#Exposition? No I see only an infodumping queen | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yanderefairyangel · 8 months

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I often see people complaining that the world building in Fire emblem Engage varies from lackluster to non existent with obviously a comparison with 3 H and I disagree. It's more that the game have different approaches.

Three Houses has a gigantic worldbuiling but it's mainly confered through infodumping and exposition dialogue 99% of the time, with the same information often repeated again and again

it's so massive that the game itself ends up losing itself in it, often not getting to use some of worldbuilding info it gave or forgetting about some of it. The funniest example of that is that the writer forgot they gave Byleth a canon birthdate but still allow you to choose one

Engage in comparison has a much tamer worldbuiling, but it doesn't info dump it on you. The only instance of the story doing it is Lumera introducing the world to Alear in chapter 1 and Alfred in chapter 4

Other then that the game allows you to explore said era of said world. You aren't stuck into the Somniel with having to ask some NPC to learn that there is snow in Elusia, you actually get to visit Elusia and see the snow for yourself. And Engage's graphic quality is so amazing that it's impressive how they managed to make the maps and the exploration hub phase this close to look similar. And even then you still get to talk with some of the NPC to learn more about said region. You get to adopt the local animals, which allows the player to see that in Elyos, there is actual species specific to a region : some can be found in all Elyos, are avalaible on all part of the world while some can be found only in Firene or Elusia.

The cafeteria in the Somniel have special dishes linked to each kingdom. The Somniel donation maps shows that each kingdom has it's own ressources that are tied specifically to them. You can even unlock some special clothing linked to said or said region of the world.... even if the art direction of Engage is quite the cans of worms.

Even the Fell xenologue for its flaws is no exception. each of the info given by Nel or the DLC cast contrast with the main game. When you compare the two you realize how much worldbuilding they are able to show in few lines. Stuff like Nel simply mentiong how her specie is Elyosian native makes you realize how much things have changed when it comes to Sombron and Lumera's lack of kinship, the fact that Lumera died 1000 ago making it so that Alear was her biological child else they couldn't even be half divine dragon. Or how Nel would mention that Elusia's cathedral in her world was that of Hasaude rather then Destinea but that they have the same architecture and combining this with how Gradlon temple also have gothic architecture you can deduce that this is something specific to Sombron's followers. And Zelestia mentioning how in her world, her tribe suffered genocide from Xenobron, this means that none of the children that Sombron had in his world, including Veyle, could have a Mage Dragon mother, making it that his kids are genetically different from their XenElyos counterpart, like he is genetically not related to MG Sombron since he has a completely different set of ancestors. This is also the case of Madeline and Marni.

And of course, the support conversation. People complain that Engage doesn't focus on the politics of Elyos but all you have to do is unlock Céline and Diamant's personal convos. With Diamant you can pretty much learn everything about Brodia even if it's not infodumping. How he is a patriotic prince, but unlike Xander he isn't blind to the flaw of his father's politics. And while I do wish there were more moments of those character, Queen Even and King Morion gets a lot of characterization thanks to the little we see of them and the info given by the supports : with Queen Even we learn that despite being a pacisfist she shows little patience to those who threaten her country and isn't one to let herself scared easily. She is even the one intimidating Nelluce. And through King Morion's interaction with Diamant and Alear we can see he is a good father, but a man who has quite the eagerness to fight. The first thing that came to his mind meeting Alear was to challenge a dragon.

And that's how we learn that the Brodian nobility stimulates this side of him to convince to him to conquer more territory such as Elusia, even though what motivate the nobility is their own greed. Solm and Firene are aware of that. Timerra's convo with Diamant as her asking him about peace because she knows that if Brodia conquers Elusia, Solm might be next on the list. After all Diamant himself in his A support with Alfred fears that Brodia might want to break the non agression pact with Firene because Firene being the kingdom of abudance, it's a very wealthy country. And Brodia's warmonging manner is why Solm and Firene tried the way of peace to protect themselves, especially Firene. We also learn that the Brodian nobility uses Citrinne as a bridge to watch upon Diamant in order to convice him to follow his father's way, and since he already had two retainers, that why they set her with Alcryst which gave her a lack of confidence in her own skills.

