Hogg is ahead and Angus dosen’t have a crew... though Scrooge and Ratchet naturally volunteer since both have skin in the game: Scrooge wanted a job with Pothole anyway and Ratchet is out a job and out his pills. Angus gladly takes them on.. but accidently sets the Dominos in place for one of Comics!Scrooge’s worst behaviors down the line. 

Yeahhh.... Pothole is partially responsible for Scrooge criminally underpaying his staff and family. That gag.. is easily one of , if not my least faviorite part about Rosa’s work. It’s a holdover from Carl Barks work naturally, and one that makes some sense: Rosa set his work shortly after barks, so some time in the 1950s, having barks works take place around when they were written. There isn’t a strict timeline of what happened which year outside of life and times, but Rosa’s works are delieberate period pieces. That’s not a bad thing and if he’s going to base most of his stuff around stuff Barks did, then it’s a good call to make.  The issue is the execution: While with Barks it was in part because there was less income inequality, it was also clearly a bit of satire, as Donald was the every man and companies could be unfair, cheap douchebags then as they are now. IT feels more like a joke on Scrooge. Donald still puts up with a lot of stuff, but he’s more liable to complain. In the Rosa stories.. it feels more like he just makes Donald the butt monkey and it dosen’t play well as.. Donald dosen’t want to be there. He has every RIGHT not to want to be there as he’s not being paid a decent wage, not being compensated in any other ways, and could be searching for a boss who actually pays him a living wage. Donald is more the victim in Rosa’s stories but he simply doesn’t realize this, or the fact it’s even worse since Donald is you know RAISING THREE CHILDREN AND SCROOGE KNOWS THIS BUT DOES NOT PITCH IN ONE EXTRA CENT.  So already without even adding the decades on, it hasn’t aged well.. but add in the modern day business where it’s a STRUGGLE to get states to raise minimum wages, the job market was hit horribly even BEFORE Corona came and made things worse, and companies horribly abuse their employees to ludcirous extremes such as time crunch in the video game industry, black friday in retail and of course the house of nightmares that is the amazon warehouse, and I say that being a frequent use of amazon.. just because I rely on a company dosen’t mean I have to LIKE doing so in any way shape or form. 

What i’m saying is Scrooge’s actions were already bad, making this joke fall flat, but it comes off as downright unfunny after all of that. Even given the times Scrooge was raised in it’s just not a funny gag that “oh ha ha a 70+ year old man ever learned right from wrong when it came to paying his family or workers”. It just paints scrooge in the worst light possible as man who never grew, in at least one aspect, from being a goddamn tweenager and is easily one of the weaker moments of an otherwise epic and well crafted saga, and as i’ve said of Rosa’s exemplary work as a whole. 

Anyways the race is on and with the DIlly Dollar gaining on Hogg’s Cotton reiver witch, Hogg has them ram into the boat and flip it over. And no i’m not descrbing a sex act. In a show of competence while Blackheart Beagle’s actions send them close to the falls too he just uses the dilly dollar as a ramp. We also get a really cool flipped over panel as our heroes are waterlogged. A snag boat shows up, I assume it removes snags and dangerous objects and complains about rescuing them. .even though CLEARLY they had some kind of accident. It’s.. never a good look to complain about having to save someone’s life or livelyhood unless that someone is Tucker Carlson. Then it’s ABSOLUTLEY okay to grumble a bit about having to do the right thing. 

So after a quick gag we’re introduced to a chekovs gun as a massive tree sprouts out of the river and spooks Scroogey.. and Angus who explains it’s a “sawyer”, something that happens when a dead tree falls in a river.. sinks in.. and then can rise right back up suddenly, violently and boat destroyingly. 

So our heroes head on and find the location and Angus dumbly assumes that Hogg, who had a clear start is just lost.. and not you know lurking in the bushes watiting to strike. And strike he does as he once again rams hard and long into the Dilly Dollar, leaving it on a sandy shore. Schwing. Our heroes are landlocked but Hogg, just to earn himself a dare to be stupid award, gives the Beagles their deed, and tells them theirs diving equipment. You can take a wild guess what happenes next. 

Angus understandably laughs at his misfortune because it’s funny.. and Hogg responds by dropping him down a well. Before Scrooge can raise a benefit concert to send his love down a well, Angus asks Scrooge to join him instead.. and soon we find out why as the Beagles only find a wrecked town. Turns out thats where Monkey’s Elbow WAS, and they build the new town near it.. with the farm Angus ended up at being where the wreck is now. 

Our heroes explore the wreck which honestly, looks really damn impressive, a muddy destroyed riverboat hauntingly beautifully lit by candle light, which Scrooge is holding naturally. I may of had my criticisms for Rosa this chapter, and I will again, but it’s moments like this that reinforce that the man is still one of the best comic book artists i’ve ever seen and knows how to beautifully meld his art with storytelling. 

Speaking of which our heroes find the safe with the money. Angus is ritch but Scrooge.. dosen’t get how he can be happy. Scroogie questions “How much satisfaction can there be in having your life’s fortune handed to you? “ It’s easily the best moment of the chapter.. while it’s only two panels before we get to Angus moving things right along... it really speaks to Scrooge’s character. Even as still a naive boy from Glasgow... his whole life has been hard work, effort working your way up. To just.. LUCK into fortune like this baffles him. To be satisfied with that and not seem to have any amibation to use it to go further, to make more of yourself. To be more. While he hasn’t quite got his love for adventure yet, we’ll get there next time, even now there’s a hunger inside him, a desire to not just get rich, that’s all fine and good.. btu to have EARNED IT. To truly feel like he made his way. 

And it perfeclty makes sense with his background: Scrooge was raised with nothing, and found out at the start of the story his family had lost everything, a once glorious clan reduced to a poor starving family on the edge of Glasgow. To him it can’t just be about getting Money.. he wants to bring his clan back. To make his family happy and proud. To make sure his father’s faith as the last of their line wasn’t misplaced. He has a lot of expectation on him and that’s bred his character. Angus.. just sorta left at a young age and has been incommuincado. He dosen’t really care about family or legacy.. not that I don’t think he would’ve sent some money back to buy the castle, I just think he was never that concerned with his family’s legacy like Scrooge despite coming from a similar cloth. He wanted the money, but Scrooge cares about the money.. and his family. It’s what anchors him. What keeps him from his worst impulses and keeps him grounded.. for now anyways but that’s a ways off. Point is it really speaks to Scrooge’s character. 

But soon the beagles find our heroes, and a fight breaks out.. and naturally even without years of experince yet, Scrooge is still a McDuck and while previously his fighting was based on ingunity.. this time the little runt’s just out for blood and suprises the beagles with a clump of mud and then beating the shit out of them. When one of them tries to respond by wacking him with a piece of wood... he instead breaks a collumn and with the dreenan unable to handle the mud without it... the place starts to collapse. However our heroes don’t make it out unschathed as the Beagles capture them and the gold... for some reason. Seriously Scrooge dosen’t fight back or anything nor does angus they just.. let hte beagles overpower them. WHen Scrooge fully fought the grown ass men just a few mintues ago. What the actual hell. 

But we do get another Badass Scrooge Moment, as once hteir on the ship, Scrooge mentions another treasure.. which baffles Angus despite you know.. the boy clearly playing at something. Yeah whlie I do like Angus.. he can be grating in parts and here he just comes off REALLY stupid. But after being tortured by running on a boat, with the beagles mistaking Angus’ genuine confusion for being a bastard man, which naturally their impressed by, Scrooge fessses up.. and you can see exactly’s coming.. the sawyer raises the boat into the air and harpoons it. The beagles try to play off the port authority but scrooge unmaks those “infamous beagle boys”.. and thus names one of his greatest threats. Blackheart vows revenge while our heroes go for a sasparillia..though Scrooge keeps the money.. as he says the memory of that adventure is worth more than anything. As for the Gold, the goverment took it back, but did give them a reward, and Angus only dosen’t give Scrooge a share because he’d have to refloat it, but offers him a job and the dollar in two years at a bargin price. Alls well that ends well. A truly poetic way to end the chapter and prepare scrogoe for the next... TO BE CONTINUED...

