#uhhh at least i got a screenshot of one of the frames before it all exploded

[fisheito]

I tried to animate sappyass yakuei in Sketchbook and it bugged out, corrupted the file, and wiped all my other WIPs inm gonna 😂🤧😭

[cmescapade]

my long overview/review of ‘Star Wars: Journey to Batuu’ after forcing myself to play it almost nonstop

so i said i was going to amend what i said in response to this ask after playing to min/max shit so here is a tldr version of my opinion after playing:

I consider this pack to be a 2/10; It's enough to kill time as a temporary distraction, but not for long. There’s absolutely no replay value after going through all those missions as each outcome is ultimately the same by faction. There also doesn’t seem to be any negative outcomes for each prompt in the little “choose your adventure” pop ups--And if there is, it is extremely low since I have never gotten a negative outcome. 

The aspirations are fair, and are the only things I found in this pack that’s anyway redeemable since I believe the rewards can be used well in conjunction with general solo/super-sim gameplay.

kinda sat on this for a while bc i wasn’t sure if i should post something so lengthy but then i remembered this is my blog n i can post my left toe if i wanted to

even tho i would never post a pic of my left toe anyway

.......at least for free. With the right price, however....

anyway more details under the cut if you’re interested bc i like to ramble :))

I decided to split this into 5 sections to organize my thoughts a little better. I’ll be separating my thoughts on each faction, the ships as a rabbit hole, the faction missions, the star wars aspirations, and then the breakdown of my 2/10 rating. 

1. Factions

When you travel to Batuu, the game gives you a starting “mission” or quest to get you acclimated to the areas, and each area has a specific Faction associated with it.

And yes, you cannot live anywhere, nor are there any lots, as was already stated.

Every area has a similar makeup which has:

Control Panels

Supply Crates

1 non-rabbit hole area

1 interactable ship

The Black Spire Outpost is the biggest area and has:

Two places to grab food, three if you count the Cantina

Aside from the Cantina, the other areas are rabbit holes

The two eateries are:

Docking Bay 7

this one has the most food options

you’ll never go hungry in batuu because the cheapest items on the menu are Outpost Popcorn Mix and Water at 0 credits lmao

the other two foods not shown in the screenshot above are Yobshrimp Noodle Salad and Braised Shaak Roast

Ronto Roasters

This food place has two of the same options Docking Bay 7 has as well as two additional food items

Oga’s Cantina

The only area that you see the inside of

yea the bar serves batuu-only drinks too

also where you find the guy who would give you Scoundrel missions, Hondo Ohnaka.

You can essentially max your Scoundrel reputation without it hindering whichever side you wanna take, and you can keep it when you essentially max out your rep on either the Resistance or the First Order.

There aren’t any real pros to being a Scoundrel aside from some socialization interactions. It doesn’t do anything for initial Batuu gameplay aside from unlocking Scoundrel outfits in CAS and some upgrades for your droids, but this goes for all of your options (Resistance, First Order, & Scoundrel).

The Dwelling

This is a rabbit hole where your sim goes to sleep, pee, or shower… If not the closest bench. 

It’s located opposite to the Cantina. 

If you’re ever lost, there’s a spire you can sit/nap on right in front of it–or you can just wait till your sim wants to pee. 

they’ll automatically run there 

that’s… how i found it, tbh

Dok Ondar’s Den of Antiquities

Another rabbithole

This place sells items you can use to complete missions, like Dataspikes and a couple of Lightsaber parts

Majority of the inventory are decorative stuff to bring back with you

Savi’s Workshop

Right behind the antique shop is the lightsaber place where you can find more hilts, kyber crystals, and display cases for your lightsabers.

You can also click on the shop to start a lightsaber challenge.

Outside this area, you have the First Order District which has more supply crates and control panels than the other two neighborhoods, and a lot more activity–Makes sense since this is basically the hub for the First Order in general. 

There’s only the Droid Depot in this area, and the only real shop that has use for credits. Food wise, there’s a food stall, and if your sim is stinky or tired, they’d basically disappear for a few minutes to recharge and come back. 

Droid Depot

Each faction has specific Droid personality traits

Aside from “voices,” these personalities don’t do much

I guess the First Order one is a lot more zap-happy though

The Resistance Camp is even smaller. Like the other areas, it’s littered with supply crates, but only has one control panel and no shops. However, there’s a rabbit hole toward the back in the Caves.

This doesn’t lead you to anywhere interesting, and it’s just another ‘choose your own adventure’ kind of thing. 

2. Ships

In the Black Spire Outpost, you’ll find the iconic Millennium Falcon. You can do kessel runs and explore in the Millennium Falcon with Chewbacca if you have a high Scoundrel reputation. 

