#what absolutely irredeemable slop

[ellieellieoxenfree]

furious thoughts on this pile of shit show while i suffer through the last three episodes:

why the fuck is everyone's response to any kind of Situation to record their friends? all of you are fucking psychopaths

cheum is such a horrible little cunt and why anyone gives her the time of day is beyond me. i thought mew was the character i wanted most to drop-kick into a volcano, but cheum might actually beat him in the holier-than-thou judgmental hypocritical insufferable why-does-anyone-put-up-with-your-complete-lack-of-redeeming-values rankings

ray putting conditions on sand to establish a relationship with his dad before he'll go to rehab was fucking gross, regardless of how he spun it. and then the little 'sike i just wanted to see if you'd do it' is a masterclass of selfish, manipulative behavior that's an entire naval fleet of red flags. the chemistry is undeniable but this relationship is a fucking dumpster fire. every time sand caves to one of ray's horrible bullshit demands, i lose any shreds of respect i had for him.

boeing and mew fighting over top reminds me of the story i once read about two brothers fighting over an unwrapped tootsie roll they found on the floor, only for one of them to overpower the other, pop it in his mouth, and find out it was a cat turd

papang is so good and i love him so much and buddy, you deserve better than being nick's half-hearted flirtation due to the fact that nick sucks a fat one

if one more person sucks mew's dick about what a Great Person he is i am going to rip my eyeballs out

oh my fucking god my fucking god i hate this show so much why is mew the uea of this show where everyone wants a chance at that void of personality and charisma that is the mew bussy. why are you all such gross manipulative sanctimonious whores who can't keep it in their pants and still act like you're morally justified. fuck's sake. the only person who's actually honest with themselves is boston and all you do is shit on him but at least he doesn't prance around on his high horse and sneer on the Commoners who keep tripping and having their dick fall into each other. at this point, his worst sin is his absolutely ratchet-ass taste in other people, both platonically and sexually, whereas the rest of you wouldn't know loyalty if it bit you on the ass and still sneer at boston being 'filthy.' physician, euthanize thyself.

ray throwing out his multiple bottles of liquor in a tiny trashcan without even bothering to empty them.............that's my new go-to imagery for performative tumblr activism

'oh boo hoo my dad hired you to help me go to rehab' eat shit, ray, fuck's sake. oh boo hoo i got lied to. news flash, fucko, you're a lying manipulative sack of crap so what's good for the goose is good for the gander. you've been taking advantage of sand this entire show, ignoring his boundaries, making a fucking nuisance of yourself by refusing to leave him alone, stalking his vacation, interfering in his hookups, calling him a whore, trying to force an unwanted family reconciliation, and on and on. the 'oh well you don't want me to get better because you still sell liquor' oh my god dude eat shit eat shit eat shit.

'my friends dumped me.' 'serves you right.' nick you are also a shit friend so shut the fuck up

ugh yet another unearned reconciliation EXTREMELY DISMISSIVE J/O MOTION. i am aggressively uninterested in boston/nick. this shit sucks to an unreal degree.

why will god not end my suffering and just wrap it up on topmew. either shit or get off the pot, both of you. there is not even remotely enough storyline to stretch this shit out to twelve episodes and this will-they-won't-they dithering has all the appeal of watching two thirteen-year-olds discussing which pair of earrings to buy at claire's for an hour

'we should just separate' YOU TWO AREN'T TOGETHER YOU DUMB BITCH

does this show want the world record for unearned reconciliations? yo and plug's 'oops i guess we're back together' had potentially even less screentime than the bullshit april/cheum reconciliation (i'll die mad about it, i have no idea why the two of them are together but that's the true only friends method of relationship writing), and now ray and sand are back on their pathetic codependent bullshit. truly a tragedy of epic proportions. these two belong in separate hemispheres until they both work out their mountains of individual issues.

if they're drinking beers in the bathtub when ray's supposed to be in rehab i'm just going to end my life