FINAL TH...

Yeah.. as you probably know this is NOT the end of the chapter. Instead we go on for a bit more. And a few more pages would’ve been fine, to help bridge the gap.. we see scrooge get the Dollar at a bargin price as his uncle promised, though the deal turns out to be a bit of a lemon as the riverboat industry has dried up. But then.. we get a couple page adventure with the beagle boys, where the beagles try to steal the goverment gold scrooge is transporting, Ratchet helps him escape, and we DO get the utterly badass image of scrooge driving the boat onto land and it exploding and causing a massive flood> While that is awesome.. the pacing just takes a huge hit and it’s easily why this chapter is one of my least faviorite. It probably would’ve been better if they just had a passage of time montage of events at the start of the next chapter and ended on that bit before.. but instead it just goes on a bit and really tries my patience every time as instead of moving on to a bold new adventure.. we just get some filler to help pad things out so Rosa can get it to the right page length. I don’t blame him, sometimes shit happens, but it dosen’t make it any more fun to read.  So the Dollar is scrapped and Scrooge is back at the bottom with barely a cent to his name. But he’s resolute: since the river boating days were winding down anyway he’s going west to become a cowboy, and heads off on the Wabash Cannonball as a fireman, i.e. the guy who stokes the engines, to make his way there. So we end our story for now and again.. this would’ve been much better condensed but whatever. We’re finally done. 

Final Thougts

As you could probably tell but I saved for here, and I outright even said this is one of my least faviorite chapters and one of the weakest if not the weakest. Part of it is the structure issue I mentioned, but the other part is it just.. isn’t as intresting at least to me personally. The rest of life and times have pretty unique stories that while not removed from genres Scrooge stories have covered, use the story of his rise to make them really pop as we slowly see how the iconic Scrooge we know became the legend and what shaped him that way. Here while we get bits of that, it’s mostly just a standard uncle scrooge story but with him as a kid. It’s not a BAD one, it dosen’t drag the whole of life and times down and it’s servicable but it just feels a bit more standard for Rosa’s work. Still enjoyable, but nothing really spectacular like the next two chapters. On it’s own or as one of the side stories it would’ve been fine but as part of this huge sprawling masterpiece, it’s just a bit underwhelming and just makes me eager to get to the next part every time rather than really suck me in as much as the others. Again the pacing dosen’t help with that and only makes it drag further. It just dosen’t have the weight the other ones do character wise and as such just makes me want to get to part 3 already, which naturally that story within a story dosen’t help with. Overall while not a bad comic, I don’t think any part of life and times is truly bad, it’s still not a GREAT comic like what’s to come or what came just before. 

NEXT TIME ON LIFE AND TIMES: Scrooge heads out to the wild wild west.. though instead of a giant mechanical spider he fights some cattle rustlers and meets Teddy Roosevelt HELL. YES. 

Until then, happy holidays and later days!

[mtgbracket]

Tiebreaker - Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest vs Polukranos, Unchained

Hi folks!  Yesterday, these two cards both got 177 votes in Batch 2.3, leading to a tie.  I don’t vote in the polls so that I can be the tiebreaking vote when it’s needed.  So here I am doing that.

I am going to be using the same format as I did for the ties in the original Magic Bracket - see this old post for an example.  Essentially I will provide a written analysis on each card over five categories, and then finish with scores.  If the scores also tie then my personal favourite gets the nod.  The categories are:

 - Quality of design, scored out of 10  - Power level, scored out of 5 (overpowered cards will score lower)  - Flavour, scored out of 5  - Art, scored out of 5 (combined across multiple arts if there are any)  - Place in Magic history, scored out of 5

Let’s get stuck in.

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

Design

Fittingly for a death priest, Mazirek cares about death - specifically, he’s one of the relatively few cards that care about sacrificing.  While we’re more used to seeing this on black-red cards in recent years, Mazirek was printed in Commander 2015 and the sacrifice-matters element is perfectly at home in black.  While it doesn’t feel green, the reward you get - +1/+1 counters on all your creatures - certainly does, and Mazirek has a solidly black-green feel as a result.  And by both caring about death and growth/life, he also feels specifically Golgari - which matters as the Kraul are a Golgari insect group.  Sacrifice-matters probably does play better in black-red (where red’s ability to sacrifice its own stuff lines up nicely), but it’s not massively out of place here.

Having flying (which makes sense for an Insect) but a measly 2/2 body for 5 also guides the player to imagining growing him into a massive threat through adding lots of sacrifice effects.  The design is also kept light by not having Mazirek provide any inherent way of sacrificing things or making sacrifices happen - the player has to provide their own.  This is pretty common for these kinds of designs, but is good because it means the rewards can be a bit juicier, as the player has to provide a sacrifice payoff, an enabler, and likely some fodder - although making your opponent sacrifice things also works!

One ding against the sacrifice trigger is that it does require players to handle a small bit of rules knowledge - specifically, identifying the “sacrifice” keyword action and understand which things are and aren’t sacrifices.  And effects that make temporary tokens are annoyingly inconsistent about whether the tokens are exiled or sacrificed, which sets up a bit of a reading debt.

Power level

Fittingly for a card from a Commander precon, Mazirek is pretty potent.  He can grow your team quite substantially with a few triggers, even if he doesn’t provide you an in-built way of getting them, and promises unbounded payoff.  Combined with a sacrifice outlet and something with Persist can even make infinite combos, which is pretty compelling as a power option.  Mazirek is technically legal in Eternal formats, but isn’t up to grade there - but that’s not a mark down on him as few cards are.

Mazirek ranks #278 on EDHREC, as the Commander of 424 decks, and as a card appears in 4% of decks on the platform.  This indicates a potent and popular Commander card.

Flavour

Mazirek, as mentioned above, is the leader of the Kraul, the Golgari insect race.  His card name certainly conjures up a lot of what’s going on with him - “Death Priest” is quite a title, and gets across both the death-focused aspect of the Golgari as well as the Kraul’s society - Mazirek was the leader of the Kraul race until his death in the War of the Spark storyline.  His name is also fun to say - and feels quite insectile.  It’s a shame that the “priest” title, which feels more like a Cleric, is not matched with his typeline, where he is a Shaman.  There are plenty of green and even black-green Clerics, so this does feel like a minor ding.

Mazirek’s flavour text reinforces the “insect” thing nicely, with talks of clicks and buzz, and the very Metal “incarnation of decay”.  Overall the picture of a rotten, death-feeding entity is well sold.  Being empowered by death is a flavourful concept, but “sacrificing” specifically is hard to convey as a flavourful concept - it’s a bit too mechanical.

Art

Mathias Kollros’s piece revels in the black-green colour palette we’d expect from a Golgari legend, and shows the central figure suggestively in dark greens and yellow highlights, but with the details hidden by strong green-white backlighting.  The posing emphasises the many additional limbs that Mazirek has over a humanoid figure, with his wings and extra legs, as well as his elevated position.  Some drippy, slimy looking moss decorates his podium and the darker edges of the piece give us the sense that we’re in the Kraul’s tunnels.  After adjusting to the main image we also see the eggs at the edges of the image, adding to the insect / creepy vibe for an overall very effective piece.

Note that the colour palette appears to have been significantly darkened from the original printing for the later Double Masters version for no clear reason.  I think the original printing is the superior.

Place in Magic history

Other than a supporting role in the Ravnica / War of the Spark storyline, Mazirek doesn’t have much to write home about here - no particularly unique or interesting things about him.

Polukranos, Unchained

Design

From this year’s Theros: Beyond Death, we have the zombified version of Polukranos.  Originally gaining infamy as Polukranos, World Eater, this hydra is now presented in a black-tinged version - our second black-green card.  He starts out with square stats as a very undercosted-seeming 4-mana 6/6, before later promising to escape as a 6-mana 12/12.  The “permanent damage” drawback here is something originally seen on Judgment’s Phantom creatures, which only ever lost one counter per instance of damage; the counters-per-damage version was premiered on M11′s Protean Hydra as a “heads” metaphor, and was also seen on Ugin’s Conjurant.  Conjurant and Polukranos share an important improvement - they only apply the replacement effect while they actually have a +1/+1 counter, which stops them becoming invincible if you raise their toughness some other way.

