#why does everything they say need context
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Today we got some news regarding a big change for the Ian Flynn's Q&A podcast, the BumbleKast. As outlined in a blog post by Ian, starting in 2025, all Sonic-related questions submitted to the show will first need to be screened by Sega. (I have to assume this is also why Ian announced they'll no longer be doing live Q&As starting next year.)
Frankly, I can't say this is particularly surprising.
While the BumbleKast is ostensibly a podcast about Ian's work as a freelance writer for all sorts of things, and also just a place for him to shoot the shit about stuff he likes, he's still predominantly seen as The Sonic Guy. Sure, he also does a bunch of other freelance work for other series, and original comics like Drogune, and he's also the narrative mastermind for the whole Rivals of Aether franchise these days, but it's his insights into what goes on behind the scenes with Sonic that people really care about. Your average Sonic fan can't just go up to Iizuka or whoever and ask him a question about the current state of the lore, but Ian's inbox is always open.
Because of this, I've thought a lot about the BumbleKast's place in the fandom and The Discourse in recent years. Ian wants to be as open and honest as he can about his work, and I think that's admirable. To me, hearing about creators' struggles and the shit they go through just to get a story out the door tends to make me sympathize with them more. Sometimes a story just doesn't turn out as well as you'd hoped, but you're on a tight deadline and all you can do is move on to the next project. I've even softened a bit on Penders over the years as he's shared more about the absurd situations and odd creative demands made behind the scenes at Archie. Unfortunately, not everyone has that mindset.
Ian's basically always had obsessive haters who were eager to take everything he says out of context to try and stir up shit, but that used to be contained by the niche nature of the Archie comics. Most of the fandom didn't give a shit about what Ian was doing with Sonic and Sally's love life or whatever. Most of the fandom wasn't even reading those comics. But Ian's gone from being a writer for a non-canon spinoff comic, to being the initial lead writer for the first ever canon Sonic comic series, to being the new main writer for the games themselves as part of the official Sonic Lore Team. Way more Sonic fans care about his work now, and when he's so open about his work that makes him an easy scapegoat.
It feels like damn near every week on Twitter Ian's personal trolls have posted yet another BumbleKast clip out of context to rile up the fandom and make it look like he has no idea what he's talking about or like he has some kind of agenda. And, unfortunately, people often fall for this. Of course, it also goes the other way, with people more sympathetic towards Ian taking things he says about Sega and framing them as proof that Sega has no idea what they're doing with the brand. Which, well, let's be real, isn't always the most unreasonable thing to think, given Sonic's rocky history. But I'm surprised it took this long for Sega to start paying more attention to what gets said on the BumbleKast when fans use it so regularly as a source of drama.
I've also often felt that they just need to be WAY more selective about what messages they respond to on the show. Questions Ian can't actually answer due to NDAs, questions that are borderline incomprehensible, "questions" that are really just fan ideas. And the haters, oh, the haters. Ian does not need to put up with angry rants about how he should make SonAmy canon or what the fuck ever. Even if Ian's willing to put up with it, as a listener it can make the show just super unpleasant at times when someone aggressive pops up with an inflammatory question. There have been entire BumbleKast Mini episodes I had to skip because they were just obsessive critics of Ian's paying to grill him on a dozen different things and treat him like an idiot.
But at the same time, I get why the show got to be this way. It's become a part-time job for Ian with multiple new episode a week. Given how piss poor the pay tends to be for freelance writers, I can't really blame him for wanting to keep this secondary stream of income open, and to not have to refund people left and right for rejecting their questions. The man's got bills to pay. (And so does Kyle, for whom managing the BumbleKast seems to have become a full-time job.)
I dunno. The man's got the patience of a fucking saint. I would've quit the franchise if I was in his shoes, with people wishing he would die for shit like minor disagreements over Sonic's characterization or him misremembering an obscure old lore thing. While I do hope that Sega doesn't keep too tight of a leash on him moving forward, and I hope that he's still able to speak his mind about his work, part of me also hopes that having to be much more selective about Sonic questions results in less bullshit like this.
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I'm so sorry to tell you this OP, a micro expression that I need to pause the show for to see does not equal good writing. A show, and media in general, has to take our hand and guide us through it, I hate this stupid fucking sentence "you just want the show to take your hand" YES I DO, YES MEDIA NEEDS TO.
I don't want it to put everything infront of me and just carry me through it, I want it to fucking MAKE SENSE and GUIDE ME AS IT SHOULD. I do not want to sit here and decipher some weird fucking ass background to see "oh look the curtain split in the background indicates how this character is actually split in their decision🥺". That is NOT how this is meant to work. It is a nice addition but should not take away from actual character development.
Saying people rightfully calling this madness out "have an inability to read in between the lines" when what you are doing is adding your own context the show never gave or just straight up ignoring how "character" in media works
Them fucking in a cell was quite disturbing and disgusting. I'm a lesbian. I should be glad we got a lesbian scene. Yes, it has weird as fuck implications. Why are you talking as if your interpretation is the only one that can be right and now everyone needs to yield to it? Huh. Implications can and will happen unwillingly and willingly, by the way.
Caitlyn has war crimed her way through the Undercity, ruthlessly threw people into prison for no reason (they did actually show that, woah sick right), was ready to SHOOT someone with a child on their person that either would have hit the child or would have left the child with serious trauma, HIT VI INTO HER STOMACH AFTER SAID FACT, TOLD A PERSON WHILE SHE DIDNT YET WANT TO, SHE WOULD THROW HIM INTO THE DEEPEST DARKEST DUNGEONS, called people of the undercity animals, etc.
and you say 🥺actions mean more guys uwu🥺 shut up, genuinely.
Oh plus glorified suicide is never justifiable, wtaf. Do NOT dare to even say "but she lived". They SHOWED HER, a suicidal character, WILLINGLY JUMP WHILE PLAYING THE MUSIC SHE PREVIOUSLY TRIED TO KILL HERSELF WITH. They also made the other 2 characters that attempted sacrifice themselves. I watched this shit. I saw them imply a suicidal characters worth is to die as a sacrifice. This is not redemption. Redemption means a character getting better and hey, I think a character getting better kinda means they have to live, woah insane concept, right? I do not owe anyone any kind of private information about my person to talk about this, BY THE WAY.
They acted as if classism is a thing that simply disappears 🥺when faced with a bigger fiend guysssss die with us in our clothes, ignore how we treated you for years and years and how we killed and imprisoned you injustly and acted as if you were less🥺 yes, they fucked up Implications between Caitlyn and Vi never being addressed is insane. No "actions" (literally huh) do not mean more than words here.
edit: I'm gonna repeat, implication happens and will happen unwillingly and willingly and implications will also not be the same for everyone. If people tell you the implications of episode 7 with Vi's death was weird then that holds as much value as what you say it implies to you.
I knew we would eventually reach a point where masses of people would misinterpret Arcane, but I never imagined it would be this bad.
Yes, I absolutely agree that season 2 was rushed, especially Act 3, and it is undeniable that the series would have benefited from at least one more episode if not an entire act. However, the current discourse about the show is so superficial that it's impossible to have a conversation about anything deeper but a mere synopsis of the characters and story.
So many of you expected this series to hold your hand and dumb everything down so you can understand it. But when it wasn't the case, you all started rioting and calling the characters vague, the plot bad, and the ships underdeveloped.
The amount of people who value spoken text more than the actions of the characters is worrying. And more worrying than that is the amount of those who interpret the said actions so superficially. I can't believe it needs to be explained that it wasn't Vi's death that led to the "good" timeline, but the lack of hextech. The result would have been the same if either of them had died. It wasn't about Vi, but about the child that died because of dangerous technology and that therefore that technology must not be used. The mischaracterization of Vi in general is insane. Call me biased and unfair, but the moment I hear you don't like her I will assume you didn't understand the show.
Also, the whole discourse around Caitvi scene in episode 8 is giving brainsmooth. No, Vi didn't choose Cait over Jinx, quite the opposite. No, Cait didn't plan all of it to fuck Vi. No, Vi didn't do it because she felt forced or because she is a horny animal who doesn't care about her sister. No, them fucking in a cell is not about the class difference, but about the fact that Vi felt an insane rush of emotions after realizing that Cait would let go of her revenge and help Jinx escape, all for her. Yes, I do agree that it would be nice if we got a longer conversation between Vi and Caitlyn and it would feel great to hear Cait apologize, but I'll always value actions over words. Her talking to Jinx, recognizing that she is just as bad as her, and choosing to trust Vi that her sister can change, thus letting Jinx escape will always mean more than any verbal apology and I'll die on that hill.
Also, it was Jinx's decision to let go and walk away. It was not about Vi trying to get to Vander, but about Jinx being tired of everything. Even if that fight didn't happen, the result would be the same: Jinx would leave because she knows that Vi couldn't do that. She knew that the two of them couldn't have a normal life together and that Vi would never give up on her. Jinx didn't "die" because Vi pushed her or failed her, but because she loved her too much. Whether you believe that she is dead or that she escaped, it's her decision either way.
Again, I agree that too much happened too quickly, but stop confusing your stupidity and inability to read between the lines with the quality of the series.
Arcane is flawed but still brilliant.
#wtaf did I just read#people agree with this take#Im so sorry to tell you this op#this was an insane read#arcane#arcane season 2#arcane spoilers#caitvi#jinx#vi#caitlyn kiramman#classism#tw sui talk
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Hello. I am writing about a main character who has Down syndrome (12 years old). How does a child like her would react to mother death and moving to an old house? I want to be respectful while writing her.
Hi asker,
So there are a couple different things to think about.
For one, death of a loved one is hard for everyone, and the death of a parent is very difficult for pretty much all children. Change is hard, and this is a very permanent change that can be very traumatic because a person a kid expects to be with for way more time is now gone. The closer the child was to her mother, the harder this is going to be for her.
On change being hard, ID can make it harder for her to adapt to change. "Harder" does not mean "impossible." "Harder" means maybe they have to make a plan to help her transition to her new living space, maybe it needs to be explained to her more often, things like that. Maybe she needs support from lots of visuals, maybe she's asking questions a lot of the time, maybe she has trouble with doing things because of the stress. And this is from just the change of moving – all of this will likely be compounded with the stress of not having her mother. For this, people can try to help her by trying to provide as much of a sense of normalcy and trying to make sure she can have some sort of... it doesn't have to be a routine per se, just trying to make sure that some things don't change.
Abstract concepts are sometimes hard for kids, although less so by age 12 than for younger children. Abstract concepts can also be more difficult for people with intellectual disability (as is likely the case for your character with Down Syndrome). So, how is the death explained to her?
Best practice to explain death to children, including and especially kids with I/DD, is to use concrete and simple language. Euphemisms don't help much, especially for children, because euphemisms have context behind them that a child doesn't have. Euphemisms can also be misunderstood and unclear.
