#why cant the second upgrade stabilize her more

[foxx-queen]

its really starting to bother me that theres so little to be done for karlach in act 3. like when you first meet dammon he seems so hopeful about finding a solution. he runs through a bunch of ideas and says he cant do anything with the tools he has but he'll keep looking. and then when you meet him in act 2 hes says he cant think of anything but he'll keep trying. and then in act 3?? all he says is that he cant find a solution. theres no way to ask him what research hes been doing. no way to try and do any research yourself.

karlach's companion quest basically ends in act 2. you get that second upgrade and it doesn't make a difference to the way her endings turn out. yeah you can touch her, but that's it. theres still only two 'good' endings for her character.

and it feels like theres so much we should be trying to do? the steel watchers are made of infernal iron. every single watcher has a piece of infernal iron you can collect. some of them even have enriched infernal iron. and apart from the armor dammon can make... there's nothing else to be done with those pieces? even the enriched infernal iron doesnt seem to serve a bigger purpose.

i feel like i should be able to talk to the gondian gnomes for help. they built the steel watchers, which are made of infernal iron and can blast hellfire at you. we can literally go to hell and theres no way to look around or ask about a solution. theres a magic tower with a locked vault and no way to look for magic to nullify/contain the heat.

also we cant talk to karlach about going to stay in the house of hope? i know one of the endings is that she can go to avernus with wyll but shouldn't we be able to suggest she can stay with hope? who's literally trying to make a place of hope in the middle of the hells? theres even portals in one of the rooms to a bunch of places. she could come and go as she pleases. we already have the means to visit if we want.

like i get it the whole point is that shes doomed from the start tragedy etc etc but it still sucks that we can't at least try to do more when it feels like theres so many ways we should be able to

[teddy-feathers]

look my problem with the au megamind where Roxanne is the alien and megamind is the reporter is i cant stop thinking about what i want out of that and how its probably not what other people want out of that which should mean 'oh shit i gotta write it' but really means 'in the next couple of months im going to rewatch megamind and be extremely frustrated because idk how to write these people as is let alone in an au'

but here are some thoughts

Itd have to take place on megaminds home world so like. have to develop that culture and frame it as the usual and other things as oddities

metroman still shows up at the same time the baby human does

roxan richie and metromans rivalry is less of a game and more of a metroman one up'd her ome to many times so now shes gotta take him out

its fine not because shes incompetent- in fact her death rays and pointy sticks are ingenious and have 0% public property or civilian causalities - but because metroman is not only impossible to kill, he adapts to anything that gets close (anything that doesnt kill him makes him stronger literally)

i guess this means theres a good chunk of the story that is centered around human adaptability vs perfect hero dudes adaptability

Roxanne Ritchie is actually a noted scientist or something at the local research facility - i figure blue people planet is really advanced and everyones at least a little technosmart but while it doesnt come as easily or naturally to Roxanne her way of thinking is really unique n shiz and shes an asset to every team....

but if you see her in a mask with some project from the lab macguivered into a gun trying to kill metroman well, no ones getting hurt and humans need hobbies and everyone respects the mask desptie the fact shes the ONLY human on the planet so its not like its hard to figure out who she is

she does spend a lot of nights having to rebuild projects and apologizing and such but basically everyone plays the plausible deniability card and asks her questions abiut what went wrong and okay so the masked menace failed after you let them steal our project but lets pretend for a moment the goal was to fix crops how would you say this did? and grumply shed revamp the guns weird side effect into an alien pollinating crop duster or whatever

got carried away when REALLY all I WANTED to say was

Whille Roxanne Ritchie is adaptable ingenuity and gets away at the last minute NOT because no ones trying to catch her but shes just that CLEVER and thinks ahead and shiz....

