#to be fair the meta aspect of the game is still there it’s just kinda severely sidelined in favor of the ‘this game is evil’ plot

[evanatsuhi]

i’m so sad that i have to add i/nscryption to my list of games with missed potential bc i think it’s a genuinely good game it’s just that the dev fucked it all up with the stupid arg 😭😭

[ferusaurelius]

Mass Effect Universe Meta - 1

I suppose I should call this ‘mass effect critical’ but it’s really more a meditation on the questions that the series poses and the ones it chooses to ignore ... with a focus on ‘choice-based’ narrative, character-driven storylines, and geopolitical philosophy. 

If any of the above annoys you, I’d recommend not hitting the read more. This’ll probably be the first part of a series. xD

This first one is just a meditation on the choice-based narrative implementation in ME as a series. 

I’m sure I’m not saying anything someone else hasn’t already covered, in fairness, probably better or more extensively than I’m doing here ... but this is kinda where I have to begin in order to tackle my other themes.

If you just get annoyed by this sort of navel-gazing, probably best not to proceed past the cut. I’ll totally understand!

So You Want Choice-Based Story In Your AAA-Shooter

Starting with the above: much ink has been spilled on the way that gameplay implicates and frames morality. Back in the day, Mass Effect (2007) on release was stirring up controversy because it let players choose a lesbian relationship with Liara! We’ve come a long way since then. 

In some respects, Mass Effect is a product of its time and also another milestone in BioWare’s narrative portfolio. Which, before Mass Effect, included other games such as Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Worth noting is that BioWare as a development house has refined its use of morality systems and mechanics over time! We’ve seen everything from lightside/darkside sliders, to paragon/renegade, to the innovation of ‘party approval’ ratings in the Dragon Age franchise. Of note is that once BioWare establishes a canon morality or choice-rating system, those mechanics tend to remain in place or consistent throughout a particular world.

There’s a notable (and expected) departure in Mass Effect: Andromeda because the writers felt like the Paragon/Renegade system was too tied to Commander Shepard, specifically, to be used as a basis for Ryder.

What makes these game narratives so engaging from a player viewpoint will also be necessarily limited by the under-the-hood mechanics of the systems and how they are capable of responding to the player. Without a set of key markers to help the game function and implement narrative choices, and without a highly-structured narrative framework that can accommodate or reflect those choices on-screen in ways that are emotionally resonant, we get ... whatever happened with Starchild.

... but we didn’t get there all at once.

Mass Effect 1: Cosmic Horrors and You

At a very high-level read, Mass Effect 1 sets the scene for the rest of the trilogy to follow and makes very clear the stakes and the plot-related questions it’s going to tackle. In the first five minutes of the game we’re confronted with eldritch horrors from beyond the stars, the return of the geth, AND Saren Arterius killing his friend, Nihlus Kryik!

I kinda knew right about then that the game was not going to be tackling plot questions (and cultures) in ways that were interesting to me, since if they were going to do that ... it would have made more sense for Nihlus to live. I have been (politely, affectionately) boo-boo-the-clown ever since.

While I still loved the aspects of universe exploration and getting to know my human and non-human crewmembers (Ashley, Kaidan, Wrex, Tali, Garrus, and Liara), the shocking moments of Virmire where you -- and I’m pretty sure this isn’t a spoiler at this point -- have to determine who lives and who dies and it’s a scripted loss? 

Narratively powerful because you’ve spent a while getting to know both characters, but problematic from a mechanics standpoint because now you have to maintain a universe that more or less hangs together throughout the game no matter “who” you chose to survive. Death-as-choice becomes a notable proxy in Mass Effect’s storyline for morality and impact.

Mechanically, you’ll also note that a lot of “moral choices” are framed as kill/don’t kill, to various and sundry effects. Personally, I wasn’t a fan of the binary choice framework underpinning most of the game’s critical moments.

And rather than be totally critical I’ll just spotlight the one choice I DO remember: with enough paragon points, talking Saren into shooting himself before he gets reanimated as a Reaper abomination.

In fairness, I think it would’ve been nice for that moment not to be gated behind a Paragon points check, since it was a NEAT narrative flourish that I didn’t see structurally repeated in other areas in the game.

As much as I fell in love with the universe, the idea of the Protheans, and what Vigil and Ilos implied about the murky past ... I was less enamored of the Reapers as a universe-ending threat and more intrigued by the internecine conflicts between the various species of the galaxy. Other game-defining options which carried over into ME2 included whether or not to save the Council (cake or death?), who to appoint as humanity’s first Councilor (slightly less death-driven), whether or not to shoot Wrex (also cake or death).

The amount of “save or kill” decisions and the lack of other equivalents (and those that WERE provided being given less narrative weight than the life-or-death elements) clued me in to the design philosophy that what the game and the narrative would most remember about the world state was who was still alive.

On the one hand, the narrative impacts of presence or absence are obvious for the player! We know these decisions are significant. On the other hand, as you’ll see in my description of ME2, this design choice did start to paint the team into a corner.

Mass Effect 2: About That Suicide Mission

Much as I loved the new squadmates for ME2 and the overall pacing of the story, as well as the interim character development for each former squad member, the clue that most of this was going to happen off-screen or not at all was that these developments occurred while Shepard was not present -- conveniently killed by the Collectors.

Again, this was my hint that this story was going to focus on different questions!

Cerberus, who played the role of minor mooks in the first game, were upgraded to a level of influence that would be a conspiracy-theorist’s dream. One of my personal soapbox “dead dove: do not eat” elements is “but the conspiracies were REAL!” So this was honestly my bad.

Favorite moments in this game included getting to know new squad members, reuniting with old characters (including Wrex! and Grunt, who has one of my favorite arcs in the game alongside Garrus). YMMV about which characters and squadmates you connected with the most/least, but we can all agree that The Suicide Mission was Certainly A Choice.

With that said, it’s possible for no-one to survive and to avoid recruiting the new squaddies. Because choices, remember?

Unfortunately this also has the impact of “kill/save” being, once again, the primary impactful narrative game mechanic. 

One can forgive the developers and narrative designers for getting a little tired at this point, because we’re not sure who survived or how much narrative content we’re going to have to adapt to another totally new character in the third act, based on who survives The Suicide Mission. Which does rather put a crimp in the amount of relational development we can presuppose in the third game.

One gets the idea that Liara was the favorite child in part because she is more or less impossible to kill. She will survive all the games no matter what choices you make, unless that choice is getting killed by Harbinger’s laser beam at the very end of ME3 and failing the game.

Small wonder that, in many respects, one of the ways the game develops Liara’s character is actually taking away player choice to avoid having to do an “impactful kill/save” option that would otherwise render her permanently inaccessible to the narrative.

Mass Effect 3: Enter the Starchild

So, what are we to make of the “kill/save” and “presence/absence” dynamic as the most narratively impactful and important? Ironically, these choices have impact only insofar as they determine what resources and relationships your Commander Shepard has access to in the game. The narrative does not so much branch as continue on, with slightly different details, depending on who you saved or recruited.

There will still BE a Tuchanka mission with or without Mordin or Wrex, and you will still conquer the Reaper capital ship alongside Kalros, the mother of all thresher maws (which is a pretty cool moment, let’s be real).

From a narrative design standpoint, these moments are what’s absolutely critical to a functioning storyline -- the character-development bits are secondary, as they must be in a game where the suicide mission can deplete your squad so thoroughly that nobody is left.

I won’t spend too much time on the original choice to lock Javik behind a DLC gate, but that’s another unfortunate choice that limited the baked-in narrative options for the third installment of the game.

Outside of the Commander-Shepard-Driven set pieces on each world, at this point, character relationships were more the icing on the cake than the narrative bedrock, something as a consequence of deciding early in design that killing characters is the clearest way to communicate narrative impact.

However, the other side of this choice, is that killing off characters when you have no narrative attachment to them and no stake in that sacrifice, ends up having progressively less and less impact, even in a AAA-shooter where the whole point is to reduce endless waves of mooks into a fine mist...

... which is where Starchild comes in.

Commander Shepard is locked into a final color-coded narrative choice of who to kill and who to save. That’s the narrative’s way of making sure you know that the choice is important -- because, without that design choice, there’s really no other established way for the game to communicate significance.

Which is a tragedy in and of itself. So many other moments are often significant or meaningful ... and I really think the choice to go with life-and-death as the biggest, baddest, most narratively-supportive element is what essentially painted the team into this final corner.

If You’re So Smart, What Would You Do?

This is easy, since it’s ultimately what BioWare and its narrative designers decided to implement in its next games: party-based approval and relationship systems that operated separately from a Paragon/Renegade personal scale.

Yeah, yeah, a cop-out. I know. Essentially, this is just external evidence that the narrative designers learned from the limitations they encountered in the Mass Effect universe and applied those lessons to their Dragon Age games.

Which again is not to say that I’ve seen concrete evidence of leaning LESS into the “kill/save” dynamic as impactful (remember the Witherfang quest in DA:O?). But it’s the thought that counts!

Branching out to other choices being signaled and framed as impactful is a key to choice-based game design and storytelling being able to incorporate character-driven narrative alongside the raw individual plot.

While this ultimately didn’t happen in Mass Effect, I am interested to see how the mechanics will be implemented in DA4 to detail and interweave other motives and questions into that storyline.

That’s What Fanfiction is For

Watching the canon Mass Effect universe default to “kill/save” decisions as the framing morality structure is pretty much why I write fanfiction designed to fill in and detail out the other blank spaces in background and backstory, and to imagine what other questions might have arisen in a more flexible approach that would not have been possible before the relevant lessons for narrative design were learned in these games.

My motivation as a writer is to expand in areas that were dropped because they wouldn’t make the cut in a AAA-shooter on a protagonist-driven schedule.

For the same reason that narrative significance eluded the final “controversial” ending of the series, I find that there are enough other aspects of character-driven plot and geopolitical philosophy that remain interesting (and implied-if-you-squint by the codex material) to keep me sufficiently occupied for a number of WIP fanfics. ;)

Which, in the end, is more a testament to the strength of the central thesis of the game (what if humanity is the new kid on the block in a galaxy full of advanced alien species?) rather than the questions the narrative ultimately chose to center.

-Ferus, out.

[clockworksteel]

So I was half joking the other day when I mentioned the possibility of writing a post about the distinctions between "Roguelike" and "Roguelite" but I actually want to write that post so here goes. Rather than providing a definitive answer for what the difference is, it seems more practical to discuss the common opinions and usages you're likely to encounter. Like all debates about definitions, rather saying one way is correct, I think it's more important to recognize what someone else might mean so you can understand what they're trying to communicate. In this essay I will

discuss 4 general perspectives I've noticed regarding the distinction between these two genres.

1. Trying to use The Berlin Interpretation The Berlin Interpretation refers to a set of factors that a group of players and developers (who, according to Wikipedia and its sources were "at the International Roguelike Development Conference 2008 held in Berlin, Germany") decided were related to a game being a roguelike, which would be useful for say, explaining the difference between Diablo and Angband (or if you don't want to just point and go "they're obviously different", the difference between Rogue and Super Mario World). These factors were based on "five canon roguelike games: ADOM, Angband, Linley's Dungeon Crawl, NetHack, and Rogue" (Wikipedia: Roguelike Key Features). At this point I'd refer to those five as "true roguelikes" while the actual term "roguelike" is somewhat more loose these days.

As far as I know there was no attempt at this time to differentiate between "roguelike" and "roguelite". This is possibly because Rogue Legacy, which probably is what popularized the term "roguelite" (and maybe Cellar Door Games even coined the term?), wouldn't be released until 2013. However, some use "roguelite" as a way to say a game isn't quite "roguelike" but shares enough qualities to at least be in the same conversation as them, and may be using the Berlin Interpretation in some way to determine that.

While the above wikipedia link has all the factors and describes them, for a shortened list of the important factors, roguelikes: -Have random dungeon generation -Have Permadeath -Are Turn-based -Are Non-modal (you can do any of your actions at any time if you have the resource for it) -Are Complex -Have resource management (eg food, healing items, identify scrolls, keys, bombs) -Focus on fighting monsters -Require exploration (including not only the map but also what unidentified items do)

The factors that I've noticed are most commonly used as a reason for something being a roguelite while still falling in the rogueli_e umbrella are a weakening of Permadeath by allowing players to keep some sort of permanent progress even through death (referred to as "meta-progress"), or a weakening of complexity because a game is just kinda casual (eg SNKRX, Luck Be a Landlord). Other factors like being turn-based and non-modal tend to be more used in the split between "true roguelike" and "roguelike". How much the rules can be weakened and which ones are most important is, of course, very subjective, but if something is being called a rogueli_e, you can still expect some sort of "run-based gameplay" either way. (I think I got the term "run-based gameplay" from a Youtube video about Roguelike Design I watched once (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uM588ci-sMQ))

2. It's Meta-Progress, Of Course This is a very common view in my experience. While you could describe this as the view that I just described above, but focused only on the Permadeath aspect, I've noticed people who take a hardline stance that Meta Progress is What Matters also tend not to like The Berlin Interpretation at all. To be fair, in any discussion of the genres The Berlin Interpretation is a bit of an elephant in the room and they're probably tired of hearing about it. This stance's popularity probably comes from it being less subjective than others, however it's still subjective, since there are different types of meta progress and some will argue that only some types count. The major types of meta progress you can find are:

Direct stat upgrades: You simply start each run stronger because of your previous progress. It definitely makes the game easier if you have more and is basically always agreed that these belong in roguelites but not roguelikes if people are discussing differences. This form of progress is prominent, for example, as upgrades in Rogue Legacy or Hades.

Character unlocks: Just getting different characters/ships/loadouts to start your runs with. It's generally agreed these can be in roguelikes, even if there are definitely better and worse characters, because the point of the unlock is a different way to play rather than clearly making things easier. For example, Unlocking ships in FTL: Faster than Light or squads in Into the Breach.

Unlocking the possibility for new things to be found in runs: A definite gray area. Diluting the item pool can make specific strategies harder even if the new items are generally good. For example, unlocking items in The Binding of Isaac or unlocking cards/relics in Slay the Spire.

Unlocking new difficulties: Doesn't seem to get brought up as meta progress, although it kinda is because it's a permanent unlock that's persistent between runs. For example, Slay the Spire's "Ascensions" or One Step From Eden's "Hell Modes".