So, if she actually understands what's going on because people are explaining things to her in a way she can understand, ultimately this is going to be much better for her than if she doesn't understand that her mother isn't coming back because people keep being vague and saying things like "she's in a better place" and she keeps hoping to join her mom in this "better" place. Or it might take some time for her to understand the situation, and she might experience delayed grief.
Who is she moving with? Who is going to take care of her — she's a kid, she can't do it all by herself. Does she know them already? Is she just meeting them? If she's never met them before, this will probably be even more stressful to her — basically every single thing in her life is changing. That's huge. That's stressful and can be hard for her to understand why everything is different.
Overall, at the end of the day she's just a person, a child specifically, being put in an incredibly difficult situation. She has emotions like anyone else — there is a misconception that people with Down Syndrome are always happy, and that's just not true. They have
She's in a situation where adults with zero disabilities would probably have a super rough time as well. Add on to that being a kid, and add on to that being intellectually disabled, and it's probably going to be a really stressful situation. So, think about how your character reacts when she's stressed out, and factor in her disability.
Here's some links to grief and I/DD and grief and children. I have read through them, though not all of them at length. They do have information that you can use, whether on how she'd react or how others around her could react, but either way use your own judgement.
Helping People With Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Process Grief by the Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities (PDF file)
Responding to Grief Reactions of People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities by the Boggs Center on Developmental Disabilities (PDF File)
Bereavement In The Lives Of People With Intellectual Disabilities by the University of Hertfordshire's website on Intellectual Disability and Health
Managing Grief Better: People with Intellectual Disabilities by the University of Hertfordshire's website on Intellectual Disability and Health
Helping People With Intellectual Disabilities Cope With Loss by the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center (PDF File)
Hope this helps,
mod sparrow
#down syndrome representation#intellectual disability representation#parental death cw#mod sparrow#death tw#anonymous
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"constant condescension, demands of service, and emotional abuse."
"constant condescension": do you mean the nicknames Stolas gave to Blitz where it shows the clash of POVs from both sides (Stolas POV he's just being tender and loving, but of course his oblivious ass raised in a classist family won't realize that, meanwhile from Blitz POV, where class weights way more on him, assumes he's being condescending, despite not being his intention and not being a reality either). But psh, screw that right? It's way better to oversimplify and say Stolas does it on purpose and is a big monster, surely that's the most intelligent way to go!
"demands of service": alright, it's another part of POV clash, because the so-called 'demands' are something that Blitz perhaps understands what his affair with Stolas is like, for obvious reason, he's a goetia, he's an imp, yada yada, power imbalance, logical reasons that explains why the foundation of Stolitz in the first place is messy and shouldn't ever be the base of an relationship and the reason ppl root for it is for them to get out of this but no you all just assume everyone wants them to create this narrative that 'Stolas is in the right Blitz in the wrong' when the NOT FUCKING STUPID people don't pick sides and conclude this was a trainwreck bound to happen, fans are just waiting for the resolution (which hasn't come yet)
Anyways back to my point about the so-called demands, as I explained why it's understandable Blitz views this way, this is also not an reality. Paying attention to Stolas language in Murder Family, fucked up context aside, he don't bring up consequences if Blitz didn't accept the trade neither mentioned his power to threat him to accept it either, he offered and even asked if it's fair, someone as powerful as Stolas could control Blitz easily, yet he doesn't and it shows a lot about his character, but of fucking course you all don't care about that, Stolas is a big meanie.
and lastly: emotional abuse.
What. Just what. Everything that's going on with Blitz right now is not Stolas fault, this overwhelming 'torture' for Blitz as shown in these episodes are because of the obvious fact of the MASSIVE self hatred Blitz holds against himself, which, guess what, was actually SOLVED in this episode with Millie's help. This was not a damage by Stolas, sure, it's the most recent wound and Blitz feels guilty not for falling up for him, despite him desiring that, but he just straight up refused consciously to sit and talk with Stolas seriously because he WANTED that pompous rich asshole projection he had of Stolas (that is shown on his Truth Seekers hallucination), and talking about that, YES, EVERYONE KNOWS THE STOLAS PERCEPTION OF BLITZ SHOWN IN THAT EPISODE IS FUCKED UP, is not by any means healthy and is just self degrading, Stolas social class by itself already does that but his words towards him he >unconsciously< fed this preconception;
I could discuss Stolitz for a while and explain the appeal to Stolitz is not their previous dynamic, as fun as it was to watch sometimes, most know those conditions are not the healthy base of an relationship, and no, Stolas arc is by any means resolved, him taking the action to end the transactional deal with Blitz is just an start, the episodes are setting up so much stuff about Stolas realizing more stuff and ACTUALLY CHANGE FR.
What do you think the Striker line towards him about how the royals take everything from 'us', Blitz ranting (which is not a calling Stolas out, it's a rant of feeling unfairly dismissed and how he's having his feelings being played), but regardless, mentioning his attitude towards other imps and Apology Tour description literally calling Stolas not being self aware enough, and it's the episodes where petty Stolas keep talking bs at the start (with an Blitz that refuses to talk seriously fr)
This misconception you all have that Stolitz fans think all this needs to happen is Blitz to confess, and that Stolas has nothing more to improve is just wrong. Just plain wrong. I love both of these characters and I hate seeing an enormous mischaracterization of both.
Let's see if you won't oversimplify all I just said
Not oversimplify, but to summarise how stolas fans excuse him:
(1) Not the nickname. The fact he is asked not to say it, but does anyway. Because it makes him feel good. That is condescending. He is screamed in his face how people feel, and he ignores them not because he is “oblivious” or “tender and loving” but because he wants them to feel something else. This is wilful ignorance.
His response to his abusive marriage and family he has no control over, is to control those he knows cannot say no to him, to make himself feel better. The same way he abuses drugs and absinthe. He does it to his own staff, his daughter in the LooLoo land episode causing her breakdown, which he later regretted. In general to all imp kind, hellhounds also. This is the toxic mindset of someone with pain, who has let his victim mentality go too far. He is exploiting his privilege, which he is perfectly aware that he has. “Being part of the Goetia family is rather valuable you know”
Oddly enough, despite his “oblivious” self….he knows not to act this way towards Paimon, Asmodeus, and Andrealphus. He uses respect for all three. Ever wonder why? Him and Stella are in a clear power struggle. How they use power is unstable. An explanation, not excuse, for how he acts. This isn’t a prince problem. This is a stolas problem. His trauma isn’t blitzos fault, but Blitzs trauma is caused by how stolas has behaved to him.
“His oblivious ass and being raised in a classist family won’t realise that” hm. Wont realise….what? But you say everything is all in blitzs head and not the reality at all? So what isn’t stolas realising???
…..Oh and these…which are not even all of them.
(2) Now hang on, you can’t just “yada yada” away a power dynamic that you recognise is the problem. Stolas can control blitz. You do not understand what the sexual abuse is here. You think the fact he could rape him even more, but doesn’t, is worthy of praise. I think what he’s already done to abuse his power, is worthy of disdain. You’re pretending this was consensual, but despite how pro stolas the narrative is, even they have to admit it was not. Stolas said it wasnt right for a reason. And you seem to take his reality and his truth as the only reality, so why make this exception. When someone says they were sexually abused, you don’t get to say “Well you’re wrong. That’s not the reality. Because he loves you, and he didn’t mean it. He’s doesn’t see it this way, he’s one of the good ones.”
That first sentence is a mess. They’re demands because “no” isn’t reasonably on the table. He had to beg him not to take his business away, he said he could fulfill the bargain. You and stolas are squeamishly in denial about it. It’s not that blitz doesn’t feel this way, and that it isn’t what happened, it’s that you wish he didn’t and you wish that it didn’t, you want to pretend it is “society” or blitzs mental illnesses or Blitzs dad. But never stolas and what he did.
Er….you are taking a side. You said everything blitz feels is not reality. The source being, his trauma, and because stolas doesn’t see it that way. This feels like accusing an abuser person of “hysteria”
The emotional abuse part was explained very clearly, stolas does all of these; shifts blame, denial, shames him for his past relationships, switches victim and offender, rewrites past events, dodges questions, uses hefty amounts of guilt tripping, projection, deflection, silent treatment, taunting, and torment. By comparison, Blitz yells at him not to dismiss him, says he behaves in a classist way, makes sex jokes, and says “fuck you” these are all reactions. Something called reactive abuse which is what victims do in frustration and lack of control. Like stolas screaming back at Stella. She almost always starts it. (Not counting one scene where the start of the fight is offscreen so I don’t know who did)
“This was not caused by stolas. Sure it was the most recent wound” bit of a self contradiction. The way stolas behaved was disgusting, and abusive, his combination of control and guilt tripping, caused a massive decline in blitzs confidence triggering a mental break. As stolas’ behaviour has done to him several times.
Did Blitz “not want to talk?” Or did stolas order him to leave three times, and kick him out by force the second time? And turn his back on him every single instance. Causing the angry “im not being listened to” response stolas always causes in people. No. It’s stolas who refuses to. And as you and I both know, he has all of the power.
Third last paragraph, Viv cannot allow blitz to be right about stolas, so she compares him to a more convenient “bad” example, Striker. Ppl want to pretend the problem is “society” and painting royals with the same brush like a meanie head, and pretend it’s not stolas’ fault cause he’s just “loving and tender and oblivious and silly” This is a massive case of denial and creators pet behaviour, that is even irritating the spindlehorse animators and non-Viv writers.
Second last paragraph, don’t tell me what I think lol?. Many of the fans say they actually do feel that way, it’s no misconception. In this message you are dodging stolas having any moments of malice at all, by using “trauma” and “blitz just sees it that way” as reasonings.
