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jianswordbi-sokka · 5 years

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I LOVE THE ILLUSIONIST THAT MOVIE WAS AMAZING!!! please tell us more about ur au 👀👂👂👂

OKAY SO!!!! If you’ve seen the Illusionist, this won’t really be news to you since the plot wouldn’t change that much, and if you haven’t than spoiler alert I guess but I’m going to talk about it anyways at length so here goes:

-The story takes place near the turn of the century.

-Zuko and Sokka meet when they are young. Zuko, the son of a duke and Sokka, the son of a cabinet maker, seem an unlikely friendship, but they quickly grow close despite their positions in life.

-Sokka had a chance encounter with a travelling magician as a child, and is fascinated by the art of deception, and learning the mysterious ways of the illusionist. Zuko, on the other hand, is simply fascinated by Sokka, and his devotion and determination.

-However, Zuko’s power-hungry and controlling father forbids them to see each other. It’s not prudent for his son to be seen with a peasant such as Sokka.

-Despite this, the two meet in secret for several years whenever they can, and they fall deeply in love. Sokka crafts a locket for Zuko, one that can only be opened in a secret manner. The two talk about running away together, and imagine a future where they could be together without fear of being discovered.

-Unfortunately, they are discovered. When Ozai learns that Zuko has been seeing this peasant boy behind his back and against his wishes, he is furious. Zuko tires to run, to be with Sokka. He makes it as far as their secret meeting place, where Sokka is waiting for him, but he wasn’t fast enough. They try to hide, and Zuko begs Sokka to make them disappear like he had always talked of learning, but he can’t. They are found, and separated. And Zuko is severely punished for his actions. Sokka knows he can’t stay anymore, and leaves to embark on a journey on his own.

-By the time he returns, many years have passed, and in that time Sokka has become a master of his craft, and a wonderful performer. Ozai hears of this mysterious stranger and his art, and decides he and his family should attend one of his shows themselves, not knowing the illusionist’s true identity.

-Towards the end of the show, Sokka asks for a participant from the audience, and Ozai volunteers Zuko. When he makes it up on stage, though he’s older and dressed much finer, and certainly some tragedy has befallen him since Sokka had last seen him that has left his face horribly scarred, Sokka recognizes him instantly. Zuko is not quite so quick.

-Ozai asks to meet him after the show, and, determined to show he can prove how each trick is performed, asks for a private viewing at their family’s home. Sokka looks at Zuko, promising to prepare something special. Perhaps, even, to make him disappear. And everything clicks for Zuko.

-Zuko summons Sokka to meet in private the next day. The two reminisce, and reconnect, and it’s then that Sokka learns Zuko is to be married to the princess and heir to the throne of the country, by Ozai’s arrangement of course. Sokka is not convinced that Ozai has his son’s best interests at heart, or that he does not have his own nefarious purposes, and Zuko doesn’t deny this.

-Sokka does perform privately the next night. During the performance, he humiliates and undermines Ozai’s authority, angering him, and Ozai order’s him expelled from the city.

-That night, Sokka receives and unexpected visitor. Zuko has ridden in secret to Sokka’s home to confront him. He is furious with Sokka for so stupidly endangering himself. Zuko insists that they were and still are friends, and he only wants to help, but Sokka claims that isn’t true. Zuko, in return, demands to know why Sokka even bothered to make himself known then? All Sokka can think to do in response is kiss him, and he does, and Zuko kisses him back. Sokka undoes the buttons of Zuko’s shirt, revealing that Zuko still wears the locket Sokka made for him, even after so many years apart, and they know their love is true.

-They lay together late into the night, talking of the time that has passed, and what has befallen them, and Zuko reveals his father’s plans: that once he is married to the princess, Ozai plans to overthrow the current king and seize power for himself, with Zuko’s position legitimizing his claim to power. Sokka urges him to call off the engagement, and to run away together. But Zuko knows his father’s wrath, and that as long as they are alive he will hunt them. Despite this, they hatch a plan to be together.

-Within days, Zuko confronts his father, telling him he is going to call off the engagement, and will no longer be a pawn in Ozai’s game. In a drunken rage, Ozai pursues the fleeing Zuko out of the house to the stables. The next morning, all that is found is Zuko’s horse, it’s neck soaked with blood, and Zuko is gone.

-A search party is called, and in the end, it’s Sokka who finds Zuko’s body. The doctor determines he died of blood lose, from a horrible wound to Zuko’s throat, likely made by a knife or a sword. Sokka is convinced Ozai is to blame, but he is not arrested or even investigated.

-After a period of mourning, Sokka begins a new kind of show - one where he raises spirits. It begins innocently enough, but soon he raises a spirit that could only be Zuko. Though he makes no claims that these spirits are real, the people who attend his performances are more than convinced.

-Frightened of what he might have Zuko’s supposed spirit say, Ozai orders Sokka be arrested if he raises it again. He does, but before Sokka can be arrested, Zuko reveals he had plans to disobey his father and leave. He also laments that, while he had been wearing the locket Sokka had made him when he died, I was now somehow lost. The police try to apprehend Sokka, but before they can, he finally performs his greatest trick, and disappears.

-The chief inspector, never completely convinced of Ozai’s innocence, and knowing his very public history of violence, returns to Ozai’s stables that night after hearing what Zuko’s spirit had said. There, he finds not only Zuko’s locket, but also a jewel which matches a missing stone from the hilt of the sword belonging to Ozai. There is another stone missing, and he recalls the doctor having found such a gemstone on Zuko’s body when it was discovered.

-He uses this evidence, and the knowledge he has of Ozai’s treasonous plans, to have Ozai arrested for his crimes, but when Ozai is confronted, he takes his own life before the imperial guard can arrest him.

-The case is finally closed, but Sokka’s whereabouts are still unknown, until a child hands the chief inspector a package in the street. Inside is the explanation to his favorite trick from Sokka’s show, and when he checks his pocket he realizes it is a distraction, and that Zuko’s locket has been stolen. It’s then he knows that everything, everything this whole time, has merely been another illusion.

-Knowing they could not simply slip away, Sokka and Zuko planed to fake Zuko’s death. Zuko drugs Ozai, so he will not remember the true events of that night, and plants the evidence damning his father before slipping away. The doctor who pronounced him dead is the only other person who is in on the truth, and helped Zuko to escape after he had been found. Since that day, Sokka had been biding his time until he could put the final nail in the coffin of Ozai’s fate. Now, they were finally free to be together, and all that was left to be done was take back the precious locket, and disappear one last time.

-At the far off end of the railway, Zuko waits for Sokka in a cabin in the mountains, where they are finally reunited, and live their lives long and happy, undisturbed by the ghosts and horrors of their past.

In this scenario, in addition to Zuko, Sokka, and Ozai, I think Iroh would be the chief inspector, with Katara as Sokka’s long-suffering manager, and Aang the doctor/friend that assists them with their plans.

#atla #zukka #sokka #zuko #asks #long post #I know this is incredible long and basically just a rehashing of the plot but #it's still fun to think about #also if you haven't seen the movie you should #I would watch it just for the music and costume design ALONE #I think it's very sexc of you to indulge my ramblings and ask me about this anon so thanks #god will someone PLEASE draw some art of this for me???#I deserve it #miranda talks

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airgetlamhh · 4 years

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Thoughts on Lostbelt 2

Longpost ahead.

So.

Lostbelt 2. Finally played it after so long, and this will contain spoilers.

To make sure everyone knows what they’re getting into, I’ll give the thesis statement right here: Lostbelt 2 is bad.

The entire time I played through the story, I kept waiting for it to pick up. I kept waiting for it to shrug off the poor pacing, the deus ex machinas, the random things just happening for the convenience of the plot. I kept waiting for it to shrug off the poor characterization, the constant telling instead of showing, the moral myopia. It never did.

From nearly the very start to finish, Lostbelt 2 is bad.

We start off fairly fine! A desperate ploy to sneak through the Lostbelt to meet up with the allies we’ve learned about, the Wandering Sea, interrupted by a Lostbelt Servant attacking us with the intent of stealing the Paper Moon that allows us to perform Zero Sails. All of that is a decent setup!

And then we’re told how strong this Saber is. How incredible they are. How their swordplay surpasses anything else they’ve ever seen, how they desperately wish that Musashi was there, how no no, he didn’t use his sword, he only parried! Things that Sherlock Holmes observes, not Mashu, not the one who’s actually been fighting for two years now, so Mashu seems borderline useless. Holmes figures out it’s Sigurd because...he uses a sword in a Scandinavian Lostbelt, and he figured out that Holmes used magic because Holmes fire magic lasers at him. From this, Holmes is able to pinpoint Sigurd’s identity, and that’s just the setup for the rest of the chapter, really.

To be specific, what I mean is that we will constantly be told how incredible someone is with very little evidence, and the plot will bend and warp to make certain things happen.

The scene does exactly one good thing, which is the foreshadowing of Surtr. Coming into it knowing that aspect allowed me to appreciate little bits like Surtr talking about Heroic Spirits like he wasn’t one, and Surtr not being able to kill Mashu because Sigurd resisted it. But that’s about all that was good in the scene, and all it really does is set up a consistent thing of Surtr being one of the only good parts - until he isn’t, of course.

I’m going to shift here from specifics to characters, because otherwise I’d be rehashing the entire story and I don’t have the time or effort required for that. That being said, it is difficult to decide where to start, so I’ll go right to the very building blocks of the story, the themes.

Lostbelt 2 is, very obviously, attempting to have a theme of different kinds of love throughout the story. Part of this is because it’s very much set up like an otome game that the author Hikaru Sakurai would write, with Ophelia in the center, but it’s a more general theme too, with Skadi and the others all building up towards it. Now, love is an absolutely wonderful thing to build your themes around, exploring and examining it can be great for stories. Beasts themselves do that, examining different varieties of genuine, but toxic love that allow them to be well-meaning monsters.

The problem is that Lostbelt 2 does not engage with these themes on anything but a surface level. Skadi represents maternal love, so she constantly talks about how everyone is her children and how she’s their mother. No examination of the desire to see her children grow, the pain she feels when they fight, the struggle of forcing herself to cling so tightly knowing that it’s suffocating them and going to kill them before they reach 26.

Napoleon represents passionate love, so he flirts with every woman he sees. No examination of why he’s so passionate or what drives him to burn so brightly, beyond a token mention that for some reason when he’s summoned he’s driven to seek out a lover, another aspect of things happening to serve the plot.

Sigurd and Brynhildr represent true, romantic love, so they act mushy the entire chapter from the moment the real Sigurd appears. Now, don’t get me wrong, I liked their scenes a lot and I’m happy that they chose that portrayal instead of the one I was afraid of where it was yandere jokes day in day out. But there’s no engagement with the fundamentals of their love, nothing that tests it, even the existing complications with Brynhildr’s tragic summoning are swept away with a single line of “I can resist them better now maybe because my saint graph is broken”, so ultimately there’s no conflict whatsoever. And sure, that’s nice, but it’s not very good if you’re trying to build your story around a theme of love.

Next, Surtr, who represents obsessive, dangerous love. I honestly actually think Surtr’s done well, even if the love he happens to represent is the least positive one. Surtr is capable of only one thing, destruction, and when he fell for Ophelia in that moment where she saw him and he saw her, he decided that if he ever had the chance, he would repay her the only way he knew how: allowing her to watch as he destroyed everything. When he’s summoned, he acts basically like the possessive one in an otome game, constantly talking about how Ophelia is his woman, getting angry when Napoleon flirts with her, spending most of his time pushing things between them as far as they can go etc. etc. I’m not particularly a fan of how his desire to repay Ophelia battling against his singular purpose transformed him into a typical possessive bastard boyfriend, but it’s at least engaged with on a deeper level.

Finally, Ophelia. She’s the otome game protagonist here, born into an controlling family and finally freed, hiding a secret special power, beloved by almost all the men involved in the chapter while she’s harboring feelings for someone else, even has the typical friendship route with Mashu going on. Her love is a love that she doesn’t acknowledge, but that’s all it is. It’s never engaged with beyond the fact that she clearly loves Kirschtaria but insists she doesn’t, and her final scene as she dies is Mashu telling her that yes, she did love Kirschtaria. That’s all.

For a theme of love that’s supposedly woven into the Lostbelt, it’s barely examined at all. It’s not well written, and in comparison to Lostbelt 1′s theme of what it means to live in a world where the strong devour the weak and how deeply it examined and engaged with that, it’s a genuine disappointment.

Now, to move onto the plot, it’s...in the abstract, it’s fine. Chaldea is intercepted and forced to fight in the Lostbelt and ends up dragged into the overarching ploy by Surtr to release himself and burn everything. That’s a perfectly fine story, but the problem is that when you get to the moment-to-moment stuff, it falls apart completely.

Skadi is constantly talked up as this incredibly powerful true goddess, not merely a Divine Spirit, and we know she can see and hear our every move because of her snow. How does the story work around this borderline omniscience within her Lostbelt? Skadi just decides not to do anything about Chaldea with zero rhyme or reason. We need to sneak into the palace and avoid alerting the guards, except Skadi already knows exactly where we are, except that doesn’t matter because we need to sneak in for some reason. We get captured with no plan to escape, and it just so happens that not only was Skadi keeping a Divine Spirit amalgamation locked in the dungeons too, but that she can piggyback on you making a contract with Napoleon (pure dumb luck you hadn’t done it before) and force a connection with you too, and then cast spells to hide you while you escape. Skadi knows we’re trying to free Brynhildr, who is the sole threat to Sigurd and Skadi’s own Valkyries in the entire Lostbelt? She just decides to do nothing at all.

So much of the plot happens because either Skadi makes terrible decisions to do nothing, even though she knows Chaldea is there to destroy her entire world, or it happens because random shit goes on that couldn’t have been planned for like Sitonai. Shit like Surtr suddenly becoming Fafnir and being able to use the Evil Dragon Phenomenon to brainwash Ophelia somehow, like Ophelia’s Mystic Eye being able to do anything the plot demands, even when it explicitly goes against its existing capabilities like rewinding time on Sigurd’s wounds, like Bryn and Surtr somehow being able to resist the effects of her eye with no buildup or explanation. It’s poorly written in terms of the exact events that happen, and that all culminates in Skadi’s one cool moment, where she declares she’s going to kill the seven billion we fight for for the sake of her ten thousand...and then right after, it reveals that Skadi was going easy on us and refused to use her runes of instant death for no reason even though she was fighting for the survival of her entire world. The moment to moment plot is not good, and neither is what comes next, the worldbuilding.

In Skadi’s Lostbelt, half the world is covered in Surtr’s flames, while the other half is blanketed in Skadi’s snow. Where the two areas meet are the only places where life can grow, and so Skadi set up villages there. Unfortunately, there isn’t enough food for everyone, so she enforces strict population control: if you are not the mother or father of a child by 15, you are sent away to be killed by the giants. If you are the mother or father of a child, you are sent away to be killed at 25 instead. Through this tragic method, Skadi enforces a limit of 100 villages with 100 people, a total population of 10000. This is all fine.

But take a closer look at what we actually see, and this falls apart. First, the giants. The giants are immortal and never need to eat. They do nothing but sleep all day and attack any human that comes close to them. Later, it’s revealed that they’ll attack any heat source including Valkyries, except we know that’s not true. Giants never attack each other, they never attack and destroy any of the plant life around them, they never attack the Lostbelt tree seeds, they even fight alongside mass-produced Valkyries before it’s revealed that Skadi and the three originals can mind-control them! They exist only to destroy, but Skadi can control them with her masks and indeed uses them as labour, keeping them chained up in her castle to be brought out and controlled as needed, or using them to guard Brynhildr’s castle.

Worst of all, the first time we meet anyone in the chapter, it’s Gerda, who is sneaking out of her village to go to the massive liveable area close to Village 23. This area happens to be the only place she can go to get medicinal herbs that she needs or one of the people in her village will die in childbirth. This area is also full of giants, who have not destroyed it despite being fertile and full of life and heat, and who are allowed to take this place that could be used to grow more food for humans who need it, and simply stay there doing nothing.

Now, this is where I thought the game would engage with things. How Skadi, in professing her love for all her children, is actually being cruel and unfair. They certainly set it up in the conversations she has, where she casually mentions how humans must die for her coexistence to continue. Skadi chooses to keep the giants alive despite the fact that they are all braindead and can do nothing but kill and destroy the moment their masks are removed. She chooses to keep them alive even though it comes at the expense of the humans who must die when the giants never make that same sacrifice. She chooses to allow them fertile land even though they cannot farm nor do they need food, and in doing so deprive the humans of potentially living longer, having more supplies to do so. She makes these strange choices and then later reveals she can control the giants to do her bidding, and it all seems to fall into place.

What we see from how she’s characterized early on is that the system is unfair and Skadi is unwilling to change, because it benefits her tremendously. Gerda’s village didn’t have enough herbs to save the children forced to breed by 15, and despite Skadi’s omniscience letting her know that Gerda had snuck out and was trying to save a life, she did nothing. There was no system in place to beg a Valkyrie to get these herbs, and no indication whatsoever that Skadi would use her powers to control the giants to save Gerda’s life. The picture painted is someone who cares about humanity not out of true care, but simply out of obligation. Those who disobey her rules, even for good reasons, are left to die by the engines of destruction she keeps alive.

That’s not the story it tells later on, though. Skadi, portrayed from the start as this all-powerful goddess with complete control over everything, is revealed to be far weaker than we thought, and far less monstrous. Ignore all the times she did control the giants, she actually can’t do it all that well. Ignore all the times she declared she would not allow anyone she loved to be killed, but chose not to act to tell her Valkyries or her giants or anything else to save either Chaldea or Gerda. Ignore the evidence we see on screen that there’s more land that’s simply taken over by the giants, Skadi can only make those initial 100 villages and can’t make any more. Skadi is not bad. Skadi did the best she could. Skadi is morally right.

