#theres literally!!! no emotional connection in this damned arc at all!

[gopher-jade]

What endlessly frustrates me about the writing in the moon arc is that it is so focused on technobabble and philosophical arguments that it completely neglects what even made honkai such a good story in the first place - the masterful portrayal of the characters' emotions, struggles and growth.

We love Kiana because we saw and heard how she was a bratty kid, and then became depressed, and then slowly climbed out of that hellhole. Props to the translaters, the scriptwriters, the voice actors, the staff behind the CGs. Mei's arc was heart-rending also because we saw how crushed she was by Kiana's struggles. Seele in CG slamming her fist on the ground and crying to herself, "Move, you coward!" will always haunt me. Veliona seeming like a psychopath and being pit against Saule and then eventually reconciling was the best thing ever, because the team really did such a good job of making it really seem like Veliona might harm Seele, and then later of conveying just how much Veliona actually loved her.

What do we get of that kind of character-building in this arc? Basically nothing. The characters are so busy talking about the technicalities of Project Stigma that we don't really know how they feel about the whole thing apart from (stock action movie hero voice) "that is so despicable and we will stop you!"

Senti is thankfully an exception, because she doesn't bother engaging with conversation unless it directly affects her. And she's got the right idea!

imo, when it comes to storytelling, the worldbuilding only needs to be as coherent as is necessary for the emotional stakes to make sense. The writers have spent so much time trying to explain the tech to us that they completely forgot about establishing the emotional stakes. Anyone who's stuck around with Honkai this long knows that the worldbuilding doesn't really make sense. Things gets retconned all the time. Anything that doesn't make sense gets blamed on Fenghuang Down. The writers really don't need to spend so much time convincing us that the worldbuilding make sense. We already know, it doesn't, and we loved you anyway. Why did you stop doing what you were good at?

Another thing that takes time away from actually establishing the emotional stakes is the philosophising. Okay, so most of the world is going to die and be reborn as a new entity that isn't really them. But the characters we love are mostly spared from that fate, so why should we care? I know this might make me sound heartless, but I only care about these fictional nameless people because the characters I love care about them. These nameless masses are fictional. I don't care. I can't even tell if the protags even care about these masses outside of an abstract "killing people bad" ideology. I don't know if it's because I haven't cleared the chapter yet (the writing is just that boring; the trio just met Kevin). But after hours of gameplay, the trio have never displayed any emotion outside of mere disapproval. The kind I might have when I go "wow that person has such a shit take on things, but I'll just live and let live". What are they even fighting for?

Granted, I do think the philosophical arguments are interesting and I'm not saying that there shouldn't be any in Honkai at all. But I can only enjoy it to a certain point, and it's not even done well here. We don't get to see any of the protagonists actually engaging with the philosophical argument. From what I can tell, it's just "Project Stigma is the only way some semblance of humanity can live past Finality" "Okay but CE isn't as driven into the corner as PE, can you let us try our things first before you effectively kill all of us?"

That's not a conversation. There's literally no emotional grappling with the fear that maybe, maybe Kevin is right and they will really fail, and that if they miss this chance then all of humanity really will be doomed.

Not to mention that we already covered this philosophical argument with the Kolosten arc. "Do a small group of elite, powerful people have the right to decide the fates of the masses, even when they've arguably already made it a good deal for them?" The answer is no, not when the timeline and form in which they existed would no longer exist, and when they didn't even consent to it. We got it! We had to go through that long arc to reach the moon arc! We got it! Can we move on to the character arcs now?

#honkai impact #honkai impact 3rd #rant #moon arc #theres literally!!! no emotional connection in this damned arc at all! #the VAs are doing their best but theyve got nothing to work with! #mimin talks

[plasticbattleaxe]

thoughts on the amnesty finale

! warning big spoilers !

that intro went HARD AS SHIT GRIFFIN

like the atmostphere of the amnesty theme in a minor key getting progressivly more alien? the corrupted, creepy wrongness of the voice editing? so well executed

the foreshadowing of beacon getting closer to his final purpose being able to pop the bubbles and stuff? excellent

on the subject of beacon what a little shit i love him “Wayynnnne Newwwton” what a perfect representation of the ‘little shit’ friend

travis roll over a 5 challenge

the worldbuilding!!!!! that scifi setting of a cyber punk future slowly rotting... 

griffin really has a habit of turning his “fantasy” stories scifi right at the end though huh

the organic matter pods were such a good visual, almost matrix-esque, and imagining Jane forming in one of those things and then disolving?  jesus christ dude

JUSTIN WAS ON HIS GAME!!!! HE PLAYED DUCK SO WELL IN THIS ONE

its so wild to think that griffin has just been sitting on this backstory for so long and how much stuff actually played into it like remember that line from the tree arc where Indrid says to duck “all those futures changed when you saved that goat man” like holy shit what would have happened if duck hadnt saved billy

billy???????? BILLY!!!!!!!!

 god not focus on duck but damn what a fucking badass - beacon carving his way through the room just absolutely WRECKING all of those tanks is so cool he has come so far from duck “im just a regular guy’ newton  

thacker connecting with the hive mind and essentially telling a millions of year old entity to essentially get fucked is so him excellent job clint