Megamind is the guy trying to interview her in the middle of a fight like he thinks he's cute - i mean he is but shes chasing after metroman and skids to a stop because this jerk stepped in for a comment. or shes lining up the perfect shot but theres a close up of megaminds reporter bag in the way

the thing is that maybe... blue people arent violent. a natural disaster hit recently and theyre coming back from it and if the two adopted alien kids want to play extreme tag well no ones getting hurt and Roxanne Ritchie will grow out of her competitiveness no doubt caused by just how superior EVERYONE on the planet is by finding her own niche and metroman will grow up and stop bating her because maybe he IS still better than everyone else and thats met with "oh very nice we're proud" but it doesnt really validate him or make him feel special because its just treated as a special thing he can do by everyong but Roxanne Ritchie and once he's found something that makes him feel good regardless of the attention or lack of it he'll stop playing too

but megamind? megamind has an imagination that loves drama and blowing things out of proportion and thats part of why his reports are so popular? like yeah everyones treating this super hero showdown with indulgence but megamind is good at framing theatrics so that this news story is actually a compelling narrative? and also everyone can see the tension is going to have one of these three "kids" confessing live someday

and maybe he gets carried away. one of those 'aw well next time you could do x or y' or has some technological creation that accidentally actually makes Metroman flinch during an interview

and Roxanne Ritchie starts paying attentionto him for the first time.

and minion warns him but he doesnt listen. minion is lower class and is afraid of being replaced like a pet like some people do but Roxanne Ritchie Ritchie doesnt have a minion and even if she did theyre Best Friends not like those other blue people minion uperclass people.

and he carelessly says something unforgivable and Roxanne Richie uses his ideas and actually succeeds in killing metroman

so she goes to prison - a place they had to build just for her because this hasnt happened since stars knows when

and somebody else is doing the camera because minion left just is gone and megamind looks defeated but testifies against her and is quiet and subdued and stpps being a reporter for a bit

and.... idk. i feel like we'll have to resolve the whole class system so minon goes underground and finds other minons who are unhappy with the way of things and if theyre ALREADY rebuilding society after that huge natural disaster that DIDNT blow up their planet thanks TO a minion well ehy cant they fix this too?

so theres a rebellion going on and theyve got a secret weapon to make blue people listen and idk but i feel like it's Metroman

and... how do stories like this go ive forgotten

minion wouldnt tell megamind or he would

metroman would break Roxanne Ritchie out of prison during the first riot of the minion revolt?

they talk and compare why they hated eachother and slowly work together and are actually a great team?

and then they need a reporter to make themselves heard as something other than minions going crazy

and so of course they go to megamind for help getting the story out

something something megamind is minions sidekick for this adventure

"Roxanne Ritchie was raised by the planet and turned against it and instigated civil unrest and killed a person who was also the good child etc etc instead of just growing up to face your problems"

"actually im alive and i finally found my place? helping out the real heros?"

"i mean i did try to kill him, but he forgave me and we're kinda working together because planet of moms and dads that raised us? yall actually are the ones who need to grow up and let go of the traditions that dont serve etc etc"

and megamind does a huge public apology to minion

and... uhhhhhhhhh fuck i really dont know how these storyies go

the blue people start making amends

metroman basically becomes a social worker for minion childern because finding their original families is a bit hard and most of these kids are just going to end up being raised by super dad but at least the rebellion minion families are actually geting to be their own family units and in a couple gens thatll be normal

Roxanne Ritchie goes back to being the token human in the lab and hangs up her super suit and is generally dissatisfied with this

until one night a hero breaks into her apartment to make her answer for her crimes and so for a legit hot second theyre fighting and megamind says something and Roxanne apologizes and then fighting stops being an argument and goes into banter flirting

the worss "where theres evil good will rise up to fight it" peob comes up a lot in this fic in different iterations

anyways megamind isnjust basically like hey wanna do this like. for the rest of our lives dramatic battle showdowns like its entertainment but like no theyre doing this for real?

the answer is hell yeah

and its a polyship and sometimes Roxanne is helping with the kids and then Megamind bursts in to "save" the family from her evil clutches and 90% of the time everything is improve

megamind kidnaps Roxanne to make metromind save her and a good half of the conversation is that hes an idiot for coming shes tried to kill him three times this week and hes bitching because do you know how hard it is to find a sitter for 30 odd minion kids this short notice and they better make it up to him

Roxanne is not superdad but the 30 odd minion kids adore when she comes over because they mob the villain so hard until finally mega comes to save her because hes actually very good with the kids

of course this poly ship isnt complete without minion and at some point minion and mega realize theyve actually been married for years and Roxanne and metro tease them shamelessly for it

minion and his race need a real name obviously

when Roxanne was a... graduate her senior project theses thingy was essentially "im going to go back to planet earth itll be great ive figured out were im from and how to go there in a reasonable amout of time" and everyone had to sit her down and explain that unlike metroman they knew where she was from the planet was just destroyed.