However, although I said you get to ride with Chewbacca, you don’t ever see him come out 

He just kinda……………..stays there

and the prompts tell u he’s there

n ur gonna have to go with it and use the power of your imagination to believe he really do be there

In the First Order District, there’s the TIE Echelon, which functions the same way as the Millennium Falcon… But, you can’t do anything outside of exploring or using it for missions. This is how the X-Wing Starfighter in the Resistance Camp functions as well. 

It’s all pretty copy and paste, but w/e, that’s how EA does it  

 ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

3. Missions

There may be several different missions per faction, but to no one’s surprise, they’re all literally the same one but worded differently.

Regular missions only have one plus (+) and one negative (-) icon

Regular Scoundrel missions only have one plus icon and no negatives since they don’t impact other factions

Each faction has a regular mission that pertains to:

Obtaining information

Exploring with the faction’s designated ship

Stealing from Supply Crates

Hacking a Control Panel

Yes………………….They’re very repetitive

You don’t have to do all of them though

You can spam the same one over and over as long as it fits the time slot

For example, the Resistance’s ship exploration mission is limited to only the day time and seems to disappear when it gets late in game

also there’s an error with the TIE Echelon where it’s missing a whole ass prompt

……As you can see, the options make no sense because the prompt is the same one that came before it 🥴

anyway…

Story Missions are the only missions that seem to differentiate from each faction.

All missions that pertain to the “story” are indicated with prerequisites of higher ranks within the faction

All of them give a double boost toward your faction

If it’s a Resistance story quest, it’ll always increase hostility from First Order members

Vice versa for the First Order faction

The Scoundrels are neutral, and do not impact any faction 

It’s only the Resistance and First Order factions that have very similar plot lines

but I’m guessing it’s only like that since they’re supposed to follow the vague cause/effect the two of them have?

4. Aspirations

The initial Aspiration you get when you pick the Star Wars umbrella in CAS (or in game) is “Hope VS Order.” After completing this one aspiration, you unlock the 3 that pertain to each faction.

Paragon of Hope

Resistance aspiration

Reward trait gives a boost to Charisma skill building

This is probably nice for those careers that need Charisma to be high, like the Political and Business branches

Enforcer of Order

First Order aspiration

Lowers chances of “Death from Anger”

Since I like killing my sims, I think this aspiration is pointless lmao

Galactic Privateer

Scoundrel aspiration

“Sleight of Hand” reward trait

Unlocks pickpocketing outside of Criminal branch usage

Best one here tbh

Works outside of Batuu, you’ll steal simoleons instead of credits

Also you can cheat whenever u play Sabaac and no one will notice

5. Reevaluation of Initial Opinions

I’ll be going through my initial list from my Response to the Ask I got before. I originally stated that it seemed promising and it was a 3.5~4/10.

Aesthetics/Visual: my opinion is unchanged, it still made me sad i can’t have a little shanty house out there or rent a garbo lot, 0.5/5

The longer I played, the more I didn’t find any new animations

The lightsaber sparring slowly began to look like a mash between GF and RoM duels after a while

I still hate that the areas were beautiful (+0.5) but the interactive places forced cutaway

why do you wanna ruin my screenshots like this, man

CAS/BB still is hard to integrate–Unless your sim is a geek with figurines, the ship models might be nice to add to their collections

Otherwise……

….

I don’t have a follow up for that, sry

Gameplay: uhhh at least i found something i could use outside of Batuu, 1.5/5

I think that playing 3984729847 repetitive missions for a long period time really orientated me to the whole map

…but the fact that i had trouble the first time around still makes it not-user friendly

the issue I had with the resistance members not having an icon? It’s a thing, I guess

The resistance quests take you on a weird trip to “prove” yourself so i guess the icons are supposed to show that they’re “not” resistance members or something idk

they’re supposed to be the sneaky underdogs who wanna do good or w/e

I guess that’s immersive…….. +0.5

sry im first order trash

they also have “Ignite the Spark” and “Ask about Missions” both leading to the same mission screen……………….

convenience?? i guess??

missions are still confusing, made worse when the game itself glitches up a storm

there was one mission where i had to go to the cantina to find someone

and they wouldn’t spawn within the time frame………….

i had to go in and out for like 3 days until they actually spawned

i only knew this bc i arrested half the people in the cantina while i was bored

so anyone without a red bar was probably them lmfaoo

also, as i stated above……. there’s some mission errors in the prompts 

Currency is still worthless.

Everything can be done by purely stealing from supply crates

Credits are only worth to blow it off on sabaac! 

The only real need for credits is to have 1,000 so u can buy a droid

Then slam the rest of those credits on the table to bet bajillions on a game of sabaac!