and while we do miss some info about how Sombron ended up being revered by Elusia, we do know that is cult involve human sacrifices and the followers to mutilate themselves, such as Griss was ready to do so in his own devotion as said in Mauvier's support with Gregory. It's also likely that Elusia revered Sombron because of his power since Dragon in FE are revered as deities because of their power, and while Divine dragon were shown to be powerful, Sombron can literaly revive the dead

and Engage also gets to touch on discrimination with Veyle and her painfull experience as being a dragon. Girl saw her mother tortured by human and would also get hated for that. That's also why Alear have so little knowledge about the world. Since they are actually a fell dragon, their knowledge of the human world is limited. The Fell twins might come from another universe, but it's obvious they suffered the same thing. Nel and "Nil" arent very welcomed by Zelestia at first, and Altfred and Fell!ine hated them for being... dragons. Nel's interaction when she ate a meal she dislike or when she trains shows she isn't familiar with much of the human concept, and Rafal does takes things at face values too like how he though of Camilla saying he could rest on her shoulder was literal or when he told Ivy he had no idea what an academy was and had to read all sorts of book just to play the teacher. Alear is no different and arguably less knowledgable then them as when we met them in their past form, they speaks hiragana meaning they not only knew just the basic of language, but the fact that they don't use a single kanji means their language is even less developped then someone like Anna, who does use hiragana too but still uses some kanji notably when refering to Alear as "Shinryu-sama". We also have genocide : Sombron's family in his own world was killed, but he also mentions how he is the sole survivor of his entire tribe, losing all his family and friends. He ended up inflicting the same thing on Lumera too and in her world, Zelestia was also victim of genocide while all Divine dragon went extinct.

And that was all for today. I have drawings to cook and essays to bake

#fire emblem #fire emblem engage #fe engage #elyos propaganda #i think

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josis-teacup · 3 years

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Some thoughts on lotr on prime

Sooo im really excited for the lotr on prime show (you know I'm something of a clown myself). And what I'm wondering about is what exact time will be covered.

The second age is 3441 years, that's quite a long time. Sauron meets Gil-Galad in 1200, the rings are forged in the 1500s and Numenor falls in the early 3000s. (rough dates)

All of those events are worth covering and focusing on. And they deserve the attention and the detailed plotting.

Currently 5 seasons are planed but the Tolkien estate would grant more if amazon does a good job and since they apparently already like what they're seeing and allowed them to cover some stuff from the first age (probably flashbacks or exposition, see the trees in the first promo image) the chances are good.

One of the people involved said that they want to use the first season for world building and the one ring revealed that sauron won't be in the first season.

So my guess is:

The first season will mostly be about the founding of the Grey Havens and Numenor and will introduce important characters. Galadriel and Elrond are confirmed, we will probably also meet Elros and Gil-Galad. The migration to Khazad-dûm will probably also be covered as it introduces a location that will be important to later seasons.

After that nothing big happens for a few centuries. Its been a while since I've read the books and there are parts I'm not that familiar with anymore but it's mostly people getting born and people dying and people meeting each other. Maybe they add some plot for political drama or add some travel/adventure stories but since so much plot is still to cover I'm not sure. I can imagine time jumps happening between seasons. It's not uncommon and allows fresh starts with new characters getting introduced which is normal in shows.

What is possible is that they won't work with years and dates at all. As I mentioned Sauron and Gil-Galad meet in 1200 and it would work well as a start for season 2. Mentioning dark times to come, a new evil etc maybe some well known visuals at the end of season 1, maybe even a post credit scene and even casual viewers will be hooked as I well known villain is about to appear.

As soon as Sauron shows up things start happening. Galadriel goes to Lothlorien, the rings of power are forged, barad dur is completed, Glorfindel comes back, sauron proclaims himself, rivendell is founded, celebrimbor dies, sauron attacks but gets defeated and retreats to mordor. This would fill 1 - 2 seasons, maybe even 3, we're looking at 300 years.