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I NEED a wilson and cameron meta/drabble, how did they meet? how are they on a first-name basis? why is wilson such a big hameron shipper?
anon i love you . thank you for giving me an excuse to talk about wilson and cameron!!!
speaking about them briefly as Characters, and not as ‘people’: the parallels between then both are really, really fascinating. by the end of the show, both of them have been married three times. she lost her first husband; he lost amber. wilson contracts thymus cancer, and cameron’s first husband had thyroid cancer before it metastasised—both are endocrine. they are both explicitly attracted to this idea of ‘neediness’; they have both fallen in love with someone else while still married (though only one of them acted on it); they’re both very concerned with…how do i put this, externality?? there’s a conflict in how they want to present themselves to the world versus how they really feel. cameron consistently has these high-brow morals that she struggles to follow through on, either because they conflict with each other or because it isn’t easy to act on. wilson wants to be seen as a good guy, wants to give all he can to people, and often does so—but is also itching, sometimes, for an excuse to act out, and he and house are drawn to each other as a result. i think really the best way to sum them up is that they’re puzzle pieces that look like they fit, but…don’t.
anyway. onto them as ‘people’, i guess:
truth be told i think wilson and cameron truly just met in the context of her showing up to work one day as one of house’s fellows. that said. i have NEVER been able to get to the bottom of why wilson randomly calls her ‘allison’ in maternity and at this point i don’t think i ever will. literally one of the first houseposts i did on main was about this because i was like ‘what’. but at a best guess i would say this was intended as shorthand/foreshadowing for the fact that, well, cameron is by far the fellow that wilson hangs out with the most. they get tons of scenes and subplots together in s1 and 2. and i think she’s probably the fellow he likes the most. she’s nice, she’s willing to stand up for herself, she cares about house—these are all qualities that wilson either has himself or seems to wish he had, and while foreman and chase each have some of these, cameron’s really the only one who starts off with all three. WHICH IS NOT TO SAY THAT CAMERON IS PERFECT or flawless because like. Lol no. but her good qualities are mostly things that wilson values, and i think that’s important; it’s probably why they appear to get along). (also, logistically speaking—cameron is a big focus of that episode, and the ones after it, because it’s the leadup to the dead husband reveal. it makes sense to reveal her first name to a casual watcher at this point, it just so happens that wilson being the one to do so feels…wonky, in retrospect. it probably would’ve made more sense for it to be foreman or chase to reveal her first name—she’s the one to repeatedly use theirs in her self help book era—but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)
as to why wilson is such a huge hameron shipper: DESPITE EVERYTHING I HAVE SAID ABOVE, i think this is less about cameron and more about house. don’t get it twisted: wilson for sure ‘approves’ of cameron. she’s good at reading him—although she overplays it, in the end—she has all of the above listed qualities, and, y’know. nobody else is exactly throwing themselves at house at this point. she’s young and pretty, what’s not to like. but for all of this approval, all that he eggs house on…he still gives her a shovel talk. he warns her not to hurt house’s feelings, that she has the power to do so. he likes cameron, sure, but he’s obviously far, far more invested in house. and house is entertaining it, at least briefly! he buys a corsage and asks for tips on what to say. he’s willing to give it a go. this, i think, is why wilson wants house to go for it—not because cameron is particularly special, but because house is open to the idea and on paper it might be good for him. key words being on paper, lol. wilson is on board and he thinks house needs the extra push. note how wilson’s hameron shipping basically melts away entirely after stacy returns—he’s sure as hell not encouraging that relationship, but it’s funny how he never suggests house rebound with cameron instead. if house takes it off the table entirely, then wilson follows suit.
you did not ask for this, but: my own personal headcanon is that when cameron leaves for chicago, her and wilson stay on christmas card terms—but like. weirdly passive aggressive christmas card terms. on paper the friendliness is still there, she still helped him through the grief of amber, but—she severed ties with house. she believes him to be poison. wilson, though technically his own person…is still an extension. wilson i think probably has similarly cool feelings about her, too. but they’re both trapped in a kill-em-with-kindness-off wherein they keep promising to see each other if wilson ever ends up in chicago for a conference. he does not ever end up in chicago for a conference. lmao. ultimately i think it’s kind of a sad end to what seemed to be a genuine friendship, but…they both chose a side. i don’t think the friendship survives it.
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Okay I waited to get this out there because I didn't want to be a bummer the second it released, but. The story in Shadow Generations was... kind of nothing. Which sucks, because it had literally everything going for it.
Shadow gets plunged into a white space where people and places from different points in time are unceremoniously dropped in due to the power of the Time Eater, and that means Black Doom is here to try to manipulate Shadow again. Shadow starts developing alien mutations that mess with his sense of identity and only make Black Doom stronger, but he's determined to use them to take him out for good.
At the same time, Maria and Gerald Robotnik are here, and of course the first thought on Shadow's mind when he discovers them is how he can find a way to save them from their original fates. So he's got two goals: defeat Black Doom, and save his family.
This setup is really good. It's immediately engaging for all sorts of reasons, from the surface-level "whoa cool alien powers!!" to the heartbreaking implications of Shadow being forced to say goodbye to Maria and Gerald again. (Because naturally, we've seen where the games go from here and we know the timeline isn't changed that drastically.)
And it's clear to see that the people involved in working on this game were passionate about it, too. The animation and cinematography is quite good, and while I have my critiques (I still don't think the character models are that great), so much effort was put into making Shadow the coolest guy ever, and I think it paid off. He's both very cool and shows a wider range of emotions than we've seen from him in a while, which is always a plus for me.
I mean, goodness knows that Shadow needed his character to be revisited and given respect after, what, over ten years? The step up that this is can't be overstated.
And yet.
The story itself is so empty.
Let's go in order:
The game opens with a narrated recap of Shadow's basic history in order to catch people up. I can't say it doesn't technically serve its purpose, but given the fact that the premise of the game is exploring Shadow's past, it's a little weird to spell it out at the start like this. If you're a newcomer to the series and don't know much about Shadow, wouldn't it be cooler to find this stuff out by progressing in the game?
It also leaves out crucial details that, while they could arguably bloat the scene, provide a lot of relevant context that a first-time viewer isn't privy to.
"At the last moment, Shadow remembered Maria's final wish... to protect her beloved planet and all who lived there."
The last moment of... what, exactly? What made him remember, what made him forget in the first place?
In order, these are the answers the scene doesn't give you:
The last moments before the ARK crashed into the Earth, which would've caused catastrophic damage.
Amy was the one who pleaded with Shadow to give everyone a chance, which echoed what Maria told him, triggering the full memory.
It's actually unclear if Shadow forgot what Maria said as a natural trauma response or because Gerald messed with his memories on purpose, but this would have been a great opportunity to clarify.
It also leaves out the fact that Shadow teamed up with Sonic to save the world after he tried to destroy it, so that's two connections with other characters he has that are completely left out in the recap. I know we're finally getting back to showcasing Rouge and Omega as his best friends, but he does hold respect for Sonic and Amy, too. Plus, his interactions with them in SA2 were so iconic, why leave them out?
Then again, I suppose Rouge and Omega aren't in this recap either... which is really weird, the more I think about it.
But even as it's describing the moment he chooses to be a hero, they don't show him in his super form alongside Sonic, he's just... what, on fire?? I don't know what that's supposed to be depicting, it just looks cool.
"Shadow didn't understand why Black Doom expected him to be the vanguard for his invasion of Earth."
A fine start, but shouldn't we have gotten a passing mention of Shadow's amnesia somewhere in here? He spent two whole games trying to remember who he was, and Black Doom's whole tactic was to exploit his desire for answers. That's important characterization for both Shadow and Black Doom that we're missing out on, here.
"Shadow the Hedgehog. The lone, dark warrior who judges the world by his own code."
This is maybe best addressed in a separate post, but. does anyone else find this description of Shadow kinda odd? "Lone warrior" I get, even with his friends he's not big on groups, but it's everything else.
Yeah, he judges the world by his own code, I guess, but his actions are all in service of following Maria's code. It's Sonic that lives solely by what he wants without much influence from others, not Shadow.
And what exactly makes Shadow a "dark" warrior? He's been explicitly characterized as someone who doesn't kill as recently as the prologue animation to this very game, where he goes out of his way to save a pilot when he doesn't need to. His entire life's purpose is protecting the world, and this doesn't involve killing or torturing people, so... what exactly is the dark part of his morality. Nothing about this recap has given me reason to believe he's anything but a heroic person with a traumatic past, and the subsequent game will only reinforce that.
I guess he did kill all the Black Arms, but that's not something the game ever treated as an immoral action. Shadow blows up Black Doom and the comet his people live on and all of our heroes cheer as he does it. It happens in the True Ending and everything, where Shadow's supposed to be proving himself as a hero for real, so that can't be the example of him being a Dark Warrior.
Is it because of how he treated Infinite, a character that this game doesn't acknowledge despite featuring a level from Forces? We'll never know. They just want you to accept the idea that he's Darker and Edgier than Sonic based on his surface-level demeanor alone, which... given that the objective of this game is to showcase Shadow's nuance, this is really out of place. Overall, not a great scene.
That said, the first real cutscene is pretty good, and it immediately showcases how unnecessary that recap was by showing how excited Maria was to meet Shadow for the first time. From that scene, we learn that Shadow was artificially made, that he's "the Ultimate Lifeform," that Maria was likely close to him, that this happened on some place called "the ARK" which is in space, etc. Why did we have a narrator tell us all of this a minute ago when we were just about to see it for ourselves?
I do have one nitpick, though - Shadow claims that he arrived at the ARK "an hour ago," and Rouge on the other end of the comm is already at Sonic's birthday party. Rouge only agreed to help Shadow get to the ARK if he would go to Sonic's birthday party afterwards, but how was Shadow supposed to have time to do anything up there if Sonic's party was that soon? I was under the impression from watching the prologue that Sonic's birthday was at least a week away, because how else would Rouge expect him to conduct a full investigation and potentially fight some huge battle before then?
Oh and the Time Eater shows up in two places at once (at Sonic's party and on the ARK), I feel like it would've made more sense to have it grab Shadow after it was done with everyone else. Now I'm gonna be forced to ask "why doesn't the Time Eater multiply" for the rest of the game. Whatever
Moving on, our first real sign of things to come is the fact that Omega does not have a proper speaking role despite showing up in the first cutscene. He's right there, conveniently next to Shadow, but as soon as you think they're going to talk to each other... you're dropped into the hub world. Speaking to Omega results in text bubble dialogue, wherein Shadow is mysteriously hit with Silent Protagonist Disease and we don't get to hear anything he says. Effectively, Omega just. talks at Shadow three times, saying nothing of interest. and it's completely optional.
I repeat: all of the dialogue from one of Shadow's best friends is OPTIONAL, and Shadow himself says nothing to him. Yeah, we're off to a great start.
(Omega even says that he's going to assist Shadow, and I just. I have to laugh. I'm so sorry Omega but in terms of physical actions, you're genuinely going to do less here than in Forces)
Shadow: "No. She's gone. I'm seeing things."
Pardon?? Seeing things??? I'm sorry but there is no way that Shadow can see and recognize Maria from that distance but not from ten feet away with her back turned. He's also never been implied to have super-vision, so the whole scene just doesn't make sense, and frankly adds nothing to the story.
Even if he doesn't mean literal sight, then 1) why did he phrase it like that, and 2) I kinda don't care. He doesn't need to be able to sense Maria's presence or whatever's going on here, because he's just as shocked when he actually sees Maria properly later. It builds suspense I suppose, but I feel like it would've been more impactful to discover that Maria was really here the same way Shadow does; in the cutscene where he saves her.
But before they can reunite, we've got the first proper cutscene with Black Doom:
Black Doom: "You defeated us, but the Black Arms live on. And this temporal anomaly has accelerated my plans to revive my forces and consume the world."
I'm gonna be real with you guys. I have no idea what he's talking about here.
The game makes zero attempt to really explain how the Black Arms "live on" despite Shadow blowing up their entire comet along with Black Doom himself, and going into the game, I kinda thought it was just... time displacement. Maria and Gerald are brought in from a time they were alive, so I thought it would be the same with Black Doom, but no - he revived himself before the Time Eater even got involved.
