#yeah i liked it although it couldve been executed better

[chaotic-pixelz]

as someone who always thought “man these incels dont gaf about arthur fleck or mental health they just care about ‘The Joker’ and what they think he represents” i did not expect the WHOLE ASS 2ND MOVIE to be about that

[super-affection]

You get that AC 7? How is it? Someone told me the missions are a little FUBAR. Can confirm or deny?

oh hell yeah i have an excuse to give a mini review of it thank you! to start off, i really liked it. over all it was a great return to form and a true ace combat game through and through. but there was alot that couldve been handled better. you can blame hype for some let downs cause honestly its hard to please everyone. it’s hard to live up to the duke nukem hype and produce something that all will love and give critical acclaim. but i can go over just what wasnt great imo so if you pick it up you’re kinda prepared. any way to start off: are missions a little FUBAR? 

a lot of the missions gave a good challenge but some of the mission design was kinda off. like some missions you had to just rush and complete as fast as you can and you couldn’t even appreciate the radio chatter or scenery. that and i wish the missle warning alert sound was lower cause its louder than the bgm and chatter. it really drags you out of the zone of enjoying whats supposed to be an action packed assault. because of all this sometimes i was actually lost with whats happening in the story cause i missed a crucial bit of radio chatter and then all the sudden a major event happens and i’m just... nani the fuck. hm i’m actually unsure if you can adjust the sound. while i def could see past those flaws i think some of my not great experience with the game can be attributed to some of that sound design mixed with certain mission’s designs. immersion is key with ac and the recipe for it is good bgm driving an intense narrative through the radio chatter while youre dogfighting. but there were just times you couldnt enjoy that experience because the nature of the mission needed you to blitz through it and the non stop missile warnings made it hard to relax. (although i played through in normal mode so i reckon maybe theres less missiles in easy?)

any way the missions were pretty good and they were still ac to its core. you could always replay the missions and breeze through them but it sucks that because of how i explained some missions were designed it sucked out some of the raw experience you could have had with the narrative. oh and the story’s pacing wasn’t that great either, it wasn’t a bad story but i feel you would know what i mean when you play it cause i can’t explain it without spoiling it. but alot of characters desperately needed to be fleshed out more. and they did toss in alot of fan service which is a wholly good thing right? well they tossed in just a little too much imo. its just a classic case of “hey :) remember when this happened, hey here’s a familiar name! wow remember that person :) hey remember this! i mean hey this doesnt have to do with the mission at hand but hey that happened in the other game haha! you love the other games dont you :).” to me that kinda comes off as disingenuous from the devs which seems selfish to complain about cause we should take what we can get right? well id appreciate the fan service if it were better interwoven into the plot and not just being dangled like a toy for your pet where you’re an annoyed pet and the devs are the owner making baby voices at you. i don’t hate that there was all this fan service tossed in but i just don’t like how they executed it. it’s something you’ll see when you do play.

but is it a good game? hell yeah it is, sure i explained some stuff that kinda does sound like a deal breaker but again, its still very much ace combat to its core. the ost is fantastic and the selection of jets and sp weapons gives you alot to play with. just like with the other games you can expect some cheesy goodness with the campaign. i know i explained alot of bad but theres so much more that it does get right and i assure you you will still regardless have a good time. it’s not 1:1 to the glory days of old but it’s still a decent cigar you can have while remembering them

[pigletsbigmovie]

i watched cap marvel like a week ago so here are my thoughts on that~~ spoilers of course

carol is a character who has been held back all of her life even before she was taken by the kree. and after being taken in by them, she’s had to “fight with one arm tied behind her back.” she’s told that the powers she has arent even truly her own but instead are a privilege given to her and can be taken away by the kree if they deem her to be unworthy of them.

her whole life on hala was one of being manipulated and internalizing this idea that she must repress her abilities because theyre a threat to those who want to use her

which makes her final interaction with yon rogg when she tells him that she has nothing to prove to him so cathartic!

i’ve seen a few reviews that say that carol doesnt rly have a character arc bc all she does is “get stronger” rather than undergo an actual internal change but i just... dont think that is true lmao

i understand how her just going from being able to shoot photon blasts to being able to shoot photon blasts but theyre more powerful and also she glows can seem unsatisfying at first?

often in superhero origin films, the heroes gotta be shitty at their powers first and it’s through ~character development~ that their skills grow? i.e. iron man and doc strange for example. even with thor who already had powers and was skilled with them had to lose his powers and undergo character development to regain them in both thor 1&3

but carol is never bad at her powers? shes told and we the audience are told by yon rogg and the supreme intelligence that she cant control her powers well. and so i can see the audience being kinda put off by the fact that theres never any evidence that thats true? but the fact that it’s not true is the whole point.....