About 500 years later the rebellion of Numenor against the valar starts and until the fall of Numenor a bit more that 1000 years pass. I can imagine those events getting pressed into one season, maybe two. I haven't counted but there are probably about 10 - 20 kings and queens and covering all of them is just too much. We have to remember how expensive this show is, they not only want to Tolkien nerds but also the casual viewers and infodumping never goes well.

So the last season will probably begin after the fall of Numenor and with Gondor and Arnor being founded. A big part will be the introduction of important characters like Oropher and Elendil since they'll die and both leave a kingdom and a heir behind. Maybe we'll meet a young thranduil? The last thing will probably be the battle, character deaths and I won't be surprised if it ends with a shot of something that could lead up to lotr. Maybe isildur riding along the route where he gets attacked. Maybe we'll even catch a glimpse of the third age and the arrival of the Istari (didn't sir Ian McKellen state he'd be ready to reprise his role?).

So, those are my thoughts. As you see this list barely contains the most important elements and I'm sure there will be many more events, characters and side plots to fill the gaps. Mirkwood, maybe even the ents. There where rumors about Hobbits appearing. While not being mentioned before the third age they must have been there so it would be a nice addition.

There is quite a lot to cover in the second age and whether they decide to tackle it all or concentrate on one event a lot of time will pass. Over the course of decades and centuries and millennia fashion, architecture and traditions change and even if this probably happens slower when it comes to elves I'm very excited to see those changes applied to Numenor and other human cultures. A nice challenge for the costume department.

The goal of this post is to hopefully bring some healthy discussion, maybe even positivity to the table. During the last months I mainly saw negative takes on the show. The reason was often the nudity discourse which could've been avoided by actually reading the articles about the intimacy coordinator. We barely know anything about the show and we've only seen one picture. Of course I'm critical, we all have good reasons to be, but currently I see no reason to spread negativity about something that I barely know anything about.

Maybe there are some people who would like to add some thoughts to this post and who are just as excited as I am. I'd love to hear from you.

#Lord of the rings #Lotr #lotr show #lotr series #lotr amazon #lotr on prime #middle earth #j r r tolkien #tolkien #Second age #numenor #sauron #gil galad #galadriel #long post #the rings of power #rop #Rings of power

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mobius-prime · 4 years

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199. Sonic the Hedgehog #131

Deep breaths, guys. I know what the cover page says. I know. We'll get to that. Just hang in there. I think you might like what I have in store.

Home (Part 2 of 4): The Gathering

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Ron Lim Colors: Jason Jensen

So not much actually happens in this installment of Home other than the various characters talking to each other about and preparing for the upcoming battle. Since Sonic has been gone, a new Freedom Fighter Special has been constructed that can cut travel time dramatically around the globe. A journey that in the Tornado or on foot (in Sonic's case) would have taken up to two hours can be completed in a mere half hour now, thanks to Rotor's engineering prowess. And thus, Sonic and Tails head out to Old Megaopolis to stop Eggman's twin nukes from launching, along with an… interesting backup team, to say the least.

Man, remember Fiona? It's been ages since we've seen her! It appears that while Sonic was in space, she joined up with the crew in Knothole and has been helping them fight Eggman. That's definitely a better life for her than to be running with the likes of Nic the Weasel, eh? Meanwhile, Knuckles, Julie-Su, Amy Rose, and the other two (active) members of the Chaotix head to Fort Acorn, where General D'Coolette is giving a speech to the soldiers under his command. We've never even heard of this fort before, but according to the general it's been here for ten years, keeping a forward watch on Robotropolis, and this watch has been maintained even after Robotropolis' destruction in case of just such a situation as the current one. With their reinforcements from Knothole, the crew at the fort prepare to defend the city against a massive swatbot assault to lower the forcefield keeping the radiation in check. Back in Knothole, extra measures are being taken to make absolutely sure that even if the worst happens, the citizenry will be safe.