Which I'd be willing to accept if they gave me an explanation for it, but they didn't, and the whole foundation of the plot suffers for it.
Plus, what the heck does he mean that the temporal anomaly has "accelerated his plans to revive his forces"?? The Time Eater's powers don't... accelerate anything. At all. They pluck things out of time and freeze them in a void. How does that help Black Doom's plans whatsoever?
If the idea is that he's going to pluck his own forces out of time and bring them back that way, why not just say that? Why are they withholding such basic information from us? It doesn't create intrigue, and the story doesn't even treat it like there's a gap in our knowledge to begin with. I think it's genuinely supposed to be the whole explanation, and that's a problem because it explains very little.
Then you've got the Black Moon, and this thing annoys me to no end because guess what?? Despite gradually opening more eyes and cracking open every time you complete a level, it's never once explained what it is or what it's for. All it does is turn the white void into a red void and open a portal to Even More Radical Highway. Maybe I'm forgetting something from an optional piece of dialogue, but that only creates a different problem, which is that you should never lock basic understanding of the story behind optional dialogue.
Why does it have eyes? Is it a living creature or some weird bioweapon? It's oddly mechanical for a creation of the Black Arms; even their weaponry is organic, as this very game tells us through Omega, so what's its deal??
You'd think it would have something to do with time, considering the framing of this scene:
Shadow says "perhaps I can change their fate" and then looks to the Black Moon as though it may hold some relevance to this new plot thread, but. nope. it just takes you back to Radical Highway.
And hey, look at that, I was so busy complaining about the moon that I seamlessly transitioned into one of my biggest issues with the game: Shadow says this. and never follows up on it. EVER.
I'm not kidding, there's literally NO point in the game where we're shown Shadow trying to do ANYTHING to change Maria and Gerald's fates. There's no scene where he attempts to understand the void better, he never investigates anything, he makes exactly zero attempts to accomplish one of his main goals. of BRINGING HIS FAMILY BACK TO LIFE.
What is the point of them being here, then.
No, I'm serious, literally why are they here if we don't get to see Shadow try to save them?? By the time the final cutscene rolls around, they start fading away back to their own time, and suddenly Shadow's like
(WHY ARE YOU SURPRISED, YOU DID NOTHING TO PREVENT THIS OUTCOME)
But I'll talk more about Maria and Gerald later - for now, since we're on the topic of Shadow having odd reactions to things, how about those stages and bosses, huh?
Well guys, I'm pleased to announce that despite there being dialogue in some of the stages, absolutely none of it provides context to the locations Shadow visits or his thoughts on them! If you didn't play Heroes and have no idea that Bullet Station is where Shadow found a destroyed Shadow Android, kickstarting a new layer to his identity crisis, then congratulations, this choice of level will mean nothing to you.
And before anyone tries to be like "the Sonic Generations levels don't get commentary from Sonic on their significance to him, either," it's a problem there, too. But it's an even bigger problem here, because they went out of their way to choose levels that have real emotional significance to Shadow and then proceeded to do nothing with it.
Isn't this the game where we revisit Shadow's story up until this point? Would it have been so hard to drop a line of dialogue indicating that Shadow's not thrilled about returning to Bullet Station? Maybe add a brief cutscene where he finds the same broken android from before, and says something like "hmph, I can't believe I let that thing make me doubt myself for so long," thus demonstrating his growth?
Here's a fun fact: Shadow has zero cutscenes that happen inside of levels. This is something Sonic beats him at, by having one cutscene that takes place in a level (Chemical Plant). This should not have been a high bar to clear, but they fell short somehow, anyway.
(Space Colony ARK doesn't even use the Final Chase music. The Shadow game starts out with a song exclusive to Sonic rather than him. He actually has more ARK-related music than Sonic does and they still didn't use any of them. How did they mess that up)
This problem only gets worse when they start pulling in levels from Forces and Frontiers - games that this Shadow hasn't experienced yet and wasn't there for, respectively. Once again, on principle, this is a cool idea! Shadow getting a peek into what his and Sonic's futures have in store? The confusion over when these events take place, if they're even connected to him like the others have been? Great stuff
And hey, if he's going to Chaos Island, and we saw from the trailers that the volcano is exploding in Act 1, then maybe we could even see Super Sonic fighting Knight in the background in Act 2! The debris from their fight could even act as platforming challenges, can you imagine how cool that would be? What will Shadow think of the advanced tech on the island, or of seeing Sonic fight something so massive? Surely this is a great opportunity to elevate Frontiers even further--yeah of course they don't do that.
No Knight fight in the background, which is... fair enough, I guess, but then why bother with the volcano exploding? It only does that moments away from when Sonic is about to fight Knight. Yeah, it looks cool, but we didn't need it. The more egregious problem is still the fact that Shadow has no observable thoughts or opinions on being sent to unfamiliar terrain in the future, though.
The bosses all have dialogue, though, which is a step up on a technicality and little else. Most of the dialogue from Shadow is just him being a self-aggrandizing badass who doesn't see any of the bosses as threats - even Neo Metal Sonic, who he should really not be so confident in beating all by himself, considering that he. didn't do that before. It actually took eleven other people to defeat Neo Metal, including Super Sonic, but I guess he just doesn't care at this point.
If they wanted to, it would've been easy to make him overconfident on purpose due to his new Doom powers, make an arc out of it, but no. Shadow's just Like This now, apparently.
There's a similar power scaling issue in Sonic Generations too, where Sonic can somehow defeat Perfect Chaos without his super form, but the game had dropped location-specific cutscenes so long ago that it was hard to feel like it was even canon at a certain point. The game never cared about making sense or really being anything, but Shadow Generations doesn't get that excuse. The bosses having the most mid-gameplay dialogue tells us that they're Definitely Happening, and so I care more about them as a result.
Which takes us to the moment that I truly realized that this game had no interest in doing anything with its material: the Mephiles boss fight.
Shadow: "What's this? A seal of some sort?"
Okay real quick before I get into my big issues with this fight: I know it's a magic glowing artifact, but what about it actually looks like a seal, specifically? Does Shadow just have a sense for this kind of thing? I don't recall him ever demonstrating that ability before.
I feel like this line is just here to clarify what it is for people who don't know, but since Shadow also doesn't know, it's just kind of weird. I'm not even sure why he's in the Scepter to begin with, considering that Shadow's sealing attempt in this room was a failure, but whatever.
Of the three bosses in Shadow Generations that precede the final boss, Mephiles is the only one that can both speak and had a relevant dynamic with Shadow that would be interesting to revisit. The Biolizard is cool but doesn't have a personality, and Neo Metal had no real opinion on Shadow. (In Rivals 2, Shadow and Metal Sonic have a developing friendship, but this has unfortunately never been brought up again. If they did so here, it would only have been on Shadow's end, since Metal hadn't gotten to that point yet.)
But Mephiles? So much of his character revolves around Shadow. It was Shadow who sealed him away originally, and it was Shadow's form that he took when he broke free. He's the main antagonist of Shadow's story in 06, and even though his primary goal is rejoining with Iblis, he takes a vested interest in trying to manipulate Shadow over to his side by showing him the worst of what humans will do to him - not unlike Black Doom, honestly, though he was focused on Shadow's past instead.
Plus, it's been so long! We thought we would never get to see Mephiles again! What have you got for us, game?
Mephiles: "I will defeat you, then restore myself to the timeline." Shadow: "I don't know what you're talking about, but I will crush you all the same." Mephiles: "What? Did you forget about me AGAIN?"
*deep sigh*
Contradictory dialogue back-to-back. I see. Cool.
Mephiles should not be surprised that Shadow doesn't remember who he is, because he literally JUST SAID that his goal is to restore himself to the timeline. He KNOWS that he never existed, and therefore SHOULD KNOW that nobody he encounters will remember him. I'm convinced that he only reacted this way because the writers thought it would be funny, and that's it.
Even if it made sense, though, Mephiles isn't supposed to be funny. He's supposed to be ominous and threatening. For as much care that went into recreating this environment and his powers/body language from 06 (and I gotta say, this whole section looks extremely nice), none of that same care really seemed to go into his personality. He's just as drab as Neo Metal, occasionally repeating lines from 06 so that you know they played it and not much else.
The end of the fight features some absolutely unhinged dialogue from Shadow for no reason, though.
Mephiles: "No... I want... to exist...! Shadow: "There is no future for you. Ever."
Look, I get it, they've done nothing but fight this whole time . But Shadow has no personal beef with this guy. Even if they're going with the idea that Shadow wouldn't care to learn what Mephiles is rambling on about (kind of boring, and why wouldn't he be curious about why someone like this has it out for him), there's no reason to go so far as to say he'll never have a future. Is this the "dark" part of that "dark warrior" thing they were talking about in the beginning?? Kind of a random place for it to jump out of him, if so.
The kind of intensity coming from Shadow here would be justified if he remembered who Mephiles was, but he doesn't. As it stands, it gives off the impression that he didn't actually process a single thing Mephiles said about wanting to exist and restore himself to the timeline, and just said the first cool, edgy retort that came to mind. Which makes the sentence both less cool and even more out of character.
After this boss finished playing out, all I could feel was disappointment and a creeping sense of emptiness. If this was how the game was handling Mephiles, of all characters, if this was the extent of what they were willing to do with an idea... the rest of the game suddenly seemed much less exciting. I got to this point, realized how comparatively little of the game was left, and thought oh no.
Now, uh... where was I in the story, again?
Oh right, Shadow was about to go save Maria. I actually have no notes on that scene, it's pretty good and I liked that Maria was immediately thrown off by his aggressive fighting style and whatnot. It implies a lot about what Shadow used to be like without really showing or telling us, and that's pretty neat.
The following cutscene where Gerald explains how Shadow's growing powers only make Black Doom stronger in the process is also fine, there's nothing super specific for me to gripe about it in isolation.
And this good streak it has going is immediately interrupted by the worst, most nonsensical scene in the entire game.
Sonic: "I found you, Shadow!" Shadow: "The blue hedgehog... of all places..." Sonic: "You have something I need." Shadow: "You can wait until my business is finished." Sonic: "Yea sorry, but that Chaos Emerald and I have a date with a monster!" Shadow: "Well then, it'll be a date to die for."
This is. a really stilted conversation, no matter what way you look at it. On one hand, it's repurposed dialogue from two different scenes haphazardly mashed together, neither of which should represent their current dynamic anymore since they were both antagonistic at the time. And on the other, it just... completely lacks character from both of them. They're so unbelievably dry despite their attempts to sound quirky, it's actually impressive.
I have to ask - have the script writers not heard the incessant complaints from fans about there being too many references in modern Sonic dialogue?? Because this scene plays out like an actual parody of that trend, the kind I would expect to see on twitter or something. I initially saw the animation for this cutscene without audio due to leaks, and I thought it looked pretty cool because the animation was nicely done.