carol’s character arc isnt about learning to take up the mantle of a true superhero in the way iron man and doc strange’s movies are about that. carol is already capable of being a hero and her arc is just one of self-discovery and breaking free of the expectations placed on her by those who just want to use her. she has to learn that she doesnt have to repress herself for the benefit of others but instead is free to be the best she can be

and so her already being skilled with her powers isnt a flaw. it serves that arc.

buuuut i think a case can be made on whether or not that arc was executed well. imo i feel like it couldve been done better but as it is it’s fiiine. i will say that although i enjoyed the movie it did feel like it was missing something that hooked me the way that like... black panther or thor ragnarok did?

and that missing something is: while the groundwork for the themes and her character are there, i dont think they were explored thoroughly enough? like they didnt dig deep enough.

bc carol’s whole physical journey is finding out that she’s human and the kree lied to her and... that was kind of obvious from the beginning?? maybe we dont know the specific details and all but when carol finally realizes that yeah! she was a human! it’s like.... ok... we finally got here. i mean it’s not like there were many other roads this mystery couldve gone down

i just think the journey of self discovery shouldnt have taken the sole form of learning that shes human? bc then the betrayal by the kree doesnt really hit as hard as it should. like it makes it feel like the only thing they did wrong to her personally is lie about the fact that shes human and.... i just dont think the fact that shes human is all that relevant?

like yeah the kree being imperialists is enough to want to kick their asses but the protagonist’s relation to their antagonist is important making the stakes feel high and the protagonist’s triumph truly cathartic

them lying to her about being a human just isnt a big enough deal to me especially considering it was foreshadowed real early on already.

instead they shouldve focused on her relationship with the kree and the ways they made her feel like she had to repress herself for their approval. but she spends very little time with the kree. and the closest person to her on hala is yon rogg.... and we dont rly get much info about their relationship either? i did like the scene where she tells him that she has nothing to prove to him... but that wouldve had A LOT more impact if we had seen examples prior to this of how often yon rogg would belittle her or how often she’d have to conform to his expectations for his approval. she has nothing to prove to him by the end of the film but it never rly seemed like she was rly after her approval in the first place? we know when she communes with the first intelligence she expresses a desire to serve in their military and  that’s one instance of expressing a desire for approval buuUUuuuut the supreme intelligence lets her serve immediately after that conversation and on that mission there isnt rly any example of her team not trusting her to do anything? theres no example of her having to conform to their expectations? i mean theres that one scene where she says she’ll go ahead alone and yon rogg said No but that is... an incredibly small thing.

i feel like it’s kind of implied? that carol grew up in an abusive/dysfunctional family and thats part of why the rambeaus made her a part of their own family?? and i kinda wish that was explored more. and instead of her journey being focused soley on finding out she’s human, it’s her gradually connecting the dots between her abusive upbringing on earth and how similar it was to the way the supreme intelligence/yon rogg treated her and her realizing how manipulative they are........... and rather than her finally finding out that they lied to her about being human being her sole personal stake against the kree, it’s instead just the final nail in the coffin and the reveal wouldve had more impact

anyway!! rly hope they explore her character more in her next solo movie whenever that’s happening bc i doubt there’ll be a lot of time for that to happen in endgame

overall i rly like carol and i liked the movie and im honestly a little bitter about ppl saying she has no personality and no character arc! bc she does! it’s there! maybe it’s not as well executed as some other marvel films 

[kokeggy]

my brain is filled with ouma and i cant stop it

i totally forgot the time man, its almost been 2 months since i played the game and it totally didnt feel like that at all

i still can recall a ton of things fluidly and as for now i dont see a particular reason to replay the game (other than wanting to get to know ouma better) 

but oumas character is just.. so tragic. i cant even begin to explain the depth of his character, it would be pages long and im way too lazy for that. ill always just write mental drafts and let myself feel when it comes to ouma

ill a cut here since its already a bit long rn lmao

and i think ouma is a character who is deeply troubled by his insecurities/possible mental illnesses (such as bpd or servere depression) in a way that these insecurities are his most memorable characteristics. that is absolutely sad and tragic

furthermore since the moment i started to play this game i always thought it was suspicious that ouma claimed he hated liars even tho he was one himself. sure that couldve been one of his lies, but my intention rlly didnt like this idea so i thought he was actually speaking the truth. i realized today that ouma was hinting at shuichi that he hated this persona that he had to create for the sake of this game