Station Square, for their part, has sent a squad of GUN commandos to help in the battle at Old Megaopolis. The commander of the military is baffled by this decision, wanting to send in their full fighting force, but the president instead opts to trust his allies from Knothole - though just for insurance, he's sent one of his own operatives along for the ride…

Now that's what I like to see! It's about time Rouge got herself some proper screentime. As all this is going on, Eggman waits aboard a docked battleship in the harbor of Old Megaopolis with his assistant M, and orders A.D.A.M. to begin the missile countdown. However, almost immediately, the sound of a biplane puts them on high alert, and Eggman is shocked to see Sonic and Tails bearing down on his location, not having expected them to be able to get here nearly so fast. See, Eggman, this is why you resist the siren call of your ego and keep your damn plans to yourself. All you did was give your enemies ample warning to prepare to foil your evil plot, you idiot!

Mobius 25 Years Later: Prologue

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jensen

Okay, guys. This is it. We've reached the most Penders thing of all time. This is something that has been hinted at here and there from all the way back in the Sonic In Your Face special to now, and we're finally seeing the culmination of all of that buildup. All the intricate worldbuilding, all the complex character arcs, all the intrigue and political spider webs and back to back wars and everything that the world of Mobius has been through up until now - there's so much to explore, so many directions it could have gone. We're about to see what this world might look like twenty-five years into the future, and with so much rich history to draw from, what might you imagine this story might look like? What genre might it fall into? Well wonder no longer!

It's a drama. It's a teen drama.

There's a reason that Mobius 25 Years Later is widely considered to be one of the worst parts of the comic. The tone of it is just so far off anything else we've experienced so far that it clashes horribly with what we've come to expect. It's not some masterful subversion of expectations or something - in a lot of ways I consider it to be a genuine insult to the rest of the preboot's material up to this point. It's painfully and immediately clear that this is a story Penders has wanted to tell for a while, but, not being able to fit his "middle-aged adults adulting everywhere and being so adult-like while ignoring the feelings and difficulties that ordinary teenagers face" plot anywhere into the rest of the comic, he's opted to just fire the world a couple decades into the future, pair all the major characters off into weird and oftentimes arbitrary heterosexual marriages, give everyone 2.5 children and a titanium picket fence, and then throw in some allusions to the old "war against Doc 'Botnik" here and there lest we forget, entirely understandably at this point, that we're reading a Sonic the Hedgehog comic here. This thing goes on for nineteen whole issues, taking up each subsequent issue's backup story, and ultimately has no real impact on the actual story involving the characters we already know and love. However, this is technically canon, or at least a version of canon (as when you play with alternate realities and multiple timelines, futures are bound to get mixed up here and there), so we're gonna be covering it - all of it. I wouldn't be tempted to skip it anyway, as by delving into each chapter in this trainwreck, we can actually explore why this whole thing fails so hard, and why it's therefore so loathed in the fandom. Plus, I do recognize that some people actually do enjoy this arc for various reasons (one of my close friends does, and has a whole AU of her own relating to it in fact), so I do plan to at least try to be fair in my review - but I really can't hide that I find this whole affair boring as hell, often downright offensive, and ultimately completely out of place. With all that in mind, let's dive in!

We begin with a full page of exposition delivered to us via high school lecture, because everyone knows the best way to establish your worldbuilding is by infodumping it directly into your audience's eyeballs. Apparently, over the last twenty years, Angel Island has been heavily developed into its own independent republic, with a new city, Portal, acting as the center of trade between the island and the mainland below. We're once again introduced to Lara-Su, who, instead of being the badass time-traveling young adult whom we followed before, is now an ordinary teenager taking ordinary high school classes among a bunch of ordinary high school echidnas.

One of the biggest failings of this story is that Penders writes every teenage character how he thinks teenagers act, from his point of view as a middle-aged adult. This becomes abundantly clear the longer you read, as every teenager is a hormone-fueled, authority-defying, entitled, whiny, fickle child who just doesn't understand how the real world works, while every adult is a wise, experienced, and highly logical individual who always knows more than their younger fellows and refuses to pay attention to the whims of mere children. Like, I'm not even exaggerating here - I'm going to be pointing out every instance of this kind of behavior over the entire rest of this arc, and you can't stop me, so nyah nyah. Penders shows so little respect for the mere concept of teenagers, which is a terrible attitude to have not just in general, but especially if you're one of the head writers for an entire series about teenagers saving the goddamn world! Anyway, case in point: the teacher, instead of admonishing Rutan for being a bully, merely snaps at Lara-Su for not acting enough like a "young lady" and tells her to stay after class. Ugh.