Boy, when I tell you I was stunned to discover that THIS was the actual, official dialogue. What happened here?? Why is this what Sonic cutscenes are turning into?? In a game that costs $50-$60??And people are saying it's the best Sonic game???
Somehow, the god-awful dialogue isn't even the only thing that's wrong with this scene, but I'll compile the rest in bullet points to speed it up a little.
Shadow suddenly shows up in Sonic's section of White Space, despite it not being visible from a distance and therefore giving no reason for Shadow to venture out that far
Sonic says he "found" Shadow as if he was looking for him, even though the only people Sonic has seen here other than his and Tails' past selves are people who were at his birthday party
Classic Sonic is neither seen nor mentioned despite the extremely fun potential of having him interact with Shadow
A purple portal conveniently shows up in front of Sonic and Shadow while they're talking for no reason
The boss fight with Sonic is just a cutscene (lame), and Shadow gets taken out completely by one solid bonk from Sonic (even lamer)
The fake Chaos Emerald switcheroo, while clever, is presented as if it was done deliberately when it was clearly a coincidence that it got knocked out of Shadow instead of the real one
(I guess this technically happens before the Mephiles fight so my faith in this game was already plummeting, but I was willing to tolerate this scene being bad because I could understand them not wanting to add too much to Sonic's side of things. They had completely free reign with Mephiles and still delivered nothing, which is why it really cemented itself in my head)
The one thing I really liked here was seeing Shadow almost use his Doom powers to defeat Sonic, deciding against it, and his hesitation being what lost him the match. Shadow refusing to fight Sonic on unequal terms is some really good characterization that I was happy to see.
Black Doom: "The promised time is nigh upon us, Shadow. Soon, you will be mine."
So did we ever learn what the "promised time" was, exactly? I've played every route of Shadow the Hedgehog (some more than once) and still can't remember. If he's referring to the time when Shadow awakens his full power then I guess it makes sense, but otherwise it's kind of an oxymoron considering that time doesn't exist in White Space.
Gerald: "He has grown a new body, and used the nebulous nature of time in White Space to accelerate his plans for revenge."
Shadow, buddy, your animation is positively kickin' right now but Gerald, I'm gonna need you to do literally anything other than just repeat the same lackluster explanation we got earlier as if that's going to make it any less confusing. What ABOUT the nebulous nature of time? Is time not largely just frozen here?? We're somehow around 3/4s into this story and I still have NO idea how anything works
Maria calms Shadow down from his frankly justified anger by holding his hand and talking about how she doesn't want him to be driven by darkness. They find a way to throw in the fact that apparently Maria named him "Shadow" because the presence of a shadow can show you where to find the light, and it's... nice? Very wholesome, but it feels awkwardly placed and I'm not sure anyone was seriously asking why he was named that. Like, of all the questions to spend this game's limited screentime answering, "why is he named Shadow" was probably not at the top of most people's lists.
And before you have a chance to think about it, we're already at the endgame.
Shadow: "I'm letting go of that destructive anger."
Wow, and in the very next scene after it was brought to your attention, too! You sure do grow fast, Shadow!
Okay, all jokes aside, there's not much I can say about the pacing in this game other than It's Rushed and Bad, but I think it's finally time to talk about Gerald and Maria.
Gerald first: He's mostly just here to give out exposition. His relationship with Shadow is much less focused on than Maria's, which I find to be really frustrating because I always had a lot of questions about how those two interacted. In SA2, we only know him as a grieving, hate-filled man who was heavily implied to have scientifically messed with Shadow's mind - not long after they had both just lost Maria - in order to make him inclined towards Gerald's revenge plan.
In Shadow's first game, we see a side to him from before then, when he really seemed to care for Shadow and we got some clarity on the purpose of the Eclipse Cannon and whatnot. But what were their average interactions like? Who was in charge of Shadow's training? If it was Gerald, did that ever create a sense of distance between them? Shadow never has warm, nostalgic flashbacks of him, so I assumed their relationship either wasn't as close or he has too many conflicting feelings now for those memories to be very comforting.
This game decides to lean into Gerald being a kind, supportive man, but regardless, Shadow's feelings should be a lot more complicated, no?
I'd imagine that, in a way, it's a relief to have this Gerald around again. It would make it easier to pretend that the man who used him in an attempt to destroy the world and go against everything Maria stood for was just... a fluke, or something.
But still, Shadow knows that he would do bad things to him if Maria died. It's already happened.
Dark Beginnings also suggested that either Shadow was there when he shot down by the firing squad (unlikely given the context), or he watched the recording that played at the end of SA2 enough to be able to see it in his dreams. Neither of those are good for his psyche, and would only add to the number of emotions he has to suppress whenever they interact. There is, of course, none of this nuance within the game itself, despite it being right there and ready to be worked with.
Then you've got Maria, and. hoo boy.
I take no real issue with any of Maria's traits that are on display. Her being a nice girl with boundless energy and goodwill does not make her boring, and I've always been fascinated by her character. So, I need you guys to understand that it's with a heavy heart that I must say that Maria is... barely a character in this game.
And like, she doesn't exactly have a history of being deep or complex. But we've also only ever seen her in Shadow's memories up until this point, and that means this game was a unique opportunity to flesh her out more.
When a character is as idealized by another as Maria is by Shadow, and we only see them through that lens, it's natural to assume that the depiction isn't completely accurate. I was never in doubt that Maria was kind and gentle, or that she was always there to help Shadow when she knew he was struggling, but I always wanted to know what she was like outside of that. What makes her angry? What was she like on a bad day, when she inevitably got frustrated at her lot in life? How did Shadow comfort her? What was her sense of humor like?
While we technically learn more things about Maria in this game, there's never a point where she acts differently from Shadow's vision of her. She's not really shown to have flaws, and she's only really there to be saved and offer emotional support. It's like... a textbook example of what you shouldn't be doing when writing a female character, having her be defined entirely by her relationship with the male lead and never speaking up or complaining about her own problems or feelings. They don't even make a point out of it, that Maria tempers herself to be "perfect" for other people or anything like that.
Why don't we get to see how she and Shadow would handle an argument or something like that? Especially this Shadow, who's all shaken up by everything? Wouldn't it be beneficial for both of their characters for Maria to be seen as herself, the way she was in life, rather than just the nicest moments she and Shadow had together?
I'm gonna make a comparison here that people aren't gonna like, but... I think Elise is honestly shown to be a more nuanced character than Maria is. And this is coming from someone who thinks that she was also mishandled in her game.
Similar to Maria, Elise is genuinely a deeply caring person, and lives mostly isolated with a condition of sorts that makes her life difficult. Her most important relationship is also with the male lead of her respective game, but she doesn't exist solely for his benefit. (Amusingly, Sonic actually seems to be there primarily to further her arc, so it's a bit of a role swap there.)
But we see more from Elise than just Being Nice all the time. We see her being resolute and bold in the face of danger, or disappointed when she has to go back to the castle. We watch her try her hardest not to cry and retain her strong, regal exterior when faced with overwhelming emotion.
We get to see her open up and laugh and become more confident, we watch as someone who's been forced to put her feelings aside for the convenience (and safety) of others her whole life finally break down and shout something selfish for once. And then we watch her ultimately choose to do the right thing, anyway. Her strength of character is shown to us by putting her in situations that challenge her, and the narrative never once shames her for being imperfect; it's actually encouraging her to be her real, flawed self.
Why does Maria not get this same treatment? Why don't we get cutscenes of her being excited about the new environment she's in, or frustrated that her symptoms are making it difficult to do anything here? When does she get to be selfish? Why can't she get upset at people treating her like she's frail, even if it technically "makes sense" for them to do so?
We're told, in Gerald's journal, that some of the people aboard the ARK doubted that Maria was really sick due to her symptoms not being clearly visible. Because it's his journal, we only get to hear his feelings on the matter, but in the full game, we never once get to know how it makes Maria feel, the person this is all about to begin with. They absolutely could have incorporated this into a cutscene somewhere, but they didn't.
Once again, I have to ask: what is the point of Maria and Gerald being in this game if this was how they were going to be written? Not only does Shadow fail to even attempt to save their lives, he doesn't even walk away from the experience with renewed understanding of who they were as people.
So what even happens in this story, then?? Every single aspect of it is dragged down constantly by the game's refusal to do anything with what it has:
Shadow revisits places from his past, but has nothing to say about them
Shadow visits places from the future, but has nothing to say about them
He has nothing relevant or interesting to say about any of the bosses
Mephiles trying to restore himself to the timeline is a plot point that exists solely within his boss fight and nowhere else
He doesn't struggle with any of the bosses, emotionally or physically, turning them into a boring power trip
He barely struggles with his Doom powers, the things that are supposed to be giving him an identity crisis
Sonic is not a playable boss fight and he also says nothing relevant or interesting
Classic Sonic doesn't even get a passing mention
The Team Dark friendship is supposed to be a highlight but Shadow never speaks to Omega, who also never shows up in cutscenes, and Rouge is just kinda there
Maria and Gerald never meet Rouge and Omega, or anybody else on-screen, despite it being extremely easy for them to run into each other
Shadow's relationships with Maria and Gerald are barely explored past their surface
Most importantly, Shadow is never shown making any sort of effort to save Maria and Gerald from their fates, despite it being one of his primary goals
...Oh yeah, I forgot to complain about how Shadow barely struggles with his Doom powers. I was gonna go on a whole spiel about how it would've been super easy to make into an arc and how it was wildly underutilized despite being a major selling point of the game, and the only real consistent conflict whenever Black Doom isn't on screen.
Well. Anyway. Once the White Space becomes Red Space (something that once again makes me question how far away Sonic's area is, to not be able to see this happening), Shadow magically gets over his "destructive anger" and goes to Radical Highway one last time for the epic final boss.
And it certainly is epic, I can't deny that. A massive technical improvement over the first fight against Devil Doom, and I'm not about to sit here and act like the wings aren't cool. But I can't say it feels very rewarding, since I never really understood what was going on and Shadow didn't really struggle that much to get to this point. Not to mention, he's still acting all high and mighty during boss fights, which makes it feel stale really quickly. Black Doom isn't really that interesting by himself, so Shadow kinda needed to carry that fight, but no, it's just more of the same.
One last point before I wrap this up:
Where was Emerl???
Correct me if I'm wrong, but a promo animation for a game should, in theory, provide you some idea as to what kind of things to expect in the game itself. While a lot of them take their share of creative liberties, I don't think they're in the habit of putting spotlight on entire characters who never appear in the game at all.
This is THE GAME where we bring back the people from Shadow's past that he's lost, and Emerl most certainly qualifies. He's from the more recent past, yes, but Shadow still cared about him and absolutely would have been affected by his death. There's no way that, had he been in the story, Shadow wouldn't have been determined to save him as well. But no, he's just there to be a cool lore detail in Gerald's journal.