they never figured out where metroman was from because his direction sharply changed to follow baby Roxannes course and mirrored her coding despite very obviously how he had originated from elsewhere

this is important because his race is basically coming to conquer the blue people planet soon - the group finds out - and will download all the survival upgrades metroman has gotten to become unkillable and then just come down to the surface and be unstoppable taking the place over and whiping out the planet like theyve done many many times

a good chunk of the time trying to figure out how to stop them when this planet is REALLY against murder war and violence for good reason and even if they WOULD do that its impossible over looks some alone time that leads to megamind and metroman figuring out how to like kill him so when the bad guys show up theyll go "whelp better not fuck with them" and leave but between roxanne and minion they manage to not only stabilize metroman (Roxanne blood transfusions maybe???) but they manage to scare the aliens so bad they tuck tail and leave speading rumors that these are the scariest mfs in space (go minion)

metroman never lets Roxanne live down saving his life

eventually space humans show up to check the place out

megamind loves everything human despite most of the planet thinking theyre primitive and showing it

roxanne is reluctant to meet them at first but then really relates to them?

for a good long while it REALLY seems like megamind and Roxanne are just going to go on space adventures with the humans leaving metroman and minion - who really doesnt like them and also they kinda rub him the wrong way because he's non bipedal and they kinda make fun of him in a 'we totally dont mean anything by it lighten up' sort of way.

they don't go of course but they may have stolen a lot of atar charts n shit and who hasnt wanted to take a road trip through space with 30 odd childern who will need names and personalities and may be chopped down to a slightly more reasonable number by this point?

metroman loves space karaoke and his natural abilites mean he learns languages fast but no he still cant carry a tune

megamind and Roxanne still duke it out on various alien cityscapes

minion usually breaks them out of jail if theyre not to be let out the next day because nothing was actually damaged that didnt belong to them.

one memorable occasion it was metoman in a fight with megamind and they wont say what its about but both look very put out and minion looks smug

it doesn't matter in the end because Roxanne teams up with the childern to propose to them first

apparantly i had a lot more ideas about this then i meant to? i mean its not well thoughout out and despite the drama a good half the fic is just going to be cute relationship building stuff between the four of them

[sometipsygnostalgic]

xenoblade chronicles  2 rapidfire review

π after i started writing up a 5000 word review and was still on the “character” section ive decided to make a rapidfire version to get to the fucking point. 

Story - at the end of the day, it’s a tale about how to deal with all the pain and insecurity that life throws at you. how to dig down deep and find a way to continue in what you may interpret as a dreadful world. it also has some of the most satisfying mysteries and plot resolutions i’ve ever seen in a videogame. utterly touching themes. unfortunately gets a bit too shonen at points especially with the protagonist. also quite possibly a lowkey harem anime.  

Story rating - 8 out of 10.   

Characters -  mostly all amazing in the english version. 

Rex - a top lad. your best mate. however, becomes a total flawless gary stu pretty quickly. better than many protagonists out there. i like the way he gets people to open up by acting so casually friendly around them. 7 out of 10.

Pyra - unfortunately the weakest character in the main cast. has 3 forms that are treated as different characters for some reason, and no emotions beyond “sad” and “in love with rex”. her mythra form is a slightly better character who will talk to other cast members and sass down people. however mythra also comes across as weak and overly emotionally fragile at times, considering she is supposed to be the Master Blade. i suspect she exists for rex to have 4 3 girlfriends at once.   

Azurda -  dragon grandpa. subversive in that when he dies for the hero to move on from the homeland, he immediately resurrects himself as a cute furry thing that sleeps in rex’s helmet. best videogame decision ever. gives top advice.

Nia - welsh. double furry. how old is she? 6? most useful NPC. swears a hell of a lot. hilarious sassmaster with an intriguing story and well-rounded motivations. consistently interesting relationships with other cast members up to the end of the game. even remains the same after receiving her compulsory magical girl transformation. has the most awesome magical girl transformation. gives the main villain super cancer, causing him to blow up like harry potter’s aunt. probably the best character. lightly orbits the black hole of the rex harem, struggling to maintain geostational stability against the powers of fanservice.  

Dromarch - a good dad cat. there is not a lot else to say about dromarch, except that you can ride him, which is badass. he and azurda are the old dad types babysitting the kids. 