As well as being a big reservoir of power and toughness, this newer version of Polukranos connects mechanically to the original by including a fight ability - and a very rare repeatable one at that.  This opens up some interesting options whereby if Polukranos has shrunk too much, you can fight him off in order to have him die and then be able to escape and reset him with his final Escape ability.  Polukranos has the highest card-cost for any Escape card, needing six other cards to come back - justified by his massive size upgrade when you do so.

The design overall hits some of the right notes for the established Polukranos power set - beefy and activated-ability-fighting - while adding some interesting play patterns with the Escape mechanic.  It doesn’t do a great job of feeling green-black to me instead of just green however - monogreen has Escape cards and that’s all that black is really bringing to this package other than a generic multicolour power injection and the Zombie creature type.  And the design is very busy, with a lot of text and moving parts that is a bit confusing to play.

Power level

While being a Limited powerhouse, Polukranos hasn’t managed to get anywhere in general constructed thanks to competing for resources with the far superior Uro, Titan of Nature’s Wrath, which is commonly played with black.

In Commander, EDHREC shows Polukranos, Unchained at rank #494 as a Commander of 170 decks, and appearing in 3% of decks.  The combo with Vigor is particularly nice - you can choose to apply Vigor’s replacement effect instead of Polukranos’s own one and have him grow every time he fights instead of shrinking!

Flavour

The name is straightforward enough - and connects with the art - but not inspired.  The lengthy rules text doesn’t even leave room for Escape reminder text, let alone flavour text.  The character of Polukranos is of a dangerous monster that Elspeth had to defeat in the original Theros storyline as the champion of Heliod, but the new version is just “that same guy from before, only he escaped from the Underworld”.

Art

Chris Rahn is one of Magic’s most notable current artists, with a great ability to render detailed fantasy images with beautiful details.  The purple-and-grayish hues of the underworld are used here to show the location, and nicely we see the upper purple head of Polukranos blending with the beautiful night sky.

And those purple heads are shown coming from the same root - I believe they are actually regrowing at the time of the art!  There are a lot of nice visual indicators of this - a pinkish glow showing where the stump was, the purplish colour of the two new heads, and the fact that those are a little smaller than the other four.  The new heads both have collars on so I imagine these are magical collars designed for a hydra - but the art also shows that the chains weren’t strong enough, as the name tells us.  A close look shows a loose chain breaking a statue in the foreground - and the other foreground figures help sell the size of the monstrous creature in front of us.  The overall mood is “Oh s***, the monster has got loose!”.

Place in Magic history

We have a minor storyline character here and the card has no particular resonance or important part to play, so not looking at a whole lot here.

Final verdict

Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest

Design - 7/10 Power level - 4/5 Flavour - 3/5 Art - 5/5 Place in Magic history - 2/5 TOTAL - 21/30

Polukranos, Unchained

Design - 6/10 Power level - 3/5 Flavour - 2/5 Art - 4/5 Place in Magic history - 2/5 TOTAL - 17/30

Good luck to Mazirek, Kraul Death Priest in Round 3!

[hb-pickle]

Into the Unknown: Making Frozen 2 - Review

Finally finished watching all 6 episodes of the Frozen 2 Documentary! My consensus is drum roll please... it was not very good.

Things I liked first: I loved watching the team get emotional when they saw their projects coming together (finishing Into The Unknown, etc). 

Watching random guys rub rocks together for sound design was funny. 

I loved looking at the Disney offices and all the merch, posters, art, etc. 

The actors/workers were very charismatic and believable. They seemed to legit enjoy their work and were happy to help. 

- -

Criticism: 

The documentary promised to be a look into all the hard work, collaboration, blood, sweat and tears, it took to make Frozen 2, but it came off more as a look into the very final stages of Show Yourself and a few unfinished animation clips. So little of the actual movie making process was shown and it was extremely misleading and frustrating.

-

Songs:

Songs and the songwriting process were definitely the aspect of F2 Disney was most comfortable showing, but that’s saving very little because the attention per song was extremely restricted and lopsided. About 50% of the entire docu-series focuses on just Show Yourself while every other song gets about 20 to 1 minute(s) of screentime (in order from most to least discussion, it goes: Next Right Thing, Into The Unknown, Lost In The Woods, Some Things Never Change, When I’m Older, All Is Found, and Vuile isn’t even mentioned by name). And even when they did discuss these songs, they only showed the lyrics that got into the movie, no cut lyrics or alternatives were shown at all. So it was just long extended scenes of Jenn and the Lopez’ trying to decide whether they should or should not add parts to the song which we, as the viewer, already know were added. And again, they showed no alternatives, so it wasn’t a choice of A or B, it was A or maybe rewrite the middle-ish but no specifics. 

They didn't even discuss the public outtakes / deleted scenes they've already released / planned to release like "Get This Right", "Seek The Truth", "Unmeltable Me", etc (they did mention “See They Sky” but nothing else). 

The last thing I’d like to mention for this category is that they did discuss the intended emotions / themes of the songs they kept in. They talk about how Show Yourself was supposed to make you feel empowered and satisfyingly wrap up the story, how Next Right Thing was supposed to make you feel just as emotionally raw as Anna, etc. So I can give them credit for that. But again, these explanations became few and far between once they got into the “lesser” songs. Nor do they explain why certain songs were added to the story; for example When I’m Older’s entire existence was justified with “kids really liked it”. “Lost In The Woods” was an 80’s rock ballad because they kinda just wanted to make a 80’s song, etc.

-

Animation:

Again, just like the songs, Disney was very comfortable showing off the animation process, but only unfinished clips, models, skeletons, etc of shots that were actually used in the film and nothing else. But, I did have fun watching animators physically act out character movements, record them, and then animate them (ex: that poor girl who recorded like 5 shots of her own face singing, all super imposed on bobbing reindeer shaped bubbles for the Lost In The Woods scene lol).

The most new/deleted content they showed were storyboards and sketches of Show Yourself  where we got to see alt. backgrounds of Ahtohallan and young Iduna and and See the Sky which was a dance-off type thing between the Northuldra / Arendelle soldiers.

-

Story:

This, and every consecutive category, is where this documentary was severely lacking. They showed no alternative scenes or storylines like “Hard Nokks” or the secret library. Nor did they go into the intended messages/significance of the story elements they did use, like why they chose to trap the Enchanted Forest in mist, why they spared Arendelle, why Elsa left Arendelle, why they chose a dam for the physical boundary they needed to destroy (even though apparently it was loosely based on an IRL dam that hurt the IRL Sami people; I got this from outside resources), etc. 

They also don’t dive into any character motivations (outside of the context of Elsa in Show Yourself/Into The Unknown, Anna in Next Right Thing, and Kristoff in Lost In The Woods). 

They very explicitly refused to discuss any changes they made to the script. In episode 5 they spend a lot of time emphasizing the importance of audience feedback but refuse to show any actual feedback (they even talk about how they gave out questionnaires but don’t even show us a blank one). This was very blatant and annoying because they spent a lot of time looking DIRECTLY at the camera going on about how important feedback was, how being willing to change was important, how they DID change things, and how change impacted a lot of the movie (ex: cutting songs and simplifying things for children), but refused to show anything. The one (1) change they did show was the prologue, so we see young Anna and Elsa playing before we see Agnarr's flashback, but that was pretty much it. 

-

Design / Environments:

Character design and dress design was not discussed at all. They do show us a few seconds of fabric physics for Elsa’s spirit dress and show us how they designed Olaf when he was pretending to be Grand Pabbie (using his snowball feet as ears and ferns as a cape), but nothing else. You’d think that since Elsa and Anna both had like 5 costume changes each, they’d want to discuss that, but no. Nor do they even mention Iduna’s shawl / the unity snowflake which had a ton of significance in the movie. They also don’t discuss the designs of the spirits or their symbols (or even water animation for the Nokk’s body which would’ve been perfect in the animation portions). 