Which means this is yet another depiction of Emerl where we refuse to acknowledge his personality. Do they seriously think Emerl is more interesting as an emotionless killing machine that Gerald researched in his spare time? Where's the fun-loving kid who mimicked everyone around him, splicing things he heard them say together to communicate and creating funny tonal whiplash? Where's the robot with the soul that Gerald gave him, that was nurtured by Sonic and his friends?
Not in this game, apparently! They went out of their way to canonize Battle and still managed to treat it with zero respect. Kind of impressive, really, and just another footnote in the trend of this game not actually caring to do anything with Shadow's past.
There are definitely moments in this game that I like, but that's kind of all they are: moments. The game's total cutscene runtime is around 30 minutes, and that means there's not enough time in any of them to get anything done. A scene that's good in isolation is tainted by the fact that it's all there is.
And it's just... so baffling to me. There are so, so many points in this game where you could have fit additional cutscenes in. We could have had one after each act, or at least after each level. Give us more cutscenes after activating things in the hub world or something. I mean, a game that claims to be this story-driven doesn't usually need an excuse to throw cutscenes at you, and they certainly didn't need to force each scene to be so unbelievably short.
If they really needed to downsize on cutscene length for some reason, then maybe they should have just made a less ambitious story. The game wants to do so many things at once, but it doesn't have the time to do any of those things justice. We could have gotten a short, sweet, well-done little story, but instead we get a story that easily needed at least two hours to tell crunched into a measly 30 minutes.
I mean, Dark Beginnings in its entirety is half the length of the full game. Think about that for a second.
This game's story was supposed to be something, man. It's getting so much praise for what feels to me like the bare bones structure of a story, and it's frustrating because I know this series can do better. The writer of this game can do better, and I know that because I've read his other Sonic material and it feels much more complete than this does.
I was genuinely looking forward to this game, is the thing. I really didn't think it would be this lackluster, because like I said at the beginning of this post, it had everything in the world going for it. But no matter how nice it feels to have a Shadow who isn't wildly out of character for once, that alone can't carry an entire story.
Shadow Generations is a mess of good ideas executed in the least interesting, most nothing way possible. Its only real saving grace is its animation, and the fact that Shadow generally feels like himself.
Except for when he's talking to Sonic. What the heck happened when he was talking to Sonic
#sonic the hedgehog#shadow the hedgehog#sonic x shadow generations#sonic x shadow generations spoilers#sxsh generations#sxsh spoilers#sxsh generations spoilers#analysis#meta#This uh. might be my longest post ever??#I didn't go into this planning for it to be 7000 words but I just kept finding new things to ramble about#And of course I just wanna say that this post is NOT here to tell people that they can't like the game's story#I just needed to air out all of my issues with it because I felt like I was going insane
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SHJ’s and HYJ’s conversations just be like this for no reason
#sctir spoilers#tsctir#s classes that i raised#sctir#han yoojin#hyj#shj#sung hyunjae#why does everything they say need context#who talks like this!!
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maybe this is just because it feels like a metaphor for how tlovm uses vex in general (and i could write an essay about it and have and will again) but something that i both understand tlovm choosing to do and deeply hate as a choice they made is vex no longer being the one to break thordak’s crystal even though vax was still the one to kill him. especially since the show was very explicit about thordak being responsible for killing the twins’ mother and also set it up as a sort of avenging of percy, it felt tonally weird to literally just have vex hanging out in the background for both the crystal breaking and him being killed. it’s fine (deeply upset voice) i understand that adjustments to pike’s vestige made this make sense for the plot but. glad to have vex continue to be a witness in tlovm moments that in the campaign her agency in were delicious character moments. it’s fine.
#cr team respectfully i think you need to think more about the consequences of your Cool Action Choices#on your central characters’ agency and growth#particularly when they are women whose names start with k and v#i think pike does better because there is the extra attention of How To Fit Her In The Story#but for every great moment of character reinterpretation of vex and keyleth there are about five where i’m like.#these characters are animation tradition pilled and not in the fun adventurous way i mean in the#medium that got away with treating women as objects in much more extreme ways for longer way. where i think the echoes are harder to extract#from common tropes and shit that aren’t exactly harmful but do take keyleth and vex. both characters who fit well into archetypes#but who are interesting because of how they subvert them pretty consistently#and instead just have them subvert them on occasion and we’re left with just. innocent flower who occasionally has rage#can’t kill vorugal on her own. can’t crack thordaks gem. why is she there (i said tired and sad for other reasons) i’m being hyperbolic#and cold and charismatic woman (now . trope identical mourning widow 👍) who occasionally is given depth (typically in romantic context)#which sure great. yay action sequence yay npc backstories and motivations. could i get a slice of the time and effort percy and scanlan get#to trace their arcs through everything they do#with keyleth and vex. please. Please#to be clear. this isn’t like. i think the characters are being targeted (certainly don’t think the cast doesn’t have a say either)#this is me saying i think the say they have/choices they’ve made aren’t very compelling ones#tlovm spoilers#vex’ahlia#tlovm
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gang i have to share this P. G. Wodehouse quote with you all because ever since I found it I can't stop thinking about it. it's from a letter he wrote when he was 78 years old to his friend Guy Bolton (many thanks to P. G. Wodehouse: A Life in Letters)
I have been on the sick list myself, but am better now. Inflamed bladder or chill on the bladder or something, the symptoms being agony when I passed water, as the expression is. It brought back the brave old days when I used to get clap.
he really said "yeah the pain from my bladder issue reminds of the days when I used to have so much sex I repeatedly got venereal disease"
#red randomness#p. g. wodehouse#he was so known for not having sex with his beloved wife#that i truly didn't expect this at all#i feel like i see a lot of people saying with a great deal of confidence that he was sex-repulsed ace#especially due to the wife thing#but while he certainly may have been ace on some level#i feel like at the very least this casts some doubt on the sex-repulsed part lmao#i suppose it's possible he was lying but wouldn't this be such a specific and unnecessary lie in this context?#especially for a private letter to a friend he'd known and worked with for decades#because he really didn't even need to bring it up#of course i am open to evidence to the contrary#i just dislike seeing overconfident opinions broadly prevail#even when aspects of a real person's life suggest the possibility of otherwise#the study of history is meant to breed discussion!#and something that goes against the grain of past assumption is certainly worth discussing imo#also very grateful to the unpublished monograph by George Simmers about Honeysuckle Cottage#because that's how i found out about this letter in the first place!#great monograph mr. simmers please publish it someday#opened my third eye about the potential latent homosexuality in that story (among other things)#and at risk of having someone get mad at me or say i'm trying to like. diminish or slander the ace community by saying this#please don't assume that. that's why i've been afraid to share this before.#i'm not confidently stating wodehouse is anything. he's a real man who lived and i didn't know him#but by the same token neither does anyone else#i'm just as tired of people in history who have a fair amount of suggestion of being aroace being broadly assumed gay#despite evidence to the contrary#or people confidently assigning queerness to historical figures when evidence of them being queer in any way is ambiguous at best#everything in history is a maybe. we just collect facts and analyze them.#and my current analysis based on this line is that i'm not sure i think he was very sex-repulsed after all#(but like. i'm not going around insulting or fighting people about it in dms or something. and neither should you)
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dropping everything to look up zodiac compatibilities. for fictional characters. for fanfiction purposes.
#goood lord. i really am tired. i remembered caters aquarius but i had to look up trey#I KNOW TREYS SCORPIO. HE AND THE TWEELS SHARE W/ME I KNOW THAT ONE OUGHHHH ok anyway#since cater's best class is listed as astrology and he says it's fun to look at horoscopes or w/e i feel like i NEED to incorporate that#into the treycay im writing#i. dont know what im gonna do w/it but jfklsdjlfje#but omg:#'Scorpios tend to be more focused on emotional connections and intimacy' +#'Aquarius values their personal space and independence' hello thats so Them...#[scrolling down] 'scorpios can become possessive and jealous' that is NOT so them 😑#however i can still use that lol#i want to have a scene of cater and trey lookin at their horoscopes or something#actually doesnt trey or maybe cater specifically have a line somewhere#about cater sometimes doing the fortune telling for trey for fun or practice?? am i making that up????#i swear 2 god i thought trey had a line about it somewhere#but i have NO idea what context he'd be bringing it up 🤔#or maybe cater said it idk#i know cater does bring up horoscopes in his own broomquet story w/floyd#HMMMM well i got distracted from this cosplay anyway bye#god why is it already 4:30pm i hate everything im so tired LOL
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also it's something (better) like, the exercise of deliberately [art imitates life imitates art] holding up Billions to My IRL Things Perspective and going like whaaat would i want for winston. first answer is you want any character to not have been within the scope of the show in the first place, and to exit it since they are. and you kind of get that in the accidental reward in banishing winston, since like in the end it's just that the show doesn't care about him existing at that point But like it's winston sitting there quietly as everyone leaves & turns out the lights & Then he can leave too; others have peaced out & nobody remembers he exists so Now he can go off & do whatever.
but like in true form i think they definitely accidentally baked in another divine reward for winston in that, like, the way he's kept around as fodder for these fun little [pov: enjoy abusing this guy] asides with him, where it Just So Happens that he's autistic as something they're unaware of but is completely relevant to the expectation we understand him to be inferior(tm), it Just So Happens that he's also ""bad"" at not ""causing"" abuse to be turned on him. he's ""bad"" at staying in line. like well yes Yes that's what i want for him. just like In Real Life it's like yeah Ideally i'd want people to be able to extricate themselves from where they're trapped in power structures & i'd want them to have the perspective about it of understanding they're not Inferior / i.e. they are as much a person as anyone else and they're not corrupting everything good / i.e. it wasn't them Bringing It Upon Themselves and it's not them being Destructive by toppling a jenga tower of a hierarchy that happened to be pressing down on them. and winston is the kind of [the ruinerrrrrr] who is Turned On exactly because he keeps acting like someone who's on the verge of breaking out of the [being in line] someone demands of him as autist, employee, whatever other supposed manifestations of [inferior]
like in the 5 second stretches in which winston's allowed to speak before retaliation, it's because he's like "matter of factly" delivering whatever Information that's useful for another plotline. then he Brings It Upon Himself by making people aware that he's Also existing in his own right as a person rather than what they think serves their own deal / what they want from him at all times, perhaps by expressing his personality (didn't appeal to them! so it was Wrong) or not b/c of anything in particular said or done at present, just b/c people have a constant / accumulating contempt for him so their being in the same room as him & able to see & hear him is already dangerous. the [we're just seeing Any Abusive Dynamic in action] continuing apace.