'i don't want you to drink too much' HE'S AN ADDICT YOU FESTERING FUCKHUSK DO YOU NOT KNOW HOW ADDICTION WORKS THERE IS NO 'OH THE ADDICT WILL JUST CUT DOWN ON THEIR DRINKING' HE NEEDS TO BE SOBER. S O B E R. AS IN, NOT DRINKING. holy shit this show is making me so angry bed friend is almost looking like a Fun Time.

boeing is back and mew is with him

in case i haven't said it in the past five minutes, i fucking loathe nick so much

hey what the fuck. what the fuck. 'let's get revenge on atom by tricking him into a quick fuck and then recording him secretly' what the FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE JESUS CHRIST WERE YOU ALL RAISED BY WOLVES

wolves are probably more civilized than this pack of assholes i apologize to the wild wolf population

good to see that ray has learned fuck-all and continues to drag sand along to clean up his messes when to me it feels like the entire point of court-mandated community service is that you do it yourself without running to your bangmaid to help you

every time top shows up i get one step closer to necking myself

'why don't you trust me' i am going to rip this man's throat out with my teeth

OH MY GOD YOU TWO SHIT OR GET OFF THE POT MY GOD IN HEAVEN YOU ARE SO FUCKING INSUFFERABLE

why is everyone so fucking concerned with getting top and mew back together. i hate mew's moms. 'well, if you really love him...' the dude is a known cheater and pump-and-dumper. what is this show's obsession with everyone's magic dicks that they just can't get over. they keep doing the same thing with boston. dick so good it makes a man crazy. maybe if y'all stopped fucking like you were the habsburg dynasty, you could be less tiresome. as near as i can tell, there's fewer than ten gays in the entirety of bangkok and you've banged all those cocks. please. jesus. you're not the british royal family. let go of the inbreeding.

incredible that it's been eleven episodes and i could not tell you a single concrete reason top gives the slightest shit about mew. if you held a gun to my head and told me to give just one reason, you'd have to kill me in one shot.

'you know i will not be able to forget about this easily' dude it's been your raison d'être since it happened, it's basically your entire personality along with being a smug sanctimonious cockbag

'i don't want to force you' okay not that this show has had basically every character bulldozing each other's boundaries or anything but w/e do you boo i guess

boeing is so fucking DULL i know they think they're spicing things up with his chaos agent nonsense but i am bored i am fatigued i am over it please just fuck off dude

OH MY GOD CAN WE PLEASE JUST HAVE ANOTHER NOTE THAT ISN'T CHEATING OR ATTEMPTED CHEATING. GO FIND A NEW DICK TO SWING ON. JESUS CHRIST. HOLY FUCKING SHIT. HOW IS THIS TWELVE EPISODES. HOW DID ANYONE ENJOY THIS RANCID STEAMING PILE OF GARBAGE. I AM ACTIVELY JUDGING ANYONE WHO ENJOYED THIS IN ITS ENTIRETY. GET HELP.

good to see ray is still drinking, so that rehab plotline was yet another big fat nothing

having to suffer through one last episode of this is making bed friend look even more appealing and bed friend had me actively contemplating suicide

oh jesus god 71 minutes why in the name of all that's holy

i hate ray

that's it. that's the comment. i am not even going to list out the reasons or context. fuck ray. dude sucks.

boeing, shut the fuck up

'do you still love him? you should kiss him' sand if you had the spine god gave cooked spaghetti you'd dump ray and then dump his body in the ocean but you won't because you're a fucking puss with no self-respect so

if this is some raggedy-ass attempt at a threesome i will end it i swear to god i will

god ray sucks so fucking much i was told sandray was the best relationship in this show and i'm not sorry but some of y'all need to take a mike's hard look at yourselves and get taste

like, truly, ray is such a rancid character. 'let me force you into making out with your ex so i can play personal pity party' go fuck yourself, dude. go shove a stick in the spokes of your bike wheel somewhere else because i don't feel like listening to you bitch and cry for another 65 minutes

'i don't like him being around you like this' OH MY GOD. OH MY GOD YOU STUPID FUCKING BITCH. STOP ENGINEERING YOUR OWN PROBLEMS AND THEN PLAYING THE VICTIM

of course this dumb bitch cheum is like 'i think moving in together is a great idea' i hope she gets hit by a car

ray continues digging to the center of the earth. i am tired.