Please love Skadi, there’s no complicated moral quandary here, she’s just Good.

Comparisons to Lostbelt 1 are impossible to avoid. Both have the same basic cause, a calamity that was impossible to predict and impossible to avert. The stagnation that dooms a Lostbelt created by the kings in question in their desperation to survive. Ivan turned humanity into the Yaga and created a world of strength, where progress is impossible because everyone in his new world was too busy devouring each other to work together. Skadi created a world of weakness, where progress is impossible because she limited the population to avoid everyone dying out. There is, however, one crucial difference between the two. Not in terms of story, not in terms of characters, not in terms of themes.

“Your existence itself has already become a grave sin.”

That one line, spoken to Ivan, is the biggest difference between how the story engages things. In both Lostbelts, Ivan and Skadi did horrible things and made horrible choices because they had to, for the sake of survival. Ivan twisted humanity into monsters that lost capacity for mercy or empathy, while Skadi forced brutal population control and careless death on humanity because of her refusal to allow the giants to be destroyed. Both of them did horrible things, but only one is held to account by the story.

What Ivan did was evil, and the story recognises it. It doesn’t accept the excuse that it was all necessary for survival, because that’s irrelevant. It’s evil regardless. This same sentiment should have been expressed with Skadi, but it’s not. Ivan is condemned, but Skadi is absolved. She had no choice. She did the best she could. After building her up as all-powerful, the end of the story instead destroys her agency and power in its haste to prevent any kind of responsibility falling on Skadi’s head. Even to the very end, where she declares that she’ll kill all seven billion lives we fight for for the sake of her ten thousand, she holds back and allows us to win, despite how it butchers her character.

The biggest irony in all this is that Ivan’s world was worse than hers in ways. There was no way for the blizzards to stop, no meat besides for the demonic beasts. Crops couldn’t grow, and instead of living in peace, the Yaga were constantly tormented and killed by the Oprichniki. There were no liveable areas like there are in Lostbelt 2, no merciful ruler that sees all, and controls the greatest threats, no peaceful villages where food can be grown. There’s far more justification for Ivan to claim he had no choice and that he did all he did for survival, because it’s hard to see what his choices were. But Skadi? Skadi intentionally does not act and intentionally allows suffering and pain to come to her children, both actively by not saving Gerda, and passively by allowing the giants to take land they don’t need. Despite this, Skadi is absolved, because the story desperately wants her to be a tragic waifu that you love.

There’s lots more I could talk about. How Sitonai was pointless and existed only for a pathetic FSN reference. How Gerda was a cowardly and manipulative piece of writing compared to Patxi. How Ophelia’s story of always being told what to do is resolved not by her taking the step to freedom herself, but being told to free herself by someone else. The constant repetition that plagues the chapter, the weirdly prevalent sexism that everyone gets in on when it comes to Ophelia’s love life, the nonsense of the final battle itself, the absolute nonsense of Skadi being Scáthach-Skadi. I could even talk about how I’d fix the chapter, because boy howdy there’s a lot there.

There’s lots more I could talk about, but this is already very long, and I think it speaks for itself. Obviously asks are available if anyone wants me to examine them in more detail, but for now, I’ll finish off with one last reminder.

Lostbelt 2 is bad.

#FGO #fgo lostbelt #cosmos in the lostbelt #Lostbelt 2 #Fate Grand Order #Fate/Grand Order

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so-i-did-this-thing · 4 years

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While we're on the Todd is a Coward Spite Train, what are your thoughts on Kellogg being in Nick's head and that idea just not going anywhere?

::Cracks fingers:: Ok, I got stood up for a meeting, so have a little free time.

Nick is a walking existential disaster and Todd fucked up so many potential ways to do something interesting about the concepts of memory and identity.

On one hand, it's a little cruel to saddle Nick with so many identity crises - his backstory, redux during the Winter affair (being told you're not real, even from a villain, has gotta sting), residual Kellog tease, and then DiMA’s revelations.

But if you think about it, Nick is really the only synth we see who has been long-term managing the cognitive dissonance of knowing his memories are fake, while still clinging to that original identity. (Presumably, the only other sentient synth his age is DiMA, who started as a clean slate and prefers to purge inconvenient memories rather than live with inner conflict. So poor Nicky truly is unique here.)

That's incredibly interesting and yet nothing much is done with it - Nick himself says in his personal quest he didn't really get the closure he wanted from avenging Jenny. But when he goes to meet DiMA, he essentially says the Nick persona is comfortable for him. So to me, it feels like he is still in identity limbo.

As a gamer, if you're not going to do anything with the Kellog concept, why even bother using the Kellog voice as a cheap kind of jump scare. Chekov’s Gun and all that. Don’t put the line in if there won’t be a payoff. Blame time/budget or lack of imagination.

But. From a storytelling and character exploration perspective, it's interesting for Kellog to be a threat, perhaps forcing the Sole Survivor to have to dig into Nick's memories (synth and human) to try to get rid of Kellog and help Nick figure out who he wants to be in the process.

If you wanted to gamify it, based on a second trip to the Memory Den (you got 1 shot, because Nick's system can only handle so many dueling personalities), you could end up with scenarios like:

1) You fuck up or you're evil. Congrats on ending up with a synth that is mostly Kellog, you monster.

2) You excise Kellog and help Nick not feel guilty about having Old Nick's memories, and that even though the persona is very comfortable and worth holding on to, he's become more of his own man than he considered. Basically, the Nick we know from FO4, but with actual closure. (And romance option, plskthx.)

3) Starts like #2, but you encourage Nick to let go of the Old Nick persona. You can persuade him to remain a detective in Diamond City, try something new with you, or even go to Arcadia (and all the possible permutations based on how you ended Far Harbor, or if you've even gone yet).

4) You do a mind wipe on Nick (which also gets rid of Kellog). You keep him as-is and he becomes your factory-reset bodyguard or you send him off to the Railroad Synth Protection program to become a G3 with a fresh set of fake memories (Good job, ya dingus, he's probably gonna go through the whole identity crisis cycle all over again in a few years.).

Tldr; Personally, I'm not thrilled at the idea of rehashing an identity crisis for Nick because I wouldn't trust the original writers to do it well. But in good hands, a Kellog sub-plot has really interesting potential that can pay off with quality closure for Nick and even a new direction for the character.

(fwiw, my ideal Nick ending from the list is a little bit of #2, a little bit of #3.)

#rrramblings #nick valentine #fo4 #fallout 4 #Nick dealing long term with false memories vs DiMA just... chucking his memories when they're inconvenient is such a good contrast #and missed opportunity to really explore in Fah Habah #all the companions deserve more #it's wild how even simple closure just isn't there for most of them #meta #fallout meta

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sage-nebula · 3 years

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Game Review — Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity

Well, it’s that time. While some might already know at least a good chunk of my feelings due to one or two posts I’ve made while playing, I’ve now beaten the newest Hyrule Warriors game (at least in terms of the main story + secret ending) and I think it’s time for me to write up a review.

Overall Score: 5.5/10

I know there are probably at least a few Legend of Zelda fans out there who want to tear me apart right now, but I urge them to actually read everything I have to say before they do. I’ve been a fan of this series since I was nine years old (I started with Ocarina of Time and Link’s Awakening simultaneously), and while my favorite Zelda game was Majora’s Mask for a very long time, Breath of the Wild unseated it and also took the spot as my favorite video game of all time, period. Thus, my expectations for this game were already pretty high, and the fact that Nintendo lied in the marketing . . . well, we’ll get to that. But overall the point that I’m trying to make is that I am a diehard Legend of Zelda fan, and I did like the original Hyrule Warriors as well, so this isn’t a case of “she just doesn’t like Zelda” or “she just doesn’t like Hyrule Warriors.” I promise my opinions are more educated than that. So with that said, let’s get to it (under a cut / on my blog for formatting reasons).

The Pros:

The little touches to make sure that Age of Calamity felt like it belonged in the same realm as Breath of the Wild made my heart sing the moment I first played the demo. Hearing the same menu sounds, seeing the same UI — all of that made me feel like I was returning home, and I really hadn’t realized just how much I missed the world of Breath of the Wild until that moment. While it is a Hyrule Warriors game for sure, it’s clear that they didn’t want to make it “Hyrule Warriors 2″ as much as they wanted to make it a Zelda game befitting Breath of the Wild, and I really appreciated the respect that went into that.

Overall, the voice acting was pretty top notch. Zelda’s voice still bothers me—there are times when she sounds okay, but I still wish they’d chosen a different actress to voice her—and Riju’s voice was a little weird, but overall the voice acting was just as good as it was in Breath of the Wild and I was happy to see every single cutscene voiced.

They put a lot of effort into giving everyone distinctive playstyles, even when it came to two characters of the same race who use the same weapons (e.g. Revali and Teba). The Neo Champions weren’t just clones of the previous Champions; rather, they stood out in their playstyle so that while you might like playing as one, perhaps you don’t like the other as much. (For instance, I hated playing as Revali, but Teba was very fun to play as.) And while I did stick with Link most of the time, there were enough characters that I really enjoyed playing as that it was no problem at all to me when I needed to switch characters mid-battle. In particular, I really loved playing as Impa and Urbosa aside from Link, with Riju, Zelda, and Teba as backups.

The music was incredible, but that’s to be expected from a Zelda game, let’s be honest. Of particular note is this track, which filled my heart with awe every time I heard it due to the inclusion of the Song of the Hero (seriously, when that choir kicks in at about 1:45 . . . [chef’s kiss]). But really, the entire soundtrack was incredible. I don’t think there was a single bad song. Which, again, is typical of a Zelda game, but I still feel it bears note.

Being able to pilot the Divine Beasts was AWESOME, no doubt about it. The best one (in my opinion) was Vah Naboris, followed by Vah Medoh. Vah Medoh was the easiest to use, but Vah Naboris was the most fun. After that comes Vah Ruta, which seemed always on the verge of dying, and then Vah Rudania. I just didn’t have as much fun with those two.

As far as I can tell, there aren’t any Points of No Return as far as the overworld quests go. While this does offer a gameplay and story segregation break (e.g. you can still face the Yiga as enemies even after they join you), at the same time I like it because you have to complete all the quests to get 100% completion, and it’d be rather awful if quests were deleted / cut off after a certain story point without warning.

Similarly, you can replay even main story quests at any time, which is useful for gathering materials you might need for other quests (or gathering apples which you need for healing and which, for some reason—I’ll save this for a later section).

The Neutrals:

Terrako. I just . . . okay. On the one hand, I hate Terrako because it is the catalyst for all the bullshit that happens in the plot, and the fact that Terrako was actually the most important one all along is annoying af. (Who will be key in defeating Calamity Ganon: The Hero & Princess of prophecy, or one eggy boi? The answer may surprise you!) But on the other hand, Terrako actually has a personality and is kind of cute as hell, and it was really sad when he succumbed to the brainwashing and you had to murder him. The memories Zelda has of King Rhoam taking Terrako away when she was a child as she sobbed and screamed for him to stop were also painful. So it’s like, I would like Terrako if, say, he’d been introduced in Breath of the Wild 2 as a tiny Guardian that Zelda built after the events of Breath of the Wild as like, a little companion / pet of sorts. In theory I like him as Zelda and Link’s child. On the other, I hate its role in this game, so I have really complicated feelings on Terrako over all. (I also apparently can’t decide which pronouns to use, but somehow I get the feeling that Terrako doesn’t even know what pronouns are and thus probably wouldn’t care.)

While the missions themselves were usually fun, the gameplay really isn’t friendly to anyone with any sort of carpal tunnel or anything similar. That is to say, a little bit of button mashing like this game’s gameplay requires made my thumb and wrist ache something awful. As a result, while I did have fun playing, I also experienced pain playing, and so I can’t really decide if this is good or bad, especially since there at least was some strategy involved depending on who you chose to play as (yet I feel it was less finessed than in Breath of the Wild, but since it’s a Warriors game that’s not too surprising to me).

The missions were fun, but they followed a similar format to the first Hyrule Warriors where you were going to be doing the same tasks over and over and over in different missions (e.g. capture the outposts, etc). The one plus is that I feel there was a bit more variety here in that there were escort missions and the like too, but again, that wasn’t too much and so it could get a little tiring after a bit.

It was nice being able to see a lot of characters from Breath of the Wild that I loved again, but honestly? I feel like it was mostly a wasted opportunity because none of them (at least no one in the main group) received any more development or fleshing out that we didn’t already see in Breath of the Wild. In fact, arguably they were flattened. Revali was an arrogant, argumentative jerk from start to finish, with none of the respect he had for Zelda or any softer sides showing through. We saw that Mipha had a crush on Link and that she was protective over Sidon, but we already saw that in the original game + Champion’s Ballad. We saw that Urbosa was caring, but again, we’d already seen that . . . and so on. This was an opportunity to delve into each of them deeper, but the game just rehashed what we already knew of them from the previous game rather than going into it in any more depth. Arguably the only ones we got to see more sides of were, of all characters, Kohga and Rhoam, and even that wasn’t much. So while it was nice to see these characters again and spend more time with them, I also feel that there was a major wasted opportunity in terms of writing and characterization, particularly since we never saw any major bonding moments with them unlike what we saw in the Champion’s Ballad on photo day.

I LOVED Purah, but I was insanely disappointed that she wasn’t a playable character. At first I thought it might be because they didn’t want to give us two Sheikah, but they were fine giving us two Rito, two Zora, etc, so I don’t see why Purah couldn’t have been playable. Yeah, she’s a scientist, but she’s also a freaking ninja. You can’t tell me she wouldn’t be able to defend herself. So while I’m happy that she had such a big role in the plot (bigger than Robbie, arguably), it disappoints me that we weren’t able to play as her.

Astor is a fascinating character, and I feel it’s at least heavily implied that he was the oracle who foretold Calamity Ganon’s return in the actual timeline. But that’s not specified and we really don’t learn anything about him other than Ganon apparently chose Astor himself, and wanted to use him as his right-hand, so that was a bit of a letdown all things considered. If he was the prophet, why didn’t Rhoam say anything? And how could Calamity Ganon choose Astor from the Dark World, or wherever he was sealed this time? Before playing my original thought was that Astor was basically like Agahnim — that is, a manifestation of Ganon that he uses to act while he’s still sealed in the Dark World, rather than an actual person who exists. But that doesn’t seem to have been the case, so . . . who knows.

Some of the maps could be really frustrating, in that the path to take either wasn’t clear enough or there were gates closed with no clear clues on how to open them, blocking off an outpost you needed to get it. My method of getting around this was usually to tell one of the A.I. characters to go there and then follow them (or switch to another character and tell the character I had been playing with to go there and trust the A.I. to accomplish it, etc) but it was still pretty annoying. That said, at least there were ways around it, and the maps themselves tended to be pretty big and well detailed, so I don’t hate the map design too terribly.

Did Sooga die? I honestly could not tell. On the one hand, it sure seemed like he died considering he was never again shown in a cutscene after Astor betrayed the Yiga Clan. On the other, I seem to vaguely remember seeing him on the battlefield sometimes and I find it very strange that Kohga wouldn’t mention wanting to avenge Sooga in particular if he was dead. But I honestly couldn’t figure out whether Sooga was dead or alive, so this goes in the neutral category for now because I don’t know whether to be mad about it or not.

The Cons:

NINTENDO. FUCKING. LIED. ABOUT WHAT. THIS GAME. WAS SUPPOSED. TO BE. Yes, that needed to be bolded, and yes, it needed to be in all caps. Nintendo advertised Age of Calamity as a canon prequel to Breath of the Wild. They did it over, and over, and over again. And do you know what? They lied! Because Age of Calamity is not, and could never be, a canon prequel to Breath of the Wild. It can’t be, because it’s an Everybody Lives AU that negates Breath of the Wild in its entirety. And as someone who downloaded the demo thinking that this was going to be a canon prequel—as someone who tried to hold out hope for that even with the warning signs in the demo—that made me really angry, upset, and concerned about the canon sequel. Because you see, Breath of the Wild merged the original three timelines so that we wouldn’t have to deal with split timeline nonsense anymore. But now Nintendo, for some incomprehensible reason given that Aonuma himself was allegedly the one who didn’t want to have to deal with split timelines anymore, went ahead and created a new one. And my concern is whether any of the bullshit that happened in Age of Calamity will affect Breath of the Wild 2 or not. Realistically it shouldn’t, given that Age of Calamity can’t lead into Breath of the Wild at all. But with the Neo Champions having gone to Age of Calamity to help them, I have concerns. Major concerns. If Age of Calamity affects Breath of the Wild 2 in any way, I’m going to be livid. And before I continue, let me just take a moment to say this: It’s not that I wanted to see the Champions be murdered, per se. I love all four of the Champions and I think that their deaths were absolutely tragic. But at the same time, that was kind of the entire point, or at least part of it. The fall of Hyrule and the death of the Champions were traumatic scars on the land. Countless people died that day, on top of the Champions being murdered in their Divine Beasts. Link himself technically died, or at least very nearly did. Entire villages were wiped out. You can still see those ruins on the landscape, untouched, crawling with monsters. But despite that, over the past 100 years, Hyrule has rebuilt. People are still alive, and are still thriving in different villages across the landscape. Many have not forgotten the past, especially those who had sent Champions to defend Hyrule 100 years ago. But they’ve still continued living, and in that, have refused to let Calamity Ganon defeat them. Moreover, the battle from 100 years ago is not finished yet. Zelda has trapped Ganon in the castle with her and waits for Link to come help her finish things, which they do. The Champions died, but Hyrule did not lose. Hyrule put the battle on pause until they could win, which they did. Breath of the Wild, through having a massive tragedy take place in its backstory, gives us a tale about how victory can be grasped from the ashes, about how you can be broken, but not beaten, and how you can still push yourself up and win no matter how long it takes. That is a beautiful, a powerful story, and taking the Everybody Lives route completely demolishes that. So suffice it to say, I thought the story presented in Age of Calamity was complete garbage.