And then there's stuff like unlocking shortcuts in Spelunky that allow starting a run farther into the game than the start. It's definitely meta progress but doesn't fit cleanly into one of the above categories. I also feel like even if you have the shortcuts unlocked the expected way to play is still starting from the beginning. The shortcuts are useful for practice, but you often want items/gold from the early areas anyway. So... it's a bit of a weird case and I haven't had much opportunity to get a feel for what most people think about it.

3. What difference? Sometimes, especially when referring to multiple games at once, one term or the other will get used as an umbrella term. Or due to differing perspectives both terms will get used for a single game even if everyone talking about the game individually believes there's some difference. Or for marketing purposes both tags will be put on something. While this doesn't seem to me to be a position that people tend to explicitly hold if questioned about the difference between words, it's also true that in my Steam library currently there are 70 games if I filter to "Roguelike", 66 games if I filter to "Roguelite", and 60 games if I filter to both. I feel as if I don't have to say a whole lot more there. For the curious, though, here are the games in my library that only landed in one category according to Steam:

Roguelike Only

Touhou Library Survivors - A couple updates ago they added meta progress so this is probably on its way to having both tags. I'm not actually sure what determines the tags the library filtering considers but I think it's what's commonly submitted by users?

Sundered: Eldritch Edition - Huh? It's a Metroidvania where dying always returns you to the same save point, where you also spend your experience to level up. I sort of get how this is a roguelite, but this doesn't make sense here.

Trillion: God of Destruction - Never played this, but I thought this was a strategy RPG?

Chasm - I wouldn't put this in either category, personally. It's a Metroidvania where the world is generated at the start of the game. You can turn on permadeath I think, but it doesn't feel like the default way to play the game.

Ghost 1.0 - Huh? It's a Metroidvania that doesn't really fit in here at all.

Dungeons of Dredmor - Makes sense, even if you can turn off the permadeath. It's actually one of the closest to a "true roguelike" I have on Steam. Indeed, it's one of the two games I have tagged "Traditional Roguelike" (the other is Desktop Dungeons, although if Desktop Dungeons counts then I'm a little surprised Crown Trick isn't there).

Hammerwatch - More of an Arcade game, but I thought you could save your game and retry from saves and stuff? I don't think this fits in either tag, but I could be wrong. I played for 14 hours back in 2014 and am relying on memory.

Don't Starve - Makes sense to me, although at a bit slower pace than many games within the genre. Well, maybe it's a bit faster once you know what you're doing, especially if you're looking to progress through the worlds in the story mode.

LUFTRAUSERS - I know nothing about this game, maybe got it in a pack?

Receiver - I know nothing about this game, maybe got it in a pack?

Roguelite Only

SNKRX - Yeah, I mentioned this above. It's how I felt about the game even before checking the tags. You could also consider unlocking extra difficulties to be meta progress, especially since playing on harder difficulties lets you make a longer snake, which has advantages, but I don't think you have to think this has meta progress for this to be a roguelite.

Warhammer: Vermintide 2 - I feel like the fact that none of the terrain is randomly generated and there being a level select screen rather than starting each run at some sort of beginning is a bit weird here. I guess there is that roguelite DLC but it still uses premade maps and honestly the moment to moment co-op action is still most important. If someone said they liked roguelites it wouldn't occur to me to mention this.

Tallowmere 2: Curse of the Kittens - Well, it's clearly a rogueli_e, but I don't remember anything that would clearly push it into roguelite only for me.

Metal Unit - Yeah, fair enough. I think you could stash equipment for future runs or something.

Catacomb Kids - I think this fits somewhere in the rogueli_e categorization but my experience is that I played for 14 minutes in 2015. I vaguely recall something in the controls feeling awkward.

Don't Starve Together - I think I read something about being able to turn off permadeath for a more chill hanging out with friends in a survival game sort of experience, so fair enough. I've never played this so I could be wrong.

So, as we can see. People are very confused, including me.

4. One person I saw on a forum that was just wrong Once I saw someone claim something couldn't be a roguelike because it was turn-based. While there is no one correct answer there are certainly wrong answers. You can disagree that The Berlin Interpretation is the best way to determine if something is a roguelike, but outright stating the opposite of one of the factors just isn't right. They literally describe Rogue. However, it is interesting to consider how far the genre as a whole has come. I feel like The Binding of Isaac, Spelunky, Rogue Legacy, and Slay the Spire were all highly influential, but will not be elaborating at this time on why I feel that way.

In conclusion, words are dumb and whether hotdogs with buns are sandwiches depends on whether we're within 100 yards of Goodburger home of the Goodburger, which incidentally is the determining factor for whether "dude" is gender neutral as well.

[anime-grimmy-art]

Told you guys I’d ramble in due time.

I absolutely adore Bravely Default 2. It came at a really bad time cos I can’t waste 70 hours on a jrpg, but well, it’s too late to be concerned about that now. And as is tradition with me obsessing over a new game / show / whatever, you’ll basically find a fullblown review disguised as ramblings right under the cut. Be aware that I’m gonna talk about EVERYTHING, so spoilers are a given. Some maybe even for the previous Bravely Default games.

Also, if you wanna talk about this game in any capacity, hit me up, I’m DESPERATE to talk more about it.

Just for reference on how long this is gonna be, I made a voice recording while driving to remember all the points I wanna make, and that recording is almost 2 hours long. I did cut it down but still, this is gonna be a lot.

I’ll start off with the things that actually bugged me about the game, since there are only 3 things that really bothered me. First of, I really don’t like that you can name Seth. He has too much personality to be a self insert and player integration is not that big of a part in the game that this decision can be justified. It wouldn’t bother me that much if it didn’t leave a bad mark on the ending. First of all, we were robbed of Gloria desperately shouting for Seth, which makes the impact work less, and it’s just so prevalent that the name can’t be said because you have all the normal sound design going. If they’d just let the credits still play I wouldn’t have batted an eye, but because every other sound comes in it’s so obvious they’re just silently shouting in this scene, which makes it look silly. Like I said, this decision is more a detriment than an addition, and it’s a shame it casts a shadow on an otherwise heartfelt ending.

Speaking about lost potential, the other thing that really bothers me is the lost potential in certain plot points and character conclusions. I mainly mean Adam and Edna here. Both of them have been built up to be these formidable foes but they just, die. If it was just Adam I’d be fine with it, since you expect Edna to backstab him and be the actual big bad of the story, but I cannot fathom why they dropped Edna this HARD. If not Edna herself, I don’t understand why we don’t get more of a reaction from the Fairies and especially Adelle. I mean, Edna was her sole reason she left for her journey in the first place, then Edna dies and that’s it? No part where she grieves for a second? No concern from the others about Adelle? Mind you, I haven’t finished all the Sidequests, so maybe there actually is one in which this is addressed, but I think even just a Party Chat after Bad End 1 would have been sufficient to show how Adelle suddenly feels about the loss of Edna. It would have made Bad End 2 / The Secret Ending even more impactful, because, yeah, of course, you kinda know Adelle isn’t going to turn her back on fairy kind, but one of the reasons she doesn’t leave is because if Enda didn’t get a happy ending, then she shouldn’t either. It would have been amazing foreshadowing if she showed this sentiment before this scene happened. Other than that, it’s a shame that we know so little about Edna, or rather, how she became “bad”. I get she’s supposed to be corrupted by the Night’s Nexus, but how did it even come to this? It can’t have been a gradual thing, after all, Adelle says Edna was always good natured and then just disappeared one day. Really would have loved seeing more of that plot point.

Ok, last gripe I have, some choices in the soundtrack and sound design. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love the OST, and I will get to that, but damn, whatever Revo used for the lead instrument in Wiswald hurts my ears. It’s a really good track, but I always have to turn down my volume because these high pitched sounds physically hurt. And for sound design. Dude, the Night’s Nexus is the least threatening, nightmare fueled abomination that ever existed. I get that its growl is kinda supposed to be layered with Edna’s or sth, but it, it just sounds silly. If they went the route of just swinging between different voices or began distorting it from phase to phase, it would have been fine. But the choice they made really made an otherwise creepy design just absolutely silly.

Ok, enough jammering, on to the good stuff. Like I said, there’s going to be a lot, so I’ll try to be brief in each aspect.

Gameplay

I honestly like the new battle mechanics more than the old ones. This individual, turn based system feels way more dynamic and it’s easier to strategies in battles. Because nothing made me more angry than setting up for a heal and the enemy suddenly being faster than me and killing my healer. Now it’s easier to plan ahead a bit.

I also found myself experimenting more with the jobs. Not sure what it really is, but none of the party members leaning more towards certain types of jobs and the job leveling being way faster probably helped.

And I know some people get up in arms because the boss sometimes can be a real pain in the ass (looking at you pope dude), I still found it very interesting getting around counters or even using these counters as a benefit. As an example, I made Adelle my main physical fighter and gave her lots of counter abilities to help her profit from being countered by enemies themselves. Now, she can attack enemies, get countered, automatically evade that counter and earn a BP at the same time. Made a lot of boss fights way easier and fun to exploit.

Music

Ok, I will try my best to be really, really brief, because in my recording this part takes up almost 40 minutes. Anyways, Revo might have just become one of my absolute favorite composers ever. I don’t know what kind of magic he used, but I initially wasn’t that impressed with the OST, but every time I listened to it, I just fell in love harder and harder. Before getting into specifics, I wanna highlight the two things that made me love this OST overall. First of all, this soundtrack almost seems like a refinement of BD’s. While losing some of that fairytale vibe, it sounds even more fantasy now. And in contrast to the original, this almost sounds more balanced? Like, BD’s OST felt high energy throughout, BD2’s on the other hand manages to find a good balance between high and low energy pieces. Like, the character themes or battle themes are absolute hype, but the overworld themes are a lot calmer and easier to listen to while exploring. Second big point that makes this soundtrack amazing is that Revo is an absolute god at using emotional progression/storytelling and leitmotifs in his songs. And heck, do I love myself my leitmotifs. You’ve got some obvious ones, like the final battle theme in which all the character themes and other leitmotifs are integrated. Then you got some maybe more subtle once, just like how the overworld themes are just the main theme, just a lot calmer and using the lead instruments of the towns of the areas.

But my absolute favourites gotta be the character themes and the main theme. I love how fitting the themes for the characters are and in general, each of them is such a bop. At first I prefered Elvis’, because I sure am a sucker for jazzy vibes, but over time Adelle’s became my fav. It’s just something about the trumpets, and how the theme almost sounds a bit melancholic and bittersweet, that drew me in. And considering her story, mostly her bad end, that the bittersweet tone really fits.

Then there’s the main theme. Just like BD’s it shouts “triumphant anthem” and it definitely gives you a very familiar vibe, but I’d argue it has even better emotional progression. Heck, the first time I heard the music start up in the reveal trailer, I didn’t have to look at the screen to know this is gonna be a BD game. Also, the credit song version had me weeping at the true end. I’m someone who’s very easily affected by music (if me shouting about soundtracks on this blog wasn’t proof enough) and just hearing that ending song, getting the after credits scene, just for the second credits to start as a freaking duet. Dude, at that point I just started sobbing, I’m not gonna lie. Just this little part showed how much Revo knows how to put emotion in a song and also write it in such a way that he can elicit strong, emotional reactions from you too. 

Story

People have been complaining how the story is too boring and kinda disappointing in comparison to the last one, but I just think the games tried to accomplish different things here. Since the BD series is a celebration of old, classic jrpgs, “cliche” storytelling is a given. Though, BD did throw a lot of meta stuff in there too. BD2 in contrast just feels like a direct execution of that initial idea. It feels familiar, it feels comfy and it feels safe. Except for the little things with the endings and then overwriting the Nexus’ “save file”, BD2 doesn’t really get that meta, which is totally fine. It doesn’t try to reinvent or innovate anything, it just wants to be a fantasy story, that might be cliche, but still fun and enjoyable in its own right.

I’d also argue that the pacing is a lot better than the old game, because with BD I sometimes found myself skipping through scenes to get on with the story. Not that this game didn’t have me rushing through stuff as well, but I found it kept my intrigue way better than the original.

Characters

Next to the music, this is the part that I absolutely love the most. While, yes, they did lose a lot of potential with some characters, mostly with the villains, the main cast is just so much fun. I love these 4 dorks so, so much.

I honestly can’t stand how much people compare them to the original cast. Yes, ofc, I’ve been doing my fair share of comparisons too, but calling these four a more boring version of BD’s party physically hurts me. Because except for some initial impressions, the Heroes of Light are completely different from our beloved Warriors of Light.

While yes, Seth and Gloria give off strong Tiz and Agnes vibes at first, they both grow into such different characters that they’re not really comparable. I think this shows with Adelle and Elvis even more. I do understand how people could compare Adelle and Edea, since they’re both the feisty girl type, but I can’t understand how people can see Ringabel and Elvis as the same character type. While those two are the “suave” party members, they act so differently from another. And that’s honestly apparent the first time you meet them. 

Anyways, I love these 4 so much.

We technically don’t know a lot about Seth at all, but they manage to pull so much out of just the fact that he’s a sailor, that it makes him really endearing, really fast.

I was kinda disinterested with Gloria at first, because again, the initial impression was Agnés2.0, but she grew on me a lot. Gloria is way more hard headed and honestly sassy in comparison to Agnés and I absolutely adore it.

Elvis. Elvis, my man. I love this fantasy scottosh wizard so, so much. He’s such a ridiculous character but so endearing at the same time. You got all this dorkiness, with him setting himself on fire as a student, him doing god knows what for a good drink or just laughing danger and prejudice in the face. But then you got his super empathetic and caring side. Mind you, most of his wise moments come from quoting Lady Emma, but still, as much as he’s hopeless with certain social situations, he’s actually still really good at reading the room and playing things smart. He’s a smart and powerful idiot, which makes him a danger to everyone and himself, and I love him for it. (I also can’t believe they called him Lesley I MEAN COME ON)

And then there’s Adelle. I liked her from the start, but I didn’t think she would stick out to me. I think now she’s my favourite character. Not even talking about all the stuff that happens in chapter 3 and onward, because these story threads are awesome in their own right, but there’s just something about her personality that’s interesting and appealing to me. Like I said, I’m not surprised people compare her to Edea, I did too at first, but while Edea walks very close to the line of a Tsundere, I was really surprised that Adelle is, well, not a Tsundere at all. Yeah, of course she’s putting Elvis down a lot, but that stems more from her preventing his ego from going to his head than her being all embarrassed. No, Adelle is actually really well adjusted when it comes to communication. While it’s hilarious that she and Elvis met with her chucking her shoes at him, the two just got along well right from the start. Adelle in general has this really open and helpful personality, but also doesn’t shy away from putting her foot down, even if that sometimes comes out as an embarrassed sputter. She’s also the mother hen of the group. She looks out for the other three and gets concerned about them real fast. 