Tora - meh meh. actually likable mechanic child. why is this furry cat thing a key member of my party. despite rarely ever upgrading his blade he has made me basically immortal many times. nopon mask is underrated. masterpon is same at start of game as at end of game. that is to say he is an ambitious child, and a bit of a pervert. however, has terrible taste in upgrades. has many IRL blades pointed at him.  

Poppi - poppi artificial blade who speak like masterpon. poppi α has cool design. poppi α adorable and cool. due to being newborn blade, poppi have refreshing and truthful view on world. poppi have tragic artificial sister who almost die terribly after evil nopon brainwash!  poppi have most sad heartbreaking scene at end of game. however, poppi QT and poppi QT π designs can die in big fire.  poppi good at throwing shade. it endearing and special trait. 

Morag - technically the group normie. however, very weird. when you first see morag she reeks of pure chilled badassery. logical and with a strong sense of justice and compassion, morag starts off as an intimidating antivillain but becomes a staple member of the party. even though rex and the gang are fugitives in her city, she lets them leave because she senses they weren’t crooked ruffians and they had a purpose of their own. but she comes back to kick their ass when she thinks they’re causing more trouble, and is actually quite pissed off about rex and pyra holding back on her. has a sweet relationship with the emporer, her distant cousin/adoptive kid brother. morag learns on her adventure the value of the optimistic views the kids  around her have of the world, and says multiple times if more people thought like they did, maybe there wouldn’t be so much political nonsense  stopping people from living together peacefully. morag has a lot of pride and cannot deal with being oneupped. i love her.

Brighid - Morag’s wife blade who is one of many that struggles with the thought of losing her identity after regenning. has a diary of her past lives. uses it to taunt mythra about that one time she kicked her ass. pretends to be a little distant but low key super emotionally invested in the cast’s development. literally asked a main villain if she was like her past self that he knew, causing him to reconsider his entire philosophy on blades becoming completely different people when they’re reborn. bitchslaps rex that one time. Owns everybody at some point. such a beautiful character design that i never even noticed her chest is basically bare. 

shellhead Zeke - the prince... of NOTHING. wishes he was still a student. that one time he nearly died, he was probably impaled by a falling twig. enjoyed playing Team Rocket. surprisingly wise for a teenlike NEET. does not look after his precious turtle. potentially does have a thunder powered eye. however, definitely requires second contact lens. unfortunately not comparable to rex in combat especially as his Luck stat means using a legendary crystal on him is like throwing it away. 

Pandoria - i often forget pandoria is a blade because she is zeke’s girlfriend, also i never use her in battle due to his redundentness. well reknowned for also not looking after turtles properly. also well reknowned for slam dunking the prince over his nonsense while being equally silly.  

BAD GUYS

Jin - apparently has special people-drawing trait that makes all the good cast who know him shocked he is ordering such evil bastard things to happen. not entirely sure what that trait is. emo about much bad stuff that happen to him and his driver. wishes to never forget his life with his driver. dirty child killer.very aniime. why is he the only flesh eater whose core turns red?  okay character with decent enough motivation. was confused as to why Malos was following him until the very end. 

Malos - evil bastard. cheesy villain. you can kick his ass many times and he will get back up 3 minutes later and laugh at you while swallowing back the bile of a bitter defeat. is actually a little tragic by the end of the game. dies for no reason. makes morag jealous because he found his purpose in life, though im not sure what that is.  

Akhos - N3RD. probably the most likable member of Torna. had a silly Blade companion who he was really upset died. i like how he was sentimental about his ‘sister’ blade. 

Patroka - most forgettable Torna member. a little bit tsundere. 

Mikhail - grew on me significantly at the end though like Akhos and Patroka his backstory was unceremoniously dumped on your lap at the last second. must be a great fan of Prince Zeke as he’s heard of the term Blade Eater. also why has Mikhail got awesome blade powers and immortality when Zeke hasnt? maybe Mikhail is “possessing” the blade per se.  

Amalthus - emo bitch. stared God in the face and raised his middle finger. hypocritically creates flesh eaters then sends witch hunts out for them. i like that he reminded himself every day about how bad humanity was by doing his best to help people. so despite the praetor being this “benevolent” figure he had somehow manifested a being of pure hatred. 

Theres a lot of other people I cant be assed talking about right now.

Character rating - 9 out of 10. Even though some important characters arent as impactful as they should be, everybody is memorable and I can remember all of their damn names and backstories.  