But honestly, it isn’t just the story completely demolishing and trashing all over the themes of Breath of the Wild that makes it bad, but it’s also what was done with the characters. There were so many pointless retcons of established story and character elements that were thrown completely out the window that a.) destroyed character relationships and b.) flattened characters and took away what made them well-written in the first place. As just a few examples: — It is established in Creating a Champion (the Breath of the Wild compendium) that Link pulled the Master Sword from its pedestal when he was around 11 or 12 years old, and thus was known to be the Hero from that point forward. Note that he had already been in the knights at this point; we know from Mipha’s diary in the original game that he visited Zora’s Domain as a small child and was already sparring with adult knights at that time (which seems crazy, but he is the Hero, so). Nevertheless, being the Hero made Link realize just how much was riding on him, and how everyone in the kingdom was now looking to him as the Hero who would save them, personally. This caused Link to completely shut down his emotions out of anxiety of letting the people down or disappointing them in any way. He also stopped talking for the most part, again afraid that he would say the wrong thing and disappoint everyone. But in Age of Calamity, this is thrown out the window. From a gameplay perspective I get that perhaps they didn’t want you to have the Master Sword at the start, but since you can keep strengthening the Master Sword anyway there’s no reason why they couldn’t have just started it off as a kind of weak weapon that you power up over time. More importantly though is that Link has the same exact personality that he had in the memories in Breath of the Wild, even though he is not the Hero at the start of the game. I mean, he is, but no one knows that yet, and as such he has no reason to be stoic and silent, because his reason for being that way in Breath of the Wild’s backstory is completely gone. We could have gotten to see a goofier, more personable Link (even if they still wanted to keep him mostly silent), but instead we got a stoic, silent Link for literally no reason. It makes absolutely no sense. — As an added contradiction to the above, Mipha tells Link in Age of Calamity that he “hasn’t changed a bit” when they meet again in Zora’s Domain. This is in direct contrast to her diary, wherein she notes that the wild boy she met when they were both children has changed completely when they meet again as teenagers into someone stolid, though she’s not aware of the reason why. So once again, they doubled down on removing backstory that made Link into a more complex, well-written character. — To that end, Link and Zelda’s relationship is also rewritten entirely (and by rewritten, I mean “had all complexity stripped from it and with it any meaningful development). Since Link is appointed Zelda’s personal knight because he fights well instead of because he’s the Hero, Zelda has absolutely no reason to resent him being appointed her knight here like she did in the original history. You see, in the original history, Zelda resented Link for seemingly stepping into his destiny with zero effort given, and also thought (because of her own insecurities and the rumors that Rhoam told her to her face were being circulated about her being “heir to a throne of nothing”) that he looked down on her for not being able to awaken her powers and step into hers. For this reason, she spent most of her time either avoiding him or yelling at him, though she notes in her diary that she feels bad for doing so because she knows that it’s not fair of her to treat him badly when he’s technically just trying to do his job. It’s not until he saves her from Yiga assassins that she starts to do a hard reassessment of her treatment of him, and starts to try to get to know him better . . . which results in her getting him to open up to her, and her being able to open up to him in turn, and both of them becoming each other’s confidant. This in turn makes it understandable when it’s Link’s near death which finally allows Zelda to come into her powers; on top of having lost everyone and seemingly everything else, Zelda saw the one person she could be vulnerable in front of about to die protecting her. Link was so important to her by that point, regardless of whether you see her feelings for him as romantic or not, because he supported her emotionally on top of being there for her in physical defense. That is why her powers awakened when they did, why he was the final trigger. But in Age of Calamity, none of that happens. Zelda doesn’t resent Link because he’s not the Hero at the time he’s appointed her personal knight. Even when he gets the Master Sword later, Zelda is just sad about it rather than holding any sort of resentment or anger toward him. We never see them bond or become close; unlike in Breath of the Wild, where we have memories of Zelda trying to feed him a frog, opening a conversation about fate and destiny and whether one could make a choice in opposition to those things, or scolding him while patching up his wounds, all we get here are repeated scenes of Link defending Zelda from attacks. That’s it. We never see her have any sort of actual conversation with him, we never see them bond or have any non-battle related moments together. We certainly never get an indication that Link opens up to her either, which means that each time he protects her here it’s less “I’m protecting the one person who I’ve been able to open up to about who I really am” and more “it’s all about my paycheck.” Link and Zelda’s relationship, whether you saw it as romantic or not, was the core relationship in Breath of the Wild. And yet, in an alleged prequel (that wasn’t really a prequel after all!), it’s pretty much nonexistent. — Moreover, Zelda’s character gets flattened, too. Here’s the thing about Zelda in Breath of the Wild: She’s written like a real person. She has many good qualities (selfless, devoted, intelligent), but also many flaws (stubborn, short-tempered, quick to judgement). The way Zelda decided she knew all she needed to know about Link right away and reacted accordingly (and by “reacted accordingly” I mean “treated him badly”) was a result of her flaws. But Zelda realizing that what she was doing was wrong and endeavoring to make things right was a direct result of her good qualities. Breath of the Wild’s Zelda is not a perfect person, not because she has a difficult time unlocking her powers (pretty much anyone would in her position, she was dealt the shittiest hand in the world), but because she’s a realistic person who has flaws and makes mistakes and is just doing her best in a world that is determined to knock her down at any opportunity. As a result, we see a lot of emotional range from Zelda throughout the memories in Breath of the Wild. We see her curious and inquisitive, we see her frustrated, we see her sad, anxious, angry, playful, determined, loving, impatient, brave. She’s a compelling character because she is a character, rather than the Deus Ex Machina perfect princess who exists only to either be rescued or be a holy figure who seals away the evil at the end. (Which I mean, she does seal away the evil at the end, but that’s far and away not the only thing she does.) But in Age of Calamity we see . . . basically none of that. There are very brief moments where Zelda is curious about technology, or where she daintily laughs at something Terrako does. She does get determination and her anxieties wiped away after she awakens her power near the end. But for 90% of the game all we see from her is her being anxious or sad about her power. We don’t see her get irrationally resentful of or angry toward Link. We don’t see her getting impatient, making hasty judgments about people or animals (remember, she also judged her horse as unworthy of the royal bridle before Link helped her learn how to bond with her horse properly), or doing mischievous things like trying to make her personal knight eat a frog for Science. I’m going to be perfectly honest with you: While I deeply felt for Zelda in the flashbacks of Breath of the Wild, I got tired of her constant “:( I’m useless :(” angst in Age of Calamity. It got old pretty quickly. And most of all, I was so disappointed to see that the character I loved was now just here to be a woobie, rescued by Link half a dozen times and sad for most of the story. Breath of the Wild’s Zelda is my favorite Zelda, and she was done such an injustice in this game. It was immensely disappointing. — Link and Zelda were not the only issues here, though. The way the Yiga Clan also needs to be talked about, and in order to discuss them, I have to first remind everyone of their history. So. 10,000 years ago. Civilization was thriving thanks to Sheikah scientists and innovators, who created things such as the Sheikah Slate, the Guardians, and the Divine Beasts. It was this technology that allowed Hyrule to triumph over Calamity Ganon the first time he came around to play (or at least that time that he came around to play), and they won pretty handily at that. However, the Hyrulean King at the time quickly grew suspicious and fearful of the Sheikah. Although the Sheikah had faithfully served the Hyrulean Royal Family for milennia due to their goddess-given oaths, the King of Hyrule felt that the Sheikah not only could, but would use their technology to rebel against Hyrule and dismantle the Royal Family. As a result, he: - Exiled the Sheikah from Central Hyrule, as well as any villages or towns where Hylians lived. - Criminalized Sheikah technology, which included imprisoning (or even executing) any Sheikah known to be conducting scientific research, as well as destroying Sheikah technology (or burying what could not be destroyed, such as the Divine Beasts and Guardians). - Essentially legalized Sheikah oppression. The people of Hyrule backed the king in his decree, for the most part, buying into the bigotry and prejudice that spurred it on. The Sheikah had everything taken from them and destroyed: their homes, their research, their artifacts, everything. And while some Sheikah remained loyal to the oaths they swore to the goddesses and decided to keep peacefully in a newly formed, yet secret out of fear of retaliation, village (Kakariko), another group of Sheikah were rightfully fucking pissed at being oppressed and subjugated for no good reason, especially right after they helped save the world. Their opinion on the matter was “fuck that guy, AND his entire family.” These Sheikah became known as the Yiga Clan. Now, why they felt it was a good idea to side with Calamity Ganon is not entirely clear, given that destroying the world would also mean destroying them. But I think that on top of being furious with the Royal Family for this betrayal, they were also furious with the goddesses, because not a single goddess stepped in to defend them when they were being betrayed and oppressed. The Sheikah had kept loyal to their oaths for millennia, and yet this was how they were repaid. If you think about it like that, then the Yiga siding with the one who would destroy everything and everyone the goddesses had ever created makes a twisted kind of sense, even though it assures their own destruction right along with it. And now that we’ve refreshed that backstory . . . let us visit what happens with the Yiga in Age of Calamity. So. First, we see that Astor is the one who has convinced Kohga to go along with reviving Calamity Ganon, even though that doesn’t really make sense since serving Calamity Ganon has kind of been the Yiga’s thing from the get-go, and that they didn’t hate Zelda and Link because Astor told them to, but rather because Zelda was a member of the Royal Family (a.k.a. the people the Yiga have held a grudge against for 10,000 years), and Link is the knight defending her / the Hero. Next, we see that they’re completely aimless without instructions from Astor, which again, doesn’t really make sense considering their goals have always been pretty clear and they’ve been a tightly-run organization from the beginning no matter how bumbling Kohga is. Finally, Age of Calamity has them join the Royal Family and heroes despite this being the antithesis of what they’ve been devoted to for, again, 10,000 years. And here’s the problem with that: In Age of Calamity, Kohga’s alleged reasoning for wanting to join with Zelda (and bowing to her, what the fuck) is because Astor used Yiga Clan foot soldiers (and I think Sooga? It was unclear) to fuel Evil Terrako to resurrect Calamity Ganon. Kohga felt betrayed by this and thus decided to take Astor down. Given that the Yiga Clan have been established to hold grudges over betrayal for millennia, Kohga turning on Astor makes sense. However, it was also already established that the Yiga wanted to revive Calamity Ganon to destroy the entire damn world even though it would mean their deaths as well, because they hated the Royal Family and goddesses just that much. So Kohga deciding to join the Royal Family, and actually bowing to Zelda, makes absolutely zero sense and cannot be excused just because they gave him a line about gagging at the fact that he joined up with Zelda. It’s a complete dismissal of and slap in the face to the legitimate reasons that the Yiga Clan had for defecting from the Sheikah, and does absolutely nothing to address the oppression the Sheikah people suffered as a direct result of the Hyrulean Royal Family’s laws. And yes, that was 10,000 years ago and Zelda herself had nothing to do with it, but we also have little evidence that the current Royal Family has done anything to change it, at least for reasons other than their own benefit. It’s stated in Creating a Champion that King Rhoam was the first king since then to reach out to the Sheikah to try to repair that relationship, and that he only did so when the prophecy about Calamity Ganon rising again was made. Moreover, he made sure to keep a very tight watch on the Sheikah scientists, indicating that he still may not trust them. So whiel the actual betrayal was 10,000 years ago, it’s clear that the Royal Family has not once in 10,000 years attempted to genuinely make up for the oppression that was forced upon the Sheikah, and so the Yiga Clan have every right to still be absolutely fucking furious about it. I can’t blame them for that at all, and I hated seeing Kohga bow to Zelda like that for that reason. (All of this said, no, it doesn’t excuse their other bastardry, such as stealing the Thunder Helm, or murdering the wife of someone who tried to peacefully defect and then threatening to also murder his young children if he didn’t continue to do Yiga missions. The Yiga do some truly fucked up things and that bastardry is not excused by their sad history. However, when it comes to the Royal Family their resentment and fury makes sense, and I hate that this wasn’t addressed in a game that wanted you to team up with the Yiga. They’re not the haha funny bad guys, they’re people who had a legitimate reason to be furious, and the Sheikah as a whole were never given anything remotely close to reparations by the Hyrulean Royal Family. This is something I hope is addressed in Breath of the Wild 2, although my expectations for that are pretty low.) — Finally, while a much lesser note than all of the above, I also found Riju’s characterization to be questionable. I might be misremembering her small part in Breath of the Wild, but while we learn from her diary that she does have some doubts about her ability to lead the Gerudo at her age (particularly given that the Thunder Helm was stolen from her), I don’t remember her having such low confidence, or being so meek so that she would constantly need Urbosa supporting her. I feel like they may have characterized her that way because she’s a child, which I mean, I guess I understand, but it just felt like an alteration of her character to me. I could be wrong since it’s been a while since I played through that part of Breath of the Wild, but that aspect of her character just felt off to me.

Moving on from the story and the characters, I also have to say that the amount of graphical inconsistencies in this game were really just . . . impressive in number. I’m talking specifically about Link’s different outfits, and whether he would actually be wearing them in cutscenes or not, because honestly? You could never know if he was going to be in the outfit you put him in, or if he was going to be in the Default Outfit for any given cutscene. I get the feeling that the difference lies somewhere in-between whether something was a pre-rendered cutscene or like, a quick time event one, but nonetheless it just felt incredibly sloppy and kind of defeated the purpose, at times, of being able to dress Link how you wanted him.

I had issues with the gameplay at times as well, apart from what I already mentioned before. Namely, I found it incredibly frustrating how sometimes, despite being locked on to an enemy, the Sheikah Slate apps wouldn’t actually target that enemy (e.g. Stasis activating on a bokoblin instead of the targeted attacking Lynel). Similarly, I wasn’t a fan of how A.I. characters couldn’t be easily pointed around the map at times, refusing to go to certain locations until you swtiched to them and forced them to go there (e.g. when you had to manually make them jump down to the field during the Akkala Citadel battle).

Why in the actual hell can you not a.) eat ingredients other than apples during battle to heal, and b.) BUY APPLES LIKE ANY OTHER INGREDIENT? Holy fuck it was so goddamn annoying having to go into random battles to try and scrounge up apples from crates and boxes, and only really being able to do it from lower level battles because higher level battles wouldn’t give them as readily to "increase difficulty” (more like to increase frustration). I see no reason why you couldn’t purchase apples from shops, or eat other food items like berries or fish like you could in Breath of the Wild. Apples didn’t even heal that much health, so you had to mash several of them at once late game, and you could only hold a small number and couldn’t buy more . . . frustrating. Just absolutely frustrating for no good reason. (Like if it was a harder difficulty restriction I’d understand, but for normal difficulty? Jeez.)

All in all, if Nintendo had just been upfront and honest about this being an alternate universe game from the very start, I probably wouldn’t have been as furious as the story as I was. I would have still been disappointed, but the anger wouldn’t have been there at the very least. But the weren’t honest—they lied in order to get people to buy the game, and so that dragged the score down along with everything else. While I did like some aspects of this game, overall I feel that it could have been so much better, and all I can hope is that none of it affects Breath of the Wild 2 in any way, shape, or form.

#2020 game reviews #hyrule warriors: age of calamity #loz: age of calamity #''Scrawlers why do you get so mad when things about LoZ are wrong''#because I'm a FUCKING NERD that's why #this game strongly triggered my Super Nerd Wants To Fight instinct & the only ones who should be sorry are Nintendo

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silver-wield · 3 years

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Do you think Advent Children was really necessary? Like, did you really need to regress the Cloud character to get the message of "Forgive yourself and move on"? For me, this movie is not good, the only thing I like about this movie is messages from it (But I have to admit it's not well executed in general) I remember well the criticisms I had in the past, like "Curly movie that wastes time with nonsense like the antics of Reno and Rude" "Kadaj and his generic emo-punk gang and Deus-Ex Machina, just to get it off his ass and put Sephiroth on fan-service" "Cloud emo and depressive who can't stop blaming himself all saints hour and has a tantrum ignoring his friends." "Denzel the annoying boy who only knew how to cry the entire movie" . So, nowadays I don't know how the legacy of this movie was, but the fans at that time were pretty pissed off, at that time many were already convinced that Square was just making money and screwing with the FF7 universe, so the stories were getting dated and without any logic, with characters and nonsense plot (Genesis feelings), Crisis Core even has the weird and messy story, the only things that made up for that game were (Incredible Soundtrack, Zack and the ending). Oh sure, by that time people were also finding it very confused and doubtful about Nomura's directions since Kingdom Hearts. I think that's even why there was that part that was afraid of FF7R, when they announced it as the director in this part, although seeing how it was a result of this remake towards the end of the game, OG fans get really pissed off at Nomura, calling it "Final Hearts 7 Remake". Let's see the future and see what will happen, we know that the future that FFX awaited, was not at all pleasant, then we have an FFX-3, well, most are already traumatized with what happened to history, that I don't even need to comment. I won't lie, I'm afraid of the future of FF7.

Tbf to AC it helped save square after their merger with Enix because before that their last work was FF spirits within, which almost killed Squaresoft. AC revitalised them and showed they can still pull in fans. It wasn't a great work, which is why it was revised. It's basically FF7 rehashed in 2hr format which wasn't needed and Nojima said the original story was just 20m long about Cloud Tifa and the kids, so I get the struggle. Also, Nomura was still in his annoying phase at the time wanting to be ambiguous and "let people think", but thankfully he's learned people are dumb and doesn't do that anymore.