Later that day, Rotor arrives on Angel Island as a liaison for the royal ruling couple, Queen Sally and King Sonic, because yes, Sonic literally becomes king in this timeline. He catches a ride from Harry - hey, good to see our favorite dingo still doing well for himself at least - and meets with Espio, who is now apparently Knuckles' secretary or something. At least, that's all I can assume from this weird-ass conversation.

As a matter of fact, yes, Sonic and Sally are bringing their two children, Sonia and Manik, to the family dinner! How very mid-70s domestic family unit of them! Espio informs Knuckles of this over a television screen as the latter broods around in some kind of high-tech facility. Unlike what we've seen of Espio, the years have dramatically changed Knuckles' appearance - his right eye is missing, replaced with a mechanical one, and he sports the cowboy hat that Hawking gave him in the past (you know, the one we never saw again after he received it). While I actually quite like the idea of a main character in the comic losing something as important as an eye, I feel like there's a huge missed opportunity here - instead of just thrusting us into an alternate future where everything is fine but one character is inexplicably missing an eye, how about actually showing us the story of how that eye was lost? Show us a Knuckles who's learning to cope with the loss of an important body part, and having to adjust to his mechanical prosthetic! Go into his feelings about the subject, as someone who has so long been opposed to a faction that thrives on mechanical prosthetics, instead of just skipping over what has the potential to be the most interesting part of this story! Ugh, sorry, there's just nothing that gets to me more than a missed opportunity like this. Knuckles and Espio exchange some tortured small-talk about their kids for a little while, with the only interesting part of the conversation being their discussion of Rotor's arrival and how he's likely here to see someone named Cobar, with whom he apparently has a history. More on that later. Knuckles excuses himself from the conversation, as he has to be home in time for his daughter's "Unveiling" tonight, and as the call ends we zoom out to see that apparently nowadays, the Master Emerald is hooked up to all sorts of technology in this facility, presumably maintaining everything automatically. However, this story isn't done throwing weird curveballs at us yet - it's time to see what our former villains are up to in this future!

There is so much to unpack here. Dimitri, feared overlord of the Dark Legion, is now an amiable cyborg-head-in-a-bubble. Lien-Da, the treacherous second-in-command who regularly spoke of betraying Dimitri and taking the Legion in her own darker direction, is now apparently a single mom who's embraced the domestic life, taking care of her rowdy teenage son while, predictably, complaining about the behavior of kids these days. And weirdest of all, apparently everyone is just fine with these literal former terrorists living in their midst and doing ordinary mom and grandpa things, with Lien-Da even apparently amenable to the idea of trying to make up with Julie-Su because "they're family," despite her history of, you know, erasing Julie-Su's memory multiple times and killing her biological parents as revenge for her birth. I mean, is this what Penders thinks adulthood is? Is he even entirely sane? Does he know the definition of terrorism?

Any-goddamn-way, Knuckles arrives home to his eerily sterile-looking steel-plated mansion that looks more like the lobby of a pharmaceutical laboratory than a place where people live, and greets his loving housewife Julie-Su, who's gained a cute giant ponytail but lost absolutely everything else that made her unique, including her own cybernetic parts and just her personality in general. She informs Knuckles that Lara-Su has locked herself in the bathroom and is having herself a mighty tantrum, refusing to come out to get ready for her Unveiling ceremony, which is apparently the equivalent of a Quinceañera for echidna girls. Knuckles, instead of doing something reasonable like asking her why she's upset, starts aggressively demanding that she come out of her room this instant, while Lara-Su repeatedly yells about how she doesn't wanna. Ugh, teenagers, amiright?