-

Research: 

The only research we see them doing is visiting IRL glaciers for Ahtohallan in episode 3. This was neat and all, but also very bittersweet because they really emphasized how spectacular and breathtaking Ahtohallan was going to be, but it was literally just an empty cave made of ice; and not even shiny ice (like Elsa’s castle) just dark, flat, and blue. Like I know creating environments is hard but Ahtohallan is very literally empty besides a few extremely narrow hallways and dark colorless abysses. Like it may have been hard to build in a computer but it was NOT creative nor something to boast about (especially compared to the concept art they showed). But this is all my opinion...

They do show a black sand beach which greatly inspired the black sea, but otherwise they don’t show the research it took to properly replicate the Enchanted Forest (like plant life and ecology) nor any of the locations Elsa and the gang briefly passed through on the way to the forest. 

Most egregiously of all they completely omit the Sami community and their contributions to the film. They don’t address them by name or even acknowledge the Northuldra are based on them. Nor do they mention the apparent collaboration they did with the Sami community to accurately replicate their culture. The closest they get to acknowledging them or their hand in the creation of F2 was that the subtitles described Vuilie was a "yoik". Which does not count, since no one even says it out loud. You could dismiss all my other complaints about the lack of content and deleted scenes, but this is just flat out disrespectful. 

-

Ending Note: 

To me, I just don't see the point of this. If this entire documentary was condensed into an hour long YouTube video and explicitly only about the songs/animation I would've been perfectly happy and would've given this an A! Maybe even more because the little parts about the sound design and interviews with the cast would've been little bonuses. But I can't because this is a 6 episode Disney+ only "documentary" on all of F2. 

Tl;Dr - I expected a lot more, but was severely disappointed. I wanted an inside sneak peak on the making of one of Disney’s most iconic and my personal favorite IP, but instead I got 240 minutes of Jennifer Lee and the Lopez’ trying to feel the vibe of Show Yourself and crying. Surely they could’ve cut some of that out to talk about literally anything else. Watching this just felt pointless and I was never engaged nor were my curiosities satisfied. 

-

Extra Note:

For about 10 minutes at the end of one episode (which may seem short but that’s like ¼ of an episode), the documentary takes a detour to talk about Ryder Buck. Ryder Buck was Chris Buck’s (one of the director) son who died shortly after F1 was released, and I mean no disrespect but the sequence dedicated to him had nothing to do with the film or documentary. One of the F2 character’s was named after Ryder, but that was the only connection (they don’t even mention if Ryder in Frozen was based personality-wise on IRL Ryder, just that they shared a name). The whole 10 minute sequence was literally just a charity event in Ryder’s name and Chris and his wife sitting on a mountain talking about how they miss him. Again, no disrespect and I’m sorry Ryder Buck died so young, but a documentary on Frozen 2 wasn’t an appropriate place or time to talk about him.

Crossing out this section because some people took this as an opportunity to attack Chris Buck and his son, which is completely unacceptable and disgusting.

[thisweekingundamwing]

This Week in Gundam Wing 14-20 June 2020

Here’s this week’s roundup!

Remember to give your content creators some love! And join in on the events at the bottom!

~Mod Hel

Fanfiction/Snippets/AU Ideas:

@chronicwhimsy​

Strangers (Ch. 4) https://archiveofourown.org/works/24357013/chapters/59758057

Explicit

M/M, Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell, Background Quatre x Relena, Background Heero x Trowa - Character

OC - Oliver McGann, Long Lost Twins, this was meant to be hijinks but then I got reminded these boys have Issues, Pining, Duo is a stressed-out jerk who needs a holiday, Post-EW, Frozen Teardrop can do one, sex in later chapters because this is me who are we kidding, Claire is back on her tropey bullshit again

If you said the word "brother" to Duo Maxwell, he'd think of the other pilots.

If you said, "no, your long-lost brother" to Duo Maxwell, he'd think of Solo and be very confused.

If you said, "no, your twin brother you were separated from at birth, and he's now working with the Preventers as a lawyer" to Duo Maxwell, he would go and punch his doppelganger.

Duo Maxwell isn't good at dealing with things, but unfortunately this particular thing isn't going to go away that easily.

@doctormegalomania​

Your Body’s Poetry (Ch. 18) https://archiveofourown.org/works/20438891/chapters/59911066

Mature

F/F, F/M, M/M, Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei/Original Female Character(s), Relena Peacecraft & Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell/Original Male Character(s)

Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei, Sally Po, Relena Peacecraft, Lucrezia Noin, Zechs Merquise, Hilde Schbeiker

Past Relationship(s), Slice of Life, Post-Break Up, Slow Burn, Developing Relationship, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence

You knew it couldn't last... surely?

katopiyo

Notes https://archiveofourown.org/works/24766990

Duo Maxwell/Quatre Raberba Winner, Duo Maxwell & Quatre Raberba Winner

Post-EW, College Setting

Duo's been skipping class along with other things. Quatre wishes he wouldn't.

@lifeaftermeteor​

LAM Verse https://lifeaftermeteor.tumblr.com/post/621488561136500736/private-island-location-redacted-fiji-south

Private Island [location redacted]

Fiji, South Pacific

9 August 211 

The flight down to Fiji had been pleasant enough, despite the storms.  It was hard to complain about a private jet packed with only your closest friends.

@thaiteaaddict​

I Reincarnated As A Minor Villainess and I Survived Past My Death Scene (Ch. 12) https://archiveofourown.org/works/24470677/chapters/60033757

Teen+

F/F, F/M, M/M, Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei/Long Meilan, Dorothy Catalonia/Relena Peacecraft, Relena/Heero except only Duo ships it

Duo Maxwell, Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei, Hilde Schbeiker, Long Meilan

Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Isekai, specifically isekai shoujou, more specifically isekai shoujou that follows someone falling into the role of the villainess, the fantasy world spits in the eyes of gendered language, Duo wishes it would spit in the eyes of gender roles, Truck-kun strikes again, POV First Person

Duo’s not the only one full of surprises.

Fanart/Crafts/Photo Manips:

@antarespromise​

https://antarespromise.tumblr.com/post/621318892722241536

Trowa Barton

@elfbingo​

https://elfbingo.tumblr.com/post/620897583657828352/a-little-offering-in-the-quarantine-hair-memes

The boys and quarantined hair memes.

@gundayum​

https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1454505

Nude Dad-bod Duo

@lemontrash​

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/621368213448556544/2pcb-inspired-me-lmao

WuFei and Trowa

https://lemontrash.tumblr.com/post/621177935660990464/sitting-through-a-webinar-and-drawing-tiny-guys

WuFei Chang kitty...

@mechamomo​

https://mechamomo.tumblr.com/post/621468073273311232/heeroduo-smooch-sketch

Heero/Duo

https://mechamomo.tumblr.com/post/621283206144098304/finally-finished-that-sketch-i-did-a-while-ago

Heero/Duo

@satelliteinasupernova​

https://satelliteinasupernova.tumblr.com/post/621315020004917248/love-them-always

Heero/Relena

Photosets/Gifsets/Screenshots/Manga Pages:

@scope-dogg

https://scope-dogg.tumblr.com/post/621435979025219584

Wing Gundam

@studentmyself

https://studentmyself.tumblr.com/post/621148898785968128

Deathscythe & Sandrock, gif

@zaganthi

https://zaganthi.tumblr.com/post/621226327135191040/mobile-suit-gundam-wing-episode-8-the-treize

Episode 8 -Treize Khushrenada

Head Canons:

@disturbed02girl

https://disturbed02girl.tumblr.com/post/621443303365328896/for-working-out-duos-favorite-is-parkour-with

GW Fashion: Duo Maxwell

@soloismyspiritanimal (why? why do you hate me tumblr?)

https://soloismyspiritanimal.tumblr.com/post/620927901600251904/animal-addiction-love-the-cat-is-wearing-flowery

Duo has found Howard’s cat.