Nomura actually reined in the team who had more out there ideas, so blaming him for the ending just cause the giant arbiter looks like a heartless isn't really fair on him. I mean, what do people think weapon is if not a gigantic monster made from the planet?

People don't have to like the ending or all the compilation titles, but they're canon, so it's like saying you hate the official story because it doesn't fit your accepted values of what it should be, in which case why are you here? It's not gonna change cause you hate it. All that happens is you look salty and bitter about it. I don't like all the elements in the compilation, but they are what they are 🤷‍♀️

#final fantasy 7 remake #ff7r #ffviir #final fantasy 7r #final fantasy viir

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reachexceedinggrasp · 4 years

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Fated to Love You here reaffirming my long held conviction that no pure romance drama should be 20+ episodes.

This show is... really something. It is, in the fullest possible sense, A Lot. It starts out as an all-out screwball comedy wrapped around a troperiffic romance fluff plot. Wall to wall clichés, but not in a bad way; in a meta, self-aware, peak performance, finest Velveeta way. And if you’re not familiar with screwball comedy, think ‘light-hearted crack fic with slapstick and farce’. There is nothing believable or grounded about any aspect of it, it starts at Bonkers Level: Platinum and it only climbs higher as it goes on.

(On a side note, this results in the leading man being possibly the most memorable love interest in romcom history. His introduction scene is nothing short of batshit insane and you can't reliably predict how he will respond to anything. I have never seen a main character like this, he is all over the shop and utterly singular. Your first reaction to him is ‘wtf?’, your second and third reactions are ‘really?! this guy??’, your fourth reaction is ‘okay he do be mad hot tho’, your fifth and final reaction is ‘I cannot believe this performance exists, I have no idea what he is doing, but it is amazing.’

Appropriately(?) the actor who plays him is an uncanny Korean doppelgänger of Johnny Depp and- between the resemblance, the mannerisms, and the fearless total commitment to a bold as fuck acting choice with the very serious chops to back it up- I’m not convinced they aren’t half brothers separated at birth.

They do sabotage my happiness several times by starting to randomly style his (long, beautiful) hair very weird, fixing it right when the plot is rapidly circling the drain so he looks his hottest just as the show becomes briefly unwatchable, and then ruining him for the entire second half of the series by shearing it all off. WHY, my anguished cry goes up. Why do you do this?! Why does he have like seven hairstyles over the course of the show? Much later they even briefly give him that ubiquitous Kdrama Second Lead haircut with weirdly forward combed fringe in a solid straight line across the brow all the way back from the crown. It looks terrible on everyone and I hate it so much. This version was less bad than most but it is still bad. Anyway.)

So it’s an incredibly fun time to start but there are some problems with the tone and plot even in the first 9 episodes, including when the lovers start getting along really well right away and they’re both thoroughly decent people so there’s nothing keeping them from having a lovely time together making the best of the circumstances (forced/fake marriage). And, instead of introducing new conflict or advancing one of the dozen conflicts previously established and actually moving forward, there is a painfully contrived rehash of something they already dealt with which is then just never resolved. They make the hero leap to a conclusion his wife is nefarious after he’d already decided once that she isn’t (though it was completely reasonable for him to think she was- the fact that he decided to trust her so quickly just speaks to what kind of person he is), never try to find out more or talk to anyone about it, start pushing her away because of it, and have all this come to absolutely nothing. It only exists so he’ll stop being so incredibly nice to her and they won’t fall in love too fast.

You’d think they would have to eventually clear the air before the romance advances right? No. It wasn’t a real plot point, it was just a reset button to get them estranged and hostile again after they connect over their kindred spirits and we’ve spent a bunch of time showing how profoundly supportive and honourable our hero is. He’s being beautifully mature and selfless because he’s a really good dude (unusual for a romcom drama, right? for the main guy to be nice and considerate? to accept responsibility even if he doesn’t have to? Gun’s weird but he’s wonderful), but the writers need him to be cold and standoffish, so they just make him act like an unreasonable idiot for a while. He’s been thus far hugely proactive and direct and honest about everything, it’s one of his most prominent character traits, but suddenly he’s going to avoid confrontation in favour of being super passive aggressive?? Then the writers never solve it. Never! It just goes away. He got over it, I guess? He decided he doesn’t care if she’s a gold digger who deliberately trapped him? God forbid we have motivations that make sense and organic character drama, right? It's not like he didn't have totally valid reasons to be suspicious that could have led to legitimate conflict our heroine would struggle to vindicate herself from.

But anyway, apart from that kind of lazy bullshit, it’s a fine romance plot with extremely endearing characters who have great chemistry. They are fun and well-rounded and incredibly human despite all the silliness and OTT antics. Their relationship is hugely, hugely engaging and the dynamic is perfect, they really complement each other as characters and organically drive each other's arcs. There's the genuine depth and warmth and quiet pathos so often lacking from this kind of show. Things progress at a semi-reasonable pace. They work up to confessing their mutual feelings and get into some cute shenanigans before making out. It happens soon enough that you are not frustrated, but there's still plenty of build-up. Then- uh oh! We’re only 9 eps in and we have another 11 hours to fill with this fluffy plot!

Time for a bunch of absolute fucking nonsense. Time for our show, which has been so goofy and removed from reality it occasionally resembles a Monty Python skit, which has been so light it asks you to ignore the frankly incredibly fucked up implications of its premise for the sake of comedy (they were both drugged and proxy raped resulting in a pregnancy- the FL was a virgin prior to this and Gun had a girlfriend he wanted to propose to- and it was the FL’s family who did this to them: SUPER FUCKED UP), so farcical that it makes Some Like it Hot look like a gritty crime drama, that show to cover a bunch of serious heavy shit.

First, the rankest of melodrama. The families and the world all turn on our couple, but their love is true and will conquer all- UNTIL, he randomly collapses and gets convenient Soap Opera Amnesia. He’s forgotten their entire relationship and a series of coincidental pieces of misconstrued evidence, the machinations of his scheming ex girlfriend, the Soap Opera Doctor’s advice, and his closest confidants all going along with this conspire to make him believe (AGAIN) that his wife just wants his money.

This whole terrible episode is mercifully brief, but it just gets worse after his memory returns. This is where we get into the Noble Idiocy. The ‘pretend you don’t love them to “save them” from getting hurt by hurting them and making their important life decisions for them as if they don’t have a basic fucking right to decide that themselves’ kind. Which goes on for three FUCK years in the show. He wastes three years of their lives they could have spent together because he’s worried he might die young (in a terrible way) and doesn’t want to put her through that. And, of course, they inevitably get together later, so all he did was make it infinitely worse for her either way. To say nothing of how he thus couldn’t be there for her through the loss of their child. Possibly my most hated fucking trope of all time when done this way.

And, yep, you read that right. This show that has the single most batshit bonkers over the top slapstick I have ever seen in a kdrama, this show has a storyline where the fluffy romcom trope accidental pregnancy ends in massive trauma. Because she was standing around in the street after realising he does remember her (he continued to pretend he had amnesia after his memories came back, it’s all part of the stupid noble idiocy so I glossed over it) and gets hit by a car in the middle of their angst staring.

It is nearly Meet Joe Black levels of hilariously abrupt and incongruous.

so, blah blah, they lose their baby (there’s a very stupid whole thing about her telling everyone to save the baby instead of her- the baby is not far enough along for this to have been remotely viable. She is like 3 months pregnant. They all act like there’s a choice to be made between them and she’s mad at her husband for choosing to save her, but there was NO CHOICE. Either she lives or they both die! ffs I’m so irritated about this) and then he dumps her ~for her own good~~ because he loves her too much to make her go through losing him? So she loses him sooner?? right after their baby died???

Why do people in these stories always think being betrayed and abandoned for no reason and being incredibly angry at someone you love while also not getting to be with them is somehow less painful than making the best of your life together and then losing them against their will? ‘I will make her hate me and then she won’t be sad we broke up/I died!!!!’ is such a fucking galaxy brain take and I despise it with the heat of ten thousand suns. Fuck you, Spider-Man. You aren’t protecting anyone, the villains still know you love MJ and will still use her against you, you clod. Emotionally torturing the person you love is not going to make them not a target because the villains are not as fucking stupid as you two. Anyway.

Amnesia was right where I started fast-forwarding and skipping around (because I couldn’t bear it), but it only goes downhill from there. Maybe I would have toughed out more of the wretched middle part plot twist if they hadn’t cut all the hot guy’s hair off. If I’m going to watch total nonsense tedious melodrama, I need it to at least be pretty. I understand it was a Symbolic Haircut but damnit! Let me have this!

And it ultimately does the thing that kdramas seem obsessed with and which makes me want to claw out my own eyeballs with frustration. There’s a giant time skip, the female lead gets a personality transplant, all narrative momentum is lost, and the characters who eventually (at ENORMOUS length) get together permanently are essentially completely different characters with a completely different dynamic than the couple you were shipping for 90% of the story. It is so FUCKING unsatisfying and it is EVERYWHERE.

Not so much with this one because this one still had a lot of very romantic scenes late in the game, but most that do this, it’s also like all the romance is sucked out of the post-time skip episodes and the ending is a consolation prize instead of a triumphant culmination. Inevitably, the heroine abruptly cools off and is suddenly wary of the hero and wants this Important New Career she never mentioned until the penultimate episode but is now her one true life’s dream. What the apparently irresistible appeal is of these contrived separations and demure conclusions is I CANNOT FATHOM. I’m here for the fucking romance guys, you have not made Citizen Kane, please just indulge me with a big schmoopy finale.

And if not that, it’s frequently that there’s been so many random mood swings and so much shitty behaviour by the end that the relationship doesn’t make sense and you don’t know why they even bother to get back together.

I’m not inherently against all misunderstandings (they are the bread and butter of low stakes romance let’s be real) or attempts at noble idiocy from misguided characters, but the duration and seriousness of the drama these generate needs to be in proportion to how ridiculous they are. If your entire plot can be solved by a thirty second conversation there is NO REASON not to have and the continuation of the misunderstanding is a result of someone just NOT SPEAKING UP when any functional human being would have spoken up seven times by now IT’S BAD.

Do little cliff-hangers, whatever, but don’t draaaaagg out silly misconceptions into Shakespearean tragedy, it’s just wearying. It makes me hate the characters for acting like emotionally constipated toddlers with terminal stupidity. If there is so little trust, so little understanding, and so little basic patience between these people, they probably shouldn’t be dating, so try fucking harder, writers. And noble idiocy that is more than an impulse they fairly quickly see the error of is just insulting. You are not helping the other person, you are being domineering and selfish. I have a whole complex about wasting time and seeing endless parades of characters flushing years down the toilet for literally no reason gives me hives. Especially when the whole issue is about time!

(And, btw, so much of the plot is about how desperately the family needs an heir and everyone still wanting them to have kids the second time they get together- while the ~dilemma used to keep them apart is a GENETIC DISEASE which could STRIKE AT ANY TIME. Do you SEE THE PROBLEM WITH THIS WRITERS????? NO, I KNOW YOU DON’T. ommmmmmmmggggg that’s awful! So they’re just dooming more kids to Soap Opera Brain Disease? And maybe growing up without a father just as Gun did? And no one even considers suggesting adoption??? He never considers that he shouldn’t have biological children despite thinking he shouldn’t have a wife?)

ANYWAY. Please do watch the first nine episodes and the last three, it’s bananas. They are cute as fuck, Gun is The Best, and the tropey romance scenes are top quality. You don't get those things executed so well, it doesn't happen, so you need this in your life. The acting is of a calibre you never usually see in modern romcoms; these are people at the top of their game committing utterly and taking these characters completely seriously. In that way it is pure wish fulfilment for me as someone who loves romance and is almost always disappointed by popular romance media, and thus the show is incalculably special. But skip the middle. Just skip it. It's not worth the suffering. I find the tone whiplash honestly just this side of crass.

I’ve been thinking about it for over a week and I truly love the main characters so it did plenty right, but I just cannot with wedding the two things this show is trying to be together, especially when it goes so hard in two mutually exclusive directions. but also the Meet Joe Black sudden car accident device is not redeemable under any circumstances. Can we never do that again, please.

#fated to love you #kdrama #jang hyuk #writing

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warsofasoiaf · 4 years

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Have you played Fallout 4? What did you think of it?

Joseph Anderson had a phenomenal video on Fallout 4. Although it is enormous, so be careful. Overall, there were things to like and things not to like about Fallout 4. I’ll start with what I liked first. Throwing a cut in here because it’s long.

Combat in the first-person Fallout games has always been clunky, and enemy AI relatively largely consisted of straight charging or shooting from as maximum range as possible. Difficulty came primarily from enemy quantity, high damage output, or incredibly enemy hitpoints. The last of these has been a particular Bethesda problem in their games, with enemies being incredible damage sponges, making late-game fights a boring slog as you slowly whittle down their health while being impossible to damage in any meaningful capacity. While enemy variations aren’t nearly as high as the game’s fans would have you believe if you conceive of them as AI patterns, the AI activity did have some nice variations. Human enemies used cover, ghouls bobbed and weaved as you shot them, mole rats tried to ambush you. It’s got nothing on games with fully realized combat system, but it does make the combat that you do engage in much more enjoyable.

All of the random crap you can pick up in a Bethesda game having a purpose is another positive. It is a true nuisance to find out when playing a game that I hit my encumbrance limit only to find out it’s because I’ve picked up a bunch of brooms, bowls, and other garbage accidentally while grabbing coin and other worthwhile treasures. Actually having these things mean an object is worthy mechanically, aside from level design; typewriters are useful as items as opposed to something that shows you that the ruined building you’re in was formerly a newspaper. As crafting is a big portion of the game, having these things provide component parts that you use for crafting on their own creates more utility in these elements of clutter which still require modeling, rendering, placement, etc. Now if you need aluminum, you’ll try to raid something like a cannery because it will have aluminum cans, which is an excellent way to create player-generated initiative. It also reinforces one of the primary themes of the game which is crafting and design, where even the trailers of the game suggest building as a key idea of the game. Certainly sensible for a post-apocalyptic game to focus on building a new society upon the ruins of the older one, and given what the game was trying to do with their four factions mechanic, it’s clear that this was their intent, and good job for trying to ensure that things factor back into their principal intent.

Deathclaws look properly scary, the animations with Vault Boy were funny, there’s some pretty window dressing. The voice work wasn’t bad, the notable standout being Nick Valentine. The Brotherhood airship was an impressive visual. I had a little fun creating some basic settlements, particularly in Hangman’s Alley where I tried to create a network of suspended buildings and Spectacle Island where I had room to grant every prospective settler a shack. Bethesda clearly looked to create a game with mass market appeal, and I believe the metrics bears out that they succeeded in that regard. The robots in the USS Constitution quest were very funny, the writers were able to make the absolute ridiculousness of the situation work (curse you Weatherby Savings and Loan!) and framed it well as a comedic sidequest, with a final impressive visual if you side with the bots and the ship takes flight.

Now that this is out of the way, I think that a lot of what Fallout 4 did was not the right move.

The quest design was particularly atrocious in this regard. Most of the radiant quests boiled them down to a simple formula - go to the dungeon, get to the final room where you need to either kill the boss or get an item from the boss chest, return. In this game though, the main story quests often were boiled down to just this simple formula. You need to find a doodad from a Courser to complete your teleporter? Go to the dungeon, kill the boss, recover the item. The Railroad needs you to help an escaped synth! Do it by going to the dungeon and getting to the final room. This really hampers the enjoyment of games because the expressiveness of the setting and elements of an RPG is often explored through quests. Quests are meant to get you out into the world and give you an objective, but they are also meant to connect you to the people that you’re dealing with. If every quest is boiled down to the same procedure, that hurts the immersion, but the bigger sin is that when you return you have another quest waiting for you. That robs the player of the sense of accomplishment because there is no permanent solution to problems, even for a minute. There is no different end-state for the player to see the transition from one to the other and feel accomplished that they were the ones who did it. Other RPG’s always understood this - a D&D game might have a party save a town investigate an illness dealing with a town, take out an evil druid who has charmed the wildlife into attacking supply and trade shipments, slay goblins who are raiding cattle, there are a lot of possibilities that might even feel samey: if you’re killing charmed dire wolves or goblin cattle thieves, you’re still going to the dungeon and fighting the boss, the usual flair and variation came from encounter design. After you’d do that though, the NPC’s might say “Hey, Mom is feeling better after you cured that disease, she’s starting to walk again,” “Hey, we were able to send a shipment of wine from the vineyards out to the capital, here’s some coin for the shipment as reward for your service,” or even just a simple “Hey, thanks for taking out those cattle thieves.” There’s a sense of accomplishment even if it’s a fleeting “we did a cool thing.” Computer RPG’s are tougher in this regard, part of the sense of accomplishment in tabletop gaming is also with your friends, it’s a shared activity, but usually in that the reward was some experience and character growth and going to new content. There isn’t new content here in Fallout 4 though, because of the samey quest design and lack of progression.

The conversational depth was also ruined, with so much of the voice choices mangled by the system of conversation they designed. By demanding a four-choice system, they limited themselves to always requiring four options which completely mangled interactivity. The previous menu design allowed for as many lines as you wanted, even if the choices were usually beads on a string. The depth and variation, however, are even lower than what could be found in games like Mass Effect 3, and the small word descriptions were often so inaccurate that it created a massive disconnect between myself the player and the Sole Survivor, because they weren’t saying what I thought they would be saying. That prevented me from feeling immersed, because a “Sarcastic” option could be a witty joke or a threat that sounds like it should come out of a bouncer. The character options were already limited, with Nate being a veteran and Nora being a lawyer, but this lack of depth prevents me from feeling the character even moreso than a scripted backstory. You get those in games, but being unable to predict how I’m reacting is something that kills character.