Seriously, I just can't get over how little respect Penders has for teenagers in his writing. Like, yes, I acknowledge that teenagers aren't always the most logical of beings, but they're also not goddamn three-year-olds either. They're old enough to articulate their desires and express their unique opinions, and often do so in very mature ways, especially if they're raised well and treated with the same respect you'd afford any adult. I should know, I was one myself. I would have assumed Penders was one as well at some point, but perhaps he just popped into the world one day as a fully-formed 43-year-old, full of disdain for those younger than himself. It would certainly explain everything we're seeing here.

Anyway, it turns out that the reason Lara-Su is upset is because Knuckles refuses to train her to be a Guardian, and so she whines and yells about it from behind the door like a petulant child as Knuckles continually refuses to actually give her a solid reason why he won't let her be one. When Julie-Su basically forces him to calm the hell down and explain himself, he reluctantly explains that since all the duties of a Guardian have by now been taken over by other functions of their society, he feels there's no longer any need for one, himself included. This is apparently enough to make Lara-Su immediately happy enough to burst out of the bathroom and grab her father's arm, suddenly totally excited to go to her Unveiling as long as Knuckles promises her the first dance. Ah, the fickle mind of a silly, silly teenager!

Kill me.

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 131 #writer: karl bollers #writer: ken penders #pencils: ron lim #pencils: steven butler #colors: jason jensen

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robotnik-mun · 7 years

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I usually have answer for questions like these...but what specifically about Mobius: XYL made it so horrendous that not even someone with actual writing talent like Flynn could save it? I'd say that it was just a blank slate and that any competent writer could fix it.

*Sighs, pulls out a bottle of whiskey and a shot glass. Pours the glass. Takes the shot*

Alright, before I get into the specifics, I’m gonna contextualize a few things for you. I want you to picture a comic book, one built primarily (but not exclusively) around action, and despite the intense quality issues it tends to suffer from its still pretty popular, with a fairly vocal fanbase. One day a character is teased- the daughter of a major character, hinting towards an amazing story that will show the future of your favorite characters. Years past, the hype builds up. A hint of what’s to come is given in a story where this mystery character is featured, pulling forth an intriguing scenario in which her father, one of the heroes, will become a villain years later.

Finally it is announced- at long last, this much anticipated storyline is going to happen! We’re going to see the future of the setting, the future of the characters and their offspring! Oh, what things will await? What mysteries will build in the interim? What new villains will operate in the future? What will the children of the heroes be like?

Well, eventually, the storyline finally comes. All that waiting, all that excitement and hype, all of that theorizing... and all it amounted to was a fart in the wind, all noise and fury signifying nothing.

That, in a nutshell, was Mobius 25YL.

Now let us get into specifics. Forgive me if I miss anything, for there is a LOT to get into, so I’ll just summarize what comes off the top of my head.

-Firstly, there was Lara-Su herself. Oh, poor Lara-Su. That’s really one of the great tragedies of the Pre-Flynn era. She had the design. She had the concept. She had the hype- people were doing fanart and fanfiction of her long before she debuted properly in the book. And then 25YL came along, and what we saw was...

....yeah, that. See, it turned out that she wasn’t being trained as a guardian. She was just a normal leading a normal teenage life, and my GOD it was boring. Our opening scene involves her thumping her stupid cousin on the head with a book for insulting the Guardians, and this? This is how she became a Guardian. After everything we had been led to believe, everything we had been wanting to see, the mysterious, much-anticipated Daughter of Knuckles... turned out to be a whiny, entitled little rich girl who literally whined her way into being a Guardian. Not that we got a chance to see her tenure as a guardian, oooh no- it was FAR more important to see her sweet sixteen and a sleepover with her friends, and of course pool party antics. Which brings us to the next point....