but i do agree that i sometimes tend to overthink ouma lmao while is incredibly intelligent, he couldnt have figured everything out, plus his trust issues and paranoia were in the way of looking into every possible situation. yet i somehow believed that he did a lot of stuff while being completely aware of their consequences - but thats not possible. ouma is not a superhuman who can figure out what happens to the world in [insert year]. hes a character with deep flaws which balances his cunning behavior 

to his actual personality, i might seem like the most biased person in the world but i truly believe that ouma didnt want to harm anyone. its just that the killing game... happened lol

as far as i can self-insert, i do believe if i happen to be in a killing game i would be quite similar about it. minus the creating a fake persona thing for me its absolutely impossible to trust 15 people whom i just met that they wouldnt kill me under stress. you know, if you activate the right buttons on someone, they can work how you want them to. and this is what feared ouma (rightly so)

anyways i take the anthologies as canon material since theyre approved and licensed by spike chunsoft, and we obviously see that ouma is nowhere near as antagonistic as he was in the game. although, i only have read the first anthology (also while we are at it, i cant wait to buy the thjree v3 anthologies even without knowing japanese, lulz)

but we also see his character actually getting darker and darker with each chapter, with chapter 4 probably taking the point. esp on when it ended. at first i was kind of conflicted about his oversentimal reaction towards gonta being executed, because that felt just as fake as his overly evil presentation afterwards. altho after some time thinking abt this, i came to the conclusion that he just leaked a little bit of his juicy true self(tm), realized that what he meant was actually genuine and then proceed to vent his emotions in making him seem like the most villainous person u ever met. because i think one of the reasons ouma acted out like is because he believed he was at fault for gontas death. so instead of trying to sweet talk yourself, he just took the oppurtunity to make him the least likeable person. cuz who would ever want to like someone who jokes about genuinely being concered about someone dying? yeah no one dude

also i think ouma is ironically a bit well-mannered (yeah guis im not joking here). ..  .if we ignore all his stupid pranks.. so you see, whenever i got rejected after dates with ouma in salmon mode.. it went like this for example “eeh, wow you are going to the libary with me and now you want to leave? that hella rude man, why am i wasting my time like this” or “wow you really must think highly of yourself if you think you are worth changing for, how arrogant”  which looks like he knows what is appropriate and what not

i remember what he said that and i suddenly went like “shit i cant believe im hearing this from you man” which was kinda funny as a side note btw

anyways, to his motive video. oh shit, his motive video . . . even without having known how messed up the translation was, that damaged me.-.. i mean i always thought that ouma exaggerated the size of his organization, at some poiint i just thought that his entire organization was a lie and his tru talent was the ultimate liar. which obsly wasnt the case lmao 

but his motive video.. just wanting to prank ppl for laughs and entertainment. its so light hearted compared to what he claimed it to be that it hurts another thing that i think is worth noting is that DICE was his motive video, not his family. DICE, who is like family. but not his actual family. what does that mean? does that mean that his actual family wasnt like family to ouma? i sure as hell thought so and i still do 

a different thing is that ouma said that nobody would care about him dying and that his organization would be better off without him, plus that it seems that monokuma said that ouma knows what happened to DICE in the motive video which leads me to.. uhh.. what if ouma did something he absolutely regretted doing (since it caused DICE trouble?) - but im not entire set on that theory

its also sad that he constantly had to hint about hiimself instead of just talking abt it to shuichi. like, he wanted shuichi to help him or actually even hinder him at carrying out his plan, he low key hoped for it because shuichi is a detective which showed to be shrewd enough to be able to make proper deductoins in class trials, furthermore he isnt a dick towards ouma and actually respects him in a way. something that ouma most likely didnt calculate

which mades the statement that shuichi said in the end of chapter 4 even more painful. shuichi was the only person that ouma kind of trusted and relied on. and prob the only one he wanted to show his true self to, that very person told him hes 5 ever alone with no friends at all. that hes a pathetic little brat who should start to view the world differently (def not what shuichi said 1:1 but.. yeah idk my own interpretation) 

im pretty sure that hurt ouma a lot 

hnnng, i truly wished for ouma to be one of the survivors. altho i figured that hes gonna plot something absolutely mind blowing in chapter 5, i seriously couldnt believe that he was actually dead... well, not until the closing argument. as soon as there were the words “closing argument” all over my screen i began to cry like an idiot. i couldnt even read properly man, thats just how blurry my vision was from all the tears

in other hand: i was (and still am lol) extremely attached to ouma and his death was very unsatisfying, since he died quite heroic but nobody considered him so. also he never made up with these ppl. also fuck kodaka