Bethesda needs to end the “find (x) loved one” as a means to get people motivated to do a quest, or if they don’t want to rid themselves of that tool in their toolbox, they need to do a better job getting me to like them. More linear games can get away with this, but open world games encourage the sort of idle dicking around that doesn’t make any sense for a person who is attempting to find a family member. Morrowind did this much better, where your main task was to be an Imperial agent, and you were encouraged to join other factions and do quests as a means to establish a cover identity and get more acquainted with combat. Folks who didn’t usually ended up going to Hasphat Antabolius and getting their face kicked in by Snowy Granius. Here though, what sort of parent am I if instead of pursuing a lead to find my infant son I’m wandering over east because I saw what looked like a cool ruin, and I need XP to get my next perk (another gripe, perks that are simple percentage increases because they slow down advancement and make combat a slog if you don’t take them, depressing what should be a sense of accomplishment). By making us try to feel close with a character but by refusing to give us the players time with them, there is no sense of bonding. I felt more connection to James in Fallout 3 than I did for Sean, but even then, I felt more connection to him because he was voiced by Liam Neeson than because of any sense of fatherly affection. The same goes for the spouse and baby Sean, I feel little for them because I see them only a little. I know that I should care more, but I also know that I the player don’t because all that I was given is “you should care about them.” You need time to get to know characters in game, along with good writing and voicework. I like Nick because he quoted “The Raven” when seeing the Brotherhood airship and I thought that was excellent writing, I didn’t have any experiences with Sean to give me that same sense of bonding.

They’ve also ruined the worldbuilding. The first-person Fallout games have always had a problem with this, with Fallout 3 recycling Super Mutants, the Brotherhood of Steel, and other iconic Fallout things into Washington D.C. Part of this is almost certainly the same reason that The Force Awakens was such a dull rehash of the plot of A New Hope, they wanted to establish some sort of continuity with a new director to not frighten off old fans who they relied on to provide a significant majority of the sales. The problem of course, is that this runs into significant continuity problems, now needing Vault 87 to have a strain of FEV and having a joint Vault-Tec/US Government experiment program there on the East Coast, so we can have Super Mutants. Jackson’s chameleon isn’t native to Washington D.C., but we need to have Deathclaws because they’re the iconic scary Fallout enemy, as opposed to creating something new with the local fauna, which is only made worse because they did do that with the yao guai formed from the American black bear (the black bear doesn’t typically range in the Chesapeake Basin near DC these days, but it’s close enough and given the loss of humans to force them back they could easily return to their old pre-human rangings). Some creatures are functions of the overall setting and can be global, ghouls are the big one here since radiation would be a global thing and fitting considering Fallout is a post-apocalypse specifically destroyed by nuclear war. Others though, are clearly mutated creatures and so they would be more localized. Centaurs and floaters were designed by FEV experiments and collared by Super Mutants, they should really only be around Super Mutants. Radscorpions shouldn’t be around, there would probably be instead be mutated spiders. Making things worse are that the monster designers do develop some excellent enemies when they think about it. Far Harbor has a mutant hermit crab that uses a truck as a shell (a lobster restaurant truck, which is passable enough for a visual joke even if it falls apart when you think about other trucks that they might use) and a monster that uses an angler lure that resembles a crafting component - these are good ideas but the developers needed to awkwardly shoehorn in iconic Fallout things that have no place there. This isn’t to say that I’m in love with a lot of Fallout’s worldbuilding, a lot of the stuff in Fallout 2 I found to be kind of dumb particularly the talking deathclaws, but as the series went on it took objects without meaning. The G.E.C.K in Fallout 3 was pretty much a magic recombinator which makes no sense as a technology in a world devastated by resource collapse, something similar can be said about the Sierra Madre vending machines.

Fallout 4 though, had a lot of worldbuilding inconsistencies that really took an axe to the setting. The boy in the fridge outlasts the entire Great War, but apparently never needed to eat or drink water. This is, of course, stupid, because ghouls have always been shown to need to eat and drink - Fallout 1′s Necropolis section has a Water Chip but if you take it without finding an alternate source of clean water, the ghouls will die. Ghoul settler NPC’s that flock to your player-crafted towns require food and water. The entire thing was ruined from a complete lack of care, to build a quest where you reunite a lost boy with his still-alive ghoulified parents. I think this one bothers me not simply because of the egregious worldbuilding which isn’t even consistent in the very game it’s written it, but it’s done so frivolously for a boring escort quest. It feels scattershot, and that’s the problem I think with a lot of Fallout 4′s quests. They feel disconnected, like every writer worked in a cubicle without talking to any of the other writers. Same with things like the Lady in the Fog.

Are we done with that? Good, because now we’re going into the parts that I really dislike - the main quest and the factions. These are just awful. The developers took what folks really liked when it came to Fallout 2 and Fallout: New Vegas (Fallout 1 did have interesting factions but they were largely self-contained, more towns than anything else) and completely botched it. New Vegas was the clear inspiration for these factions, with the four faction model of NCR, Legion, House, and Indepenedent meaning that there were four different ways to go forward into the future, so we get three factions that fight each other and a fourth more player friendly faction that roughly resembles the Independent Vegas where you can pick and choose which factions you bring in with you and which you get rid of. Thematically, this fits in with the core of the game, crafting is a big portion of what you do and so crafting what sort of world the Commonwealth would be is simply a logical extension of it. The factions aren’t presented well though. The Railroad are impossibly naive and don’t demonstrate any rougher edges like denying supplies to humans in order to fuel their synth effort, even though such a thing should be evident if the post-apocalypse of the Commonwealth is to be believed. The Institute are sinister murderers and replacers without bringing any of the advanced technology that could provide some benefit such as the gigantic orange gourd that can grow. So much of their kill-and-replace mentality seems to be done for no great overarching purpose. The Minutemen are basically blank, pretty much just a catch-all for the player-built settlements, though the player as the leader of the Minutemen ends up getting bossed around by Preston to the point of the faction rejecting your commands to proceed with the main quest, a significant problem with Bethesda factions where you are the leader but never get any actual sense of leadership. There doesn’t appear to be any addressing of the failures of the previous Minutemen whether that be the previous summit, or new problems such as settlements feuding with each other requiring the general to intervene and mediate. The Brotherhood come the closest to a real faction with advantages and drawbacks if you squint, they are feudal overlords with the firepower to fight Super Mutants and other mutated nasties, but also violently reject ghouls and synths as part of their violent dogma except for seemingly not caring when you bring a companion around or killing ghoul settlers in settlements they control. But even then, we don’t really see the Brotherhood providing protection to the settlements that they demand for food, the typical radiant quest to destroy a pack of feral ghouls or super mutants is directed from a Brotherhood quest giver to a randomly determined location, hardly a good way to illustrate whether or not the Brotherhood is actually protecting settlements that they administer. We see little change in the way of the Commonwealth save that certain factions are alive or not because the game needs to stay active in order to perform radiant quests, so not even the signature ending slideshows can give us the illusion of effects building off of our actions. This is contrary to the theme of building a better world in the Commonwealth because there is no building.

Special notice must be given to the Nuka-World raiders because they show the big problems with the factions. You can be a Raider in Nuka-World but only after becoming the Overboss, which is fair enough. But you’re already a Minuteman, but the Minutemen don’t activate any kill-on-sight order and Preston still helps you out. The game is so terrified of people losing out on content that they make permanent consequences rare, and when you do something like order an attack, it can be rescinded automatically if one of your companions is there. As an Overboss, you do grunt work in the Commonwealth, and the factions get mad and pissy if you don’t give them things despite even if you only give one section of the park to one of the factions, that’s more than they got from Colter. It’s like they don’t exist until the player shows up, which is exactly how a lot of modern Bethesda character and faction building seems to be. While in most computer games a sort of uneasy status quo is the desired beginning state because it gives the protagonist the chance to make ripples while justifying the existence of a status that allows the player to change it, it has to be applied consistently.

The main quest itself is silly. There’s a decent twist with Sean becoming Father that sort of works, which would have worked much better if we had actually gotten a chance to bond with him, although the continuity of everything gets wiggy quick. When he said that he looked over the world and saw nothing but despair, I was wondering if they were going to actually bring a big question up and a debate between Father and the Player, the idea of what worth the people on the surface have, but it goes nowhere, it’s a missed opportunity. The main quest is just a means to meet all four factions and it’s a barebones skeleton at best. There are some interesting concepts they try, but what they do often falls flat. They try to establish some sort of empathy for Kellogg in the memory den, but it’s lazy and cheap because he kidnaps a baby and wastes your spouse, a wasted effort of empathy only made worse when you get criticized for not showing any sympathy. Kellogg then shows up in Nick’s memory for one second and then that little story nugget is ignored. The half-baked nature of the story keeps being brought back up, which is a pity because we actually saw them do a competent job in Far Harbor. The Followers of Atom are crazy and they really aren’t sympathetic in any way, but some of the folks inside the sub aren’t so bad that it might prevent you from wanting to detonate the sub, or at least you might think enough that you look for another solution. DiMA did some monstrous things, and if you bring him to justice, the game actually takes the time to evaluate whether or not you helped out Far Harbor, with meaningful consequences being taken if you took the time to do the sidequests which imparts far more meaning to them.

While there’s a lot of problems that show up in terms of binary completion, the question of whether to replace Tektus and turn the Children of Atom to a more moderate path is a good question, it actually gives a lot more merit to the Institute if they were ever to have been shown to enact the same level of care. That only makes the Fallout problems stand out more, because it shows that they were capable of it but didn’t. This isn’t the only missed opportunity, synths themselves become a big problem. The goal was to create a very paranoid feeling but it was so sorely under-utilized that I never grew suspicious of folks because the game never gave me enough incentive to be suspicious of them. I didn’t think that Bethesda made synths that would give you false information or ambush you because that would have been potentially missed content. The idea of whether you are a synth or not is clearly an attempt to give the game more depth than it is presenting. You’re not a synth, Father’s actions make no sense if you are one, and DiMA attempting to make you think you are is silly because you know you aren’t one.

I think the game would have been much better if they had dropped the notion of Fallout entirely. If they had instead looked to create an open-world post-apocalyptic game focusing on crafting and building towns, perhaps with an eventual goal state of building many towns, establishing transportation networks, and rebuilding a junkyard society as a decent place (or going full Mad Max Bartertown complete with a Thunderdome for players looking for an evil and over-the-top option). That might have been an interesting game for Bethesda to potentially develop a new IP, even contracting with smaller studios for those who wish to tell story-heavy games in the setting. Instead, they applied Fallout like a bad paint job, cobbling together weak RP elements and story that made the game feel like a hydra that couldn’t recognize it was one being with multiple heads, constantly tearing the other parts of itself to ribbons.

If I wanted to further improve it, I think I would have instead made the spouse a synth. It would require some serious reworking, but I would have made it so that Sean did believe that synths were people, or that they were real enough that the difference was negligible, they had free will. During the initial grab, the Institute took the entire cryopod where Sean was, baby and parent both. They used Sean to create the next generation of synths, but something happened with the parent, and they died during defrost. Sean hates the Institute for what they did, but what happened was truly a medical complication, not malicious in any way. When he learns that the player character is active, he creates a synth programmed to believe they are the spouse. He believes that exposing who he really is to the surviving parent would be traumatic, and as he hears that the player character is thriving, he wants to give them a chance at a normal life, and to alleviate the loss that he had in his life with the loss of his own parents. So the spouse is sent to you, and for a long time, you and the spouse have no idea. You adventure together, you build settlements together, the game encourages you to have a good relationship. It doesn’t have to be hunky dory, and I’d argue it’s actually better if it’s not. Have the spouse be programmed with some rough experiences in the Wasteland, so they’re nervous, skittish, maybe even a little resentful that the player character snoozed their way through everything, but slowly rebuild the relationship. That way, when the quest eventually comes where you find the truth, the player character has to confront that reality. Then when you confront Sean, Sean explains himself and the player is given the choice to forgive him, be understanding but still angry, or be hugely pissed at the manipulation. That’s drama that uses the core theme of what synths are about with the whole kill-and-replace motif the Institute does. There’s a plot twist that batters the player, there’s one that’s just messy and gross and tough to reconcile. There’s one where the conclusion the player comes to is valid because it’s the player themselves deciding what the meaning of it is.

So overall, I see Fallout 4 as a bunch of missed opportunities and clumsy writing wrapped up in the popular shallow open-worlds that triple-A games end up having.

Thanks for the question, Jackie.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

#fallout 4 #fallout #video game reviews

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taraknowless · 4 years

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Did u watch season 4 of qots? What did you think? It's like fandom pretends it never existed lol which is too bad because I thought there was some good plots and stuff.

Of course I have ;)

I honestly didn’t mind it that much??? Sure, it was the “worst” season so far, but the writers really were dealt a shitty hand considering Peter’s uhm short departure. The way S3 left off indicated such an interesting storyline and it’s quite obvious that James has become an important character for the show so in S4, the writers probably had to overhaul their entire main storyline in a short period of time. And that sucks. But the thing is: I went into the season knowing that James would only be back in the last 30 seconds. I was prepared. If I had watched it live, I probably would’ve gotten angrier each week and I would view the entire season with incredible anger, because what the network did (keeping the fans in the dark about what really happened) was incredibly shitty.

Other than no James, I think S4 mainly suffered from forgettable antagonists and some of them felt like rehashed versions from S3. Overall, Cortez was dead, Camila was gone, Devon couldn’t be realistically used without James etc. and up until that point, the show failed to build up a new enemy for Teresa and that was really noticeable in S4. It was like “Ok, who is she even fighting? A bar owner from New Orleans and a corrupt judge? Didn’t she once ran away from the entire Mexican government? Hmmm”

So I guess that’s basically my main complaint??

However, I did enjoy that they brought back Tony. I think that was a really good storyline and I also like that KA was, in fact, not dead. I even liked the storyline with Eddie. Shocker, I know! I appreciate what the writers wanted to tell with that storyline (and it was kinda just a big love letter to Jeresa, because now we got proof that ain’t nobody compares to James haha). Granted, it dragged on for too long, but it is what it is. I also really enjoyed Javier and wish that his story had ended differently!!

Overall, I honestly think they sometimes just didn’t have enough plot for an entire season, but they were dealt a really shitty hand and somehow still managed to make an okay-ish season in my opinion. It’s definitely better if you binge it (as I did), because then you don’t notice the slow storyline with very little progression.

#queen of the south #janina talks qots #anon #replies

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blackidyll · 4 years

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It's been a long while since I've been on Tumblr, but here I am, trying to get back into my usual rhythm of life. Mainly: I'm alive, but I'm really, really tired.

The end of 2019/beginning of 2020 has been really insane. I fell sick for most of December - the whole cough/cold/sore throat trifecta that got so bad I finally ended up on antibiotics on New Year's Eve. I actually took two weeks of leave in December, but I was so sick and busy during this time that I basically got no rest whatsoever, and when I got back to work in January it was to drop straight into an absolute tsunami of work - one huge project ended the day before Chinese New Year, and immediately after CNY holidays I had another huge executive event to prepare for (I was working over weekends), and when that ended last week I got YET ANOTHER project dumped on me. Covid19 and the political situation in my home country is also taking its toll. I feel like the past two months has been an absolute blur - mostly of stress and negativity.

I'm so tired, you all.

Anyway, I'm trying hard now to pull back and strike a balance between work and having down proper time. I owe quite a few of you replies to messages and chats, and TBH there's like 60+ comments in my AO3 inbox that I haven't had a chance to respond to. I'm going to try hard over the next few weeks to get to all of them. I really appreciate every message and comment I get, because they constantly remind me there's still people and the entire world out there, when sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in my head with all my stresses and worries and the day-to-day grind.

I'm going to go throw a bunch of things in my queue to get this place kickstarted again, but in the meantime - have some fic recs. I've been reading a lot of fic to keep afloat the past three months; these are the WIPs I'm following at the moment. I'm completely out of creativity so my own fics will have to wait, but it always gives me a boost when I see some love for my WIPs, so if any of these appeal to you, give them a read and drop some love to those authors too.

The Bureau Files series by Catsafari [The Cat Returns, episodic/case style canon-based sequel; Baron/Haru]

i kill giants by diasterisms [Star Wars new trilogy; canon-based sequel to The Rise of Skywalker; Rey/Ben]

Ragnarǫkr, Part 3 of the Sharingan Rising series by weialala [Naruto; canon-divergence with supernatural elements; Sasuke-centric, technically Sasuke/Naruto but is more Sasuke's relations with everyone]

Peripeteia, Part 4 of the Carry Your Heart verse by mondaze [Shingeki no Kyojin; canon-based A/B/O verse, eventually diverges at the retake Shinganshina arc because Erwin lives (\o/); Erwin/Levi]

Just Another Day by Tierfal [Fullmetal Alchemist; post-manga series, Roy has severe PTSD; pre-relationship Roy/Ed]

try something new by gdgdbaby [Nezha (2019); post-movie oneshot where the two have grown up and gotten their bodies back; Nezha/Aobing]

WIPs that haven't been updated recently but since I'm on a roll, you all should read them:

Nukume Dori by Leareth [Tokyo Babylon, X/1999; canon-divergence, kind-of time travel with X!Subaru falling back into the TB!timeline with all his memories intact; Subaru/Seishirou, a lot of trio interactions with Hokuto]

boy with a coin, Part 5 of the signal to noise series by twigcollins [The World Ends With You; post-game sequels exploring the consequences of Neku winning the long game and Joshua deciding to bring him back to life; Joshua/Neku]

(more info and my comments on each fic under the cut, because they get long)

The Bureau Files series by Catsafari [The Cat Returns, episodic/case style canon-based sequel; Baron/Haru]

I've been (re)watching Studio Ghibli movies on the weekends and I fell completely in love with The Cat Returns (I love Whisper of the Heart but I missed this movie somehow?). This wonderful sequel fic series focuses on an adult Haru that becomes a full-fledge member of the Cat Bureau and goes on plenty of adventures with the Bureau crew. It's also 500K words (!!!) of delicious slow slow slow SLOW burn between Baron and Haru. I just found out the author will be posting the next installation in the series this month, so you know. Perfect time to read the existing content and then follow the author's weekly updates for more of this amazing series.

i kill giants by diasterisms [Star Wars new trilogy; canon-based sequel to The Rise of Skywalker; Rey/Ben]

Yes, I'm a Reylo fan. I find the grey dynamics between Rey and a vaguely redeemed Ben Solo fascinating. I think it's because I was such a huge Luke and Mara Jade shipper from the Legends days. Anyway, I'd recommend pretty much all of diasterisms's Reylo fics (they nail the characterization + growth arcs incredibly) but this WIP in particular is a direct TROS sequel, which is great for all us fans who were very WTF about the way TROS ended. Also - lots of Force ghosts :D

Ragnarǫkr, Part 2 of the Sharingan Rising series by weialala [Naruto; canon-divergence with supernatural elements; Sasuke-centric, technically Sasuke/Naruto but is more Sasuke's relations with everyone]

I think my bookmark gushes enough about this series (and the previous installment) that I don't need to rehash it here. But anyway, this sequel is flipping amazing. The world building is so incredible omg. The wait between chapters is very long but so very worth it.