'i can put your name back on our project' i hope cheum actually gets hit by a train

'what i want is a chance to be your friend again' boston could be the only character i give a shit about in this show but he pulls shit like this and i'm just like, why, dude? why are you constantly bending over backwards for people (including nick) who treat you like garbage?

i stand by nick being an asshole. i don't care. the show is like 'oh he stands by me he's supportive blah blah' no. what the show tells me i should think is not what it tells me in its writing. nick is just as much of a prick as everyone else and just because he has a weird codependence with boston's magic dick game does not make them a functional relationship or one i remotely root for. i am excited for boston to go to new york so he doesn't have to be in this pit of vipers and he can actually learn how to be a human being who is treated with more respect than what he gets now.

i keep harping on this same point, but it is insane to me that a show that is entirely built on people's messy relationships has given me not one iota of evidence to prove any of these people should be getting nasty with each other. it's not even 'oh they're bad for each other' (which they are), it's that the writing is doing nothing to establish the bonds and hoping a handful of talented actors (this is not everyone in the cast, fwiw) will be able to provide enough chemistry to cover for paper-thin narrative work.

and as soon as i unpause, i get a 'sweet' boston/nick scene, which might land if i gave the slightest shit about them as people. the cutesy scenes are actively insulting to my intelligence, like i've forgotten the entire show has been built on people betraying, cheating on, lying to, and being heinous to each other. this just feels like all of these dumbfucks have short-term memory loss and can't remember how wretched they were to each other five minutes ago.

nick: i could do animation in new york. i could work at pixar.

the amount of white-hot rage i feel at this 'oh the kids hate ray and they need sand' scene is incalculable. the gears of this raggedy writing are straining.

oh my god. are they seriously going to have a relationship heart-to-heart while ray is doing community service? fuck this show.

what is ray's fucking deal about boeing? this is honestly pathological and creepy. i think they're trying to make a point about ray's insecurity due to his deep-seated trauma but it's insecurity due to deep-seated trauma as interpreted by an alien who has never had exposure to human beings before.

creak creak creak go the gears of this idiotic manufactured boeing drama. this thing is so underwritten and badly paced and poorly planned i'm shocked it wasn't a lucasfilm production. this is dickensian levels of padding. was this dictated to a five-year-old who kept going 'and then what?' to avoid going to sleep?

can't type anymore, boston just ran into boeing at the club and my eyes rolled out of my head and ended up across the room

oh for FUCK'S SAKE this is so FUCKING STUPID

cheum seeing boston arrive and being like 'well now boston can prostrate himself for absolution in front of all of us' go fuck yourself you cow

like yeah boston's boeing makeout was the stupidest moment of this episode and that's saying something considering top and mew exist but that also is so clearly some more clumsily engineered writing to go Ooga Booga Boston Bad Slut Ooga Booga that i'm more annoyed with the writers than boston as a character

this is so fucking nasty. jesus christ. some real weather underground weatherfries shit, except, oops, the circle is one person and everyone else is virtuous and perfect and has never done anything wrong. i hope a meteorite hits the hostel.

i also hope someone drowns mew in the river like a kangaroo

sorry i said the stupidest scene of the episode was boeing and boston making out because of course they play truth or dare and of course sand is kissing top. whatever. who gives a shit. god is dead and life is meaningless.