and it's like, well, right there. he's written as acting like someone who doesn't blame himself for how he's treated, which billions frames as being Rude & Mean, and so too does everyone's abusers lmfao like and that these are his moments that are written to be Bringing It Upon Himself. and it's like hell yeah he doesn't blame himself. hell yeah that his self-esteem can manifest as anger at all. hell yeah that he keeps expressing himself with personality & confidence & doesn't even disguise his having been hurt, & it's this [his ass is Not grey rocking] that billions frames as both him "causing" his abuse & making that abuse "successful" lol, wrow just like real life!! and when like speaking of real life yeah it's not "bad" that people Do engage in strategies to mitigate & survive, including things like blaming themselves or being too "boring" to be anything but a non dialogued background character b/c that's all that goes unpunished, it's bad b/c it's done to them at all, not [ohh they're doing it to themselvesss] and like i'm asking myself like Ideally. what do i want Ideally. and i'd want winston to know that it's being Done To Him & i'd want him to find as much room for his personhood & autonomy as possible. and that's basically how he's written anyways, and billions hates that like You See this is why he deserves it this is why he's doing it to himself. and i'm like my god if that's not Inspiration for like "so what if people don't find you Personally Likable" and not preemptively holding back all personality or anything that'd draw attention as if you exist as a person in your own right & not something that only either gets in the way of or serves their wants of a Real person (someone with more power) like hell yeah you have him out here doing it =']
another fun addendum is like, billions isn't getting into it much b/c it doesn't seem to care much about "what if some people were peers & seem to have a genuine, recipcrocal relationship?" but that it just so happened to be like "oh tuk as the next closest loser who deserves it might be nice to winston" while it's framing winston as the "worse" Loser as being....unconditionally supportive of tuk. while the one downside of billions Also giving bentuk as much as it is is that it also inevitably has that shadow of "but ben is Superior to tuk" and like that it's correct that everyone encourages tuk to Stop Bringing It Upon Himself and start being less of a loser; it's wrong for winston to be like hey let's go have a foursome. like yeah probably don't make a list of the women you work with you'd be dtf but it's not like i'm convinced "ah billions and it's strong anti misogyny stance like" roflmao and billions is Not reflecting on "the downsides of unconditional support?" there when winston was beaten up for criticising taylor earlier like we WILL take his ideas while looting his [beaten unconscious] body there but he WAS wrong to express them as though he's BETTER than taylor!!! mafee's beautiful show of loyalty in kicking his ass even when he might agree with the argument and then benefit when it's adopted by taylor anyways! so it's as usual actually purely based on hierarchy & who gets to be in charge of people. it's correct for ben to be in charge of tuk, unless he has to step aside for that bizarre dead-end subplot about how it's tuk's fault if he's treated badly, b/c it's really his own Failure to have Confidence to know he has good ideas [raising our voice to deliver this message over the sound of breaking desks and chairs and computer monitors over winston because he had the confidence to act like he deserved to talk to someone and because he knows his ideas efforts & results are good & valuable around there] like. and isn't it sooo fucked up to talk about who you're dtf in the episode that has it be neutral if your boss is dtf & lets you know but is nice about it (and you're already Correctly tending to their ego, which you're responsible for!) like hey no possible problem! it's not even so much of a problem for a boss man to have the sex they're entitled to & be rude about their leveraging their power in that acquisition that it Stays a problem into the next season. ew, winston is Known (Inferred) Dtf??? we'll use it to exploit His vulnerability, exacerbate it, & punish him further for good measure in another episode that just revels in abuse & violation with a sexual aspect once again, but like, hey tuk don't do that, winston's such a Bad Influence for being like, shrug, kneejerk intervening with the Good Friendship where the One In Charge leaps in & Tells tuk the Correct thing to do. obviously there's also the tragedy that billions will Never let winston push back against Real Winners like rian or taylor in A Way That Matters (actually gets in their way at all) lol like. one thing that would have really been fun, winston should've literal kneejerk started physically fighting wags in either pertinent scene in 7x03 for real 110%. i wouldn't be like Gasp Violence Is Never The Answer if he just hit someone to hit them b/c fuck you. or broke anything on his way out etc etc. billions would Never let him. which is the other side of the same coin of [why he should get to]
tl;dr how great that winston's being "out of line" means he's basically always noticeably flouting & rebelling against the [He Deserves Abuse] agenda lol. that IS what i want. his being "beyond hope" like ohhh he's sooo stupid he doesn't realize how much he has the bad tastes & wrong interests & annoying personality He Will Always Be This Way like hell yeah!!! billions like oh no winston's personhood will never stay tamped down & locked away such that some godawful person tolerates keeping him in their inventory :( ohhh the ABA will never work :( that's right!!!!!!!!!! although they're not sad about it because it's about relishing the promise there will always be True Inferiors you can enjoy abusing with your righteous power over, but like well you wrote him escaping anyways even while dragging other "better" characters into standing around to serve axe's need for more than 1.8 employees and [crickets, reverberating cough, sneaker scuff] like. another ""wrong"" thing for winston to do, another thing for him to not "deserve," which is itself godawful actually lol like lord what it "rewards" its Good, Deserving characters with, no thanks. meanwhile winston's punishment is that he's autistic and """bad""" at being abused like lmfao good for him, fantastic for him, just what i want
#winston billions#a series that did inadvertently power up the stances of someone who actually is Not a fan of ableism; abuse; authoritarianism; and cetera#real winston billions fans might also get written off the series into the ether....but hey. the power up#the ''i saw the autistic character. i saw the tour de force'' was there & it mattered#myself marked glad to be A Ruinerrrrr; to like be present where other people might be aware & even say & do things & [my personality]#throw it back to the last post like my experience going hahaha >:) but you made one mistake. decade old minivan in my name#enough to Get Outta There....but that naturally if it Wasn't that Would be an avenue of punishing / reeling people back in#hey you Stole this from me. hey winston that's Stolen Time and stolen data who give a shit. it's the principle of [we own winston]#my experience also indeed getting ''''worse'''' at being abused lmao i.e. more conflict & resentment as i was increasingly aware i didn't#deserve it. no thanks to much of anything i learned in; say; interacting with others as an autistic person lmao. hmm!#meanwhile even if exploring like Winston Having Fun Being Himself it's like one thing is just. never having the Site of that be like#first & foremost An Romance lol. like even if it's like sure someone could interpret this as romantic that's like; an extra thing#and it's not The Guideline like; not thinking that for winston to be okay he Needs to get on the soulmate track#(billions does think that lol) and like. while billions says winston Has dated (i do think they meant to imply Multiple Times in 5x05#i just think we see that they usually don't care oh so much abt continuity; certainly not across the board) & that he has a crush#like then uhh yeah sure it's like. well i can readily extrapolate then that he's had abusive dating relationships.#billions does Not put forth that someone treating winston Well is where he gets the bulletproof confidence or anything lol#just cursed like again i'm not. i'm not gonna accept [wild you dropped steph into our Visuals as like 1 Confirmed Winston Ex]#but it's also like well then any Depiction would be The Perspective....not like. the abuse currently happening & in any way that is meant#to be ''''obvious'''' & ''''convincing'''' to someone w/no idea what it looks like anyways. vs the mundane ordinary parts that speak to it#or just the ways that experience & concomitant perspective could manifest outside of it even with No look inside it#running into issues like [good thing riawin didn't even hook up or that'd be More vulnerability in an abusive relationship already]#but what if they did & Montage Of Malaise? well to even brush up against inevitable more ''blatant'' things would then either be like#well immediately move Away from that then. before or after but Exit the [current] situation. Or it'd be like. rian has to Reconsider#but a) the character absolutely does not & based on everything will not. & b) if she actually Does; e.g. in a fic. well it's about her now#but i can think of ''yeah maybe winstuk fic that is also framed with bentuk b/c it's not really about Romance & if it's like sure then why#Not presume winston has experiences w/abuse & violation aplenty b/c that's the full context for the character lol it's then still like#and here's little details in which that could Manifest that would just be [??] or unnoticed to others anyways. just like real life!!''
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how would you rank the ninja from worst to best based on the ninjago seasons youve seen?