I dunno, Adelle just really grew on me over the course of this game, and then her kinda being paired with Elvis too, as partners and as partners, makes me like her even more. Because as much as I like their personalities individually, I like their character dynamic even more. I honestly love the relationships between all four of them a lot. You really feel them grow closer as friends and all the little character sidequests just always made me really happy.

Conclusion

You might not believe me, but I really held back there. This could probably have been 3 times its length. As much as I love this game, it’s of course not perfect. It struggles and flails in some parts a lot and it certainly has some aspects that might turn people off. But for me, it was just a very familiar and comfy game that didn’t necessarily deliver anything new, but that told its story in such a way that it still got me excited to keep going. The soundtrack is absolutely amazing and the conclusion of the story actually got me to cry. While not groundbreaking, this game is highly enjoyable and leaves you absolutely satisfied at the end.

Also, I would like to iterate that I am desperate to get more content about this game, so if you wanna chat about it, hit me up.

Anyways, anyone else felt like having a fever dream when everybody in chapter 2 started talking fantasy scottish? Cos I sure did.

[madeimpact]

Meta: why Subspace Lucas’s characterization sucks (kinda) and fanon Lucas sucks (a lot) and you should just play Mother 3 instead.

So, to know why subspace flopped in some areas ( and we’re just talking about Lucas here, never mind the rest of the characters ) and did well in others, you have to know the basic plotline of Mother 3. That information is on my pages and on wikis and whatnot ( cough, and in the game, cough ).

But just to briefly summarize it here for the purposes of having everyone up to speed for this meta: Lucas and company live in a utopian, low-tech village where money isn’t a thing and everyone just does things for each other just because. Lucas is the meeker between him and his brother and is branded as a crybaby by the other villagers until the tragedy with his mom and brother. Flint spends all his time looking for Claus. Pigmask army starts bringing in capitalism. Three years go by and Lucas is pretty much on his own. He decides he wants to get stronger.

He remains gentle and compassionate, but becomes much braver in those three years. This guy puts it pretty succinctly.

Fast forward a bit, and basically, because Lucas can use PK Love, and the commander in the Pigmask army can also use PK Love, both of them can pull the Needles that seal a dragon under the islands that can basically destroy everything, but will act according to the person’s heart. Basically, Lucas has to become stronger. Though he also wants to.

I won’t go into all the plot details here because that’s really not what I’m here to do. Basically, both because of the way he was after his mom’s death, and because, I mean...he was basically on his own in the three years after that, Lucas had to and wanted to be stronger. He wanted to be someone that wouldn’t have to hide behind his mom and brother.

Now, Subspace...kind of tries to take that entire arc and condense it into Lucas and Red’s portion of the storyline? With the boss fight with Porky and the confrontation with Wario being the “Lucas is the meek younger twin” part of his arc, and the climax of the fight with Galleom being the “Lucas is strong and can fend for himself” part of his arc.

Sorry for the shitty second screencap, Brawl was 2008, the cutscenes were 720p, and the camera in this part is REALLY fucking shaky.

Anyway, in that respect, Subspace does a pretty good job of conveying Lucas’s growth through his actions, considering that the cutscenes had literally no dialogue whatsoever. But the thing is...where exactly is this situated with respect to the Mother 3 timeline? The King P statue is a boss in the last chapter of Mother 3, Porky is the second to last fight in the game, Lucas already has PSI so this has to be after the timeskip...which is it? Am I reading way too deeply into the story of a beat ‘em up game that’s not even focused on story in the first place? Yeah, probably, but my point is that if you don’t already know the story of Mother 3 and know about Lucas’s character arc, it is very easy to misread his character based on Subspace alone.

I can talk about this from experience, because I also fell into the “umu shy sadboi hours” fanon trap after seeing / playing Subspace for the first time, and it wasn’t until I started actually getting into Mother and played Mother 3 that I realized, oh shit, this is actually kind of not accurate. Sure, there are still some shy, emotional elements to Lucas...

...But that’s not the only aspect of his personality.

So on one hand, I think Subspace did a good job recreating that growth in a really short storyline, if you’ve played Mother 3 and already know about said arc. I know I find myself being like “YEAH THAT’S MY SON!!!” every time he PK Thunders himself and Red out of Galleom’s hand. But on the other hand, that development can also be so subtle that it goes right over the heads of people that are unfamiliar with Mother, and leave them with the shy sadboi character archetype and not much more to go off of.

In all fairness to Smash, it’s really not a story-driven game at all, and I think Sakurai and co were on some level aware of what happened with Brawl and shifted Lucas’s characterization in each successive Smash game. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Lucas’s Smash 4 reveal trailer is a direct nod to Ness’s role with respect to Lucas in Subspace.

If that’s the case, this could be considered character development between Smash games, i.e., Lucas got more confident after Brawl. But I dunno! Maybe just don’t characterize Lucas based on a single personality trait!

In short: Please fucking play Mother 3 I’m begging you.

[smtlaw]

Why i think Yosuga isn’t lawful

I have seen a lot of people saying Yosuga has law traits or is lawful, i understand why they have come to consider Chiaki’s reason as such, however i disagree and so the point of this post is to explain why i think Yosuga is actually a chaotic reason.

spoilers from smt 1, 2, NINE, Nocturne and some minor ones from IMAGINE ahead.

To see why Yosuga isn’t lawful one must first understand what Law is as an ideology in the games that came before nocturne(and IMAGINE)

in SMT 1, Law was introduced as faction that desired to bring peace and stability under the guidance of God

Law Hero: I have been told of the ideals embodied by the Millennium Kingdom,in that kingdom the earth will know eternal peace.

Raphael: Let us put an end to this decadent world of destrucion and carnage, i submit to your(the protagonist if he is Law aligned) will until peace reigns upon this earth.

Law Hero:  the Millennium Kingdom is a world of eternal peace; God’s salvation come to fruition.

Do notice that Peace and order aren’t being said as an afterthought but rather as a core aspect of what they want their ideal world to be like once it is created, Uriel in IMAGINE more or less says this is the reason to follow God

once again the idea of peace is given emphasis and is treated as the reason to follow “God”, and its even how his authority is justifed on Law.

SMT 2 keeps the focus on peace but its Law ending gives a nice development to the ideology, if God’s authority is justified because he can bring peace and happiness then would it be fair to kill him if he became a problem for the overall happiness of the collective? the ending answers that question by showing Zayin/Satan’s rebellion against [Record scratch] and the center,in the Neutral route Satan tells you the center would never be able to create the  Millennium Kingdom.

Satan: God has abandoned Tokyo Millennium, he knew that so long as humanity has (demonic)knowledge, they will turn from him and bringing about an ideal world will be impossible, that is why the ideal world envisioned by messians(the center) and Seraphim -The Thousand year kingdom- was doomed to fail from the start.

essentially the Center clinged to egoism and this reflected in the city they created, despite having peace and a world where the weak can be happy as one of their endgoals, all they ended up creating was a stagnating world where the weak suffer, this is importart since the authors themselves recognized this:

Kaneko: They were beings who misunderstood God’s teachings and kept going forward. That is why they were abandoned and headed towards ruin.

Okada: Exactly. This doesn’t show up in writing, but the Senate is Dark-Law, while Gabriel and Satan are Light-Law.

basically the Center and by extension Tokyo Millennium as a whole are meant to be a corruption of Law’s ideals, since instead of erasing egoism(Like Satan implies thats what happen with the people in the ark in the Law route) they embraced it and wanted to created a world of peace not out of love for humanity but simply for themselves.

Satan judging [Record scratch] may seem out of nowhere, however one must first consider What Satan already knew about the nature of God before this moment, as the visionary items show:

Voice: Do not try to obey something. Do not try to obey someone. Do not think of God as having just one face. God is not good. God is everything. Everything is God. You too can become a face of God.

when Zayin was captured and sealed by the center he has a revaletion, he learns that God is not just a single being but rather everything, what exist is the faces of god and that he too can become one(which is what happens since as we know Satan is from the godly race in smt 2)

So by the time Aleph and Satan meet [Record scratch], he is already aware the being he is meeting is not God, but rather just a face of it, in this sense one could argue Satan doesn't rebel out of a moment of guilty(do keep in mind the genocide line is an error in the fan translation) but rather because he had a different idea of what Law should be, [Record scratch] wanted Law to be about him and his peace but Satan wanted more, he wanted a world of peace and equality for humans, not under mindless worship of an avatar of god, thus Satan rebels because he truly believed in Law as an ideology/principle.

The Law ending of smt 2 thus places more importance towards the ideals of Law rather than obedience towards a single being and it is meant to show that this is what Law is about.

NINE more or less keeps and expand on those ideas, its a story that takes place even before the events of smt 2(and most likely IMAGINE), with the goal of peace being given a focus point once again, but this time not with God’s guidance as the Neo-Messiahs instead create a world of peace(True Tokyo and Idea space) with their Goddess(Maria) and actually kill the Demiurge in the law leaning routes as a symbol of humanity cutting ties with God and also once again showing an example that God’s will is not always what Law wants.

and now we must understand what Yosuga actually wanted and why its simply incompatible with what Law as an ideology represented in the past games.

the first example of Yosuga ideology we see is with Gozu-Tennoh and the Mantra, one may argue they aren’t Yosuga aligned but they are still very associated with them as several mantra demons join Yosuga, the mantra HQ becomes the city of Yosuga and even Gozu-Tennoh describe their ideology as being very similar up to the point that he is willing to help help her, when you first meet him Gozu-Tennoh describe their ideal world as a “Kingdom of Chaos”, this of course doesn’t necessarily refers to the Chaos ideology in the games, which is fair, however as we argued before the core goals of Law is a world of peace and stability, one has to wonder if one of  Gozu-Tennoh’s goals was peace why refer to it as a world of chaos, the word itself imply a lack of stability and structure and instead hints towards a world of constant change, this ties with the way Chiaki describe her ideology and ideal world:

Chiaki doesn’t describe the world as lacking peace, but rather lacking change, that the world was taking care of the weak too much and so wasn’t changing, this resemble more Chaos than Law, for one she wants a world of change like Chaos rather than Law and blames those who lack power for the lack of change.

naturally they want a world of endless war, as Kagutsuchi himself later on refers to their world as “a Kingdom which rejoices in conflict” in the Yosuga ending, this gives a new way to look at Yosuga, they belive that the weak should die no matter what(which is kinda different from normal Chaos since on normal Chaos if the weak dies or lives in servituted is up to the strong to decide). so all of this gives a clear vision to how their world would look like: a world where the “beautiful”(the strong) rise to the top and stay there while ensuring a world of endless war and conflict rages on in order to ensure Change, however if the world is now forever in a state of conflict wouldn’t that mean that some of the strong may start to fall, if the world is always at war it would be hard to assume the strong would always be the same ones as the ones who were chosen in the beginning of it.

But then why is the divine race siding with such a violent reason if peace was the core of their ideology in the other games?  My best answer is that The logic of the old world died, if you notice Hikawa's side mostly has chaotic demons despite sounding very lawful too, the vortex world is a world without meaning, in such a world a demon who is usually associated with chaos can seek a lawful reason without becoming a lawful demon because being a demon associated with a specific alignment doesn't mean anything in the vortex world, same thing happens to angels seeking a chaotic reason, essentially demons siding with Shijima and angels siding with Yosuga is not meant to make sense, because it shows how a symbol(the idea a demon represents) can change what it used to mean into something completely different.

the only way Yosuga comes of as Lawful is by Nocturne standarts of what Order and Chaos is, in other games Law vs Chaos is the battle between 2 groups that wish to shape society to a new way of thinking, this isn't the case in Nocturne, order in nocturne is "i wish the universe to exist in a system of death and rebirth", while Chaos is "i wish to seek meaning outside the universe itself", the normal Law vs Chaos is about how you wish society to be like while Nocturne Law vs Chaos is about the cosmic rules you want the universe to obey or if you even want to live in one.So while Yosuga can be considered Meta-Law it wouldn't really fit with Normal Law in the rest of the games.

after considering all of this i can’t really see the Reason of Yosuga as lawful, they desire a world of conflict and change but Law seeks a world of peace and stability, the authority in Law is justified by the fact they can guide humanity towards peace but the authority in Yosuga is justified simply by power, and as mentioned before Law has an emphasis on creating a world for the weak but Yosuga seeks to always exterminate those who lack power.

it is true that Law is willing to do a lot of evil stuff but one has to remember that from their point of view they are doing this for a world of peace where everyone is happy and where there is no difference between the strong and the weak, so from their point of view this is usually viewed as a necessary evil rather than the way their ideal world will look like.

although i believe that Yosuga comes of as chaotic, i still believe there is difference between it and normal chaos, Chiaki’s ideal world seems like it will always stay in a cicle of violence and a world of chaos can indeed be violent however as Lucifer says in smt 2 chaos ending you can strive to create peace if you have the power and so long as it doesn’t stay in the way of freedom, which is another difference between it and Yosuga, Yosuga has no emphasis on the freedom Chaos allow to those who rise to the top.

basically i think Yosuga is a pseudo-Chaos faction.

[trashcatsnark]

Oh, let me continue the subject of the jealousy of these two. You're saying that Johnny isn't the type to hold back when it comes to emotions. And it really is. But... there is a moment in the game when V talks about his exes or about stupid compliments in a conversation with River. And Johnny doesn't say anything. I would write it off as a scenario move, so as not to shift the focus from the River. But this isn't the only time Johnny ignores events in this quest line. See the second question

Part 2 for context:  So... I continue. Do you remember the moment when you watched brain damage and lost consciousness, when you and River were searching for clues about the mayor's murder? Johnny never ignored the moments when V passed out. Here River comes to the rescue, and you would think that he knows that there is someone to help and nothing to worry about ...But in similar situations with Judy and Panam, he would appear and deliver his moralizing remarks or make snide comments. 🤔

Personally, I do believe this is sort of a meta issue. I’ve talked about it a little bit before in a general post; how given his characterization, Johnny does not in my opinion talk as much as he should. In a more comedic example, I mentioned how could anyone honestly look me in the eye and say that Johnny wouldn’t have a comment on the guy with the exploding penis implant????  Like Johnny is majorly characterized as a guy who can’t leave well enough alone and always has something to say; yet theres a fairly large percentage of gigs and missions and moments where you’d think Johnny would have something to say and he doesn’t. There’s also times where lines are blatantly reused and in a jarring way.