Peripeteia, Part 4 of the Carry Your Heart verse by mondaze [Shingeki no Kyojin; canon-based A/B/O verse, eventually diverges at the retake Shinganshina arc because Erwin lives (\o/); Erwin/Levi]

I'm usually very, very particular about my A/B/O verses (the concept squicks me a little but some writers subvert the trope and those are amazing) and this is a really great take on the trope - Erwin and Levi bond first out of necessity and then have to rebuild/realize a romantic relationship out of it later; they're already such strong friends and incredible partners that the bond actually throws them out of whack initially lol. But the evolution of their relationship is so well written, and the sub-plot about Levi being targeted is also great. Anyway, in this particular sequel goes back to the canon-timeline; Erwin survives the Beast Titan charge, everyone finds out about Marley, and the Survey Corps goes on a mission to make contact with the outside world. I don't actually follow the manga but I know enough that this sequel is really intriguing me. Also, Erwin lives. Thank goodness Erwin lives.

Just Another Day by Tierfal [Fullmetal Alchemist; post-manga series, Roy has severe PTSD; pre-relationship Roy/Ed]

Everything Tierfal writes is golden, but this one. Oh man, this one. It gets dark, and sometimes that's bad if you're already stressed (your mood doesn't need more depressing things to drag it down) but sometimes... you also want to indulge in it, because when you see a character go through hard and traumatic times and make it out the other side, it gives you hope too, you know? Anyway, right now at chapter 2, it's all trauma and pain for Roy, so take caution while reading this fic, but......... Ed. Oh my goodness, Ed. He tries so hard. He doesn't give up. This fic reminds me a bit of But Not Buried This Time, where Ed is the one drowning in his guilt... I remember thinking while reading that fic, "goodness, everyone needs a Roy like this in their life." Well, for this fic? I just keep thinking, "goodness, everyone needs an Ed like this in their life."

try something new [Nezha (2019); post-movie oneshot where the two have grown up and gotten their bodies back; Nezha/Aobing]

not a WIP but what the hell. So this version of Nezha is hell of a lot different from the Nezha I remember of my childhood (in that....... Nezha 100% kills Aobing lol and I remember being very conflicted because I love dragons and Nezha kills a lot of them, but at the same time deity!Nezha is pretty badass?). So anyway, someone with creative control DEFINITELY has shipper glasses on when they made this movie, I cannot get over how adorable Nezha and Aobing are. I really enjoyed this movie, it was so over the top and funny. And they made Nezha and Aobing literal soulmates? This fic is cute and adorable because it's Nezha and Aobing traveling and helping the world after they grow up and regain their bodies, and it's just tons of adorable teenage(?) confusion where they're hovering on the edge of friendship and something more. THEY ARE SO ENDEARING I love them!!

Instead of dying on the Promised Day, 25-year-old Dragon of Heaven Subaru wakes up in his 16-year-old body during the Tokyo Babylon timeline. Having seen what the future holds, he decides to continue with his original Bet with Seishirou - this time fighting to win. In the latest installment, we go pass the TB timeline into the years before 1999 and the changes that the divergence makes is just absolutely fascinating, plus we start seeing more of the X/1999 cast, whom I love and adore.

I love Joshua so so much but he digs his own bed willingly and he lies in it with all the broken pride he can muster. He's very much the master of forfeiting the game before he can lose, except this time it's Neku standing beside him, and Neku is very, very stubborn. Trust your bloody partner, Joshua (I say, with all the love in my heart for this Joshua and this poor beleaguered but incredibly stubborn Neku and the all the game mechanics and worldbuilding in this series). Also, the latest cliffhanger is killing me but I'm ready to see Joshua go absolutely feral on anyone who would dare touch his city and his partner.

#*#fic recs #i looked down and then back up and suddenly it's march #and yeah i read in a zillion fandoms that i don't write in. i read a LOT of fanfic #i've been surviving on reading fanfic and listening to studio ghibli OSTs and watching figure skating competitions #i'm so tired i want a nap #btw i've gotten a lot of lovely comments on my fics and i love all of them #but i'm so numb from tiredness it's hard to muster up the energy to reply #but i love them all! esp all the people who commented on my 00Q RB fic #i was feeling very emotional because it's probably going to be my last 00Q fic (unless no time to die really changes things)#and i was stressed from work and CNY obligations but so many people said such lovely things about my 00Q fics #and told me they'll still follow me on tumblr #ahaha i felt guilty because i hadn't been on tumblr for a few weeks even back then #but it was definitely motivation for me to get my ducks back in a row and start using my tumblr again #ngl tumblr will be an escape because if i keep reading local politics and covid19 news on twitter my soul gets sucked into a black hole #i hope everyone else's 2020 is going much better #keep safe keep healthy and please take care of yourselves!!!

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rogueshipagogo · 4 years

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ppl have been asking me my opinions on space channel 5 vr... and i guess since i bought a vr headset off craigslist just so i could play it and speedrun it before work the day it came out... i should talk abt it now... i dont rly think i’ll be able to separate it into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things i think i’m just going to do a rambly stream of consciousness bc i have a headache... but i DO have good things to say abt this game... so st.... sta stay t tune d

right off the bat, the thing i appreciate most abt this game- i like that space channel 5 vr doesnt have cash grab vibes. i Do genuinely believe that they Wanted to make this game For the people who are still obsessed with it, and that they ultimately did what they set out to do when they intended to scale certain aspects of the series up conceptually to match the way the fandom perceives it nowadays. but like i’ve said before... i’m not going to Disagree with the very common conclusion that it Needed to be longer, or at Least more intricate plot-wise. one of my fun and fresh excuses for sc5vr being as short as it is is because you arent really supposed to be playing vr games for too long anyways, its really disorienting and kinda painful, but even that doesn’t account for why so much of the game that we got is a rehash of old settings, concepts, songs, and characters. [i dont even have a problem with reusing old songs, i just think the ones they chose ended up being misleading]

for example i think it makes sense that the first report is a remake of the first games first report on the surface, it’s meant to take you back to the way the first game felt and give you an idea of what it means that the games classic scenery can be rendered in actual high quality detail now [same with the recurrence of events like encountering the space pirates in the asteroid belt/the last battle against a villain being singing to it about what it’s done wrong], but i really thought, like, report 1 was going to end up being a simulated scenario for the benefit of lou and kee’s training... which i dont think ended up being the case??? i think they really did write ‘ok here you are in the first game’s setting again, fighting the old enemies again, because... :^) ok have fun playing report 2!’

and then whats report 2... you fight another old boss from the first game... but theres Still no clear villain or motivation for anything thats happening... and there wont be until like... basically the end of the game...

like, glitter is a really cute character, but its kind of underwhelming that shes just a random citizen who was kidnapped by an entity that we NEVER LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT... like part 1 was extremely notable for being about corporate greed and corruption, part 2 honestly wasnt that political in comparison but at least made you do a think wrt purge’s motivation and his methods, and this game just has a plot device that feels like it’ll do smth but then ends up not doing anything beyond what we already learned about it from the information on its character bio before the game was out. if it turns out that cell x is actually relevant again in a future entry in the franchise and they do have a more developed concept for what cell x Is in mind, i’ll do an entire backflip, but for now its just chalked up to being the result of More Space Hijinks that dont need to be explained

ESPECIALLY WITH ALL OF THE ALLUSIONS TO CELL X BEING AN ENTITY THAT FEEDS OFF OF DANCE ENERGY... it had me thinking that there would have to be some New Method of fighting it off that didn’t just lend it more power in the process, but nah apparently just tacking on the disclaimer ‘*this dance energy is not for glitter’ is enough to turn it from smth it can consume for power into big attacks you can use to kill it... like honestly it sounds like im asking for a lot from a game that has Never made too much sense, but considering that in part 2 they could add details like ‘oh didnt you know purge can open pocket dimensions? ulala is capable of manifesting tangible dance energy and the only other person who can do that is purge???’, its not like they havent come up with weird new shit for dance energy to do within the plot before. they just didnt do it in this game fsr

like did anyone else think that cell x/glitter was going to be the result of tossing purge out into deep space and him encountering the sc5 universe’s equivalent of an eldritch alien creature, smth more bestial than morolians?? even if purge wasnt part of it, when you say ‘uh oh, this guy Eats this society’s only source of energy!!!’ i expect the stakes to get HIGH, and i want the ramifications of it to be kinda STARTLING, because blank wanted money and purge wanted to ritualistically end the world but something this near to an ecological disaster that would force an entire paradigm shift hasn’t occurred yet in the series?? its totally new!!! there’s a lot they could do with this but OH DONT WORRY ABOUT IT EVERYONE ulala knows how to make dance energy kill cell x instead of feed it she’s got this we’re good no need to investigate more into all that

i can’t explain why the game is like this. and i dont expect grounding to address it in any meaningful way either. i’m sure they’re Aware of these complaints by now- the game reviewing community has Not been kind to sc5vr specifically due to all of these shortcomings [i didnt even touch on the issues with motion sensing and how many of the games mechanics were removed in favor of smth presumably easier to program yet much less satisfying, like Secret Moves just being mini quicktime events and Turning Your Ratings Into Stars just being replaced with the standard Three Strikes You’re Out method of scoring], but the pr team still seems very enthusiastic abt the game and is still promising dlc and potentially even more games in the series after this one- heres hoping that they’ll at least take these grievances to heart and consider making the experience not only more accessible [aka it will... go back to being a rhythm game with controller input.... and not... an exclusive vr experience...], but also as immersive and detailed as the old games, with less reused plot beats. i can let some of it off the hook in this game simply because i’m aware that it began its life as a tech demo that was only supposed to be that initial first report from the first game But Happening All Around You!, but i Really dont think they could get away with doing this little to expand upon the groundwork set by the first two games again. not with the way people remember part 2 being such a vast upgrade from part 1... the bar had been set so high that this just felt like a huge backslide into something even sillier and harder to take seriously than part 1 before we had any idea what kind of staying power the franchise would have as a hallmark of sega’s quirky antics. like... this game is what i think space channel 5 looks like to people who don’t understand the appeal of the first two games. and that scares me

but i guess for the most part, aside from wishing they had done more to revitalize the setting and the lore of the sc5 universe itself, im kind of glad it didnt do a lot to change the existing storylines the characters have kinda forged for themselves- here i was stressing out that they would pull out some plot development that would utterly and drastically change the way we talked abt the series for the rest of time, but so little happened and so little was added to the bank of sc5 lore that we can kind of all just carry on as usual and keep having the same headcanons we always had.

BUT!!! there ARE a lot of cute little details here and there that make the experience feel wholesome and like i said not an utter cashgrab- like so many of the character profiles referencing previous games [all of the references to npcs in this game being relatives of the npcs of the last games made me lose it] and how often ulala changes her expressions up and looks right at you and talks to you. the new music they wrote for the game also all slaps and everyones redesigns [if they got a redesign... rip pudding] are stunning

one of the most important things they did in this game was give a nice sort of Update to every character.... for example explaining that ulala isn’t a rookie reporter any more like she was in the first 2 games, that she’s moved up to being in charge of training new channel 5 reporters, and that while pudding is still somewhat stuck on her rivalry with ulala her career isn’t stagnant either, she was just cast in a romcom series as the lead... which is really nice considering how in the past she was portrayed as somewhat of a loser with almost no remaining fans left from her idol years

and you knew i was going to bring up jaguar at some point HES ALL OVER THIS GAME AND IT LITERALLY MADE ME FEEL LIKE MY LIFE WAS WORTH POWERING THROUGH THESE LAST FEW YEARS AND ALSO LIKE IM A GENIUS FOR SPENDING SO LONG POSTING EVERY SINGLE DAY ‘NO REALLY, HE’S THE SECONDARY PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY, ITS ABOUT CHANNEL 5 AS A COMPANY AND THEIR IMPACT ON EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER ENCOUNTERED THEM AND THAT INCLUDES JAGUAR AS WELL AS ULALA HES INTEGRAL TO THE PLOT BC SHE WOULDNT BE ALIVE IF IT WEREN’T FOR HIM’ i feel like it’s really incredible how in this game he has genuinely nice energy and doesnt withhold praise from ulala just to be helpful in a mysterious way later and he like HAS FRIENDS now. like consider how he went from disgraced former ch5 employee who got mad every time he saw them, to kidnapped robot henchman kinda humbled by the fact that now the turns tabled and ulala had to rescue Him, and now 3 years later his bio is all about how he has a new tv show thats super popular and he has a new entourage of ladies who he considers his '’’’’’comrades’’’’’’’ within the station he founded??? AND AFTER 20 YEARS THEY WERE FINALLY ABLE TO GIVE HIS MODEL JUICY ASS CHEEKS??????????????? NO MORE PANCAKE BOOTY???? THE BOY HAD A GLOWUP AND NO I WONT STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

WHEN I SAY MEOW MATCH THE POSE MOTHERFUCKERS THIS BLONDE BASTARD GETS TO BE IN CHARGE OF THE HUNDRED STAGE BATTLE NOW TOO THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE SPACE PIRATES BAYBEE

#its almost 4 am. idk i will probably have more to say tomorrow. my head still hurts #the galaxy depends on my funky moves

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mrmallardsmobileposts · 4 years

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My Star Wars Shipping Hot Takes

THERE WILL BE UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SEQUEL TRILOGY IN THIS POST

TAG "#TRoS Spoilers" IF YOU WANT TO WIPE THIS POST FROM YOUR DASH COMPLETELY

THIS HAS BEEN MY SPOILER WARNING, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ABOUT STAR WARS SPOILERS

Finn/Rey should have been endgame, or at least brought up by Finn instead of the BS non-committal "I've got something to tell you" line they play with for the rest of the movie. Bring it into text and acknowledge it fully instead of using it for a few cheap gags and leaving it hanging.

They had great chemistry in TFA. They bonded really easily and got along really well, it seemed like Finn was chatting her up a little at times and by the end of the movie they're incredibly close. Finn puts his life on the line and gets fucked up by a lightsaber to defend her. John Boyega and Daisy Ridley played off each other really well, they had really good chemistry. I really ship it.

The only hitch, imo, is the total lack of screentime they have together in TLJ. Finn's plot just kinda went nowhere and he got a rehash of his "running away" arc in TFA, and I think the Rose Tico kiss was really lame and forced. While I can appreciate their eventual reunion, and within the scope of the movie it's not unreasonable for them to not meet again until the end, I really don't dig how much time they spend apart in TLJ from a shipping perspective and I don't think the Finn/Rose pairing is very good.

To address the elephant in the room, I'm not the most positive person about Rose Tico, but I'm chill with her and I think her character would have been fine with better material than she had in TLJ. Not trying to chud things up, here. The most extreme thing I have to say about Rose Tico, within the scope of this post I'm making, is that I didn't think the actors had that much chemistry to justify a romance, the kiss was goofy with the laser going off behind them, and while I don't disagree that Kelly Marie Tran got screwed over in TRoS, I'm ultimately glad that her and Finn are good buddies in that movie instead of partners. I'm not saying her reduced role is fine, just saying I'm glad that this pairing doesn't seem to be canon. I'm glad they're still close, though. Finn is definitely the heart of the group, pulling everyone together.

The thing about Finn/Rey in TRoS is that while the chemistry isn't there on the same level as TFA - partially due to the hatchet-job editing of the first half where people are barely able to vocalise a single coherent thought before the plot ushers them along to the next point - I felt like it still existed for a while. They teased it with the "I've got something I need to tell you" line from Finn, and then they never bring it up again. Like what the fuck, wrap up the plot point instead of dragging it out for the most painful humor of the movie and failing to resolve it.

This brings me into the Reylo portion of my post.

While I don't ship it, I refuse to hate Reylo. I've got a great write-up of my Reylo opinion on my main blog which explains why, if you search for "reylo". Basic point is that a lot of the initial backlash was predicated on assumptions that people were adamant would be proven true in the next movies, and those assumptions turned out to not be the case 4 years later in 2019, so I refuse to treat it like the pariah it was in 2015 for those reasons.