Aspirations………. Useful +1

Despite them being sorta niche, they’re pretty decent

Can abuse the rewards for optimal gameplay for a super sim

Honestly i just love the pickpocketing reward off the Scoundrel aspiration, just because it works outside of Batuu (and that he didn’t have to be in the Criminal career for it either)

In total, my personal rating for this pack is 2/10.

It was nice, but I don’t really see this pack being replayable, considering that i did everything there was to do on Batuu in a single trip. Sure I could’ve taken my time, but since everything would end up the same anyway, it felt like it was set up to be a one-time gig. 

At least with JA you’re moderately forced to return so you can collect treasures that are RNG–In JtB, you can snatch up all that you need on Batuu from grinding everything like a nutcase. There’s also chances of failure in JA, but on Batuu that percentage is almost little to none. The most you’ll ever get is a dazed moodlet that barely lasts, a negative relationship, and being escorted to a loading screen.  

I feel like this pack could be a little better if there were more risks involved, but there are barely any that I encountered. It’s just another weird, rehashed cash grab by EA.

[ralfstrashcan]

3B Trailer Reaction / Commentary

Ngl after watching the trailer for the first time I laughed my ass of for a solid minute because the scene changes where so swift that I didn't get a thing LOL Then I rewatched it, pausing every 0.03 seconds and here are my thoughts. Pls bear with my shitty screenshots ;)

HELL YEAH WINGS IT WAS ABOUT DAMN TIME!!!! After Jace (Dom, whatever) invented a Wing Rune in that one video and after there's an official Winged Rune on the Shadowhunters Wiki Page

Figures they'd wait for the absolute last season to get out the good stuff. Srsly so much lost time. Hope they make the best of it. And isn't it ironic that demon-blooded Jonathan has wings when freakin pure angel-blooded Jace and Clary don't have them? Yet anyway :D

“The resurrection brought back my real face.”

Lol dude how would you know? Didn't you spend the last ten-ish years as a pretty peace of charcoal? I mean, my instinctual thought wouldn't be that this sweet boy

would age to look like this

He could be 100% reborn in a new body, I mean Lilith called it a rebirth several times. How would he know. Anyway. At least they got the eye color right. Somewhere Lily Evans is weeping bitter, jealous tears.

Since here we have Magnus, Alec and Simon and a warlock portal.... either they ordered a warlock to open that thing, a warlock who didn't come through with them, OR MAGNUS HAS HIS MAGIC BACK HELL YEAH

1) Is this a choker?? I need answers!! 2) Why tf is Alec frowning? Probably because Magnus is happy to be back at the Institute.

Don't even get me started. Srsly. Just check out this post, it's G-O-L-D. Still cackling XD

It's hard to tell, but is that Aline???? I could be wrong, but that ponytail doesn’t look like Izzy to me.

HOT DAMN! THE GRACE! THE POISE! I LOVE!!!

So I guess Simon's gonna lose his fancy forehead mark??

“I'm looking at all the leader the pack needs right here in front of me.”

Uhhh agree to disagree. Maia is a strong and fierce character, and she knows how to demand respect... but she is way too trigger-happy to be a good leader. Case in point

literally the next frame is her smashing one of her packmembers. I mean, Luke didn't do too good a job either, with (understandably) prioritizing Clary over his pack and his general penachant for avoiding conflicts and trying to wait things out (and I'm still not over the shit he pulled in 3x04). Which is why in my opinion both of them together would be what's best for the pack, balancing each other out.

When I first saw this gif (because of course I saw three billion gifsets before I saw the trailer) I thought 'whaaaat does Alec have magic now?????' until I realized this is Cat's hand. Heh. There go my Warlock!Alec-Dreams. For now.

Anyway wtf is Magnus doing lying all dead in Alec's office? Was this a hate crime by vengeful Shadowhunters? I mean...? If not, did someone injure Magnus and deposit him in Alec's office?? Wtf??? So many questions X___x

?????????????????????????????

.......................................... *sigh*

Leaving my personal opinion of that pairing aside... if I wouldn't know the books I'd be like “Wtf is going on?! Last time I checked Simon was dating Maia??” Like seriously. They didn't even bother do hint at a break up and they just... throw Sizzy in my face like Maia doesn't even exist. Can't believe the disrespect.

Also You have so much more to live for? Please Izzy. Simon's been dead since Season 1. He only has things to be undead for ;)

So first off, Jace, you have a serious candle problem, but we established that in 3A already. Second off, what's up with the timeline? If Clary's back in the Institute to be wooed by Jace, when does she turn evil? I thought that was in Edom? Confusion?

“I love you until I die.”