Fandom Discourse:

@posthumanwanderings

https://posthumanwanderings.tumblr.com/post/620869099757699073/toonami-various-1999-2000-bumps-intros

Nostalgia

@wildandrecklesswings

https://lifeaftermeteor.tumblr.com/post/621035435055054848/janaverse-bettertasting-bettertasting

Noin and Sally talking to Duo, comments on Trowa and Heero.

@bettertasting, @janaverse

Quotes:

@fubuki-shiro

https://fubuki-shiro.tumblr.com/post/617535170963275776/it-was-funny-so-i-decided-to-actually-make-a-group

The boys have a “conversation”... >_>, group chat visual

@incorrectgundamwingquotes

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/621209238048587776/duo-if-you-put-violently-in-front-of-anything

Duo, WuFei, Trowa, Quatre, & Heero

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/621469729695170560/trowa-you-look-like-a-corpse-we-just-pulled-out

Trowa & Duo

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/620926115332128768/quatre-dont-worry-im-fine-trowa-you-got

Quatre & Trowa

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/621028054907731968/noin-what-is-your-guys-job-gundam-pilots

Noin & the boys.

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/621299944612102144/noin-accept-your-flaws-youll-feel-better-it

Noin & Zechs

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/621330770141855744/lemontrash-incorrectgundamwingquotes-wufei

WuFei, Duo, Trowa, & Dorthy

Dorthy added by @lemontrash

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/621330544523935744/incorrectgundamwingquotes-hilde-whats-your

Noin & Duo

Added sentiment from @cynfinnegan

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/621330247230554112/cuteciboulette-incorrectgundamwingquotes

Heero & Duo

@cuteciboulette

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/621390450132205568/should-i-get-my-life-together-or-should-i-just

Duo

Calendar Events:

@gwcocktailfriday

Cocktail Fridays!

Post responses on Friday, during Happy Hour between 3 & 5 pm in your own timezone.

Here’s the prompt for Friday, June 26th! https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/post/621450808118198272/cocktail-friday-post-responses-on-friday-june

In need of SUMMER & FALL/AUTUMN prompts!

@gwoc-october

GW OC October 2020!

Help pick out prompts!

https://gwoc-october.tumblr.com/post/621130082429337600/hello-gundam-wing-folks-thats-right-gw-oc

@seasons-of-gundamwing

Seasonal Prompt Theme Voting

Please come VOTE! https://seasons-of-gundamwing.tumblr.com/post/620930486691397632/summer-fun-voting

@thisweekingundamevents

Events Calendar

https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/190594884250/events-calendar-update

If you are hosting an event currently, or are planning on one, hit us up with links and dates! We’ll add them to the Calendar and reblog your notices to get the word out!

@wingqueero

Gundam Wing Pride Party 2020

https://wingqueero.tumblr.com/post/621458379862310912/its-finally-here-happy-pride-2020-gundam-wing

[youeggbastard]

Oc Questionnaire (Again)

Now it’s Jens turn. 

Once Again thank you so much @jessaryss​ for this awesome template you’re the bees knees! ❤❤❤

Iphigenia 

BASICS

Name: Iphigenia ( Iph·​i·​ge·​nia )but better known as just Jen very few people are allowed to know her full name

Race: Imperial

Age: 25

Pronouns: She/Her

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Black

Skin: Pale... she needs to tan more

Height: 5′6

Weight: 143

General Physique: A little more on the curvy side

Tattoos, WarPaints & Scars? None yet but I’m still working on character design

ABOUT

Dragonborn: YES / NO

Werewolf/Bear or Vampire? None

Occupation: Best described as a spell sword for hire, but really she’s just a wandering necromancer for hire. 

Guild Association(s): Used to be a Vigilant of Stendarr, it didn’t end well though. 

Favoured Weapon Class / Type: Duel Wielding One handed, primarily only bound swords. 

Favoured School of Magic / Type: It’s a tie between Destruction and Conjuration. 

Heavy Armor? Light Armor? Robes? Robes

Place of Birth: Cyrodiil

Place Where They Were Raised: Same place up until she was 12 years old, then she came to Skyrim. 

Current Location: Skyrim

Education / Place of Study: No formal education really, her father and his “friends” cult taught her conjuration, or more specifically necromancy, and then when she joined the Vigilants she learned a great deal of restoration magic as well as some destruction. The rest she’s taught herself, so no doubt her magic style would make classically trained mages cringe.

Any Teachers / Inspirations? Pretty much all her teachers and inspirations have let her down in one way or another. 

PERSONAL

Patron Deity (if any): Used to be Stendarr until he abandoned her, now she doesn’t associate herself with gods.

Political Alliance (if any): Despite being Imperial Jen doesn’t have any loyalty to the Empire and she does sympathize with the Stormcloaks cause, but it’s kind of hard to fully sympathize with them when they hate her. So, her political alliance is closer to the common people, the ones who are actually suffering from the war.

Strongest Skills: She’s deadly with destruction magic, mainly lighting and she has always had a knack for Necromancy though that’s more of a curse than a blessing. 

Strengths: Clever, strategist, She can be downright ruthless in battle, fearless, stubborn, will continue fighting until the end. 

Weaknesses: Her fearlessness often leads to recklessness, doesn’t really have survival skills, more often than not her emotions control her rather than vice versa.

Spouses? Flings? Lovers? Jen is pretty sex positive, she’s had a couple of flings here and there but only with people she actually trusts, so friends with benefit situations mostly, she’s not one to have a one night stand or hatefuck, but she’s always kept them at arms lengths and the minute feelings start she scatters. In her entire life she’s only be in love twice, once with her partner in the Vigilants who ended up betraying her and she ended up killing him, and then with Kaidan who she eventually marries. 

Thaneship (and of where?) Whiterun, Riften, and somehow Morthal though she’s not entirely sure how she became Thane of any of those holds. 

Most Difficult Quest They’ve Been On? Pretty much any of the quests from the Vigilant Mod, the one where she had to fight Lamae fucked her up emotionally. 

Jail Time? No she’s too streetwise.

Largest Bounty Held? The vigilants have a pretty large bounty on her head, but I don’t think that counts.

How Much Gold Are They Typically Carrying? Anywhere from 2 to 20000 Septims

How Do They Get Gold? Primarily through necromancy jobs, a lot of people will hire her for help getting rids of spirits, ghosts, etc... But Jen isn’t good at charging or saying no to people in need, so most of her income comes from overcharging rich people and jarls.

Are Werebeings and Vampires Vile Creatures or Simply Misunderstood? If you asked her this a couple of years ago she would have said, yes they are vile and need to be eradicated. Now that she’s no longer a vigilant and not under the influence of them she has a different opinion. Now she realizes the line between man and monster is a lot more blurred, now she sees herself more as the monster after all she’s done in the name of Justice. 

Do They Actively Hunt Dragons? Not really, they hunt her more often than not. 

Goals In Life? Help as many people as she can and hopefully do some good for once.

Deepest Regret? Killing innocent people under the guise of Stendarr’s mercy, and not being able to save Altano before it was too late.

Greatest Hope? She would never say this but she desperately wants a family. She craves the unconditional love that she has searched for all her life and was instead betrayed and her love used against her. 

Most Embarrassing Moment: She has screamed more than once encountering spiders. 

Flaws: Stubborn, hot headed, unforgiving, judgmental, isn’t very good at controlling her emotions which isn’t exactly good thing for a mage or a dragonborn, proud. 

Fears: Spiders and all other kinds of creepy crawlers especially things with more than two legs, betrayal, the dead (especially the ones that haunt her nightmares).

What Makes Them Happy? Flowers, the stars, the quiet nights, helping others, her friends, baths. 

Hobbies: She’s actually an avid horseback rider, if her life had been normal she probably would have owned a stables, collecting flowers and creating new spells as well. 

Favorite Locations: She loves Riverwood and the area surrounding it, it helps that the people of Riverwood actually like her. 

Favorite Holds: Falkreath 

Eating Habits? She’s not very picky.