'being with you gives me so much positive energy' bitch are you serious please say sike

GET FUCKED, MEW, GET FUCKED, I AM SO SICK OF YOUR BITCH ASS, I HOPE YOU DIE, I HAVE NEVER HATED A CHARACTER SO MUCH AS YOU, I HOPE TOP GIVES YOU SYPHILIS

the boston/nick breakup scene hit with the force of a light breeze so that was a big nothing

god why on earth do i have to fucking keep seeing top and mew. jesus fuck. no one likes them. their story has no narrative urgency. god damn.

i actually can't do it. i'm fast-forwarding through this scene because i'm so fucking sick of them.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA THE HOTEL IS ON FIRE HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

normally i have a bad reaction to fires in media but also in this case i'm allowed to celebrate it as a treat

of course it wasn't even a bad one. both of them should have been burned alive, but i'm not getting anything i want in this show.

cannot believe they got seven minutes of screentime as opposed to boston and nick's, like, one. the narrative favoritism in this show is repulsive.

'and you must trust me' ray i wouldn't trust you to dress yourself without zipping your dick into the fly of your pants

'i want an easy but meaningful name' sand already has one but as usual you have to bulldoze over anything he has as an individual so you can smear your feces on every lampshade he owns

wow even in the post-credits scene and even when boston's a continent away these useless shithogs can't miss a chance to humiliate him

'don't worry if you're alone. we can be your friends.' i'm calling the cops to report a terrorist threat

in conclusion:

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Have you seen the recent Adam driver interview re: redeemed Ben solo never being part of the original plans? Apparently JJs idea as pitched to Adam was 'reverse Vader' who begins the trilogy all uncertain and vulnerable and becomes super evil by the third film 😂 considering the mess that was duel of the fates, I'm not surprised. Adam said he was still 'focused' on JJs original arc even though it changed over shooting. Which is baffling to me, because even in TFA you can't seriously believe this character could go stone cold uber sinister. It's terrible how so many good things in the sequel trilogy are there in spite of tptb, not because of them!

I haven't and honestly at this point I don't even want to hear anything else about what a complete fucking shitshow of stupidity and sociopathy this whole production was.

The idea that TFA isn't setting up a redemption is so absurd to me that I'm not even going to entertain it. I don't believe that even JJ is that incompetent, and his commentary plus TROS indicates that he did absolutely understand that Ben must be reclaimed despite his total disregard for the themes and message of SW. So whatever Adam was talking about, I don't know, and I'm not going to listen to this interview to try to figure it out because I'm tired. Maybe he's referring to the earliest ideas where Kylo Ren wasn't the same person as Han and Leia's child?

But in that case I just cannot imagine why they wanted to cast him in that role.

Leaving aside that the entire concept of a 'reverse Vader' is the stupidest shit I've ever heard, because that was a) literally the prequel trilogy, b) antithetical to SW as anything other than a prelude to a subsequent redemption, and c) SO FUCKING BORING. I know this isn't the first time Adam has mentioned this, but it only sounds more stupid the more clear he makes it that they mean 'the opposite of the ending of RotJ'. Which is just 'the ending of every fucking American action movie fucking ever'. Like putting a 'spin' on Vader by having him NOT REDEEM HIMSELF is just called 'being like everyone else' and 'taking away literally the most compelling thing about Vader'.

I need these boring, unimaginative HACKS to fuck off. Like, the idea that JJ's pitch for TFA was 'worse, more boring, less visually creative, less meaingful, more shallow remake of ANH but also we will ruin the heart and soul of the story and make it like all the libertarian slop it literally existed in order to stand against'.

LIKE JAIL FOR THIS MAN. JAIL!

I saw someone say that it's also come out that the reylo connection was Kasdan's idea, which I feel vindicated by bc I've been saying I bet it was forever. But again, JJ was on board for it and knew what he was doing with the imagery in TFA. He is not so incompetent that he didn't understand he was creating romantic subtext. And text.

But like, I'm just so done with these fucking people. That ANYONE at that company much less apparently EVERYONE?? thought it was remotely acceptable to use SW to tell the story of any character whatsoever who was humanised and sympathetic and relatable to children falling into darkness and becoming ''''''irredeemable'''''' MUCH LESS the LAST SKYWALKER, the HOPE AND HAPPY ENDING OF ROTJ, HAN AND LEIA'S LOVE, PADMÉ'S LOVE, the atonement and reconciliation of Darth Vader is just FUCKING BANANAPANTS to me.