Gameplay - not particularly amazing. battles are alright, RPG-wise, with orb breaking combos and cancelling being fun to use. but they’re highly limited by the fact you can only control 1 character at a time and there is no Co-op feature. they also take an incredibly long time, even for just one enemy encounter, and there can be unfair Spike damage moves that oneshot you. my most satisfying moment battling ever was when i was fighting Aeon, the final boss, and got a Full break for the first time... I decimated the fucker when he was at 60% health. 

Of course, those are just the battle mechanics. 

The game is full of complex mechanics that do nothing but add tedium. Every single quest in the game forces you to farm for certain “collectibles”, plants that grow in specific unlisted locations that respawn when you fast travel. Many character “affinity” upgrades, which can lock out certain areas of the map, special skills, or unique interactions, also require you to do this shit. A guide is NECESSARY for this.  There’s also the Merc Missions. Little did you know, you will need to complete Merc Missions to reach the end of many blade quests!!!you know what’s FUN? Waiting for a timer to pass after 25 fucking minutes!!!! this game has NO RESPECT FOR YOUR TIME WHATSOEVER. 

the biggest bullshit of all is when you’re locked out of the main story because a specific character on your team hasn’t unlocked level 3 of a specific skill, because there’s no way that you’d be able to unlock that by naturally playing the game as you have to go out of your way to fill the criteria and grind something or other for 20 minutes. 

This makes sidequests absolutely worthless.

The saving grace for the gameplay is probably the customizability of the blades themselves. Not so much the skills you can attach to each blade, but that you can unlock a number of fun characters to use, and they will have their own unique dialogue. The drivers and blades talking during battle also makes a 20 minute fight feel a lot quicker. 

Battle gameplay mechanics: 6 out of 10. Fun but could be better.  Sidequests, crafting, and field skill mechanics : 1 out of 10. Worthless trash that should never have been greenlit. 

Considering that you will be spending so much time on the gameplay, why even bother playing the game at all?

It’s very much the story that pushes the player to move onwards. If this game didn’t have such a fun cast and meaningful plot then I’d probably not have gotten past the first act. 

Music and Environments - Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is filled with vast, beautiful and diverse environments. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of interactivity with them other than killing monsters or foraging those bloody collectibles, but they’re beautiful enough with a diverse range of monster inhabitants that give them life. The MUSIC is godlike. My favourite track in the game would be the song used for the city in Tantal. Very ominous and beautiful hymn, sung in English. 

Music and environment rating - 8 out of 10.

Localisation - While many sneer at the localisation choices for this game I thought it brought it to life. Granted I have great bias as being a Welsh girl who is familiar with the differences in UK regional dialect, but it felt like the dialogue the characters were saying also had a heavy makeover to fit the new voices... I really don’t believe that Rex’s Japanese voice actor also sounded like a Top Lad, or that Nia’s japanese voice actor sounded as much like she was ready for a valleys bar fight.  However there are some clear obstacles as well - the characters seemed to have no idea of the context of their lines. This is obvious when they shout something for a long time. Rex’s “HIYAAAAAAAAH” and Nia’s “NOOOO MOOOOORE” sound comically off-tone when they are supposed to be epic. It’s the works of someone who read those lines off a script without knowing what was going on. Tora’s actor saying “meh meh” sounds like it was meant to be a COMPLETELY different noise. Morag and Zeke never go off-course, however. I think either they had an advantage with more visuals being completed by the time they were cast, or they just don’t have diverse enough dialogue in the game for it to have been an issue.

Localisation - 7.8/10 too much Meh. 

FINAL THOUGHTS

Xenoblade chronicles 2 is a highly addictive game that pulls you to the finish line with an interesting plot and a cast you just can’t let go of. While Pyra is certainly the weakest link of the characters, and the game has some extremely goofy shonen scenes that it’s hard to take seriously, and oh dear me that’s an awful lot of boob shots, I had a lot of fun powering through it. I’m going to have a tough time letting go of this story and these characters. 

Unfortunately the gameplay itself is not similarly addictive, and becomes more of a chore for you to get to the next cutscene or funny interaction.

Final rating - 6.5 out of 10. While a worthwhile experience, the greatest story in the world cannot save this game from piss-standard design choices. It is probably better to spend your time on a game that doesn’t have anti-fun mechanics. But I’d be hard pressed if any had a cast that touched your hearts quite like that of Xenoblade Chronicles 2.