Can They Cook? She can, though she doesn’t have much time to make gourmet meals, so she really just cooks enough to get by. 

Favorite Food: She loves tomato soup, it reminds her of her childhood, before her parents went crazy. 

Favorite Drink: Wine

First Thing They Do At A Tavern? Take a bath

Sleeping Habits? Very sporadic, sometimes she won’t get sleep for days, other times she will sleep 12 hours at a time. God help anyone that tries to wake her up, she’s a graceful riser.

Cities or the wilds? Both, she likes people watching and being near civilization, but she also loves the outdoors, being under the night sky, fields of flowers etc.

Pet Peeves? Being talked over, being bossed around (specifically by men)rich people just fucking existing. 

Describe Their Bedroom or Home There would also be fresh flowers in a vase, as well as lavender hanging from the roof. It would be very clean, unless she’s working of magic study of a new spell than it’s a complete mess.

How Would A Stranger Describe This Person? She’s got a bad case of Resting Bitch face, comes across as very cold and distant, just an unfeeling bitch.

Someone Close To Them? The opposite of that. She cares so much for her friends and will go to the ends of the Earth for them, it’s that quality that has gotten her in a lot of trouble. She helps whoever she can and has the worst case of bleeding heart syndrome. . 

How Do They Deal With Anger? Jen is a hot head, and when she does get angry she can be cruel and unrelenting. But luckily her anger fizzles out pretty quickly especially if she knows she wrong, so she will apologize and make things right if it’s someone she loves. But if you’re in the wrong, it’s gonna be hard to get her forgiveness back. 

How Do They Deal With Failure? She can take it hard, she’ll probably get moody and lash out, but deep down knows she’s really just angry with herself, eventually she cols off and learns from her mistakes and swears to not make them again. 

How Do They Deal With Loss of a friend or someone close? Jen’s friends are everything to her so losing them would wreck her, she wouldn’t be able to sleep or eat, or probably even let them go that easily, she would storm the gods if it meant saving someone she loved

Go Into The Bandit Filled Cave To Retrieve The Lost Amulet For Some Simpleton, or Tell Them Nah Bye? Depends is it someone desperate and downtrodden who couldn’t do it themselves? Yes. Someone entirely capable  of doing it themselves? probably not then, but all you really need to do is make up a sob story to appeal to her bleeding heart. 

Opinions on Daedra? She isn’t a vigilant anymore but she still knows Daedra are always a bad idea and would probably never side with them or trust them. Molag Bal though, she would storm Coldharbour just to kill him, she would find a way to kill daedra just to kill him. 

Companions / Followers

First Follower: Gorr (3DNPC)

Have They Stuck Around? Not really, they had a bit of a fling and Jen scattered. 

Something The Look For In A Follower (or do they hire anyone without question?) Someone who she trusts and won’t get annoyed by her gentle mothering as well as her need to save everyone and everything. But really trust is a huge thing, she would die for her friends so she needs someone who won’t betray that trust.

Followers Over The Years (or whatever amount of time): In This order

Gorr (3DNPC) (2 Months)

Mercutio (1 Month)

Mjoll the Lioness (5 Months) 

Kaidan (Still Present)

Auri (Still Present)

Serana (Still Present)

Lucien (Still Present)

Funny enough the first three were people she’s had flings with who she ended up leaving once feelings got in the way. I mean Kai is also part of that group, but she actually stayed for him, obviously. 

Fourth Wall

Any Must Have Mods To Play This Character? Vigilant, Apocalypse, and then all the followers mods mentioned above. 

Random Screenshot / Drawing: See Way Above

Level? 34 as of right now

Serious RP or Thomas The Tank Engine Dragons, Fart Shouts, and Kawaii Cat Girl Mods? Serious so far, but I’ve only had one gameplay of her and I’m still working on it there might be some tank engine dragons in her future who knows. 

[aion-rsa]

The Best Games of 2020

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

Despite how almost every other aspect of the year went, 2020 was a landmark year for video games. Not only did it see the release of highly-anticipated titles like The Last of Us Part II, Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Ghost of Tsushima, and Cyberpunk 2077, but 2020 also marked the beginning of a new generation of console and PC gaming with the release of the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and new GPUs from NVIDIA and AMD. We even got a new Half-Life game this year!

What would’ve made the gaming year ever better? Big-name video game companies could have done more to eliminate development crunch and be more transparent about their business practices with customers and the press. And we definitely could have all been nicer to each other.

But video games also helped keep us connected when we couldn’t see our friends and loved ones in person. They helped us travel to new and interesting places when we couldn’t leave our homes. Most importantly, all 20 games on our best-of-the-year list made us feel excited about this medium at a time when it was so difficult to enjoy anything else.

To that affect, Den of Geek is celebrating 20 video games our contributors and critics, as well as our community of readers, voted as the very best of 2020.

20. Star Wars: Squadrons

For the last decade or so, most Star Wars games have focused on the power fantasy of being a lightsaber-swinging, Force-wielding Jedi. That’s all well and good, but for a long time it seemed like everyone forgot that some of the most beloved Star Wars games of all time were actually space shooters like X-Wing vs. TIE Fighter and Rogue Squadron. In many ways, Star Wars: Squadrons is a throwback to those games, both in terms of gameplay and design. Controls are a pitch perfect mix of arcade simplicity and strategy, requiring quick thinking about whether to focus your ship’s power on attacking or defending.

Squadrons is also much more tightly focused than other recent games from large publishers, with a breezy yet enjoyable single-player campaign, and a multiplayer mode that, while light on modes, eschews the more annoying modern conventions of the online PvP like invasive microtransactions. But Squadrons is not stuck in its old school ways.

If you have the hardware for it on PC or PS4, you can jump into the cockpit of any of the playable ships for one one of the most immersive VR modes around. Similar to how The Mandalorian has rejuvenated the live-action side of the Star Wars media empire, Squadrons is a perfect mix of all of the best things we’ve always loved about Star Wars video games, and everything we want them to be going forward.  – CF

19. Journey to the Savage Planet

Science fiction writers have long held on to this idea that, if and when humankind eventually colonizes the universe, it will do so as some sort of united, utopian entity, like Starfleet. But that future seems less and less likely every day. If and when humanity spreads across the stars, it will likely be messy, absurd, and profit-motivated. Journey to the Savage Planet wallows in that type of future. As an unnamed human (or dog, if you choose), you’re dropped onto the planet AR-Y26 by Kindred, the fourth biggest intergalactic exploration company with the simple goal of collecting as many resources as possible and leaving.

The Metroidvania gameplay loop of crafting equipment to access new areas is compelling, a rarity for 3D games in the genre. And it offers plenty of surprises too. You’ll start off with the typical blaster and scanner before eventually unlocking a grappling hook that lets you swing around levels like Spider-Man. But it’s style that ultimately lifts Journey to the Savage Planet above so many other games released in 2020. For one thing, the world and the fauna you’ll encounter are incredibly unique, and well, alien. And the regular live-action updates from Kindred beamed directly to your ship are among some of the funniest and most bizarre cinematics out this year in any game, providing plenty of motivation to see this journey through to its end. – CF

18. Half-Life: Alyx

As VR gaming continues to evolve, it’s becoming clear that the technology is more than just one truly great game away from widespread adoption. If that were all it took, then Half-Life: Alyx would have put a VR set under a lot of Christmas trees. 

It’s truly wild to think that we got a new Half-Life game this year and that it sometimes feels like the game’s release was barely a blip on the cultural radar. While its somewhat muted debut can be attributed to its VR exclusivity (and the fact it launched at the onset of a global health crisis), Half-Life: Alyx surpassed all possible hype by offering a truly incredibly narrative-driven adventure bolstered by some of the cleverest uses of VR technology that we’ve ever seen.

Half-Life: Alyx isn’t the first great VR game, but Valve’s glorious return to form does shows how VR can advance fundamental elements of gameplay and storytelling rather than just show familiar games from a new perspective. – MB

17. Carrion

The indie game space is where you typically see the most experimentation, and this year proved no different when the gruesome and morbid Carrion released back in July. Highly inspired by the likes of John Carpenter’s The Thing, Alien, and other cult classic horror films known for their excellent use of practical SFX, this platformer cleverly flips the script, putting you in the role of the monster to dispatch helpless scientists in the claustrophobic depths of an underground lab as an ever-growing amorphous blob creature. What follows is a brief but effective 2D platformer that is fast paced and delectably gory.