-...namely that this story went *nowhere*. Like it was literally the last few issues that the damn plot moved forward and reached a climax. THe build-up took a back seat to what Penders evidently felt was what the audieance REALLY wanted- DOMESTIC DRAMA! Marvel in Lara-Su getting in fights at school because someone had an opinion! Wonder in the glories of her sweet sixteen! Behold the pool parties! Amaze at Sonic’s son being a little pervert! Hey, do you know what we needed more of? Sonic and Knuckles getting in a belching contest at a dinner party! And so on and so forth- the whole thing was basically a domestic drama, a really, really cheesy and badly written one, and these aspects of the story overtook everything else. Even worse, this story dragged on and on and on at a snails pace, and as I said, the only remotely exciting thing happened literally within the last few issues, with the build up being drawn out and unengaging.

-The future was boring. Very, very boring, and even worse, we were told exactly how it got that way. What portions of the story weren’t dedicated to observing the Domestic Life Of The Teenage Echidna were spent infodumping and expositing about the events of the past that led to the present time. And at the present time? Everything was so peachy and perfect it could make you sick. There was no danger, no new menaces to fight in the Post-Robotnik Mobius, everything was just bland and happy and nooo real problems whatsoever. The Kingdom of Acorn now ruled Mobius, and Angel Island was now a superpower, and all the enemies of the past were either defeated or domesticated (more on that below). There was nothing to draw people in. No conflict to engage the readers. Even worse, ss this at the time was regarded as ‘the’ future and not just a ‘What-If’ (the debate of which caused an infamous feud between Penders and Bollers), the exposition ensured that there could not even be a potential mystery in figuring out how things got to this point, because the entire future was now laid bare before us. And since we now knew that this achingly perfect and tranquil future was to come, and exactly HOW Eggman was going to be defeated, there was little reason to become invested in past stories. What’s the point of sticking around when you know how its all gonnna go? Every conflict that took place in the past was now rendered irrelevant thanks to this future, which pretty much gave away the ending.

-On top of all that, the developments of the characters from the past who were featured in this future were... nonsensical, and in some cases deeply insulting. Knuckles, for example, who had grown up in the wilderness away from cities and the like, was now in a position of power as not only Guardian but the head of the EST, and living very comfortably in a manor, with a maid of all things. Even accounting for the fact that the years change people, this doesn’t really feel like the kind of life Knuckles would ever want to live or COULD ever want to live, instead feeling like a reflection of Penders’ own ideal for what a happy ending should look like. Worse though was what happened to Julie-Su... while her depiction as such was not always very stellar, there was at least a token amount of effort applied to depicting her as a capable soldier and action girl, and prior to the release of this he swore up and down that she would STILL be a badass. This was false. This was very, very false. She was pretty much a stay at home mom who did upkeep on the house, acting as a *painfully* cliche ‘50s Housewife’ at utter odds with her prior depiction. While there is nothing wrong with being a domestic or anything like that, the fact was that this was definitely not how anybody ever wanted to see Julie-Su, and even worse, despite Penders’ touting of the ‘non-traditional’ nature of their marriage (which I should add was a reflection of the fact that he and his own wife operate under a common-law marriage), the fact of the matter was that the marriage was even MORE tradtional and bland than most marriages in media at that time.

And it didn’t end there either. Sonic was now King of the world and pretty much going through a midlife crisis, and Sally, who actually WAS a leader of men during her youth and Queen of Mobius, was now happy and content with taking a backseat to Sonic and letting him make all the major decisions. There are many arguments about whether or not Sonic should have ever been a king or if it fits his character, but the point of order is, nobody at all wanted to see THIS from Sonic, or Sally. The decision to make him King was especially baffling because in real life, that’s not how European monarchy’s work. Sonic is not nobility, and even if he were, his lower rank would ensure that he would only ever be a prince or a regent at best, while Sally would be the one calling the shots thanks to her being higher ranked than him to begin with.

And then there was Lien-Da. Recall how I said some threats became domesticated? Well this here is Exhibit A- wanna now what kind of future Lien-Da has after a lifetime of terrorism, deceit and murder? She’s living comfortabltly in suburbia with her son (with no mention or hint of who the father could be), and is just so gosh darned chummy with her half-sister that they gossip like a couple of old hens. I mean sure, Lien-Da helped murder Julie’s mother and their father, and then had Julie mindwiped twice-over, to say nothing of spending generations trying to murder the Guardians, but it’s all coooool, brah! No hard feelings, no bad blood whatsoever! Why, even Dimitri himself confirms that all of Lien-Da’s ambitions would never ever come true anyway, so hey, why carry a grudge? Family trumps all!