George Lucas should fight these people in an alley.

[randomthefox]

Even when ignoring the games and judging idw sonic on its own merits, it's just not a good product. Idw sonic is one of the most boring and shallow comic books I've ever read. Every concept gets ruined beyond salvation. The story is always disagreeing with itself and refusing to go anywhere. Every character is either a plank of wood or unforgivably annoying. The visuals and scenery are woefully forgettable.

I honestly can't tell what the point is. From a business standpoint, the answer is obviously money. But from a creative standpoint, what's being done here? Are the writers and artists getting any enjoyment from creating such banal slop? Is it fun to spend so much effort creating a story that doesn't function in any way whatsoever?

That's not even getting into how mediocre idw sonic is compared to actually good comics. And even if you go only by comics under idw publishing the idw sonic comic still falls short.

Read any non-sonic comic published by idw then go back to idw sonic. The difference in quality and entertainment value is staggering.

Idw sonic has no value and the atrocious writing choices make zero sense.

Yeah exactly.

It being a disrespectful toxic blight upon the Sonic franchise is why I HATE it, but it's still a completely irredeemable heap of trash even if you just treat it as its own standalone product. And like I've said before the comic is INCOMPREHENSIBLE GIBBERISH if you do not have a pre-established familiarity with the video games. So even if you're completely ridiculously unreasonably generous and go into the comic with full knowledge and awareness of the video games in mind so that you know who everybody is because the comic never explains or introduces anybody, and even if you accept for the sake of argument that the status quo of the series is what the comic says it is even though the comic never demonstrates it and nothing from the video games supports its assertions - the comic STILL completely FAILS as a narrative.

The characters do not act consistently with their established characterization within the comic nor with their previous deeds and stated beliefs. There is NO character development, for ANYONE. There is no world building to speak of, I legitimately have no idea where the fuck the comic is even supposed to take place or where anything is in relation to anywhere else. Everybody constantly acts like a complete moron in order to facilitate plot contrivances that aren't interesting or entertaining. There's no thematic concepts or insightful commentary to be found, the closest the comic gets to anything of that nature is meta textual interludes that make zero sense within the context of the universe and are only included for the sake of shouting "THOSE SONIC VIDEO GAMES SURE ARE STUPID AND DUMB AMIRITE?" to the audience. And the art has degraded to the point of being absolutely nauseating to look at with the sequential flow of events being borderline impossible to follow along with.

This comic is unreadable garbage. The ONLY conceivable POSSIBLE way ANYBODY could derive ANY enjoyment from it whatsoever at this point is if they HATE HATE HATE the Sonic video games and the comic serves as an outlet for them to hold aloft and proclaim it to be superior to the video games. In the same way some fifty year old divorcee will go to bars and try hitting on twenty year olds by telling them how much hotter she is than his ex wife.

This comic cannot be cancelled soon enough.

[the-family-fortune]

Earlier today Cali asked me quite possibly the worst thing you CAN ask me

And boy howdy did I have some thoughts. 

idk if ive mentioned it here before or not but I have a lot of feelings about the idea of redemption in psy2. I LIKE the idea that no one is beyond redemption, that people can be good and that we are all, at our core, just hurting. and those are the themes that psychonauts plays with. mental illnesses that are seen as "scary" like the inmates (though the inmates themselves are rarely presented as scary, with maybe the exception of Edgar because he's just. huge.) - bipolar mood swings with inexplicable rage, Edgar's anger issues and sheer strength combined into an intimidating figure, and the stigma of multiple personalities like how Fred acts meek one second and then on the warpath the next when he "switches". All of these oooh scary mental illnesses are literally just people grappling with trauma. Edgar's OCD and the trauma from high school, Fred's... weird genetic memory issues, and Gloria's inner critic and the death of her mother. These things are like, Normal People Problems (sorry fred idk what the fuck is up with u buddy ur on another level all together) and really contextualize the inmates' mental illness in a way that emphasizes the main theme of empathy. 