Like, I could be wrong, but I think they reuse him saying “There it is” with both V getting Nibbles and a man committing suicide in a gig. Like????? 

Meta wise, I do think it’s partially a fear of over incorporating Johnny to the point players found him annoying. Because even now, some people find him irritating and wish he’d talk less. So, that could be a factor. The idea of not sidelining love interests is a factor of course. While, he has commentary through out each love interests questlines. He always does mostly bugger off during the romantic lead up and the actual kiss then sex. Because well, it might be a bit of a buzzkill and if you’re trying to get laid and Methed Out Future Keanu Reeves is yelling at you from the corner of the room. I mean, it’d probably enhance my experience but some people aren’t into that. 

As for why stuff like, him ignoring V getting zapped by the braindance in River’s quest. I’ve always thought that was ooc. Like, short of potentially the bd having fried him up for a bit, kinda like the emp blast does when V and Panam take down the AV. But overall, over and over again, Johnny is shown to be the first one there when V gets hurt. Even if its to yell at them for going into the toxic water or he waits a beat to appear once Panam is done looking over V. 

And that could be because they potentially again wanted to give more attention to River or... and I always hate to get into this sort of discourse, cause I know it aggravates some people. It was an oversight, something not caught, something not thought of, just because to be fair...River has the least polished questline of the love interests. The male love interests in general imo were sidelined more. But, River A) has the least amount of quests to build up to his romance, B) is the most easily missable love interest since he’s not even required to meet for the secret ending the way Kerry is. and C) this could just be my own personal experience, maybe cyberpunk 2077 provides unique bugs for everyone, but his quests are the buggiest for me.

And to be perfectly clear, this is not me being a dick to River. Do, I think some aspects of his character are kinda tone deaf, sure, but I like River. I think he’s a sweetheart, who’s usually pretty stiff, but has his cuter jokey moments and is a puppy dog underneath.  I love doing his quests because they’re truly very emotional, being able to help his family. Like, being able to save Randy is one of the best feelings in the game to me, knowing you saved him and so many other young boys. That’s why it honestly breaks my heart to see how little polish and attention his quests were given. From the calls glitching, him not staying on comms in the first quest, Johnny in my game doesn’t even give the dialogue warning my V about River wanting to sleep with her, like it just does not show up for me, The cobbled together family photo. The weird pacing of the romance that goes from 0 to a 100. Randy’s face glitches and clips through the mask when you’re saving him. Like the concept, the investigation, the intense stakes, and the emotional impact of his quest are all so good; but CDPR just did not in my opinion take enough time with it. 

So, maybe they didn’t bother to script and put Johnny in that scene despite it being something he’d most definitely pop in for; cause they just didn’t take their time with it like they could have/should have. 

And in regard to Johnny in universe and talking; while like I said he’s more upfront and direct with his anger and side comments that he uses to hide his real feelings. I do think, especially if its post oils field convo, a part of him tries desperately to bite his tongue and just sit with his feelings if he think its best for V. In the more love dovey romance moment with River, I could see him being like, “okay, V wants this, as much as it pisses me off, V deserves to have some good in their life” and tries to hold back and be good and then five seconds later “CANT BELIEVE YOU’RE GONNA MAKE ME FUCK A COP” cause he can only behave for so long. 

And I do wanna note; I am by no means consider myself a Johnny Silverhand expert. I’ve said this before, his characterization and just him as a person can be very messy, very all over the place, and contradictory at times. He can try to kill V and then the next day pop up to chat with them in a diner and be like “why aren’t you happy to see me?????? you still mad?????? its been a whole ass 5 hrs since I told you to kill yourself and bashed your head into a window, gotta learn to let shit go dude.” So, sometimes I worry I’m making him ooc, but its fun nontheless, so. 

[galacticnova3]

sorry but what do you mean by good faith headcanoning? /gen (i agree w/ you and you don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, i’m just curious)

Oh I’m fine answering stuff like this! Helps me get my points across easier if people actually know what I’m talking about after all. Apologies in advance this got very long because I’m tired and can’t write short explanations when tired.

In a nutshell, it means not making some incredibly complicated headcanon that “explains” how x thing that clearly applies doesn’t actually apply. I just call it good faith headcanoning because it’s headcanon that doesn’t stem from much, if any canon basis, but that also isn’t used to excuse or push harmful or super unrealistic interpretations. An example of a good faith headcanon would be that Meta Knight is blind and his mask is what lets him see. There’s nothing that suggests or supports this in canon, and considering he still flies off even without his mask, it can be assumed it’s not actually required for vision. But saying that you headcanon he’s blind ultimately doesn’t do any harm, and just as importantly, doesn’t deny important established information.

As an example of a bad faith headcanon… Ok, this is gonna be silly, but I’m kinda brain’t right now. Say someone decided they don’t like the fact that Kirby loves strawberry shortcake for whatever reason, and said that they headcanon that Kirby LOATHES strawberry shortcake. In response to people pointing out that Kirby’s love of strawberry shortcake played a major roll in Squeak Squad, and has been depicted in other situations as well, they decide to say they headcanon that Kirby actually DOESN’T like it, but had to eat it for a challenge. Or they headcanon he was being “influenced” by something to make him want to eat the shortcake, as well as in every other instances of it being eaten.

The problem is that while this sort of thing technically DOES work as an explanation, it’s not a “fair” or reasonable one. No matter how much people point out that it contradicts something that’s been established, the person can always just point to their complicated workaround and say that “you can’t police my headcanons that’s mean!” In essence it’s basically the same issue teachers/professors have with you doing an opinion or argument-centric paper on something that can’t be disagreed with or argued against; at that point you’re not addressing the information, you’re just dodging the issue.

Yes, it’s true that people are allowed to headcanon what they want and that policing it(when it isn’t harmful/disgusting) is a shitty thing to do. I agree with that entirely. I’m also not against a bit of tip-toeing around in the vague parts of canon, and in fact that’s probably how the majority of my headcanons came about. However, in my opinion, there’s a point where it becomes a bit too much, where it’s really clear it’s all just an excuse to ignore important and well-established information about a character. Ignoring canon is fine until ignoring it fundamentally changes aspects of everything connected to it, in a way that no longer resembles the actual media.

The simple solution is to just call it an AU and then go from there, instead of making excuses for why X is like Z, when in the series X is shown to be like Y. In that case, so long as the impacts of changing that aspect are shown, and again, it’s not just an excuse to make abhorrent content, there’s no problem.

In reference to how this came about, the “bad faith” headcanons I was talking about would be the ones that basically say “Marx wasn’t actually a bad guy”, “Marx wasn’t being selfish”, “What Marx did wasn’t manipulative”, etc. as a means to justify Marx not experiencing consequences. Doing that essentially removes the basic core aspects of Marx’s character. Milky Way Wishes’ entire plot revolves around the simple fact that Marx is manipulative and a liar. He basically admits it himself when he says he got the sun and the moon to fight, got Kirby to summon Nova, and then brags about that whole thing going according to plan.

While it’s not out of the question to give him a motivation besides wanting to rule, like I did with Magolor in my headcanon, that motivation shouldn’t/can’t be used to undermine or otherwise excuse his actions. It doesn’t matter if he wanted to take over in order to improve Popstar or whatever(which he didn’t, because he gets excited about being able to cause all the mischief he wants, by the way). At the end of the day, he still probably caused major problems when the sun and moon started fighting, lied to and later attempted to kill Kirby(indirectly through exposure, then directly by fighting him), and ultimately got Nova destroyed. If the headcanon solely exists to say “but it’s ok and doesn’t matter anymore”, whether to woobify him into just a naughty widdle clown boy or (eugh) ship him with Someone, I can’t see a plausible way that it is in good faith and not just a tailored excuse to deny his wrongdoings in canon.

Now, this might seem like there’s an unfair line, because obviously not every unrealistic headcanon is in bad faith, but imo it can be figured out pretty simply. Generally, it can safely be assumed to be bad faith if multiple of the following things apply, within reason:

-It’s ignoring core information that, when changed, changes something completely in ways beyond just what’s being changed (ex. If you say Marx was actually possessed and that’s why he did MWW rather than being power hungry, there’s going to be more affected than just everyone going “oh it’s not his fault, ok” and then doing nothing)

-It’s changing so much information to make sense that, in justifying the one headcanon, many other things no longer line up or make sense, but go unaddressed (ex. Saying Meta Knight wasn’t bad in Revenge of Meta Knight because he wanted to take over Dreamland because there was actually some kind of great evil that he needed control to destroy, and that saying it’s because he wanted to end the lazy lifestyle was just a coverup to not cause mass panic)

-The headcanon attempts to justify an act that can’t be honestly justified or made ok in the canon circumstances (ex. Saying Sectonia actually wanted to rule Floralia and take over Popstar for good reasons that Kirby couldn’t see, like trying to unite them into a safer whole, or trying to justify Hyness’ mistreatment of Zan Partizanne by saying she’s actually the bad one)

-It is used in a manner that basically attempts to “victimize” the creator or “villainize” people who disagree if discrepancies in their headcanon are pointed out (ex. The creator “headcanons” Dedede is actually totally evil in order to write characters hating him, and acts like they’re being bullied when people correctly point out the positive relationships Dedede has with the main cast, as well as his role in aiding the side of good in games like Return to Dreamland, Triple Deluxe, and Star Allies.

-It is otherwise an unsupported, implausible headcanon being used to excuse gross and/or malicious content (ex. Headcanon excuses for shipping gross pairings, like MetaSusie or p*do/*nc*st ships)

While these criteria technically mean my shortcake example doesn’t count, I think there’s also always going to be a bit of case by case judgement with this sort of thing. Another important note, a bad faith headcanon isn’t necessarily bad conceptually; in most cases the issues can be solved by just making it an au with the appropriate changes, as that removes the issue of “how much canon can a headcanon ignore before it’s basically just an au?” As an example, “Au where Marx wasn’t a bad guy” is very different from “Marx wasn’t a bad guy”, while still allowing the same concept to be explored.

[coeursetcolores]

What I Would Add/Change About: Dead or Alive 6

Hello internet! As you probably know, I love video games and I would talk about my feelings for the ones I’ve played for hours. Unfortunately, I don’t pay too much attention to the various gameplay and added content mechanics, so I don’t feel as though I’m qualified to give full-on reviews; my focus is usually on the story and characters, but I am learning to keep a more open eye. So, I’ve decided to start this series! On the anniversary of a game I’ve played’s release, I will talk about what I think a game could have included to improve certain elements or what I think they should have just changed all together about something in it. I will make sure to include what I liked about it as well to keep these from getting too negative. 

This is all just my own personal opinion and if you disagree with me, that’s perfectly okay! If you’d like to talk about a point I made, please let me know, but please try to respect my opinion as I respect yours.

Fair warning, I won’t talk about online stuff. I’m not an online gamer, that’s just not me.

Well, with out further ado, let’s get started!

Today is March 1st. Two years ago in 2019, Dead or Alive 6 was released. Bet you guys didn’t know I was fan, did you?

Yes. Yes I am. And there is one thing I love more than that entire series all together.

Kasumi.

I love that woman.

I have yet to see any other woman that I would even consider loving as much as her.

Amazing main, best girl, gripping protagonist, top-tier waifu.

But back to the subject!

Almost seven years since Dead or Alive 5 was released and left it’s audience wanting more, today we ask: Did it live up to seven years of expectations?

For me...

YES! 

...Mostly.

I had a real fun time playing when I could (I didn’t have constant access to the console I played it on, don’t ask) but even with how polished the series has gotten, there were a few things that left a sour taste in my mouth. 

Let’s go over them, shall we?

SPOILERS AHEAD!

To keep a positive spin on this criticism, I’m going to talk first about all the things I absolutely LOVED about the game:

IT’S. STUNNING. The graphics look amazing, and the slow-motion and visible injuries along with DOA5′s sweat and dirt gives the fights such a weight, it’s brutally gorgeous and I love that video games have reached that level of detail. 

Voice acting is good, and I’d have to give best performance to Karen Strassman’s Helena just for her after fight in Kokoro’s story mode because. My gosh. The way she begs Kokoro not to leave her is just heartbreaking, and to do all that while doing an accent is just amazing.

Funniest part of the game was definitely when Zack told Tina she couldn’t be governor. I love how he just shot her down in a whole series of her dad failing to drag her away from her wild dreams through fighting, Zack accomplishes it just by reminding her how the law works.

Kasumi is safe! ...Apart from all the evil clones sent after her. But Ayane is finally leaving her alone!

Helena in the ending. My gosh, the way she just shuts NiCO down and calls her out on failing to move on healthily is a good message about properly dealing with grief and really shows how much she’s grown in the series from the vengeance seeker she started as.

I genuinely liked the addition of Marie Rose. She had a cool design and her character was really charming. The team could easily have made her super annoying, but she was pretty solid, and I appreciate that.

Kokoro’s dress with the beret. It’s just too cute!

I still love kicking opponents off the stage.

Still glad the series hasn’t decided to sink into hyperrealism.

COLORS! ...Those are dying in video games. :( 

The story for the most part is interesting and every character gets to shine in their own special way.

Diego was really cool, I always love the addition of an untrained street fighter keeping up with these professional martial artists, it really goes to show that in a fight anything can happen.

I really loved watching Tina and Bass become a tag team, aww! Tina does love her daddy!

The costumes, as always, are awesome.

Vibrant backgrounds, as expected.

The fact that it happened! I was worried I’d never see my sweet Kasumi again!

Alright! Now that we got all the things I unquestionably loved about the game down, here are some things I feel the game was missing.

ADD:

MORE KASUMI! If she’s your heroine, give her more screen time! (What do you mean I’m biased?!)

Have some more time with Kasumi, Ayane and Hayate, show just how conflicted they are by their tragic circumstances when they have to work together when they all know that they will never be able to go back home together. That ending scene was bittersweet, but I feel like they could have done more.

Bring Bayman into the alliance? I mean, he does want revenge on Phase 4. I get that he kinda works with them, I just think they could use him more.

Have Kasumi have a fight with the main Phase 4? I think it’d be interesting to have this clone weapon, who hates that she hurts people, face off against the original who’s now accepted the brutality of the world and will show no mercy to those who stand in her way. I feel like it’d give Kasumi some introspection and see just how much she’s changed; in a way, Phase 4 is a lot like how Kasumi started: she didn’t want to hurt anyone and make enemies, but she couldn’t do anything about it. The difference is Kasumi became the way she is because of her own choice and beliefs while Phase 4 literally can’t stop herself.