I'll admit that I really enjoyed the ending with Ben Solo. Adam Driver sells the difference between Ben Solo and Kylo Ren so well, and while I understand that he did a lot of bad shit and wiped out planets and committed space genocide and stuff - Darth Vader also committed space genocide and killed hundreds of people, and his body count continues to rise in supplemental materials. And yet he was redeemed by Luke, and was able to return as a force ghost despite the genocides and mass murders he committed as Darth Vader. There is a precedent for people redeeming themselves just before they die in the Star Wars universe, even when they do some really heinous shit. As such, I am not against this happening for Kylo Ren. Star Wars is just that kind of series, for better or worse.

My opinion of Reylo is that it's kind of like fanfic mode a lot of the time. It got really wacky in TLJ, and it got way more pronounced in TRoS. That's not necessarily a detriment, but it was what it was. I don't buy Kylo Ren and Rey as romantic interests necessarily, especially when I think their relationship is really, really odd and reminiscent of fanfiction cliches, but there's enough subtext for people to read into it and I don't really care if people like it or not.

If Reylo is the endgame ship, then that's fine. I don't necessarily like it, even as I acknowledge that problematic ships will always have their audience. A ship can be used as a force for good, as long as it isn't being used to actively promote abusive tendencies or like really gross shit.

Some ships are off limits, straight up. Reylo is dicey, but I don't think it's worse than a lot of villain shipping is - there's been room for edgy villain shipping before, and I think Reylo occupies that space now and has every right to. As long as people aren't encouraging people to engage in abusive practices through their storywriting, or pushing alt-right talking points and fucked up things like that through their writing, Reylo has enough wiggle room to be a perfectly ordinary pairing in the fanfiction community.

Saying that, though - here's why I prefer Finn/Rey.

He's a close, friendly and positive force in Rey's life, they shared the start of their journeys and they helped each other grow into the heroes they became. Poe spent most of TFA missing in action, and he only meets Rey at the end of the movie. Rey and Finn spend the bulk of their character moments together, and it's the character development from these interactions - spurred along by Han and Chewie, of course - that fuels their ascent into hero figures at the end of the movie.

Why don't I like Reylo more? Because the Kylo Ren stuff seemed like essential backstory stuff, whereas Finn and Rey's characters naturally got along like a house on fire. Kylo Ren also spends most of the time getting rain on his gloves through inter-force touching in a bunch of weird, forced, fanfic-tier scenes, whereas Finn and Rey hug and celebrate and bond through conversation, not trite, rigid backstory.

I can buy Rey kissing Ben Solo at the end of TRoS. I can buy her feeling love for Ben Solo, and finding it frustrating that she can't break through Kylo Ren to get to him. Fuck, in that ending scene where Kylo is explicitly Ben Solo again, Rey and Ben have actual, honest to god chemistry, and it's cute as fuck. But that moment took a lot of catching up to get to, and before her and Kylo showed any hint of affection together, Finn was her comrade in arms, someone who shared her victories and helped to further her growth, and vice versa.

Reylo has a pretty solid conclusion, I will certainly give it that. But I feel like the Reylo conclusion is steeped in that classic "I can redeem the bad guy through love" trope like the original Star Wars, except with a romantic angle this time. Ben's redemption didn't have to be with a kiss - it could still happen without the romance angle, but the romance is added in to distinguish it from the other Star Wars examples.

Ultimately, I think having Ben's redemption spurred by romantic love is broke, whereas Rey finding a buddy in Finn, having their ups and downs together, shielding each other from harm and becoming close through mutual shared experiences and proximity is woke.

What about Finn/Poe? Ship it if you want, it's all good. I understand why this ship was initially so popular, and while I don't ship it, I'm not the shipping police and I get the premise behind it. Poe/CrimeGirl? This was shoehorned tf in, but if you think it's neato, it's neato. Poe/Rey? I think they would make a terrible couple, but whatever. Poe/Finn/Rey? Everyone wins. Add Kylo Ren anywhere into the mix and you can have yourself a party, depending on your stance on the character. Make any of the characters gay, bi, pan, ace - literally whatever, outside of a few significant parameters just about every ship is valid. I'm not a hard-ass, shipping is fun and outside of some really bad shit I'm generally down for people having a good time. I just like Finn/Rey the most.

Also, Maz Kanata is really neat and I hope she gets more screen time. If her lifespan makes it squicky to ship her with the younger characters, that's your business and I understand and respect that, but frankly I would write a romance story about Maz Kanata falling in love in a heartbeat - I just don't know who. I've written Doctor Who fanfic where a 2000 year old alien woman dates a 21 year old policewoman from Sheffield, so as long as the right boundaries are respected, I think a Maz Kanata story could be pretty fun and non-problematic like with a Doctor Who story.

Anyway that's my Hot Takes post

byeeeeee

#tros spoilers #spoilers #star wars spoilers #star wars #reylo

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rowan-of-asgard · 4 years

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This page is regrettably long & full of rules, but I promise it is not as fearsome as it appears. I like to think I’m approachable, I’ve just had too many things gone awry to not be addressing certain topics here. Please keep that in mind and shoot me a question if anything sounds weird or confusing or if you just wanna say hi!

LOVINGLY STOLEN FROM JEWELEDCROWNOFBONES!

Basics

Not spending too much time on this bit since we all know these ones, but let’s rehash real quick anyway!

Read all the rules, as well as the Disclaimer & About links, please

No godmodding ( acting for my character without my permission/within reason )

Please have basic grammar & spelling

Hate of any sort will be ignored & deleted! Sources will be reported & blocked

Asks & IMs are open to all!!*

Please send in memes and say hi, we’re very excited you’re here! :)

*Unless tagged for mutuals only.

My tracked tag is ROWAN-OF-ASGARD and is the best way to make sure I see a post. @’ing me in the post will also work.

Specifics

These are the rules built mostly for my comfort, and this section is most likely to receive addendum at some point in the future. Please check these ones carefully!

If you are UNDERAGE, it must be stated clearly somewhere on your blog. No exceptions. I am incredibly selective on following back minors, for many reasons.

If I unfollow/do not follow back, please do not ask me about it. Any messages about the matter will be ignored unless I specifically ask for people to speak up.

I will not interact with blogs that have numbers in the URL unless it is brief/relevant to the muse.

Please mark with regular/accepted punctuation within threads.

please indicate clearly whether interaction is OOC/IC or meant to be responded to OOC/IC.

I always check followers that are also RP blogs, but if I cannot navigate your theme for information I will not follow.

If you are a personal, I will not follow & no posts of mine can be reblogged unless tagged otherwise (such as drabbles & gif sets & memes).

While it isn’t what I’m here for, shipping is welcome! Beware, I thoroughly enjoy angst and pain.

Small sidenote that I will call out blogs if they cause bullshit for me. I’m not here for that and have no patience for it anymore.

OCs are of course welcome!!

Elaboration will be in the < OC & Multimuse section >

Asks & Memes & Messaging

If you want to reply to a meme, please repost and tag me! It makes it easier to follow, and honestly any memes I reply to will also be reposted for this same reason.

For NSFW & Ship-required/implied memes, please make sure we’re mutuals AND to check with me ooc if we’ve never interacted before. Even for canon muses.

If you still aren’t sure about it, please please send me a little ask or something C: I love making new friends and stirring emotions okay, that’s what I am here for.

The IM system is ooc only.

Any messages that are just ‘wanna rp?” will be deleted. If you come to me with plot ideas or wanting to check about sending me stuff because we aren’t mutuals, that’s fine.

If you constantly reblog memes from me and never send anything in or talk to me, I will talk to you about it. I am already selective with the memes I reblog, and many of them are ooc/mun/plotting related. There is no excuse for never interacting with me.

OCs and Multimuse Blogs

Sideblogs are welcome! Just post on the blog somewhere obvious what the main blog is so there isn’t confusion please.

OCs will not know Rowan unless we plot otherwise. They can know of her without prior plotting.

If an OC has a canon FC regarding the fandom they are part of, we will not interact. No.

If I choose a FC for something non-canon that applies to this blog and your character has the same FC, we can obviously work around it.

OCs really do need rules pages & about that give enough information for muns to figure out if muses can play together or not! Please know I will look for both things as well as try to check writing before I ever click follow.

Multimuses I will follow and interact with very selectively.

Canons & OCs & FCs

Again, OCs with canon faceclaims will not be interacted with.

As a discomfort thing, I will also not interact with the following FCS: Justin Bieber, Selena Gomez, Miley Cyrus, Amber Heard. This list will be updated periodically.

Animated FCs are welcome! While I prefer live FCs, I know sometimes it’s difficult to find a match for animated muses.

For canon blogs that have an alt FC: Coolio! Just please say it somewhere on the blog that’s easy to find? There doesn’t need to be an explanation or anything.

Again, apologies for all the reading! If you have any questions at all please ask, I don’t want to be unclear or confusing for anyone!

#{rules}

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soullistrations · 4 years

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okay, @mithrilwren, since you expressed interest, here it is! (no need to respond--it’s just late and days later, so I figured you’d like to know)

my reactions to ep9 below the cut. spoilers, obviously.

Full disclosure before i go on: I read a spoiler that led me to believe finn was going to die in this one, so basically everything we got was an improvement to what i was expecting going in. The only other thing i knew was that KMT was criminally underused, as well. Other than that, blank slate with incredibly low expectations

I loved the theme of not being alone. It was heavy handed, sure, but the fact that each of the core trio started the film believing they were alone in some way (rey’s “i can’t feel them”, isolating herself bc she believes no one understands; finn’s “I thought i was the only one”; poe saying that last time they asked for help, no one came), and then each of them finds out they’re NOT, UGH let me tell you I cried. Actually, i started crying when Jannah mentioned her stormtrooper call sign, and basically didn’t stop crying after that. I’m just a sucker for that trope, y’all.

on that note, though, finn’s ‘believing he was alone’, like many other things with finn, could have been better executed/more obvious before the actual conversation with jannah--even just a mention in a previous scene, like rey and poe had, would make the parallel stronger

also, finn saying “you don’t understand, not like leia and I do”--I’m simultaneously so happy that we HAVE FORCE SENSITIVE FINN and so frustrated that it...didn’t go anywhere? i’ve had a couple days to think about it, and it’s so exciting, so vindicating that finn is force-sensitive, but at the same time, he only used those powers to sense when rey was in danger, but never once got the chance to help her out in those instances--or help himself out! Could you imagine how cool like a “danger-sense” thing on the battlefield would be? A half-second shot that shows that his connection to the force is more than just ‘Rey fell down a well!’ I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if rian johnson hadn’t nerfed finn’s storyline in tlj--would we have gotten more development of force-sensitive finn if there was more time for that development?

I get the sense that this is an incredibly new realization to him in tros, even though we’ve been seeing the evidence since ep7. I just want a scene where he got to tell rey. or something even more explicit then “how do you know?” “a feeling.”

but also, can you hear han solo screaming “that’s not how the force works!” from the afterlife, even as finn proves that that is, in fact, how the force works?

But looping back around to ‘you don’t understand, not like leia and I do”--HOW does finn understand? What is he feeling from the force? what pulls him? what does he notice? He can clearly sense both rey and kylo (even if neither of them can sense him....), but what else? Did he and leia talk about it when rey refused to talk to him about it? did leia sense something in him, but wanted him to come to her? was he going to tell leia after he told rey, but then never got the chance? there is so much wasted potential here, guys, and i know they were trying to tell some story about palpatine and skywalker bloodlines righting the wrongs of their ancestors or whatnot but....why bring in force sensitive finn and not give him that connection? why not do something other than just go “he’s got it! the force! yup!” and leave it at that? it would have been so EASY to do more! ESPECIALLY if tlj hadn’t had some half-assed rehash of finn’s emotional journey from tfa instead of like, a logical continuation of his character.

(can you guess my favorite character, guys?)

BUT REALLY, others have talked about it more eloquently than me, but finn deserved a more central role, because he is the emotional core of the movie. and has the most compelling backstory and character trajectory (that is sadly ignored). and is clearly positioned as a foil to kylo ren, but then NEVER GETS TO BE THAT FOIL after that first fight in ep7.

but seriously did you see that hug at the end? with finn in the middle, on the verge of tears, holding onto the two people he’s been trying to keep safe for the whole film? I’m gonna cry again.

poe and rey sniping at each other was very ‘i’m closer to finn’ ‘no i’m closer’ ‘finn take my side’ like did you see how rey looked when finn agreed with poe in that first scene? they figured it out eventually, but it was....unexpectedly great to see the growing pains in that relationship.

More things, unrelated (or less related) to Finn:

KMT deserved better.

Carrie Fisher’s lines were really shoehorned in in some of those scenes. The “be optimistic” line? That was a REACH. I know they’re working with what they’ve got but sheesh.

I may be one of the few people that did not enjoy Adam Driver’s choice of loose, almost flippant body language once he Decided to be Good. The way he shrugs when he comes face to face with the Knights of Ren? It was annoying. I thought that, even though he was trying to change, he shouldn’t have dropped the intensity Kylo Ren has had up to this point. It just...rides the line of being a completely different character, and that’s not fair to the narrative. because ben solo is not a different character. ben solo is kylo ren, and he killed his dad and committed multiple genocides. you don’t just like...shrug and huff and smile in life or death combat because you decided to toss your emosaber into the ocean.

other than that, i didn’t think that kylo ren’s ending was bad. giving his life to atone for his original sin? Resurrecting the future of the jedi after massacring all hope of a future for the jedi so long ago? and then promptly dying and not kissing anyone? i thought it was poetic. and let me tell you i’ve never been a fan of kylo, and i don’t think he was redeemed in this act, or absolved of his crimes. and yes i’m staying out of the main tag and have no idea what others are saying, but i thought it was a fitting end.

also....say what you will about the force bond, but that moment with the lightsaber? was undeniably awesome.

(okay okay, i was talking to my husband later, and he was like “i didn't see the kiss as romantic. I saw it as a moment of ‘i finally see you’ before he died” which i’ll go with, honestly.)

but also....the force bond shut out finn from the force narrative of this last movie. and it didn’t need to. which is annoying.

i’m confused about poe’s backstory (and also it’s racist). weren’t his parents heroes of the resistance? didn’t he grow up with the resistance? wasn’t this previously established? jj what are you doing.

I loved jannah and the defected stormtroopers. the fact that the whole battalion laid down their weapons together...just another ‘we are stronger together’ moment that had me weeping.

but also....why is jannah the one getting the moment about finding her parents, and rey gets like, sooooo many backstory dumps about her parents and no one even mentions the fact that finn’s parents are out there somewhere too?

red racer chick’s line ‘they took all the children years ago’ was just....so quietly heartbreaking. can she talk to finn? or jannah? or one of the others? do the people of the galaxy know that the stormtroopers that attack them are kidnapped, brainwashed child soldiers? do they know? do weeping mothers pull on stormtroopers’ guns during raids, pleading with them to bring their baby back? do stormtroopers know that they were once taken from loving families? do they know intellectually and just not realize what that means until they are deployed (and by that point in most cases it is too late)? i need more on these stormtroopers.

there was probably more to mention, but i’ve forgotten it...so summary: i enjoyed some of the themes, and extremely low expectations did a lot for my enjoyment of the plot. there was a lot of info dumping and strange pacing that could at least partially, if not mostly, be blamed on inconsistent vision from abrams and johnson, but like...you’re adults working on an enormous movie trilogy. freakin’ sit down and communicate, and don’t just try to undo what the other has done in the previous film. so i mean...i had fun with my dad and husband on a long holiday weekend, but it’s not like, a work of art or anything. and i’m not saying it has to be, but at least there was some attempt in this movie to continue threads of character development. ....for some of the characters. so. inconsistent, with crumbs of The Good Stuff, but not enough to make it an actually good movie.

also KMT deserved better.

#this is a lot but here you go!#rebamble #becca watches things #.#..#tros spoilers #star wars

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quintessence-sentimentalist · 5 years

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Unpopular opinion here, but I don't like comic-Will because 95% of her character is just being jealous that Matt said "Hi" to another girl or something just as stupid as well as arcs 3 & 4 being dedicated to her getting mad at Matt while not listening not listening to his side of the story and trying to play the victim for the drama that she herself caused. Comic-Matt deserved better than whinny, bratty, comic-Will. But TV-Will & Matt? Yes♥ I totally ship it it's one of the things the show fixed

[Give me excuses to ramble about cartoon Will/Matt]

Oh goodness, anon, let me just say that this was a really really good prompt for me to dig into comics Will/Matt, to the point where I wrote like 1300 words about their relationship across the first seven issues alone. But we’re not going to get into that here because that deserves its own in-depth focus another time, and my passionate blathering about cartoon WxM got REALLY long.

To briefly address the comics, though: I agree that an inordinate amount of Will’s characterization went towards letting her emotions rule her actions, which impacted areas of her life even outside of Matt (most notably, her relationship with her mom). And you’d think that after the first time there’s a big blow-up from acting on her jealousy and possessiveness, Will would take a look at the consequences and learn from the experience. Jumping to conclusions and taking those misconceptions out on Matt and the other party involved only puts her own relationships with said people on the line; subtly gathering more substantial information or just flat-out asking what she wants to know is much less risky.

But that’s the problem: we get about three instances of Will’s jealousy rearing its head, damaging multiple relationships (mainly hers with Matt), and her sitting in the ruins stumped over what went wrong, all before the two of them are ever an official couple by issue #40. That’s like the equivalent of rehashing the same exact conflict between a will-they-won’t-they TV ship every damn season; even then, those types of narratives probably shake things up more than W.i.t.c.h. did with this ship’s issues (like maybe it’s the other half of the ship who’s dating someone else compared to the previous season). It’s annoying as hell, and frankly disrespectful to the characters because they never get a chance to learn from their mistakes and grow.