I intentionally leave Boyd out of this because while the root of his mental illness is schizoaffective paranoia, his ROLE as the Milkman and in fact his entire mindscape is the product of Oleander's hypnosis.

So like, I VIBE WITH THAT, its a really really interesting take on the conversation about mental illness and how these things do not make people inherently bad or scary!!

But I feel like, BASED ON WHAT WE KNOW RIGHT NOW, that the Galochios - or, at the very least, Zalto on his own - fall into a different kind of category.

The Galochios from the start are jealous people. They're jealous of the Aquato's fame and think that they deserve more recognition which in and of itself isn't a bad thing per se - wanting to feel appreciated and recognized and seen is just a basic human desire, I think. But jealousy isnt a mental illness. Jealousy is a natural human emotion that we, as rational and empathetic people, must make the conscious choice to deal with in healthy ways. The Galochios don't, and they let that consume them from the start - where they allow themselves to hate the Aquatos for their fame, where they allow themselves to ostracize Marona, where they drive her out of the family and where they attempt to drag her back, it's not the product of mental illness destroying relationships like someone in Edgar's position might experience, but pure pride and jealousy directed towards the Aquato family.

And like from there its just all downhill

And I could argue that from this point things compound to create a mental landscape that maybe isnt the picture of health in the Galochios, because grief can really, really fuck you up, and regardless of how they acted, losing a daughter or a sister when Marona died, could not have been easy.

But I cannot read "the Galochios crowded around the tank to gleefully watch Lazarus's decapitation" and be like "aw they're just hurting 8(" because mental illness is not synonymous with undue cruelty.

Like the Galochios at every turn are presented with A Choice and by god they're determined to make the wrong one. Whether or not this is motivated by grief or jealousy or whatever doesnt matter, because even when you are mentally ill it is still the bare minimum to not gleefully watch someone you dont like get decapitated, u know?

That is, I think, them consumed by jealousy and hate and seeing nothing wrong with it because it benefits them and hurts people they dont like. Thats. that's not mental illness that's just being an asshole

So while I absoLUTEly vibe with Psychonaut's theme of empathy and compassion and understanding that mental illness isnt bad or scary, and that we're all struggling with something, I think that narrative has two sides to it, and the same way that "we're all struggling with something" lends to the idea that we need to extend compassion to others, the Galochios being so stubbornly cruel as to be irredeemable in the narrative of psychonauts two lends to the equally important theme of "but you can not sacrifice yourself for people who do not WANT help"

Because of the nature of the things the Galochios have done (and perhaps, are still doing, as we move into the secrets behind the RoR and Psy2 narrative) I think that it would take a LOT. A LOT. for the writing to pass off a Galochio redemption in a meaningful and complete way, because of the nature of the choices they make. From what I know about them right now, these are not the actions of people who are... hallucinating grandeur or some greater purpose who believe in some hidden agenda like Boyd. From what I can gather and what we already know about the Galochio backstory, this is just the kind of people they are. 

 Now, taking into account Zalto specifically, I can without a doubt see him having some major psychological damage. Like I said earlier, grief can really, really fuck you up, and Zalto experienced more grief than reasonable, all at once, with the tank accident. He was already not the most stable person. ("But Daisy!" I hear you cry, "Augustus lost his entire family in a year and didn't snap like that!" True but look me in the eye and tell me you think he's coped with it in a healthy manner. Augustus experienced unreasonable amounts of grief and as a result his ten year old thinks he wants him dead.)

So if that turns out to be the case, and we see a level where we actually do deal with that grief in a healthy way (which imo would be very interesting to see the trauma of grief treated the same as mental illness - even though we all experience grief at some point, sooooome of us dont quite take it as well as others, whoops!) we could see the baseline path to a Zalto redemption.