Have Lisa explain herself, geez! What is up with this woman?! What are her goals exactly?! Wait...how is she still alive?! Woman straight up had a building fall on her! Why are we just letting her walk away?! LISA!! GET BACK HERE!! WHAT’S YOUR DEAL WOMAN?!!!

So...I guess we still don’t get to beat the crap out of Donovan? Sigh...guess they’re saving that for 7. Hopefully.

And that’s all I think they could have added. And now, here’s everything I think they should have thought about twice.

CHANGE:

Really? You’re just going to bring Raidou back for the final boss? Really?  Why not use prime Phase 4, that would have been interesting, a final boss who doesn’t WANT to be the final boss? Come on DOA, you’re better than this! You had seven years to make a final boss! If you couldn’t think of one, just go DOA2 and pull something random out! There’s even another tengu you could have used! Who even remembered Raidou at that point?!

LESS. HONOKA. My gosh, she’s annoying! I’m sorry, I’m sure she has fans, but she just irritated me! Not only was she shoehorned into the plot, but she’s also a total Mary Sue! And that voice, AAAAGGGGHHHH! This is not a knock on Kira Buckland, she’s cool and great at her job, but AAAGGGHHHH! With so many three-dimensional and interesting characters, she just falls flat (metaphorically, of course).

Was Nyotengu actually necessary? I get that the tournament itself is just a distraction now, but she honestly bored me.

Why does Helena’s mother need to come back to life? Seriously, what did M.I.S.T. see in reviving one of the mistresses/mothers of their rival? Is this supposed to like torture Helena or something? This was just unnecessary, there was no reason for this. Sorry Maria.

Oh, so Rig’s mind controlled now? Would have been great if they had foreshadowed that in 5. You know, so it wouldn’t have come out of nowhere and helped explain his whole 180 when he was introduced!

Does Jann Lee really need another rival? Just focus on Lei Fang, she’s awesome!

Bit more meta, but did Rig and Christie really need new voice actors? The new ones are fine, but it just seemed unnecessary.

I’m really mixed about how story mode is laid out in modern DOA. On the one hand, putting everyone’s stories in one playthrough really makes it hard to really get attached to one, which I think is a very important aspect of fighting games. On the other, doing it in this style really helps keep the general plot coherent and easier to follow. I think a good way to handle this would be to make different story modes; a campaign to follow the whole vs. Donovan storyline and a different one that has each character’s individual story outside of the main plot.

Alternatively, divide the story between the tournament and the fight against Donovan; ‘cause I don’t think the Mugen Tenshin clan and their allies are going to be in any tournaments anytime soon.

BRING BACK UNLOCKABLE OUTFITS! Outfits may be understandable for DLC, but it’s just so much easier to unlock them all! I’m not made of money!

Even with all these negatives, I still had a great time playing! It was great to see the cast I loved so much (with one in particular) come back and beat the crap out of each other and I can’t wait for the next one!

...In five years.

[sparrowofsong]

For whatever reason, I got super super into the Doki Doki Literature Club AU I thought up last night, so I decided to expand on it. Will I do anything else with it? That’s for the gods to know and me to find out.

Technically inspired by @nachosforfree, who commented “doki doki” when someone mentioned a Sanders Sides dating sim AU.

(TW for blood, suicide, self harm, abuse, manipulation, starvation -- basically just all of the warnings for DDLC.)

Patton is Monika, and the other sides don’t have specific assigned characters. Patton controls them while the game is played, switching them around each time in hopes that, eventually, he’ll find the perfect combination of roles and personalities so that the player will hate them and love him.

The sides are conscious the entire time they're puppeted, even for the off-screen events or “death”, and feel what the characters feel. Whoever acts as Yuri has to watch as he cuts himself, as he stabs himself, as he grows more possessive and insane. Whoever acts as Sayori has to watch himself tie the noose, hang himself, and desperately claw at the rope as he slowly asphyxiates. Whoever acts as Natsuki has to watch himself be abused and starved by his dad, has to watch his neck get snapped, has to watch himself walk into the classroom where he knows he’ll see his friend dead. They have to watch and feel all the random chance body horror.

The only control Patton intentionally grants them (as far as they know) is over the personality, and vaguely the appearance, of the character they play as. The delivery of the lines and actions, the eye color or an accessory (out of specific options), etc.

Unbeknownst to them, though, Patton also purposefully lightens his control during specific parts of the game, just enough to allow some vague dialogue changes, to cover their tracks. Because if those changes happen around the same places, people think that’s just a random chance sort of thing like the other intentional glitches.

Of course, even he can’t consistently control everything at once. He’s powerful, but not omnipotent. Some things can slip through even outside of his intentional gaps. But usually, he manages to catch them in time to act like he does with the programmed glitches. If the attempted rebel does enough to potentially raise suspicion (or if he just feels shitty after being rejected once again) he makes sure they regret it. And more often than not, Patton’s precautions help players disregard the out of place “glitches”.

Even after they hit every single combination, Patton still keeps trying. Again, and again, and again. They know the entire game by heart; every line of dialogue, every poem, every choice-based mini plot line, every randomly generated event. They could act it out perfectly even without being puppeted.

Eventually, after enough repeats and failures and punishments, the other sides just,, give up. They don't bother with personality, they don't bother with trying to speak to the player outside of the script. It gets to the point where Patton has to start controlling those too to avoid players picking up on it. That's how they discover that he was allowing the changes, but at that point, they just don't care.

Enter Thomas: the latest DDLC player. He plays the game blind, gets scared, doesn’t understand every single aspect, yada yada yada. A typical playthrough. Until Yuri’s death.

After Yuri kills himself, Thomas doesn't know how to speed up the scene, trying to click through each individual line. He soon gets discouraged and bored. He spends the next couple days clicking through some more lines on and off, always forgetting/not caring to exit the game in between.

The effects of the game’s events are put on hold when the game is closed, and removed entirely once the character is "deleted”. Otherwise, the sides are continuously existing as the characters in their current state. Which means Remus, this current Yuri, has been living with the pain of three stab wounds for this whole time.

At some point during Thomas mindlessly clicking through the nonsense, one of the lines is actually something legible, and he almost misses it.

“Please... please skip forward. It... hurts.”

And it seems just a little odd? But, y’know, maybe the game just eventually auto-reminds people so they didn’t have to click through everything if they forgot about the skip option.

He gets to the day of the festival, and before Natsuki comes in with his line, Yuri's dialogue box pops back up with "Please keep playing. Just... a few more minutes. Please."

That's a little more weird. But so's the whole game, right?

Natsuki comes in, and says his usual lines. But right before the screaming and vomiting as the script dictates, he pauses, and Thomas swears he sees an expression of pity cross his face. The dialogue box shows a very tiny line reading "Please keep playing. Don't let him sit there anymore." 

It only lasts for a moment before immediately switching to the scripted terror. The transition is so awkward that it doesn't really sit well with Thomas. But it's probably like that to seem more meta. Or it's just bad writing. Right?

Monika's smile when he arrives seems slightly different than before. Almost forced. Thomas can't tell if it was like that before or not, so he takes a screenshot to compare later. He was considering googling it then and there, but after the pleas to hurry, he kinda felt like it'd be rude. Even if it was just a game. 

When Monika "deletes" Natsuki and Yuri, he hears a whispered "Thank you" and freaks out. Literally the only other audible human sounds in the game are breathing, a "baa", and the credits song, and there's a chance he didn't even hear the first two, and he wouldn't have heard the third yet. But,,, It’s a meta horror game. So it's supposed to freak him out. That's the whole point. Right?

(They're able to do all this because after so long of completely giving up, Patton realized he didn't need to waste so much energy on keeping them in line, so he gradually began using less and less. At this point, he's hardly using any more than necessary to have them play the part, and is a little rusty. They took advantage of it this one time out of desperation, and now that they've already started, they're doing as much as they can to get Thomas to listen before Patton takes them down again.)

Monika looks pissed before quickly forcing another smile and continuing his lines. The game goes the same way, Thomas eventually figures out to delete Monika, and Sayori appears to gain sentience. But instead of saying "I wanted to thank you for getting rid of Monika", the dialogue box shows "I wanted to thank you for freeing Yuri", and "Yuri" glitches into "Remus" on and off. 

When Thomas clicks, instead of going to the next line, the previous one glitches into "I wanted to thank you for getting rid of Monika" like it was supposed to be. The rest of the dialogue proceeds normally until Monika returns. 

Sayori's line glitches back and forth from "W-What's happening...?" to "Don't trust him!"

Rather than saying "I won't let you hurt him", Monika says "I won't let you lie to him." 

And instead of "Who..." "I-It hurts...", Sayori's final dialogue is "NO!"

The game continues and ends as programmed. Thomas just kinda goes "...What the fwuh?" before immediately looking up details about the game to see if this is all normal.

Surprise surprise: It isn't. No matter how long he researches, and despite all of Patton's precautions, the conclusion is the same: everything after Yuri's death is completely unique to his playthrough. No one else had those dialogue changes. Monika's smile in the screenshot is, in fact, different from his earlier smiles. There are not supposed to be any audible words besides the ending song. And there is no mention of a "Remus" anywhere.

There is definitely something up here. After he gives up searching for answers, he resolves to play again soon, and tries to commit to memory what's supposed to happen in the meantime.

Up until this point, their common area was a house a good bit away from the setting the events of the game took place in. They had a fair radius around the house to walk around, entertain themselves, etc., and were about as free as they could get while in that area. But, see, uh, Patton’s sorta really fucking pissed now.

Patton restricts the boundaries to just the house for everyone, and locks Logan, Remus, and Deceit (Natsuki, Yuri, and Sayori, respectively) into separate rooms, to make sure they can’t plan something else. He promises that they'll be playing the exact same roles every single time the game gets played, especially to decrease more suspicious changes if Thomas plays again, until he decides otherwise.

He hopes that Thomas will simply uninstall the game so that they'll move onto another player (because that's how I've decided it works don't question the logic). Unfortunately, he does not, and he decides to play again. 

Upon learning this, the three rebels decide that if they're fucked anyway, they may as well take this opportunity to give everything they've got in hopes that they can get Thomas to help them.

Which means Patton has to find some way to balance keeping them under his complete control, keeping Roman and Virgil from finding some way to escape the boundary and help out, and figuring out what to do with the script to undo the suspicion the three caused.

Roll for initiative!

[marybeatriceofmodena]

TFW when you try to do Anastasia but you also suck at your job: A Master Class by The Rise of Skywalker

Okay. So, I promised you guys a TROS review, and it’s coming, I promise… except I’ll be making two “spin-off posts” about specific issues just in order to clear up some stuff, mainly because in my mind, those issues are important.

First post is going to be, of course, about Rey’s parentage.

So. After TFA, it would have been possible for Rey to have been the kid of “someone”. However, TLJ made it impossible to do so, unless you’d have some serious, bullshit retconning going on – which is exactly what happened.

I know this is a VERY controversial thing to say at this point, but post-TFA, Rey Palpatine “could” have been possible. Okay, maybe not have her be Palpatine’s granddaughter, but more of a descendant of his.

This said, I “tried” making an origin story for Rey Palpatine that “works” for the purposes of this meta, on a hypothetical basis, while making it consistent with canon (something JJ Abrams and Chris Terrio clearly couldn’t be bothered to do, LMAO). I had plotholes no matter what. I do think I could have eventually found something with a little bit of brainstorming, but truth is, IT’S HARD, and a lot of exposition would have been for novels/comics only.

From a thematic perspective, though? It wouldn’t have been a bad idea. For this to work, though, you would have needed to go on full-blown Romeo and Juliet mode with sprinkles of Anastasia, though. I mean, The Lion King 2 did something similar, so why the fuck not. Because, yeah, Ben Solo, the grandson of Darth Vader, son of Han Solo and Leia Organa, the last prince of Alderaan, who falls in love with the last Imperial princess Rey Palpatine while they’re on opposite sides of the war but not the ones you’d think of is the stuff of fairy tales and star-crossed romances, except this one would have a happy ending and brought peace to the galaxy.

Truth be told, I still really enjoy fanfics who go for that story and find a way to make it work in canonverse or in AUs – because it’s genuinely fun. But in canon itself, as I point out earlier… it’s not easy.

So, we have Rian Johnson who said he made a list of potential origins for Rey while he was working on TLJ’s script. You bet Rey Palpatine was on that list. However, he came to the conclusion that Rey Nobody was the best way to go, and whatdyaknow, he made the right call.

Why? Rey Nobody requires minimal exposition. Storytelling-wise, you don’t have a lot of brainstorming to do, and it’s easy to have Ben revealing it, and easy to present it as a repressed memory of Rey’s. On a thematic level, that puts Rey on the same level as Jane Eyre or the main character from Rebecca: she’s a nobody from nowhere who is thrown into a family drama, and since she’s the glitch in the matrix, she must stop the story from becoming a tragedy.

See? Simple. You got your easy exposition, you got your thematic coherence, and you got the literary call-backs.

So, JJ and Terrio decided to retcon this shit because, as they said, they thought it was boring. I think Colin Trevorrow probably thought it was boring too, because I have my reasons to think a lot of TROS is from him (but more on that in my main review). But thing is, it’s not it’s “boring”, it’s literally that they didn’t know what the fuck to do with Rey. No, more than that, they don’t understand her, and frankly, they can’t be bothered to do so. She’s an empty vessel they can toy with at their ease, and in the process, turn her in a Mary-Sue. Because yes, TROS!Rey was a Mary-Sue, whereas TFA/TLJ!Rey was not. So, what I say above regarding Rey might be a bomb for some, considering how people are (understandably) defensive when it comes to that statement. I promise I will elaborate more about it in the main review, once again.

So, with the lineage aspect addressed, it’s time to talk about Rey’s parents themselves.

It’s hilarious how HARD JJ and Terrio tried to make Kylo’s explanation work – because as much as they butchered the shit out of him, they said: “Well he’s a bad liar, right? Gotta keep that in mind.”

Although, I don’t think it was a case of them being concerned with Kylo’s characterization – they’re not that graceful. They had to figure out QUICK why the hell Kylo wouldn’t have known Rey was a Palpatine from the get-go, because the Force is a great DNA test and shit, and I guess that’s how Palps located Ben’s Mighty Skywalker Blood™. Except that still doesn’t work because Palps couldn’t even locate his own goddamn granddaughter, but I digress.