HAHAHAHA JACE YOU SET YOURSELF UP FOR THAT HAHAHA

“It is my honor to pronounce you-”

HUSBAND AND HUSBAND THANKS FOR THAT MALEC WEDDING LIKE SRSLY I'M BETTING YOU REAL MONEY (that i don't have) THAT THIS IS FROM THE LAST EPISODE AND IT ENDS WITH THE MALEC WEDDING WE ALL DESERVE!!!!!11!!!1!

smh Clary, one does not simply leave a wedding early, especially not Malec's wedding.

Also are those two gals Aline and the ever elusive Helen Blackthorn???

Hey Jace, nice of you to catch on that your unhealthy obsession with candles needs to end. I hadn't imagined it to go quite so violently but whatever you deem fit I guess.

......Luke doesn't seem to be having the best time either :(

Izzy at it again with the sexy-crying (get it, the opposite of ugly-crying) wtf she's unreal

Yeah that belatedly dyed hair doesn't persuade me more that you and kiddie Jonathan are the same person. Nice try.

lol Alec are those five arrows? I mean, go off. Don't let logic stop you from being badass. I believe in you, man. (And Magnus is gonna be so proud!)

wings wings WINGS I love them and I'm gonna cherish every frame of the (let's be real) two minutes of screen time they're gonna get. Also is Clary stowing her daggers in her back pocket? We all know what Moody would say to that.

This is now my new aesthetic.

Bonus:

“Guten Taaaag, willkommen.”

Awwww Luke greeting me in my mother tongue and with such enthusiasm <3 precious

(Gif Source)

[hazelnatcoffee]

I had coffee and this has been nagging at me so guess what time it is rambling hour meta time! And look, I’m not trying to make everything about sheith but I’m probably going to make it about sheith okay? Okay

So when the Castle was taken over by Sendak in s1, it kind of bugged me that there was no discussion about whether Shiro was okay? I mean, the poor guy got tortured... again, enough so that Pidge looked like this when she was listening to him-

-and I get it, there’s a time limit on episodes, it’s a kids show yeah. But I think we were all pretty unhappy that it got skipped over, especially since we don’t know a lot about Shiro’s time in the Arena, and that could have been a catalyst for a deep conversation between Shiro and the team- but then I realized;

It might not have been as skipped over as I thought.

So a while after that first screenshot happens, we see the mice take down the particle barrier, and Keith and Allura make it into the Castle.

So this might not seem very important, but uhhh it’s important  look at Keith’s face (I couldn’t get a clear one of Allura but she’s smiling too as they run into the Castle). That isn’t the face of someone who just listened to their best friend get shocked to hell and back by an alien’s robot arm (at least, not to me). And anyway, the channel that Sendak relayed the whole look-I’m-hurting-your-leader-thing on was within the Castle, not over their helmet communicators, so we can kind of assume that Keith and Allura didn’t hear and Lance, of course, was out cold, so.

(Also Sendak said something along the lines of “His suffering is in your hands” to Pidge, which makes it seem like he wasn’t trying to address the Paladins outside the Castle- because why would he? They’re locked out, they’re not a threat)

Anyway, we get this shot after they’re in the Castle

And the focus is, of course, on Pidge because she’s you know, suspended in the air by their enemy, so Keith and Allura aren’t just going to charge in and risk getting her even more hurt, but then Lance is awesome and shoots Sendak

And I didn’t get a good shot but there’s a few seconds delay where he slumps back down into unconsciousness- which was the perfect time for Keith to attack Sendak, since he’d just been, you know, shot. But then the focus is on Shiro.

I think this was definitely intentional. At first, Keith and Allura’s focus is on Pidge, because that’s what the shot shows us. And then there’s a literal shot fired, which draws their attention to Lance, who’s right next to Shiro, and then Shiro moves and the focus shifts to him.

I think that’s where Keith realizes what happened- Shiro isn’t just unconscious on the ground next to Lance- he’s cuffed, and angry, and beat up. It’s probably not that hard for Keith to put two and two together, and then he just loses it a little. In the next frame;

Shiro gets thrown to the side (you can see his little leg in the left poor guy) and Keith is moving before he even hits the ground.

And he’s angry, guys- he even forgets to put up his shield. If you go back and rewatch that scene, it’s just a few seconds, but his speed and ferocity reminds me of some later scenes in the other seasons.

I mean, there’s a better screenshot after this, but you can already see how damn angry he is (I know, I sound like a broken record, but man, he is just having none of it) and even when he gets thrown across the room, he immediately gets back up, and just goes after Sendak even harder-

And that- that is the face of someone who is livid. Someone who just realized that something horrible happened to their best friend, and they weren’t there to protect them or even know what happened.

So, yeah. I think I was definitely wrong the first time around- they didn’t skip over Shiro getting hurt again. They just made it a subtle thing, that we were supposed to pick up on- because of Keith.