But really it all boils down to responsibility for their actions and how they handle their trauma and the fact that eight Aquatos were murdered does not automatically become sympathetic because Zalto was dealing with grief. I personally, would be really interested to see the Galochios as villains end the game as villains and for that stubbornness and unwillingness to accept empathy or help be shown as their downfall, because irl its incredibly unhealthy and self-destructive to refuse help or refuse to SEEK help when you very clearly know that something is hurting you, and that you are in turn hurting others.

I also REALLY don't want them to be given the Oleander treatment.

As much as I love Oleander, I feel like a lot about his character was mismanaged, and he was turned into comedic relief in RoR.

like. A lot of my thoughts on the psy2 narrative as a whole relies heavily on the li-po document of course but the story that we were given IN psy1 vs the story that we are told in the document are so STARKLY different.

"Oleander wants to take over the world because he's angry at tall people from that time from that time his dad killed his bunny, which traumatized him" is NOT the same as "Oleander spent his formative years FIRMLY BELIEVING that his father saw him as a burden because he was small, thought he was nothing better than pig slop, and witnessed the death of an animal that he had a psychic connection to, after which he spent his entire life attempting to make his father proud only to be rejected by every branch of the military. By the time he was finally a Psychonaut and felt he would be able to make his father proud despite his stature, both of his parents died horribly in a meat grinder accident while he was away training." 

 NOT THE SAME HOLY SHIT.

Oleander had so much POTENTIAL but he was kinda shoehorned into a very two-dimensional role. Idk if it was because of budget or time or what, because the production of psy1 was very..... not great. But its absolutely a SHAME to see such a heartbreaking backstory reduced to "short and angry about it"

And it absolutely cheapens his redemption, too.

The fact that Oleander's story was so heavily pruned COMBINED with the fact that - while it's hinted at in game, its honestly INSANELY difficult to put two and two together imo because of how its presented, Ford outright tells us that Oleander's assignment to whispering Rock was the cause of his mental break (the camp sits on a motherload of psitanium. It makes psychics more psychics, and unstable people more unstable.")

that's never once brought into the resolution of Oleander's character arch and the processing of his trauma and how the psychonauts directly contributed to his deteriorating mental state that led him to try and take over the world because they so deeply misunderstand psitanium but decided to build a kids summer camp training facility on top of it

thats like... early experimentation with nuclear materials before we understood the dangers of radiation. Not to stay topical or anything, but its a clearly dangerous substance that the Psychonauts treat very blase.

But to get back on track there, I really hope that if the Galochios DO receive a redemption arc in psy2, which seems likely given the overarching theme of the games themselves even extending to Loboto of all people... I hope they don't butcher it like they did with Oleander's. Given that they've had five years and a LOT more experience with this genre and its storytelling conventions (plus the fact that they're just excellent storytellers to begin with) I have a cautious optimism that whatever happens with the Galochios it will at least be a satisfying conclusion. (For comparison, Oleander's butchered redemption is still kinda held together by the satisfying conclusion of the game, in which Raz actually becomes a Psychonaut so that isnt to say that psy1 didnt have a satisfying conclusion) 

and at this point im sure you're regretting telling me to talk as much as i want because if there's one thing you ought to know about me by now its that i never shut up about the Galochios and honestly I've had a lot of thoughts about them and the themes of Psychonauts and the general structure of storytelling in the Psychonauts games overall.

As for the Galochio family themselves, I'm fascinated to see exactly who survived and what the power structure of the remaining Galochios is. If Zalto makes the final cut, I want VERY badly to know how he treats his family and if his anger has kinda pervaded what was probably a long time ago a relatively tight knit family. I want to see the individuals involved in this, how far they're each willing to go and where that lies in relation to Zalto. Like everyone has their moral limits, and if Zalto is utterly consumed by his goal to either obliterate the Aquatos or resurrect his family (shudder) his tolerance for atrocities may be much higher than that of his family members, which would automatically sow dissonance within the family when one by one people start deciding this is too much, this is too far, we cant keep doing this.