Seriously, why would Kylo lie to Rey about her being a nobody instead of her being a Palpatine? It makes no sense, because if you’re going to roll with the theory Kylo just wants UNLIMITED POWAH, the Palpatine princess is not only a great asset (since marrying her legitimizes your claim to the throne in the eyes of the Imperial Remnants, I mean, that’s literally why Henry VII married Elizabeth of York), it’s also the one argument she needs to hear in order to sway her to your side. So I guess JJ and Terrio’s one shared brain cell kinda flicked a bit at that moment.

This said, getting the Palpatine princess on his side is clearly Kylo’s intention in TROS (which, again, makes no sense with what was set up in TLJ but that’s something I’m keeping for another post), except they trip all over themselves by having Kylo say he didn’t lie to Rey in TLJ. Except…

So, what Ben said in TLJ was the following:

Her parents sold her for drinking money.

They’re dead and buried in a pauper’s grave somewhere on Jakku.

Rey is related to no one.

Here’s what Ben reveals to Rey in TROS:

Her parents sold her for her protection.

They died on another planet, while being hunted down by a guy working for Palpatine and instructed to bring Rey back to them.

Rey’s dad is a Palpatine and Rey’s mom is Villanelle (nah, for real: the actress who plays Rey’s mom is Jodie Comer).

So, um, yeah, it’s the EXACT opposite of what Ben said in TLJ. Just say Palps was fucking with Ben’s mind-reading or Rey’s memories instead, JJ. Not that “Oh Ben was telling the truth, but he didn’t have the whole story”, because that’s not it.

For the latter, once again, it would have been feasible: the one thing, for me, that was possible to be added was that Rey had killed her parents accidentally, by having their ship to leave Jakku crash down with the Force: that’s what made her Force powers go dormant for all those years and provoked her trauma. It would also make sense that Ben would willfully not bring that back to her memories, because she’d understandably not be able to cope with the truth, which is often what happens to a lot of trauma victims. THAT was the theory I had pre-TROS, because that’s the only answer I could come up with when it came to JJ saying that there was more to Rey’s past. I guess I expected JJ to be, like, actually able to write, lmao.

I even wonder if that was actually in the cards, considering we see Rey in TROS bringing down a transport that supposedly has Chewie in it… but I guess they deemed that to be “too dark” for their heroine. Except the bullshit that comes instead is actually… much worse.

To make things simple, I’ll just take the above points and develop them.

Rey’s parents sold her for her protection.

Okay, so, Rey’s parents need to hide her to make sure Palps doesn’t get his hands on her. Fair enough. This said, why did it have to be Jakku and not, like, ANYWHERE ELSE? Especially that Palpatine had interest in Jakku at some point and that maybe having Rey anywhere close to that place would not be a good idea?

But let’s play the game and say that Jakku is the only place they can hide her because… I don’t know, it’s hard to find someone there with the Force. Whatever. Even then, why the fuck would they think Unkar Plutt is a proper guardian for a tiny little girl? You know they could have walked a few miles more and found a nice old man who likes the Light Side of the Force and the Jedi and all that shit called Lor San Tekka? Hey, why not even try to find a guy like Luke Skywalker who’s like, a Jedi and shit, and have him take care of their little girl and protect her? 

Even then, why the hell doesn’t Rey’s mom stay with her daughter? Her husband is the Palpatine, not her. All Rey’s mom has to do is find a nicer hiding place for her and Rey somewhere on Jakku, like, not Niima Outpost (again, Tuanul is just a few miles away), and just let Dad hide somewhere else. He’s a grownass man, he can take care of himself and he just has to hide on Nar Shaadaa or some shit. Fuck, why don’t all three of them hide on Nar Shaadaa? Or in the Coruscant undercity? ANYWHERE ELSE?

Also, wouldn’t Plutt clearly see two desperate parents as a business opportunity? Like, if you want to do a Les Misérables comparison here, he wouldn’t “buy” Rey from them, he’d try to get money for them à la Thénardier with Fantine. Except Rey’s parents make Fantine look like frigging Einstein because at least she had the excuse of thinking Madame Thénardier would take good care of Cosette since Éponine and Azelma seemed well-cared for.  

Again, a creepy-looking alien who exploits the outpost’s inhabitants for portions in exchange for junk, who asks you to pay him to take care of your kid should be a big fucking red flag – unless you want to involve blackmail, but that’s a whole other can of worms.

Seriously, why the hell would Rey’s parents even ACCEPT money that comes from selling their own child? Were they really that desperate? Fuck, even if I had no other way of getting off Jakku, I wouldn’t even THINK of using money that comes from selling my own child. Any parent who’d even CONSIDER doing that is automatically a godawful parent in my book. Shame on you. And shame on JJ for trying to make me buy them as saints, because THEY’RE NOT, JUST BY THAT SINGLE ACTION.

They died on another planet, while being hunted down by a guy working for Palpatine and instructed to bring Rey back to them.

I didn’t notice it until Jenny Nicholson pointed it out in her TROS review, because it SOMEHOW completely escaped my notice, but… Rey’s mom saying Rey is DEFINITELY NOT on Jakku is like the worst fucking lie I’ve ever seen in a film because it’s so hilariously bad. Congratulations, Space Villanelle, may you be forever remembered for this line.

Also, it’s stupid af that Oshi (that’s his name, right? Can’t be bothered to Google it, might just call him Barney the Bounty Hunter from now on) just kills Rey’s parents, because HE’S EVUL MUAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHA, because he literally creates a dead end for himself. He still has no fucking clue where Rey is, and he just killed off his only leads. CONGRATULATIONS BARNEY THE BOUNTY HUNTER, YOU SUCK AT YOUR JOB.

Rey’s dad is a Palpatine and Rey’s mom is Villanelle.

So, Rey’s dad looks like he’s in his early thirties at most, right? Maybe a little younger than Luke and Leia, then. So, unless he got frozen in carbonite at some point, that means Palpatine fucked at some point while looking like this:

Anyway, I sure hope Sly Moore was Grandma Palpatine because she’s pretty much the only person who’d be game to smash raisin ass. Which leaves me with extremely disturbing pictures of Palps and Sly having sex, so I’ll spare you the more graphic details of my twisted mind that’s screaming for an end to this misery. 

I sure hope having Rey’s mom as Jodie Comer isn’t a clue that we’ll get spin-offs with those two (GOD PLEASE NO), but while I crack jokes about how Rey’s mom is Villanelle and Palpadad kinda looks like Ramsay Bolton… I find it fucking hilarious they dressed Rey’s mom in BLUE. LIKE, SEE? SEE? SHE’S IN BLUE, LIKE THE VIRGIN MARY, BECAUSE REY IS SPACE JESUS!!!! GET IT??? GETIT???? PLEASE TELL ME YA GET IT, OKAY???? *gross sobbing* I knew we should have had Rey born in a manger, that would have made the artistic intentions clear *wipes tear*

All right. There’s a lot more that could be said about Rey’s lineage, but I’m keeping that for my main review because what’s left to say ties up to the bigger picture. What I tried to point out with this preliminary post is that while Rey Palpatine *could* have worked, in different circumstances, it couldn’t have had post-TLJ… and we’re left to see a mutilated horse who was dead on arrival. And that’s tragic.

[your-turn-to-role]

ayyyyy happy 4/13 have my second list of classpects, vox machina edition! (@lostsometime to add to the homestuck au)

(m9 here)

vex - thief of mind

vax - rogue of blood

percy - witch of light

keyleth - page of breath

scanlan - thief of life

grog - prince of rage

pike - heir of space

tary - witch of mind

first off, there are a couple copies here, and they don’t have a time player, so vox machina on their own could not win the game. but hey, weird plot shit exists, and the alpha kids managed it by combining their session with the beta kids, so who knows how this would go

(explanations under the cut)

1) vex - thief of mind

vex has a lot of ideas about her sense of self. but when you get right down to it, none of them are actually about her sense of self, and rather about how people see her. image is important to mind players, but it’s not really linked with identity. in fact, the canon description of mind players states they have very fluid, shifting concepts of identity, it’s far more important to them that they remain rational and have a logical line of reasoning than sticking to things just because they feel right or wrong. and i think this is very true for vex, she doesn’t often doubt herself, but she doesn’t really know who she is, beyond just what she’s trying to emulate or avoid.

thief bc she’s still one of the stealth twins, it is very her thing, but she’s definitely the louder of the two, the thief demands to be known, the rogue quietly assists. she’s headstrong, stubborn, and the world owes her everything it’s taken from her, which she definitely plans to steal back. and honestly that’s her right and i love her.

2) vax - rogue of blood

god i really love the fact that the twins are a thief/rogue pair, it not only fits who they are as people but vex being the active version of vax’s passive class and vice versa fits so well

(also fun fact, i have something of a personality test/checklist i grade characters on when i’m struggling to figure out their class or feel like i’m being biased towards one particular classpect. there’s 15 possible points per class, most characters will get a highest score of maybe 9 or 10, homestuck characters get something like 12-13. vax, however, does what no one else has ever done, and scored all 15 points in rogue. he is more rogue per rogue than any rogue in homestuck. 100% pure distilled rogue boy.)

personality quizzes aside though, he really is so obviously a rogue. he’s got everything of the thief archetype built into his entire character, but while a homestuck thief steals by their own will and for their own benefit, all of the rogue’s same actions go towards supporting their friends. also, as a passive class, their decisions tend to be less personal drive based and more guided by their aspect, as if the universe was working through them, which is definitely the case for our champion of the raven queen. they’ve been described in canon as the robin hood class, rebellious, but in an altruistic way. true punk. fuck the system, love recklessly

blood players need a family. they draw their strength from the bonds they have with those around them, they’re stubborn as all hell, especially when it seems like there’s no way out of a situation, but it’s in determination to protect their chosen family and keep everyone safe and happy. if they’re leaders, they’re inspirational ones rather than commanding ones. and this is “dramatic speeches about teamwork and morality” vax, “what the fuck do we have in this world except for moments with each other” vax, “how lucky i have been to have had all of you” vax. what else could he be?

3) percy - witch of light

so percy’s an interesting one, because i kinda wanna give him two classpects? like, if you classpect percy before or during the briarwood arc, he’s a prince of light. after that, he becomes way more of a witch. (though, to be fair, light players and witches are both incredibly prone to getting possessed, so, maybe he was a witch all along and just acted really prince-y)

he’s definitely an active class, no doubt about it. percy will fight gods to achieve his own ends. prince, being the most active class, and one designed to cause destruction, definitely suits orthax percy. but then things change, and you realise what he actually is

witches are manipulator classes, like knights, but active manipulator classes. they can’t create things out of nothing like some classes do, but instead bend and twist and transform their aspect (and the world around them, using their aspect) to achieve their goals. percy’s human, and not magic. he doesn’t have any particular special abilities in order to do things, he gets by on ingenuity and reckless bravery. that post that was going around a while ago about how all of vox machina are basically gods and percy’s just a guy with a gun does well to prove the point here, because he keeps up anyway. he’s made mistakes and there are things in the world now that he can’t change, but he does his best to work within those constraints and make as good of a world as he can with what he has

and what he has, usually, is knowledge. which is the main dominion of the light aspect, along with luck (and, you know, taliesin and dice rolling). light players are scholars first and foremost, but very rarely bookish scholars, instead the kind of scholars that think they can make a demon deal and get away with it because they’re clever enough for that, and also they’re extra enough that they’d do it anyway for the aesthetic

4) keyleth - page of breath

this was the easiest of all of these for me to do, it just slots so neatly into place. pages are a slow moving class that have to work their way around all the side quests before they get a lot of their power, but after that they’re powerhouses. they’re easily underestimated, by others and by themselves. keyleth takes a while to come to terms with herself and her power and her effect on the world, most of the plot takes place within her slowly completing her aramente, she often worries she won’t be good enough for anything that’s expected of her, but once she hits level 20 she is a master of the elements, a true leader of her people, and literally unkillable.

breath fits for two reasons. the first is being the aspect of freedom, of acting without being controlled by anyone else’s thoughts or decisions. and keyleth, for all her anxiety and all her bad luck, has never made a choice she didn’t agree with. along with vax she’s the first to speak up when she feels like the group’s moral choices aren’t holding up to her standards, when they’re moving in a direction that isn’t right. the second is that it’s the aspect of air, and the wind, and she’s literally the leader of the air ashari. she can and does in fact do the windy thing

5) scanlan - thief of life

we’ve covered life already in my nott/veth explanation, but it really is so scanlan. look at this excerpt and tell me it’s not written for scanlan shorthalt

[If you're poisoned, chances are the Life-bound have something for what ails ya. This applies to both physical and mental suffering, though it might not be a cure you'll like. They also have the tendency to put other's needs before their own, which never ends well for anyone, because the Life-bound can grow bitter if they feel their own self-care has had to be shunted aside.]

figuring out class was harder? a lot of vox machina classes are pretty difficult to figure out. prince would work to an extent because of scanlan’s self destructive tendencies, bard would work to an extent because he often feels like things are out of his hands, but i think i’m going with thief. scanlan’s more of an active class, despite playing support in dnd, he’s very self motivated and not one to listen much to the guidance of the universe. thief i feel fits with the headstrong attitude, the creative out of the box thinking, and the need for attention in a very specific way (less so having people celebrate you, scanlan enjoys that but can easily shrug it off if it doesn’t happen, it’s more causing things for the sake of knowing and having other people know that you caused them)

6) grog - prince of rage

honestly this is the one i’d be most willing to bend on? it, took me forever to come up with any kind of classpect for grog, he seems to resist being classpected. i know a lot about him as a person, but translating that into either class or aspect was just hard. but i’ve gone with prince because grog’s never stopped for anyone (except maybe pike), because it’s a destruction based class, because it’s the most active on the scale, and grog is definitely one to go do things purely because he wants to do things and wants to do them now.

rage because rage players are about truth at all costs, even if that cost is often destabilizing entire systems and leaving the rubble to pick itself back up. and it makes me think about how grog has never really wanted to disguise himself, and especially about just before the kevdak fight - he knew he would probably get killed if he went back there as himself, but he refused to go in under false pretenses, because that wouldn’t be right

7) pike - heir of space

ashley’s just always drawn to those heirs. i think though with pike it definitely is a consequence of her being in and out a lot, because she’s not just an heir, she’s an heir of space.

heirs tend to stumble into their role rather than creating it or seeking it out. on a meta level, ashley only created pike because the team needed a cleric and she worked it out from there, but as far as pike herself is concerned, she doesn’t really know what she’s supposed to be doing or what her purpose is, but she’s been trying to do her best to follow sarenrae’s teachings, trying to do her best to guide her friends, and hoping that nothing goes wrong along the way.

space, too, is an aspect of patience. it’s about valuing the journey more than the destination, it’s about seeing what the universe has in store for you and trusting that it’s just as likely to turn out good as it is bad - you’ll know when the time comes to step in, at which point space players are pretty fierce fighters. but for now, for pike, it’s trying to help her friends one step at a time

8) tary - witch of mind

tary is like percy but cheating. he has a lot more resources to work with bc he just goes out and buys shit. but the witch reasoning still stands, they are very similar people in that respect, good at working within a set of restraints so well you don’t even notice the restraints are there

mind rather than light because, tary doesn’t quite hunger after knowledge in the same way. instead he’s much more concerned with the application of it, of how to get from point a to point b as efficiently as possible, and how that benefits him. (also because he’s not nearly as extra as light players. have you met light players? like i love them but jesus christ. who let them be Like That)

[masterhandss]

I wanna know more about the guys. Don't get me wrong I like that the anime focuses a lot on the girls. But the guys who are ironically te main LI's in game are just kinda dragged around for harem purposes. We don't know anything about things that are actually unique to them their hobbies,interests(save for Alan and his music but that's about it,it seems) We know that Mary has her gardening, Sophia loves literature and romance novels, Maria has baking,Katarina agriculture and a vegetable garden

Hahaha yeah, I kinda get how that feels. When it comes to personal hobbies and interests (likes and dislikes), I guess Alan really takes the cake here on the boys’ side because he has an interest outside of Katarina (Geordo has “interesting things” listed as something he likes, but that just leads us back to Katarina so it doesn’t really count). Though now that you point it out, it is interesting to know that the girls all have interests that are linked to them, but the boys don’t really have any?? kinda??