The controls could have made controlling the creature a real pain, but Phobia Game Studio recognized that the key here was letting you move swiftly through the levels. As such, gliding through vents to take down scientists from above or underneath quickly becomes second nature. Encounters still pose a good degree of challenge, however, thanks to the heavily armed soldiers that show up later in the game, but this never stops Carrion from fulfilling every horror aficionado’s devilish fantasy of being the bloodthirsty monster. – AP

16. Kentucky Route Zero

Calling Kentucky Route Zero an homage to classic point-and-click adventure games is technically correct, but it doesn’t come close to doing the experience justice. Kentucky Route Zero is more like a poem or fable in video game form. It’s a feeling, a distillation of what it’s like to come of age in the Great Recession and its fallout over the last decade. Kentucky Route Zero is an epithet for rural America told through a fever dream, an examination of a version of rural Appalachia where talking skeletons and robotic musicians live alongside gas station attendants and truck drivers.

Nothing about Kentucky Route Zero fits the typical confines of what we expect from a video game, and that includes its release. Developed by a team of only three, the first episode of the five-episode experience was released in 2013, but the final product was only realized in early 2020. That lengthy development cycle meant that the game’s scope and story could grow to only better encapsulate this moment in time, and the final product stands out as one of best games of the year. To say more is to spoil its excellent story. – CF

15. Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2

Though it’s been a hot minute since skateboarding games dominated the console space, Vicarious Visions’ excellent remake collection of the first two Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater titles was a reminder of how the entire series captured a whole generation of players in the late ’90s and early ’00s. Whether it’s grinding down rails, performing kickflips, or landing the gravity-defying 1080 on a vert ramp, everything in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 feels and looks exactly as you remember it but touched up with modern flare. That’s the mark of any great remake, and why this game in particular was the best example of the practice this year.

Classic skating locations like Warehouse, School and Downtown have all been faithfully remade from the ground up for a 21st century audience, effortlessly delivering the same thrills and balanced challenge as they did before. The fact that select mechanical features like reverts, which wouldn’t arrive until later entries, have been retroactively added is also a nice touch, instantly making Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1+2 the definitive way to experience these skateboarding classics. – AP

14. Ori and the Will of the Wisps

The fact that Ori and the Will of the Wisps managed to usurp the critically acclaimed 2015 original in most design aspects speaks to just how well Moon Studios has mastered the art of the Metroidvania. Whisking players off on another tight 10-hour journey set within a mystical forest full of secrets to discover, this 2D adventure gives off a fantastical vibe in a way few others do. It’s an expert blend between smart combat mechanics, highly polished platforming, and emotional storytelling. That it runs at a silky 60 fps both on Nintendo Switch and Xbox is the cherry on top.

The major improvements Will of the Wisps makes over Blind Forest relate to saving and combat. Whereas previously it was the responsibility of players to lay down specific checkpoints, progress is now more in line with other 2D platformers and less punishing. Combat, meanwhile, has been completely revamped with the inclusion of special charms and upgradeable skills, most of which result in more flexible enemy encounters. These tweaks are implemented without ever compromising on Ori’s core hook of magical exploration and challenging platforming, instantly making it one of the best Metroidvanias out there. – AP

13. Call of Duty: Warzone

Call of Duty: Warzone was a natural and perhaps even necessary evolution for the long-running shooter franchise, carving out a space for it in the ever-crowding battle royale genre. While it’s largely derivative of battle royale titles that came before, the staggering 150-player count, always excellent CoD controls, top-notch presentation, and flexible cash system have made it eminently popular and fun for casual players and series vets alike. The CoD fan base feels vibrant again after years of stagnation in the shadow of breakout titles like PUBG and Fortnite, and that’s without going into how Warzone has revitalized the franchise’s presence in the streaming space.

One of the best facets of the game’s design is that the large player count all but ensures that, even if a player is new to the genre or series, the chances of them being the absolute worst player in the field is very low. Better still, the “Gulag” respawn mechanic opens up the possibility for ultimate revenge should you earn your way back into the match, which is a nice way to up engagement for those who suffer disappointing deaths.

The game doesn’t feel quite as dynamic or high-stakes as some of its competitors on the market, but it’s definitely one of the easiest to pick up and play. It’s no wonder Warzone has expanded CoD’s already enormous audience over the course of 2020. �� BB

12. Astro’s Playroom

With launch lineups mostly filled with graphically enhanced releases of last-gen games, the release of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X has been more than a little underwhelming. The one bright spot is Astro’s Playroom, a little first-party Sony game that received virtually no pre-release hype and comes pre-installed on every PS5.

While at first glance a typical 3D platformer, Astro’s Playroom soon reveals itself to be a fantastic showcase of what’s possible with the new DualSense controller. In one level, you’re feeling the resistance from the controller’s adaptive triggers as you spring jump through obstacles dressed as a frog. In another, you’re expertly moving the controller back and forth to climb walls in a robotic monkey suit. Even just standing in the rain causes the controller to pulse ever so slightly with each drop. And all of this takes place across worlds celebrating the entire history of PlayStation, where you collect classic consoles and accessories, culminating in an unexpected boss battle throwback to an original PSX tech demo.

Astro’s Playroom may be short, but it’s an oh so sweet and exciting taste of what’s possible with the power of next-gen consoles. – CF

11. Doom Eternal

It would have been easy for Doom Eternal to be more of the same. After all, 2016’s Doom became the surprising gold-standard for single-player FPS games by virtue of its clever writing and gameplay that blended the best of classic and modern design concepts. Yet, Doom Eternal proved to be something much more than “the same but bigger.”

With its arena-like levels and resource management mechanics, Doom Eternal sometimes feels like a puzzle game set in the Doom universe. While the transition to this new style can be jarring, you soon find that Doom Eternal is speaking the same language in a different dialect. The brutal brilliance of a classic Doom game remains but it’s presented in the form of a kind of FPS dance that puts you in a state of pure zen once you figure out how to make that perfect run through a room full of demonic baddies. 

Four years after Doom showed this old franchise could pull off new tricks, Doom Eternal proves that this series is at the forefront of FPS innovation once more. – MB

10. Demon’s Souls

Although initially released in 2009 for the PlayStation 3, Demon’s Souls would help define the next generation of gaming by establishing the Soulslike genre, which has influenced everything from recent Star Wars games to The Legend of Zelda. The “problem” is that the legacy of Demon’s Souls has been sort of eclipsed by the accomplishments of its successors.

That’s the beauty of the remake for the PS5. Aided by the power of the console’s next-gen hardware, developer Bluepoint Games pays homage to one of the most historically significant games of the last 15 years while wisely updating it in ways that show that the foundation of FromSoftware’s breakthrough hit remains arguably the best entry in a genre that isn’t exactly lacking in modern classics. 

In a year where finding a next-gen console proved to be more difficult than any Soulslike game, Demon’s Souls remains the best reason to battle the bots at online stores in the hopes of joining gaming’s next generation as soon as possible. – MB

9. Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout

There were multiple times this year where couped-up players relied heavily on “bean” games to help maintain a human connection. Before Among Us dominated the Twitch streams, it was Mediatonic’s intentionally clumsy and hilarious Fall Guys: Ultimate Knockout that had us competitively raging with our friends. It did so by merging the wildly popular battle royale genre with the inflatable-fueled antics of early ’90s game shows, where dodging swinging hammers and battling giant fruit against 59 others became the norm for a few weeks – all in the pursuit of winning a highly coveted crown.