Yeah, I digress. Whatever people envisioned for the future of the characters they loved, this wasn’t it. At all.

-The kids sucked, both as characters and from a design standpoint. For visuals, Lara-Su got off easy, having a reasonably unique and recognizable design that made her an instant hit with a lot of fans... the fact that Penders didn’t design her might have had something to do with that though. Everyone else? Clone children. Clone children as far as the eye can see. Literally they were all just traces of their parents with different clothes, and they had even less going on with regards to personality. The one with the most distinct personality was Manik, who was such a loathesome little creeper that everyone kind of wished he really WAS just as bland and forgettable as everyone else. While obviously children are gonna resemble their parents, making them flat out clones was just a step too far (sadly this would plague the sequel series as well). There have been many fan ideas and conceptions of what the children of our heroes would look like- all of them were better, or at least made more of an effort, than this.

-While the book might have been called “Mobius: 25 Years Later”, it was actually more like “Angel Island Twenty Five Years Later”. Given that this storyline started out as a special called Knuckles: Twenty Years Later, this isn’t really that unexpected, but for a storyline that billed itself as the future of Mobius itself, the focus on Angel Island at the expense of everything else left a bad taste in everyone’s mouth. WHile it would be impossible to cover everyone, it was Knuckles and his family that got the most coverage, with the extended cast getting cameos or token mentions regardless of how important they were in the past. Bunnie and Antoine didn’t show up, Tails only showed up much later, we barely get any action from the other Chaotix... you get the idea. Even worse, Knuckles was pretty much revealed to be the destined savior of the planet, the one to finally defeat Eggman instead of Sonic, and the reveal of what was causing problems in the future would eventually be revealed to be SOnic’s fault! The Knuckles favoritism was incredibly grating, and incredibly disappointing. People wanted to see the future of *Mobius*, not JUST all the parts most relevant to Knuckles. This was the storylien that really did much to establish how little Penders cared about the title character of the series and how hellbent he was on ensuring the ‘legacy’ of his personal pet despite the Knuckles series having been gone for years by that point.

-On a retroactive front, the reveal of Rotor being gay, or rather the rationale and circumstances of it, did a lot to taint the perception of the series. Even when the series was going on, Penders hinted that one of the cast was gay, and didn’t reveal who it was until years after he had left the book...it just happened to be Rotor, who just happened to be tortured in the new 30YL storyline while his supposed lover, Cobor, was dead. That he timed the reveal in such a way that it made Flynn look like a homophobe was suspect enough, but his reasoning behind the reveal was especially troubling, with him declaring that Rotor was gay due to his shyness. Adding insult to injury, there was absolutely no chemistry between Cobor and Rotor, like at all. In a fandom where two characters so much as looking at eachother too long can result in shipping, this was especially noteworthy, as nobody at all shipped Cobor and Rotor before the reveal... and after, for that matter. Penders loudly patting himself on the back for this despite how little he had done in-story to indicate it did a lot to taint the storyline in people’s eyes, and forever made Rotor’s sexuality a touchy subject due to knowing that Penders would always be eager to take credit for it despite having done nothing to build it up. While there was only so much one could really do at the time it was written, that doesn’t excuse the fact that there was so little affection and so little to read into with regards to Cobor and Rotor, due to the fact that believable, human interaction is well beyond Penders’ capacity as a writer.

There is probably more I am not considering. Anyone who has anything to add is free to do so. But in conclusion? For everything that this story promised to be, and for all the ways that promise was broken, this whole thing became a black hole of wasted potential, a vortex of suckage that would consume everything in proximity, and that is why despite everything, a lot of people are not that eager to see it re-visted, believing that its just impossible to un-anchor it from the awful, awful story that spawned, and that there is nothing worth salvaging from it.

They might have a point.

#jdscanvas

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