Alan has his music, but the other three boys are kind of just presented with things related to Katarina (Geordo with his magic and snacks for Katarina, Nicol with the Devilish Count attire and the veggie bundle that Katarina gives him, and Keith with his Earth Dolls, Maria’s handkerchief (which idk why that’s even there) and keys??). I can’t be bothered to find any other merchandise that is presented this way but for all the girls and Alan, it’s pretty consistent.

I don’t really play any otome games (I’d love to though) so I’m not sure how far they go when it comes to developing the love interests, but since hamefura is about Sorcie being beyond an otome game, it does feel rather lacking that we don’t have much about the boys. The focus is put so much into the boy’s interest in Katarina that they don’t have too much outside of their backstory, personality and magic type.

Volume 5 does inform us that Keith likes studying magic and Nicol likes relaxing times, but to some extent you can still trace that back to Katarina (Relaxing times, since Nicol is most relaxed around people that he doesn’t need to please and aren’t interacting with him with ulterior motives; and Studying magic so he can control it and not hurt anyone). Geordo doesn’t even really gain anything new from this information. I feel like Alan was spared of this treatment just because having something that makes him unique compared to his twin brother is important to his character. I don’t want to take away the author’s efforts on providing interests for the boys in this volume, but I do feel bad for people like anon over here who might be looking for things that can relate them to the boys. I guess it’d be hard to connect with the boys if all they care about is Katarina.

Maybe it’s some sort of meta commentary about how the author wants to avoid having us find things that will endear us personally to the boys (aka their interests, personal goals, tastes, etc) by only giving aspects of themselves that can be traced back to Katarina? Because they literally only have eyes for her? I mean the description above does apply to the hamefura boys, not the Fortune Lover boys so hahaha idk. I feel like i’m trying to find an excuse for that mistake/laziness. I doubt my own assumption though, since something like that might ruin the boys’ marketability (or not? I don’t know hahaha)

As much as I’m happy that each girl has an interest that helps define them, the fact that they never get developed beyond that does seem like a bummer. It's hard to praise the girls for their originality when they only have singular interests that differentiates them from the treatment of the boys. 

Like Mary, we know she likes gardening flowers, but we don't what kinds she prefers to plant or if she'll plant anything that's available like how Katarina is to her vegetables, or random details like that. We know that Mary’s interests (or likes) are gardening, flowers and romance novels (and Katarina), and her hobby is gardening, but those interests are linked to her hobby (except for books, but we don’t know the extent to which she likes them in the first place), so there’s only so much praise that I can give. She basically doesn’t have much interests outside of her established hobby (it doesnt help when her only labeled dislikes is her sisters).

To be fair, with how the hamefura novels is written, it’s constantly moving forward in some way or another, and there aren’t really many scenes where facts like that can be implied or mentioned. Their feelings for Katarina and for each other are given the biggest priority, rather than how they act and what happens around them (that isn’t magic, politics, or Katarina related). Katarina’s pov just gives us the bare minimum facts about her friends, and she doesn’t seem like she’d narrate anything post-timeskip because she already knows what they like and don’t like by growing up with them, so we don’t get to learn anything unless we’re absorbing it for the first time as she is (she could mention stuff, but there’s also the fact that the light novels seems to be taking the screen time of the original harem bit by bit from each passing volume, according to spoilers i’ve seen, so situations where those can be mentioned as diminishing each volume.)

In some way, I guess the author is giving the fans a chance to interpret his characters through headcanons? I mean it sucks that we aren’t being given anything official, and I wish they could have at least hinted at things through dialogue or observations. 

Interpreting things is hard because you can never tell the line between noticing something small or seeing something that isn’t there.

An observation/interpretation, for example: like maybe while Mary likes to read romance novels with Katarina and Sophia, she’s actually not too into them but considers them worth the read-through and mostly reads them in order to relate with her friends, but wont obsessively scream and fangirl about them like her two friends; and Nicol might not like romance books at all and only read them in his childhood when Sophia had no one to talk to about it, and finally got to stop when Katarina came in.

I’m not really the type to think things through when I read/watch things like this so I personally would prefer if they would just tell me these facts. That could just be me though.

The english light novels is only up till Volume 5, with Volume 6 just about to come out in two weeks, so maybe japanese LN readers might know things that I don’t! I’m sorry if my answer is all over the place, I’m not really the most analytical person to ask  when it comes to things that might be hidden between lines of text since I usually take things at face value. Thank you for the ask!! :DD

[inventors-fair]

Combat Commentary

Thank you all for your entries! Here is commentary for all the entries that weren’t winners or runners-up. I hope that this format, along with the gallery, allows for people to get everything they can out of the Fair.

@ace-hobo — All for One // One for All

This was a clever use of the split-card naming convention, and I liked this card in general. There’s an amount of math to do that can make combat difficult, and if this card isn’t uncommon it probably should be. It’s hard to make it out with that symbol. Regardless, a fine card, costed effectively, a good split. Some people might be pedantic about the name; I think it’s nice.

@competitive-casual-magic — Oil and Fire

Now this is a cool card. Wrecking Ball, but shock, but deathtouch, but not. What an interesting idea. I like the fact that it deals two damage to any target, not just a creature. Giving it flash is very cool. I imagined a lot of scenarios in which this card could blow out someone during combat and make for some complex scenarios. I don’t think this should be rare, personally, but maybe it’s complex enough. In something like Modern Horizons, it would be uncommon. For standard, hm... I’m on the fence about that.

@dabudder — Adrenaline Sliver

This card irks me, not because you did anything mechanically wrong or because it’s not a great idea, but because it gives slivers a boost based on the number of slivers you control rather than +3/+2. Part of the flavor of bloodrush was the fact that it based it on the creatures P/T and abilities. The dissonance in this specific card is frustrating. Still, forget that. I love the concept. I do enjoy this card. Don’t forget in future iterations to capitalize all instances of the word “Sliver.”

@dancepatternalpha — One Last Fight

Follower really liked this card. I liked it as a combo piece. Flavorfully, it’s pretty neat and I like the effort that you put into the flavor text. It’s very difficult for a new player to understand exactly what use this card does without understanding how combat works, but that’s what makes it a good uncommon. I imagined pairing this with Spikeshot Elder and having fun there, heh. 

@fivetrillionelves — Conquer Fear

Interesting card, pretty strong trick! I like the way it makes one of White’s weaknesses, its small creatures, a lot better. Flavor text does need that end quote. Not a whole lot to say about this card. It gets the job done. Might be hard to understand in multiples on the same creature, though.

@fractured-infinity — Unstoppable Curiosity

I am not a fan of this card, clever as it is. I don’t like buffing an opponent’s creature just for minor card advantage. If this was “Whenever a creature deals combat damage to you this turn, draw a card” or some effect where you could utilize the weakness without making yourself weaker, I feel like this card could be cool. As-is, I’d never use this card on an opponent’s creature. On my own, it’s not bad. “Trample” doesn’t need to be capitalized. Also, I JUST got the flavor text. It’s a touch unclear.

@ghost3141596535 — Bullshift

He, nice name. I can see that you intended this for Ikoria, and I like that aspect of it. Thank you for marking the rarity. Don’t forget your periods. As someone who hasn’t played with mutate, I can’t really say how strong this card is in practicality. It’s odd that it allows for mutate in creatures without mutate. I don’t know how that works within the rules.

@guardgomabroa — Sudden Desertion

I really like the flavor of destroying an army (which should be capitalized) but I feel that that’s too narrow to really have a strong reason to exist. It’s a cute card that’s using Magic naming conventions for flavor reasons rather than the game itself. Maybe that’s enough. I’m a little more of a stickler. It’s kinda cute, though, and I’m a fan of white removing things from combat, too. Maybe in WAR it could have been played. 

@i-am-the-one-who-wololoes — Desperate Effort

I don’t believe “sacrificing” a “target” blocks well. The fact that it makes this card need two targets is confusing. Why not just “As an additional cost” the sacrifice? What’s the point of doing a creature that your team controls? Why only an unblocked creature? Why does it give the +X/+Y effect instead of a simpler +X/+X effect? I think that this card has too many moving parts and could have been simplified significantly while keeping the same strong flavor.

@machine-elf-paladin — Hunger of the Grave

This card was a contender for runners-up. It also could have used flavor text. It’s a great addition to Zombie tribal, great with graveyard strategies, well-worded and powerful with the lifelink. Not much to critique here. Good job.

@mardu-lesbian — Phantasmal Fallacy

I like what you did with the name. I think that this is a powerful cantrip that’s playing with some design space. “Planeswalker” becomes a 4/4? That’s a control card for sure. I’ll smack you in the face with a Mind Sculptor. The cantrip might be too powerful, as four power is pretty strong as-is, but I think this card is basically fine and pretty fun.

@misterstingyjack — Quickdraw

Interesting card. I like the magically influenced gunslinging flavor and what can be done with other equipment in this set. The fact that this can essentially be a five-mana do-nothing spell without so much as a cantrip is frustrating. This card should be, I feel, three mana at most. Might require playtesting, but still. Definitely not five.

@nikkatsu-dnd-mtg — Trade-Off

Firstly, this card’s name doesn’t stand on its own without flavor text to back up whatever’s happening, and the fact that there’s no flavor text is a major blow. I’m not sure why it’s an Arcane spell, and I’m definitely not sure why this is common. This card is a blowout and a half. Getting tokens is worth it, and swinging with a team of 6/6s minimum is insane. It’s a one-mana go-wide spell that should cost at least five mana and be at least uncommon. I know you thought that static abilities was a good enough loss, but I assure you: it is not.

@nine-effing-hells — Bardic Performance

I’m on the fence about this card, even though it’s probably good. You took the fairly complex addition of sagas and made it a simple and fun buff in the vein of Travel Preparations. I think this card is a fine uncommon, probably. There’s a tiny bit of disconnect between bard things and counters like that, but the flavor can be bent, and I can just suck it up. This card is good.

@piecesofliquid — Instinct of Greed

Concept is good. There are three specific things I would do to improve this card. One: Change the name to “Greedy Instinct.” No real reason, I just like it. Two: Most importantly, I would change the “exile” to “sacrifice” and take out “you control.” Sacrificing is only something you can do anyway, and it would work better with other red strategies. Three: The flavor text needs to be in quotes. Other than that? Again: good.

@real-aspen-hours — Sudden saplings

Yeah, as you said in Discord, this card is basically Blinding Fog. Instead, let’s talk about improvements for future submissions! Firstly, the card name should be capitalized; I copied it exactly as you submitted it. Secondly, you didn’t include a rarity, which is something you need to consider. Thirdly, if the flavor text is a quote, which it appears to be, it needs to be in quotation marks. That’s all I can think of off the top of my head. Card’s fine for a functional reprint, lol. I like how you changed it to “by creatures” for a more Fog-gy effect. Why ALL creatures?

@shandylamb — Knowledge Breeds Strength

Strict +X/+X effects are not in Blue’s slice of the color pie. This is a green card through and through. I think the flavor text could have been a little more creative. The idea, however, is sound. This card would have been fine twenty years ago, probably. I don’t mean to sound snarky with that; it’s simply something old Blue could have done that isn’t done anymore. 

@snugz — Necromantic Ninjutsu

I am of the opinion that this card should be rare. I am also of the opinion that if this card was rare it would have won above and beyond. What a fantastically creative card. Follower loved it, as did I. For a standard set, though, rareify that baby. Great great great job.

@starch255 — Invisible Wall

Wow, this card is... Not Fun At Uncommon In Limited. The idea is sound and I would love playing this card, but it’s just too much! The hexproof, nuts. The nigh-infinite life, crazy. What a frustrating card to play against. If this was FOUR mana, I might consider it. However, I do like how trample effs this card over. Regardless of that, though, I’m not a big fan, no matter how much if a fan I am. If that makes any sense.

@teaxch​ — Serene Crane Maneuver

Interesting! I think this is one that needs the two targets, unfortunately, but I can imagine how this would work in limited. I would probably only sideboard this card if I felt really really clever, but I like it for flavor reasons and mechanical reasons. Again, I just wouldn’t...play it, necessarily. Maybe I would, but it would take the right environment. This is a volatile card.

@theobligatorysql​ — Combat Trick

This card absolutely needs to be an uncommon and absolutely needs a better name/flavor combo. Now, I do like it mechanically, and it’s pretty cool, but I’m not a fan of the fact that this is a meta-card. In a vacuum, I freakin’ love it. I feel that this card would go well in something like a Custom Cube.