Needless to say, making Fall Guys free to PS Plus subscribers for a month turned out to be a genius marketing move, urging everyone to hop into the game’s inventive gamut of levels and make a fool of themselves. Much of what sets it apart from other battle royale attempts is its low-skill barrier to entry, and thanks to frequent seasonal updates, new unlockable outfits and fresh mini-games always being added, bumbling to the top of the pack as a colorful bean remains consistent fun. – AP

8. Animal Crossing: New Horizons

It’s not an exaggeration to say that Animal Crossing: New Horizons should be included in history books about the Covid-19 pandemic. Releasing just as lockdowns were being instituted across the globe, New Horizons provided the escapism we so desperately needed while quarantining, attracting not just the usual Nintendo fanbase, but even those who had never played games in the past but were now looking for something to occupy their time at home. Whether we played it with friends or alone, New Horizons provided the routine and distraction that so many of us needed in a world suddenly thrown into chaos.

Of course, it helped that New Horizons is the best Animal Crossing game to date, with tons of new ways to customize your island (and yourself). And as Covid-19 restrictions have stretched much longer than many of us anticipated, New Horizons has kept pace, with Nintendo releasing a steady stream of new fish to catch, fruits to harvest, and events to participate in throughout the year. It may not be the game that everyone wanted, but New Horizons is the game that 2020 needed. – CF

7. Cyberpunk 2077

When Cyberpunk 2077’s legacy is written, there’s no doubt that the opening chapter is going to focus on the bugs, technical shortcomings, and empty promises that have turned what looked to be one of 2020’s guaranteed hits into one of modern gaming’s most debated debuts. 

Yet, the reason that this game’s initial issues will likely not ultimately define it is that Cyberpunk 2077 reveals itself to be a special experience whenever you’re able to play it without crashes or bugs ruining your experience. From its stunning side quests that revive one of The Witcher 3’s best elements to its shockingly human narrative, Cyberpunk 2077 regularly showcases the undeniable talent of the individuals who battled internal and external factors to deliver their vision. 

Cyberpunk 2077’s technical problems wouldn’t hurt as much as they do if there wasn’t a truly great game at the heart of them that people are begging to be able to play as intended. – MB

6. Final Fantasy VII Remake

The pressure was on for Square Enix from the moment it announced Final Fantasy VII Remake back in 2015. For those who obsessed over the original back in 1997, the prospect of a remake was the stuff dreams were made of, and this year we finally got to relive Cloud, Aerith, Barret, and Tifa’s grand adventure (the first act of it, at least) with fully updated, well, everything. Astonishingly, the remake actually lived up to expectations and delivered not just a faithful update to the original game but a modern RPG that stands as one of its generation’s best regardless of nostalgia.

The key to Square Enix’s success was its approach, which aimed not to duplicate the experience of the original game, but to capture the essence and spirit of it while using modern game design to deliver the story in a way that doesn’t feel retro or rehashed at all. The game looks dazzling by 2020 standards (Midgar never looked better) but doesn’t compromise the integrity of the original designs, and the real-time combat—arguably the biggest departure from the original—is a blast to play.

Time will tell how exactly Square Enix will follow through with the rest of the remake as we enter a new console generation, but in the meantime, they studio has left us with a terrific reimagining of the most celebrated title in the studio’s expansive oeuvre. – BB

5. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla

Ubisoft deserves credit for keeping a franchise like Assassin’s Creed, which is 13 years old at this point, thriving in an industry that is flooded with more open world games now than it ever has been. The series is always competitive in the genre, and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla proves why: it’s as refined as any of its predecessors and delivers a balanced experience with a rich world to explore, tons of strange stories to uncover, and a mash-up milieu that combines the eerie atmosphere of 5th-century England with the otherworldly spectacle of Norse mythology.

No open world game is perfect, and Valhalla certainly has a handful of shortcomings. But it’s a bloody good time to play, and there’s so much to do that there’s no question that you get your money’s worth. Eivor’s quest for glory and domination is also arguably the most cinematic story in the entire AC catalog, with some truly breathtaking cutscenes that rival those found in more linear games that can’t sniff Valhalla’s scope. Some of the more otherworldly moments in the back half of the game are pure, unadulterated, nonsensical fun, and overall, this is one of the best entries in the series. – BB

4. Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Insomniac is one of those studios that you can always rely on to deliver fun, polished games that shine in every category, and Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales only adds to the team’s sterling reputation. Building on the already brilliant formula the studio created with the original Marvel’s Spider-Man, Miles’s story is one of loss, friendship, identity, and the strength of the Black and Hispanic communities of Harlem.

The side-quel is also one of the best launch titles arguably ever. While it is a cross-gen game, the PS5 version is currently the best showcase of what next-gen gaming is capable of from a visual and performance standpoint. You won’t find a better-looking New York City in any other video game, period, and Insomniac’s outstanding animation work looks insanely good when bolstered by the PS5’s considerable horsepower. Miles plays differently than Peter Parker did in the original game as well, with his Venom Powers giving enemy encounters a new feel and rhythm.

Insomniac outdid itself with an excellent follow-up that would’ve been a forgettable DLC expansion in the hands of a less ambitious studio. But Miles Morales is one of the best modern-day superhero characters ever created, and it’s only right that he get a game that lives up to his greatness. – BB

3. Hades

The popularity of roguelikes has been calmly bubbling up for years now, yet only in 2020 did it truly become mainstream thanks to an ideal balance between gameplay and story as demonstrated by Hades. Players who previously took umbrage with the genre’s nature to wipe out all progress at each run’s end suddenly had a reason to jump back in, now inspired by Zagreus’ various tries to escape hell and overthrow his eponymous father. This alone sees Hades tower over most of its peers in terms of balance, further backed up by rewarding gameplay and a gorgeous comic book art style that makes the well-worn mythological Greek milieu feel fresh.

Developer Supergiant Games proved its penchant for creating flexible mechanical loops in prior titles, and in many ways, Hades feels like a culmination of all those ideas distilled in one neat package. It’s a great example of semi-randomized systems layering perfectly on top of other systems, until players eventually find themselves completing runs using distinct weapons, upgrading persistent abilities and slowly discovering which of the god’s many boons gel best with one another. Hades is always a hellishly good time. – AP

2. Ghost of Tsushima

The concept of honor has never been explored in a game as lyrically and philosophically as it is in Ghost of Tsushima, Sucker Punch’s story-driven samurai epic. Jin Sakai’s grand adventure is both brutal and beautiful, stretching across the grasslands and snowy peaks of the titular island, as he pushes the oppressive Mongol army out of his homeland, all the while wrestling internally with the kind of man, warrior, and leader he ultimately wants to be.

This game is outstanding on so many fronts that it’s difficult to list them all here. Visually, it looks so stunning that anyone who walks past your TV as you play is all but guaranteed to stop and stare for a while. The combat is fast and challenging, the stealth mechanic is on-point, the score is sweeping and sentimental, the character models are incredibly realistic, the online multiplayer mode “Legends” is actually a blast to play…and the list goes on. This poetic, pitch-perfect modern masterpiece is emblematic of the soulful, cinematic storytelling PlayStation Studios is known for, and it’s a wonderful way to send the PS4 off into the sunset. – BB

1. The Last of Us Part II (Also Reader’s Choice)

You can’t even say the name of our 2020 game of the year without sparking numerous debates that often make it nearly impossible to have a productive conversation about the game itself. That makes it that much more tempting to somehow find a kind of middle-ground that will “justify” the game’s lofty position to everyone regardless of where they stand. 

The thing about The Last of Us Part 2,though, is that its divisiveness is very much part of the experience. Naughty Dog’s follow-up to arguably its greatest game is a bold attempt to live up to the franchise’s legacy by furthering what came before while trying to find its own way. Much like Ellie herself, The Last of Us Part 2 doesn’t always make the right decisions. Yet, at a time when bigger budgets are seen as an excuse to play it safe, The Last of Us Part 2 impresses through its willingness to present a big, bold, and personal adventure that is often anything but what was expected. 

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Anyone can generate a little controversy by saying something stupid, offensive, or hurtful. The beauty of The Last of Us Part 2’s controversy is that it stems from a heartfelt attempt to advance the conversation through indie-like passion and big budget production. – MB

The post The Best Games of 2020 appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2KKY9QG