Nya and Wu are the best, everyone else is the same to me
#Conceptually. Loyd; Garmadon; and Kai are interesting.#However later seasons of Loyd and Garmadon are so. They were kinda nuked#Like what do you MEAN Garmadon wasn't capable of having compassion or caring for Loyd (crystal king part 2). Like#Garmadon loved Loyd. That was a pretty important aspect of s1-2#like hello#What#the other ninja feel kinda the same to me for the most part? Especially in dragon rising. Specifically in dragon rising.#All of their one-liners have no distinct character voice. They're interchangeable. I'm going mad#Nin//jago compels me in a ''why is this so bad'' way. Or maybe it's that Sea Nya was so good compared to everything? idk#Like why was there something like that 14ish seasons in a fairly bland show. It boggles me. I'm boggled#I actually didn't watch any other part of Seabound.#In my experience ninja//go is best experienced by watching the finale/payoff#So you can fill in the set-up in your head.#I also watched a sort of edit about nya on youtube. Which gave me more context for her character#I need to stop doing a deep dive into ninj//ago like this doesn't interest me at all. I'm losing my mind. I must ignore my dark curiosity#Of wondering ''is there anything else like sea nya'' and the answer being no#I'm crying at how bad oni Loyd was like truly#Uhhhh Cole's stuff with grief wasn't awful? Or doesn't seem to be?#just like. Serviceable I guess#I'm going to be driven mad by ninja//go this shit is just. I can't even describe how I feel rn#It's so mush. It's hollow. It has nothing I like about stories or animation in it.#And I don't mind crazy lore! I'm a kh fan! But the lack of underlying logic. It makes me feel disoriented#It's like watching natla where every new line feels like it wasn't written with the last in mind#Like I guess if people like the characters????? Like that's it that's all you have#Like THIS is the show people are talking about when they're saying something is just a ''kids show'' you know#Why am I doing this this was a show made to sell merchandise it literally does not matter#I guess since the ninj//ago fandom and the lmk fandom are so closely connected I just see stuff for these characters all the time#ninjago critical#anon#asks
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#this might be both oversharing and being too vague rn but it's 2am and i'm emotionally exhausted#i can't believe during one of the most traumatic moments i've had in the past year i was lucky enough to have scott as my biggest supporter#the entire time as i was going through it he was so supportive giving me space to process shit and always having my back#and yet there are some people in my life who are always going to villainize him for one comment he said during that time out of context#or even if they're not ''villainizing'' him i now feel like i have to begin every sentence about scott with#''yeah we don't agree on everything but we're still friends and isn't that amazing!''#which yeah that is true and i do genuinely enjoy when scott and i disagree and are respectful about it#BUT WHY DOES THAT HAVE TO BE THE FIRST THING I SAY ABOUT HIM????#and honestly that whole experience made me agree with scott on way more than i started out with#i'm proud of how i was able to grow as a person and for the fact that it brought me and scott much closer together#but that shit i went through at my college was still traumatic. and it did change me as a person#it completely changed my relationship to activism in a way i'm not happy about bc i want to be more of an activist#but when i had someone use social justice language to justify horrible things against me it's hard not to be wary#of how hollow and performative a lot of conversations can be#and like i'll even say it. like people might get mad at me for admitting it#but that whole traumatic situation has irrevocably changed my relationship to gender as well#or at least how i label myself and how i move through these conversations#and in some ways i'm grateful for it bc i do feel like i know myself more and like i don't have to worry about what others' think#or even what other people understand#but it shouldn't have had to go down like that. and as much as the time i got to spend with scott during that time was so much fun#and such a great experience and he was truly the perfect support system during that time#he shouldn't have had to deal with that and neither should i#and the fact that scott somehow got villainized in some people's minds while the person who actually caused that trauma#is instead treated like ''yeah he was a bit misguided and made a mistake but he was probably anxious about it!! he's just a person!!''#that's never going to stop being painful. especially the idea that with the importance people put on labels#i would supposedly have more ''community solidarity'' with that asshole than a cis gay man like scott#idk i think i'm past the timeframe of that traumatic experience bc it's not consuming every day like it used to a few weeks back#but something triggered it tonight so i just need to process it. anyway shoutout to scott for being there for me i really needed it
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ive been a little upset about it all night so i need to write out all the things that happened at work today and are bugging me so i can TRY to get it out of my head and actually RELAX bc i just keep pacing in circles around it instead of just accepting it and moving on
#for context i was working frying chicken today. ok so i arrive and literally all the chicken out expires within ten minutes of each other#meanwhile to remake everything takes about an hour 20#tried my best to get everything out and replaced and make sure i have enough of everything and then take my break bc with chicken there are#few narrow windows to take your break in you have very little control over when it is#get back and while im getting ready for my next fry one of the assistant leaders comes back and passive aggressively asks 'everything ok?'#and when i say yeah shes starts saying how shes 'just checking' because apparently i didnt have enough chicken out for her liking and went#on about how we're in a chicken drive (I KNOW. I WORK CHICKEN SHE NEVER HAS.)#etc etc. i just say ok and she leaves#like 20 minutes later she comes fucking back to rag on me again about how i need to choose my break times better and i need to have more#chicken out there as back up (extremely difficult bc there is literally only so much room in the fryers. the batches i usually make already#nearly completely fill them up) blah blah and then when i try to explain how i WAS making pretty big batches people are just snatching them#up fast she keeps trying to walk out the door right away and keeps stopping and looking over her shoulder to just stare at me while i try t#finish my sentence#and she just. doesnt say anything in response when i do finish she just leaves#so clearly she didnt want a conversation she just wanted to rag on me#then later for cleanup the timing of everything just kept lining up inconveniently so i kept having to get in and out of raw cleaning gear#and slowing myself down and i end up having to stay almost 15 minutes late to finish cleaning#during cleaning i have to go grab a key to the back door to take out my trash and this one coworker i have was standing in the way of the#door. i say excuse me and she just stares at me and goes huh?#and i say i need a key and she barely moves out of the way without responding and she has a look like im bothering her#why are you acting like im being douchey. i just need a key. thats something she does a lot she acts like im inconveniencing her by asking#basic favors . ive stopped asking her to help me open the back door (sometimes needed if i also have raw garbage to take out and therefore#cant touch the key myself) for some reason she takes it upon herself to almost completely close the door after i walk out so when i come#back i have to awkwardly use my foot to reach around and pull the door open#ive asked her before not to do it and she just ignored me#GRAH GRAH. and then like i said in my last rb i realized while i was drivign home i forgot to wash a damn pan#im mostly worried about it because ive forgotten a couple times in the past too . in my defense its a pan i personally dont use but it just#gets left behind from first shift sometimes and then second shifters end up having to make sure its clean#im just irritateddd and im mad im worried about it all. its all little things piling up on each other#LOL I WROTE A LOT MORE BUT THE REST GOT CUT OUT IG I HIT A TAG LIMIT. tumblr voice ok dude quit your bitching !!
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man i do not feel like doing my final project for my animal literature class and the reason why makes me feel like a bad person
#so i took this class thinking it was going to be a mix of like animal symbolism and animal rights#as well as how people end up doing animal xenofiction which do or dont play on animal tropes and where they come from#which is interesting to me#but there was only that last thing in like the first thing we read and in some lecture related homework#and pretty much everything else is about whether or not this portrayal of an animal is cruelty for not putting it on the same level#as a person#and ngl a lot of the stuff just sounds like a reach to me like one was like#''omg this man doesnt REALLY care. he FAILS at his analysis of his cat that saw him naked bc he thinks abt what the cat thinks abt clothes#but he doesnt consider how it would LOGICALLY feel he only cares abt HIMSELF''#and professor also kinda lowkey implied the college students were being derogatory in what we named the campus cat#(literally like a goofy food name bc apparently we dont respect it?)#anyways usually our finals are like ''pick anything we've discussed and narrow down into a thesis''#but she wants us to ONLY have our papers be about animal cruelty and if like idk the lion king is ethical or not#and i was like ''eh i can do pokemon maybe bc that has interesting things to say about animal and human relations sometimes''#but her response was like ''ok but how SHOULD we treat animals in that context tho. are they saying animals have to fight? thats weirdddd''#''are they like saying the creator wants animals to beat each other up are they saying animals inherently hate and fight each other and need#humans to survive? thats kinda weird????'' and im just like. ok the series literally does go into that and its a video game but ok#echoed voice#and i wanna do my final abt symbolism and such in shows that i like but she keeps nitpicking them#and its like she doesnt even want a NEGATIVE portrayal for us to explain why its bad at conveying its message#bc i was like ''hey livestock is used as a dehumanizing thing here and also says something abt how cruel meat factories can be how abt that'#and she was like ''um but if its used to be dehumanizing then theyre implying its bad to compare humans to animals and thats not fair to#to animals''#like i SORTA see where shes coming from but it feels more exhausting than anything
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Jews deserve love so I'm gonna side eye this since Zionism wasn't mentioned. The political movement of Zionism is the problem, not Jews or Judaism.
This all being said, it is also important that we all, as those who aren't being starved, murdered or imprisoned in this genocide stay informed and, yes, that does mean being aware and actually seeing what is happening and thinking about why it's happening. I understand being overwhelmed and I understand the emotional toll that takes. However, if we are not actively having our safety and welfare harmed to the same extent as Palestinians are currently with being bombed every single day and not having enough food or medicine to know if they'll see tomorrow, I think being supportive and present is the least we can do. Solidarity to our Jewish brothers and sisters, but we all have to do our part as we show solidarity to our Palestinian brothers and sisters too.
Many suffer due to the decades long siege on Gaza and the West Bank and the consequences of it; antisemetism (specifically the collective blaming of all anti-Zionist Jews for the Zionist colonialist project) and Islamophobia (collectively blaming all Muslims for the suffering of Jews, which is pushed by the anti Muslim and anti Arab propaganda that labels all middle eastern people as "terrorists"). I understand that is exhausting, so yes, if Jews AND Muslims and Arabs need to rest and a reminder they're loved? Yeah. We should say it. We just can't forget that it's not just Jews, but the Palestinians who are bearing the brunt of the far right Israeli government's Zionism and aggression.
Division of the shared struggle of Palestinians and Jews caused by Zionists is reductive. What we need to push for is solidarity for a problem caused by a common enemy; Zionism/ imperialism and western intervention. Which, yeah, is precisely why I want Jews to remember they're loved, but also that staying educated and informed is so so important. Zionism is dependent on propaganda and raising children in western ideals of colonial expansion ("the culture of surrounding nations needs to be fixed and erased for the greater good" or "because those around us are so savage and evidently are so sexist and homophobic and bad we have to fix them" or "Arabs colonised Jews so the Arabs need to die" are often used to try and create a target out of groups that are actually really progressive and/or not at fault for what the Romans did to the ancient Kingdom of Israel, but are labelled as evil by the west due to how they're in the way of resources and advantageous areas). If you've ever heard of the US's "cop cities", I'd compare Israel, a place built on Zionism, as one of those. The way it pushes militarisation is very similar and essentially teaches Jews to fight or die from a threat that is actually not even there until it's made to be there; Palestinian resistance groups that then prove all their worst fears when they resist after previous attacks by the IDF.
October 7th wasn't the first and it won't be the last as long as Israel antagonizes the countries and people around it until an attack happens. Which, again, is exactly why it's so important for Jews to know what sort of system Israel is and that getting far far away from that system is important for Jews and their literal safety. That's what I mean by a shared struggle, because so much of the antisemetism we're seeing? That's not from pro Palestinian protesters or the Palestinians themselves who are scared (rightfully so) of an attack from Jews who could be Zionists, that's from the conflating for Zionism (again, something that's been used to justify terrorist attacks towards surrounding groups of civilians for over 76+ years if we're only asking about Israel and not even the militias before it). And it is that system and that ideology that is to blame for the Palestinians' suffering.
I know I rambled a lot here and, honestly, there's so much to this that it's hard to summarise. But it's important; Jews aren't our enemies and are fellow victims ofa Zionism. Yes, Zionism began as an ideology centring Judaism that was then merged with western ideals of imperialism. No, that doesn't make it antisemetic to criticise as it is still a far right extremist ideology that calls for the establishment of an ethno-state using methods copied from Germany and actively has killed Jews in that westernised political pursuit, even before the establishment of modern Israel.
To every Jewish person:
I hope you are remembering to take care of yourselves.
I hope you are eating well. Staying hydrated. Getting plenty of rest.
I hope you are remembering to take a break from everything. Turn off social media and the news and find some joy.
I hope you remember how strong your people are and how far they have come.
I hope that you remember that you are also strong. Being strong doesn't mean you have to face everything alone.
I hope you look at the sky once a day and find beauty there.
I hope you remember to sing.
I hope you remember how much you are loved. Every single one of us is a gift. We will do what we do best and continue on.
#I'm not sure if I worded this well but it's so so important to remember not to conflate Zionism with Jews#because thats the weapon Israel and Zionists have been using all these years#Jews deserve love but also more in the sense that everyone does equally and that's important#since Isral and Zionsm tends to focus on that point to claim Jews in Israel need more love than Jews outside of it or Arabs or other races#*israel#basically it's important to understand the bs underneath and the context as to why all this is happening#because it isn't the over used story of “well the arabs are all terrorists” because no that isn't true and is western propaganda#the only legitimate dangers other than Israel is probably Iran because of their own imperialist ideologies and right wing gov#not because of being Muslim or Arab#Iraq Syria Egypt etc would have been way more progressive had it not been for the USs interventions and installing right wing govs#Afghanistan too tbh#I forgot to mention it but honestly yeah Afghanistan especially with how the Talaban and Isis were armed by the US#Had El-Sisi not been forcefully installed into power by the US backing him?#we could have had a left leaning democratically elected president in Egypt#so much of what Israel says is wrong with everything isn't true#it's not Arabs but western intervention which is exactly what formed Israel to begin with#Israel is just the latest Isis Talaban or Sisi in that it's only there for western interests until it's not
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