@tmstage​ — One-Two Punch

Very cool. Aethertouch is one of those things that you’re introducing that I would have to see played out before I pass judgement on it. As of right now, I think that this card could have been a cantrip or something. “Non-lethal damage” — hm. Not sure how I feel about that, though. But I assume also that blue is what makes this card Jeskai. Personally, for three colors, I’d like to see something simpler and/or more streamlines. New concepts are scawwy, o noes!... In all seriousness, keep Aethertouch for future designs.

@walker-of-the-yellow-path​ — Meat Shield

“Target creature GAINS indestructible until end of turn.” It’s an actual ability now, remember? Aside from that, this card is...fine for one mana. It’s not perfect, it’s kinda clunky, but it seems like something WotC would print so you have that going for you. I like the simplicity of the flavor text.

~ 

[crystalelemental]

Oh man.  GamePress apparently updated the offensive tier list to be AR exclusive, and boy have there been some changes.  You know I have opinions on this one.

Okay let’s start with the obvious part: how in the hell is any Legendary hero considered above Tier 2?  Like, are we not factoring in score?  Or are we only accounting for if they score well?  Because realistically, half the time, a legendary hero is an active detriment to the scoring.  Also it turns out this isn’t just offense, but both offense AND defense, since Mirabilis is Tier 1.  So that’s gonna be...honestly, a bit confusing.  I’m sure some people can tell which is which, but I’m willing to bet others aren’t clear.

Let’s start with the biggest changes at the top.  Eliwood and Brave Roy are now Tier 1, likely because Galeforce.  Nothing else is different that I can tell.  Maybe some demotion?  But nothing substantial.  Lysithea is finally recognized as Tier 1, and I’m certain it’s because of her power on AR-D.  Girl is obscene.  Otherwise, Fallen Julia is the only other T1 Red Mage, and damn good on her.  Idunn demoted, but honestly, fair.  AR is not for her.  Armor units are not hard to handle, and are pretty bad on offense.  Especially with Thrasir existing, armor dragons just have a rough go.  Spring Idunn and Tibarn alone are T1.  What I do find interesting is that Dancer Micaiah didn’t maintain.  I guess the Hardy Bearing effect isn’t as impressive anymore.  Also Karla stayed T2, that’s...astonishing, actually.  Duo Byleth is also T2, which kinda makes sense.  Defense can’t make use of her Duo skill, and her bulk is pathetic, so any typical ranged defense unit can handle her.  On offense, it’s going to be tough.  Desperation effect is good, but conditional on having a fast team, not to mention Galeforce sets can require the foe to retaliate, like with Eliwood/Brave Roy.  So I can’t say I’m surprised she’s not on top.

Lance seems to just be B!Lucina, Duo Ephraim, and Trio Palla.  Which is fair.  Blue mages, though?  Damn is this crowded.  L!Azura and Peony, because obscene dancers.  Ophelia, because bitch.  Duo Alphonse, because immortality.  Brunnya, because honestly Fimbulvetr is perfect for this game mode, and she’s got the infantry status and abilities to do whatever she wants.  And L!Julia.  I’m willing to bet she’s more AR-D focused.  Rafiel and L!Chrom are also T1, of course.  I think what really surprises me is that Reinhardt is T2.  Is anyone else surprised about this?  I guess he’s not the most threatening thing in the world anymore, but still.  Actually wait, what’s REALLY neat is that Naga is T3.  So clearly scoring considerations are not paramount.

Axes have V!Duo Alm, Annette, L!Edelgard, and B!Ike.  Because of course.  All of them are ridiculous.  Mages have L!Celica, Thrasir, and Fallen Lyon, with beasts/dragons having Reyson.  Which, again, makes sense.  I’m glad Surtr demoted to T2.  I really don’t think of him as the most threatening aspect of AR anymore, even on dedicated stall, so this feels overdue.  Yune’s also T2, which..okay, fair.  While I think she’s great, she’s a ranged flying unit who plays defense, and her debuff game is crippled severely by Eir’s bonuses.  It’s super weird that F!Kana demoted, though.  She was T1 before, and that was entirely based on AR potential, so...okay.  Guess the meta has shifted hard enough against her.  Also, big shoutouts to Julia for maintaining T2 status.  That’s my girl.

Bows have L!Alm, L!Leif, V!Faye, and Duo Marth.  I can’t speak for Duo Marth, I don’t have him, but I feel like the fact I’ve never faced one means he’s at least not good on AR-D.  I can vouch for V!Faye, though, holy shit.  In fact can we establish Tier 0 for the primordial beings that break the world over their knees?  Anyway, Bernadetta and B!Lyn are T2, and I’m betting that’s for hit-and-run offense teams.  Also Norne’s T2 now, which is super correct.  I’ve felt this for a while, and the forum backs me up pretty hard on it: Norne’s the best common archer by a mile.  But of course, you all know what I’m going to say.  There is no way Faye is T3.  I have played her ranged defense game long enough to know that she is really strong at it.  While some threats like Lysithea can blow past her, and Thrasir isn’t always one-shot with my current supports, she is very capable of performing better than T3.  Also, poor Clarisse.  Finally gets a kickass refine that’s just not particularly great for AR, and instead of climbing the ranks of the offensive tier list, they change the conditions on her.  Girl can’t catch a break.

Dagger/Mage combos have, of course, Bramimond, Leila, Eir, and Duo Micaiah.  Absolutely no surprises here.  What is surprising, maybe just to me, is that Winter Cecilia is down to T3.  She was considered T2 for a long while, and I’d guessed that was based on AR potential.  I guess Duo Micaiah is causing substantial problems for armors across the board?  But man, Larum is T2.  LARUM.  Larum sucks, what could she possibly be doing that’s useful?

Dragons/Beasts have Fallen Female Corrin, Leanne, Mila, and Velouria.  I love everything about this.  Leanne makes sense for Defense teams, Velouria is a great Galeforcer, Mila is probably the best Light mythic for supertank strategies, and Fallen Female Corrin makes me happy because Fallen Male Corrin is only T2.  Get fucked, loser.  Your higher BST does nothing for your shit ass.  I do think there’s an argument for Caineghis in T1 for an offensive supertank, but honestly, he struggles.  To a degree I’d say he’s worse than Faye.  We don’t have any beast Mythics, and the only offensive dragon is Mila.  His DC is conditional on transforming, and he’s an armor unit.  He can’t run Null C-Disrupt, or Null Follow-Up like she can, so there are defense teams that can beat him by exploiting this.  I feel like Faye’s a lot better, but hey, what do I know.

And finally, staves.  Bridal Fjorm is the only one in T1.  Brave Veronica actually dropped, which is funny because she was T1 before solely on AR.  She doesn’t place in Arena.  I guess the meta has shifted away from Brave Veronica lately.  I haven’t been scared of one in a long time.  And hey, Maribelle is T2 as well, and Forrest got pushed up to T3!  Unfortunately, Brave Camilla was reduced to T3, so she’s still below B!Veronica.  Which in this game mode I guess is fair.

Now for the opposite end of the spectrum.  There are now 6 tiers, which I like.  I feel the subdivisions are appropriate, we have enough units that categorization was tough.  T4 for lances and swords was like 60 units before, I’m glad it got cleaned up a bit.  For red stuff, Alfonse remains at the bottom, but is no longer alone.  NY!Camilla, Chrom, V!Conrad, Beach Fiora, Hinata, and NY!Hrid are also down there.  Haha, Hrid, get fucked you loser.  That’s for January 2019, you fuck.  Mages here include Canas, Julius (ouch), Leo, Beach Leo, Raigh, and Beach Lorenz.  No surprises.  There are no dragons, daggers, or bows for red down here, the lowest they go is T4.  Hysterically, every form of red Tiki is in T4.  Also, maybe this is me not understanding something, but NY!Anna and NY!Eir in T4 surprises me.  I thought their weapons were considered great team support.  Are their stats just not optimized for it? 

T6 lances are many.  Too many, I’m not listing all of that.  What I will say is, tell my Forma Finn running on the double cav Galeforce defense team that he’s T6.  Considering I only lost two matches at all last season, and only 38 Lift, I’d say he’s doing alright.  But there are probably better options out there, I’m just working with what I have.  Mages are just Oliver and M!Robin.  Man, I hope M!Robin goes up with the resplendent.  Leave Oliver to die.  No dragons, bows, or daggers, they’re all up in T4 where...where...no.  No, there’s no way.  Lilith has warp abilities from anywhere.  NAESALA is considered T4, despite being paired with Tibarn for some of the nastiest offensive AR-D strategies out there.  Mordecai has the Smite thing.  I don’t agree with this at all.  And Ninian is T3?  Even though she’s one of the top picks for Infantry Pulse AR-D dancers?  I know Nils exists and is better in every way pretty much, but that’s a bit much to me.  I think the blue dragon/beast section is the most ridiculous by far.

There are also a lot of axes down in T6, but I agree with all of them.  The green mages make me sad, though.  Picnic Leo, Cecilia, and Female Robin.  I do think F!Robin has a lot of utility within the game, but...honestly they’re super right, she cannot possibly compete in AR.  Defense teams have no use for her, and offensive teams using her as a support are a bad idea with Panic Manor around.  Mostly Cecilia makes my heart hurt.  Come on, IS.  Null C-Disrupt Raven Tome when?  As with the other tiers, all dragons, bows, and daggers of this color are higher ranked.  That said, L!Lyn in T5.  Get fucked.  There’s also...absolutely nothing controversial about their T4 picks.  Green’s pretty well sorted, good job team.

The only colorless option with units in T6 are healers, where we have Azama, Mist, Wrys, Sakura, and Lissa.  Nothing controversial here.  In fact, nothing controversial in T5, either.  What is sad but super true, is that F!Grima’s here.  All the other colorless beasts and dragons are clustered in T1 and T2, but she’s down in T5.  Expiration refine when?  Felicia and Jaffar are the lowest ranked daggers, to no one’s surprise.  None of the bows are shocking either, except I’m kinda surprised Niles isn’t at least a little higher.  I feel like his massive Res must account for something when attempting to tank out the many ranged magic threats on AR-D, right?

Overall, I...actually agree with the majority of this.  It’s a solid tierlist for Aether Raids.  There are some things I don’t entirely agree with, but would have trouble arguing in their favor in the current meta.  Like Micaiah.  As we move entirely away from armor units, Micaiah becomes less and less significant.  I do think the blue dragon/beast section could take some revisiting, given that goddamn Naesala is down in T4, but one area that seems off isn’t bad when you have so much to organize.  I like it.  Definitely a lot better than the previous list, because at least now we’re specialized.  Before, there was always an argument that a certain unit was better or worse based on performance in a specific area.  But here, it’s more stable.  I’m not sure if there’s intent to make an Arena one, or if that’s even necessary since scoring is a lot more specific for Arena, but we’ll see.

[gentletwin]

Meta: why Subspace Lucas’s characterization sucks (kinda) and fanon Lucas sucks (a lot) and you should just play Mother 3 instead.

So, to know why subspace flopped in some areas ( and we’re just talking about Lucas here, never mind the rest of the characters ) and did well in others, you have to know the basic plotline of Mother 3. That information is on my pages and on wikis and whatnot ( cough, and in the game, cough ).

But just to briefly summarize it here for the purposes of having everyone up to speed for this meta: Lucas and company live in a utopian, low-tech village where money isn’t a thing and everyone just does things for each other just because. Lucas is the meeker between him and his brother and is branded as a crybaby by the other villagers until the tragedy with his mom and brother. Flint spends all his time looking for Claus. Pigmask army starts bringing in capitalism. Three years go by and Lucas is pretty much on his own. He decides he wants to get stronger.

He remains gentle and compassionate, but becomes much braver in those three years. This guy puts it pretty succinctly.

Fast forward a bit, and basically, because Lucas can use PK Love, and the commander in the Pigmask army can also use PK Love, both of them can pull the Needles that seal a dragon under the islands that can basically destroy everything, but will act according to the person’s heart. Basically, Lucas has to become stronger. Though he also wants to.

I won’t go into all the plot details here because that’s really not what I’m here to do. Basically, both because of the way he was after his mom’s death, and because, I mean...he was basically on his own in the three years after that, Lucas had to and wanted to be stronger. He wanted to be someone that wouldn’t have to hide behind his mom and brother.

Now, Subspace...kind of tries to take that entire arc and condense it into Lucas and Red’s portion of the storyline? With the boss fight with Porky and the confrontation with Wario being the “Lucas is the meek younger twin” part of his arc, and the climax of the fight with Galleom being the “Lucas is strong and can fend for himself” part of his arc.

Sorry for the shitty second screencap, Brawl was 2008, the cutscenes were 720p, and the camera in this part is REALLY fucking shaky.

Anyway, in that respect, Subspace does a pretty good job of conveying Lucas’s growth through his actions, considering that the cutscenes had literally no dialogue whatsoever. But the thing is...where exactly is this situated with respect to the Mother 3 timeline? The King P statue is a boss in the last chapter of Mother 3, Porky is the second to last fight in the game, Lucas already has PSI so this has to be after the timeskip...which is it? Am I reading way too deeply into the story of a beat ‘em up game that’s not even focused on story in the first place? Yeah, probably, but my point is that if you don’t already know the story of Mother 3 and know about Lucas’s character arc, it is very easy to misread his character based on Subspace alone.

I can talk about this from experience, because I also fell into the “umu shy sadboi hours” fanon trap after seeing / playing Subspace for the first time, and it wasn’t until I started actually getting into Mother and played Mother 3 that I realized, oh shit, this is actually kind of not accurate. Sure, there are still some shy, emotional elements to Lucas...

...But that’s not the only aspect of his personality.

So on one hand, I think Subspace did a good job recreating that growth in a really short storyline, if you’ve played Mother 3 and already know about said arc. I know I find myself being like “YEAH THAT’S MY SON!!!” every time he PK Thunders himself and Red out of Galleom’s hand. But on the other hand, that development can also be so subtle that it goes right over the heads of people that are unfamiliar with Mother, and leave them with the shy sadboi character archetype and not much more to go off of.

In all fairness to Smash, it’s really not a story-driven game at all, and I think Sakurai and co were on some level aware of what happened with Brawl and shifted Lucas’s characterization in each successive Smash game. In fact, I’d go as far as to say that Lucas’s Smash 4 reveal trailer is a direct nod to Ness’s role with respect to Lucas in Subspace.

If that’s the case, this could be considered character development between Smash games, i.e., Lucas got more confident after Brawl. But I dunno! Maybe just don’t characterize Lucas based on a single personality trait!

In short: Please fucking play Mother 3 I’m begging you.