So I’m just going to caveat your original point: comics Matt and Will both deserved better. Matt (Original Recipe Matt, at least—New Power Matt is a different, unrelated, terrible story) should have had the opportunity to really think about his relationship with Will, and whether it’s worth trying to preserve it and maintain interest in her when she so frequently cycles between liking him and inexplicably freezing him out/blowing up in his face. He’s had his own indiscretions—going all cold-shoulder on Will after hearing about her on a motorcycle with another guy (Caleb) and then seeing her being friendly with Eric—so Matt isn’t entirely blameless either, but in comparison to Will it’s a one-time offense.

Will, on the other hand, deserved to recognize that her behavior is unacceptable and work to break that habit of reacting without evidence or thought on the consequences. She deserved to be able to mature in that area of her life, to own up to her past mistakes and put considerable effort into being better. Even though things work out for the two of them (at least for a time) after 40 issues of excruciating conflicts, we never actually get the notion that Will has sincerely apologized and acknowledged that her prior actions were inexcusable.

But I’m going to curb the comics discussion on that note, because we’re here to chat animated Will and Matt! And what they deserve is all the love because they’re incredibly underrated for being one of the primary canon ships and, as you said, are a vast improvement over their counterparts on paper.

Listen. I rarely truly ship anything—in most media, I might like certain pairings over others, or think a canon couple is cute, but I don’t have super deep feelings about them. But animated Will/Matt? They’ve been the epitome of an OTP for me for about 13 years, and very few other pairings have matched them in terms of emotional impact.

If we’re being honest, I actually think these two are the entire reason why I’m so attached to the animated series. Their development is really painless and fun in comparison to the comics, and the drama they face actually makes them an infinitely stronger couple in the end. Much as I’d love to, I’m not going to go through their development episode by episode because otherwise we’d be here much too long, and I have to have some material left for future gushing over these two. But it’s still going to get long.

What I love about WxM in the animated series, especially in the pre-reveal and pre-relationship early days, is how they seem to be comfortable with and equally attracted to each other. With the comics, in a lot of ways Matt felt like a much more distant character than he was meant to be perceived as. Our introduction to him in the first issue features him playing guitar on stage for a throng of students, with Will admiring him from afar, and that’s still how it feels to me throughout the early development of their relationship. We constantly get Will’s inner thoughts about Matt and her romantic interest in him is clear, but we don’t get a peek into Matt’s head until the second arc (and it’s rare even after that) and his romantic interest in Will just kind of… appears. He asks her out via a letter off-page, without any real build-up on his end, and doesn’t really voice his feelings about her to anyone until much later on.

With their animated counterparts, it’s clear from the very beginning that they’re mutually interested in each other. Matt’s first (non-speaking) appearance in “Happy Birthday, Will” has him approaching a blushing Will as the Guardians return to the party and smiling as he takes her hand to lead her inside. We don’t know if this is the first time they’ve met or if they’re already acquaintances, but this is a really cute first scene to set the stage for this couple.

“Divide and Conquer” is probably my favorite season 1 episode because of these two, which is interesting because their subplot is driven by Will’s jealousy, which I so abhor in the comics. But this time it’s not totally unfounded, because Sandra is a veritable romantic rival if she gets her way. It’s not really clear if Matt is interested in Sandra or if he’s just genuinely being kind to the new girl, but what is clear is that he’s already smitten with Will (he blushes so hard and whips his head away so fast when she catches him looking at her in class—that’s way more than we got directly from comics Matt by that point in the series). Animated Will doesn’t stew over Sandra and Matt’s potential attraction until it boils over and ruins relationships—she basically agrees to a duel to win Matt’s hand a seat on the bus with Matt, even as he frantically tries to defuse the situation before realizing it’s a lost cause. The episode ends on a happier note than the comic versions of this plot, with Sandra exposed as a fraud and Matt and Will growing closer.

(Speaking of Will’s jealousy, jumping ahead to season 2 and “V is for Victory” for a moment, because this was another improvement on such a tired, negative comic plot. Will is still jealous when Mandy comes around and does see the error of her ways after she sabotages Mandy, but the cartoon takes it one step further and actually has her learn a greater lesson from acting on her jealousy—“A victory at any cost is no victory at all, not if you lose yourself in the process.” Comics Will never really had a similarly enlightening realization when it came to Matt and how her behavior was affecting her personally.)

“Walk This Way” isn’t heavy on their relationship, but shows that they’re equally comfortable with each other—and by that, I mean they are both absolute dorks who get embarrassingly tongue-tied around each other, and it is adorable. This isn’t like their early comic days, with Will pining like crazy and Matt seeming distant by comparison. Hell, even in the concert scene at the end of the episode, Matt spies Will in the crowd and pulls her on stage to dance with him as he plays. I think that’s the best analogy for comparing their pre-reveal relationships in paper and screen form: rather than comic Will yearning for Matt from the crowd, their cartoon counterparts are on the same level and are dancing with somebody who loves them.

Which brings me to the next thing I love about them, specifically post-reveal and during their relationship: they are so damn supportive of each other, especially Matt with Will. Once Matt runs through the portal in “The Stolen Heart” and finds out exactly what the Guardians are facing, he’s all-in on their mission, wanting to fight in any way he can. It doesn’t come off as a desire for glory or even an attempt to protect Will (that’s more how she gets about Matt putting himself in danger)—Matt just wants to be useful and be there to back the Guardians up when they need help, and maybe try to shake a little insecurity about not being good enough for his badass warrior girlfriend. Will is opposed to the idea of Matt on the battlefield at first precisely because she wants to keep him, the civilian, safe and out of danger, but once she learns about his fight training and reasons for doing so she accepts it, though promises that he’s more than enough even if he doesn’t fight.

But the pièce de resistance for this point? That comes in “Z is for Zenith,” in their final moment together before the battle ahead. This is the first time in a long time that Will specifically tells Matt not to join the Guardians in battle, because he’s needed elsewhere to keep the rest of the city safe. Matt knows that it’s necessary, but he doesn’t want to leave Will when this is shaping up to be their deadliest battle yet. Which gives us one of the greatest OTP lines I’ve ever heard: “If this all goes south, I’m gonna be beside you.”

(Excuse me while I lie on the floor and pterodactyl screech through my tears.)

This has gotten waaaaay too long already, but I’m going to wrap it up with one final reason why I adore cartoon Will/Matt so much, and it’s the fact that they’ve literally saved each other’s souls. The Shagon arc is the other reason why I love the animated series so much, partially because it provided an intriguing twist on both Shagon and Matt, and because it really pushed Will to her limits. I once submitted a question to Greg Weisman asking why he decided to go this route with these characters, and he noted that part of the reason was to give Will “the maximum amount of turbulence”; that was certainly the case. “M is for Mercy” and “S is for Self” are two of my favorite episodes of the entire animated series, because we see exactly how terrifying Will can be when someone she loves is in immediate danger and the culprit is deliberately taunting her. It also makes for an interesting duality, having the enemy who thrives on her hatred be the inner demon of the boy she loves; the moment Will realizes this, that hatred immediately dissipates and she calls out to Matt, giving him the opening he needs to get free for good. The ending of “Zenith” is such a perfect parallel, with Matt’s voice being the thing to guide Will (and help her guide the other Guardians) out of nothingness and back to her humanity. Add all of this together, and you have an epic romance on your hands.

Ending this on that note because this was so stream-of-consciousness-y and ugh I adore them so much.

#quintessence-sentimentalist rambles #otp: guardian x regent #otp: always a sucker for doomed romance #I have been working on this response since last night and now my feels have increased tenfold

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hazyheel · 5 years

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Monday Night Raw 2/18/19 Review

Well this show had a lot of ups and downs. Several of the matches did very well, but there was not a lot of plot progression. Still, the debut of several of the main event NXT stars created an exciting atmosphere throughout the night.

We started out with a pretty basic promo from Triple H, putting over Sasha Banks, Bayley, Finn Balor and Kofi Kingston. Weirdly, he put over Becky Lynch for attacking Charlotte and Ronda Rousey, acting like he is just one of the fans who thinks that Becky is super cool. He also talked about how D Generation X is being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, including Chyna. He then announced a couple new faces from NXT that are coming to the main roster, Ricochet, Aleister Black, Johnny Gargano, and Tommaso Ciampa. Then Triple H hypes up the crowd for the next match. The promo was not bad, even if Trips did stumble a bit when talking about NXT, but it just felt unnecessary. The results of last night’s show could’ve been revealed throughout Raw, and I think a surprise debut from the NXT superstars would’ve been more fun. I am pretty sure he was only really out there to officially announce that D Generation X was gonna be in the Hall of Fame, so I kinda get that. Glad to see that Chyna is finally in the Hall of Fame though.

Grade: C-. It was a harmless segment but it did not really need to be included. Raw can just start out with a match sometimes, and given that it was a fun stipulation match, that would have been refreshing.

So then we went right into the next match, a tables match between Baron Corbin and Braun Strowman. This is a logical continuation of their feud given how the No Disqualification match ended. Early on it was very bluntly explained that Strowman has a rib injury, so naturally Corbin worked them over during the match. Corbin had a weird strategy during the match of getting rid of tables. Maybe that was a character thing to show that he is a dick and wanted to punish Strowman more, but I just saw it as stupid. There was a cool spot where Strowman Irish whipped Corbin towards a table in the corner, and he did the slide out of the ring and close line move, which was a cool application of the move. But in the finish of the match, Corbin tried that same trick, but Strowman caught him and put him through the table for the win. After the match, Paul Heyman was coming out for his segment, and Braun grabbed him. Heyman looked like he was about to piss his pants, but Braun ended up letting him go. It was nice to see that Braun wasn’t forgetting his history with Heyman.

Grade: B-. The match was surprisingly fun, even if it was just a bit of a rehash of last night’s match. It made sense for the feud, there was a clean finish, stupid hardcore fun. I’m sure that they will have at least one more match before transitioning into their respective Wrestlemania feuds, which is a drag, but this seemed like it was the best part of their incredibly long feud so far.

Into Paul Heyman’s promo, he was a bit frazzled by Strowman’s attack. He talked about how everyone was jealous of Brock Lesnar, and then showed a video package of Brock being dominant, because he grew up on a farm I guess? That was a weird bit. Heyman flaunted Brock’s accomplishments, and said that Seth Rollins couldn’t come close to beating him. Finn Balor then interrupted, with his new Intercontinental Championship. And I guess Heyman’s promo was over

Grade: C. No new information from this segment, but it seems like there will be a running series talking about Brock Lesnar’s accomplishments in the WWE, so that could be interesting, but he didn’t have any new points and he was quickly cut off.

Balor then started talking about how proud he was to be holding the Intercontinental Championship, but he got interrupted by Lio Rush quickly. Rush said that Bobby Lashley deserved to be the champion, given that he wasn’t even pinned. Bobby Lashley then attacked Balor from behind, and the two beat him down, and Ricochet came out for the save. The brawl turned into a tag match. Rush and Ricochet had a great sequence to open up the match, and it is clear that Rush will have a storyline where he is desparate to please Lashley. A lot of the match was the faces completely dominating Rush, lest we forget that he is a cruiserweight. The finish of the match was very well done, with Lashley chasing Ricochet around the ring, only to be ambushed by a shotgun dropkick from Balor. Ricochet then hit his 630 senton on Rush for the win.

Grade: B. Another surprisingly good match. Ricochet and Finn Balor have great chemistry with Lio, and even Bobby Lashley was wrestling well tonight. There were some great spots, fun tag team fundamentals, and it was a fresh match. I would’ve preferred Ricochet in a singles match for his debut, but he definitely was the star of this match. I am kinda confused about why Rush and Lashley are still together, but I think that this is the kind of story where, eventually, Rush gets abused too much and leave Lashley. So I am okay with this for now.

Backstage, Drew McIntyre confronts Triple H about wanting in on the Wrestlemania main event, and he wants Rollins. Dean Ambrose then shows up and slapped McIntyre, challenging him. The match was booked.

After a quick video package recapping the Raw Women’s Championship scene, we came to another tag match. Lucha House Party, consisting of Gran Metalik and Lince Durado, against Zack Ryder and Kurt Hawkins. There was a bit of a miscommunication with in the LHP early on, but the match was going pretty well. But the match ended very abruptly, with Durado pinning Hawkins after a hurricanrana.

Grade D. The action was good, but it ended very quick and it seems to have no storyline relevance, so it is hard to care. Plus it was not given any time.

Immediately following the match, Charly interviewed Heavy Machinery, who were hitting their catchphrases, before getting interrupted by Lacy Evans. She did a catwalk, and then Heavy Machinery did a similar catwalk to their entrance music of loud construction noises. It was funny, but nothing else really happened during this.

Grade: D+. It seemed like WWE had a good grasp of Heavy Machinery for a while, but then lost it, and Lacey Evans feels like she will get lost in the shuffle if she actually joins the women’s division right now. So even though this segment was pointless, I am going to give WWE the benefit of the doubt and assume that they are building their characters because their respective divisions are too crowded right now. Still, does not save it from a bad grade.

Backstage, Johnny Gargano and Tommaso Ciampa are discussing their match, when the Glorious Ones confront them about why they are getting a match with the champions. They do not really get an answer before the Revival interrupt and try to intimidate the old #DIY. The segment ended just as quickly as it began, and we jumped to entrances. The match was very good from the start, really recreating their old magic from their NXT Days. Awesome double team moves, quick tags, classic tag wrestling. WWE is really playing up these teams’ rivalry from NXT, which is something they always should have done. In the final stages of the match, Gargano hit a superkick to Dash on the outside, before hitting a slingshot spear to Dawson in the ring, tagging in Ciampa, and the pair hit the superkick and running knee combo for the win.

Grade: B+. Think of this as a weak B+. The match was very good, not their best but still quite exciting. And I would love to see these guys in more matches together. The reason why it is weak is because the Revival just won the belts last week, and they are already losing in a non-title match. That is not a good look, even if this is the debut of Gargano and Ciampa. I couldn’t bring myself to lower the score after a questionable booking decision given the quality of the match. Still, this was a very good debut for the two Champions in NXT, and could even be building to a triple threat tag team match with these two teams and the Glorious ones.

Backstage, Charly interviews Finn Balor and Ricochet. Finn quickly puts over Ricochet, and Ricochet talks about how being on Raw was always his dream. How nice to see. Kevin Owen’s then had another little promo, where he really just seemed like a normal dad. I do not know what his character will be like when he actually returns, but it should be interesting.

The new Women’s Tag Team Champions, the Boss and Hug connection, came out to a chorus of You Deserve It chants. And they really do. They are out to cut a promo about how they made history as the first every Women’s Tag Team Champions. They talk about how their relationship has been a rollercoaster, how they couldn’t imagine doing this with anyone other than each other. They say that they will defend them wherever there are challengers, even NXT. But as they finished up, Nia Jax and Tamina came out to confront them. Nia quickly tries to sow seeds of doubt in the champions’ partnership, and says that Sasha always loses championships on her first defense. They brawl a little bit, but the Boss and Hug Connection come out on top.

Grade: B. It is still very emotional to see the Women’s Tag Team Championships on Raw, and now we have a clear view of the first challengers to the Boss and Hug Connection. Nia has really been doing well with her heel character, even with Tamina was a partner, so I want to see how this feud will continue down the line.

Next up, we had Dean Ambrose vs. Drew McIntyre. They started out fast and furious. and looked like they were gonna have a good match, but McIntyre quickly hit a Claymore, before waiting for Ambrose to get up and hitting another one.

Grade: D-. I think that McIntyre and Strowman are on a colliison course for Wrestlemania. So they are both are in filler feuds until that comes to fruition. I assume that this is just a throwaway match meant to bury Ambrose, which it did. I just didn’t care, and I am sure that it does not matter.

We cut back to more of the Brock Lesnar accomplishment package, where Heyman just listed all of Brock’s wins since he broke the streak. No real reason that we had to split the package up, but whatever. Backstage, Charly interviewed Seth Rollins, where he continues to say that he will win the match, and he does not care about what happens to him during the match. Ambrose then approaches him in the back, and scolds Rollins for not helping him. Rollins asks if Ambrose has lost his mind, because they are not friends. Ambrose stares at him for a while, and says eh, before walking away. har dee har.

Elias was out complaining that he is being disrespected and interrupted. He was about to sing a song, but Aleister Black’s music hit. Good match, stiff hits. These guys definitely have chemistry. Black won with a Black Mass.

Grade C-. While the action was fine, Black didn’t get in nearly enough offense. Easily the least impressive debut of the night. I expected this to be a dominant display of Black’s striking, but instead it felt like any other match. WWE needs to step up their game when it comes to this booking.

And in the main event, in an Elimination Chamber rematch, was Ronda Rousey vs. Ruby Riott for the Raw Women’s Championship. Ruby Riott got a jobber entrance. However, this match is much closer given that the rest of the Riott Squad is in Ruby’s corner. Rousey was selling a lot to Ruby, eating a rough looking senton. Riott even hit the Riot Kick, but Rousey was able to kick out. As Rousey ascended to the top rope, the Riott squad distracted her and Ruby was able to hit a Riott Kick off the top for another near fall. Ruby then went to the top rope for a senton, but Rousey countered into the arm bar, only for the Riott Squad to pull Ruby out of the ring. Ronda then hit a shaky looking crossbody to Liv Morgan and Sarah Logan on the outside. After Rousey hit an Alabama slam into the turnbuckle on Riott, she then locked in the arm bar to retain the championship.

Grade: C+. The match was okay, but the result was never in question. While these two did put together a good match, it was an odd choice to have a rematch right after Rousey basically buried Riott the night before, and to also have Rousey kick out of two riot kicks. This match did not really forward the story on the road to the main event, but it was still an alright match.

Overall Grade: B-

Pros: Tables Match; Ricochet’s debut; DIY vs. The Revival

Cons: Dean Ambrose’s burial; Aleister Black not getting enough offense; a couple pointless matches and promos

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