BILLY IS BACK!!! BILLY IS ALIVE AGAIN! THANK TRAVIS FOR TRAVIS

beacon achieving his purpose made me so irrationally bittersweet like on one hand im like “fuckin superb you funky little sword” and on the other “no sir dont take him away thats my emotional support bastard”

billy using slang and talking as though hes a modern day teenager was buckwild like has he just been chilling with jake and pidgeon while we werent looking 

griffin you also have a thing for “characters making a huge decision right at the finale” huh

THE MUSIC. GOES. HARD. AS. FUCK. AMNESTY THEME REPRISE 

thacker essentially having psychic skype session with mama is so funny imagine being mama and being woken in the middle of the night cause this asshole you have a psychic link with keeps asking you to bring him gorp

the quell personified and seeking out thacker is such a rewarding redemption arc. good for her 

aubrey willing to stay with dani no matter where she goes :’)

“hi honey-” “OH MY GOD”

aubrey running across a feild with flowers spreading behind her is some ghibli movie shit and i really cannot wait to see art of it

aubrey in cannon carrying around a hiking bags worth of shampoo to keep her hair red? thats bisexual energy

PUDDING TREE

i love the aubrey dani interactions theyre always so genuinly sweet and endearing - dani saying “im hungry” and aubrey immediately just  “ight ima make a tree i guess”

griffin hesitiating when he describes dani kissing aubrey to make it less wieird was also very good like theres an audible second of silence before he says “on the cheek”

“this is only the beginining” travis this was the third time i cried this episode 

the music!!!!!!!!!!! was so good!!!!!!!!!!! here!!!!!!!!!!

duck going to help the forrest fires in brazil was so cool cause its true to character but also true to justins values :)

“honey-” HONEY?

okay i literally did a double take here because (im guessing griffin also thought this) that Juno and Duck would end up together. I’m totally on board with minerva it was just really out of the blue 

justins monolgue here was so good it was really heart wrenching and a beautiful conclusion to ducks arc

Griffin throwing in some subtle sternclay. like. we see you dude.

amnesty lodge sunset reprise is officially my new favourite song from the entire TAZ ost INCLUDING BALANCE 

Mama finally being able to pursue her art in proper now that she has a chance to follow her own dreams instead of keeping the world safe

Barclay not being afraid of who will recognise him

Jake, keith and hollis kicking it again :)

kirby maintaining neds legacy at the crytonomica

ned :(

oh fuck ned :(

at this point i was sobbing because this was all so bittersweet like Neds legacy, the gang seeing eachother again, the gentle music. it was like you were in that moment with them

griffin WHERE IS PIDGEON 

my favourite moment in this whole season was the last visual. mama standing on the deck in the cool night air, the sun setting behind her as she walks down to meet her friends and see the future she worked so hard for - all the while the gentle strum of the guitar plays in the background? beautiful. so fuckign beautiful 

im so thankful for the mcelroys giving us this treasure of a story and im so glad i got to see it unfold 

#taz #the adventure zone #taz amnesty #the adventure zone amnesty #mcelroy #taz spoilers #taz amnesty spoilers #zoeyeets

[hellsbellschime]

Let’s go down the list shall we:

Katherine: gets impregnated with child out of wedlock, child torn away from her right after birth. Her entire sympathy arc is based on a child she didn’t even connect with.

Rebekah: Believes her trashy life will all be fixed with a hello kitty bandaid if she just had Kids and a Hubby, (when all she needs to do is get away from her toxic brothers and experience life on her own)

Isobel Flemming: Teen mom ™ who regrets child but loves child who wants child but doesn’t want child, who looses child because the guy is a coward, leads person who clearly wants to use/kill child to said child, then turns around and says I love child. (It’s like they couldn’t stick to a single villain arc because how could a mother possibly not care about her child when even the shitty dad does all the while having eight different dad hates child story lines sitting in the back burner.)

Valerie Tulle: gets pregnant with Stefan’s child and has child LITERALLY beaten out of her, has child PHYSICALLY beaten to death inside her, is pushed to the fucking ground and kicked in the stomach till child dies, commits suicide because of loss of child, is not even given the dignity to choose her own death, comes back as first Heretic to exist, all of this to push plot and create dRaMa b/w steroline. Yes they actually used a women who was violently beaten to near death and experienced an even more violent miscarriage at the hands of a guy who believed the child will make him late for a bone sesh, revolve around steroline and how Stefan wouldn’t love Caroline if he just had that child, THERES HALF A EPISODE JUST DEPICTING STEFAN’S MANPAIN ON LOOSING A COULD BE CHILD, when Valerie literally acts like a mechanical robot reiterating facts and her entire emotional “reaction” so to speak is her committing suicide AND NOTHING ELSE (as if they couldn’t be bothered to write female trauma) Like JFC you CANNOT TELL ME THIS IS DISGUSTING FUCKING SHIT THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST.

Jo Saltzman: Looses twin foetus children on her wedding day, is literally killed by her abusive psychotic brother on the fucking alter, to cover up Candice’s pregnancy, JESUS, HOW DID A PERSON WHO IS NOT UNHINGED IN THE BRAIN SIT DOWN AND COME UP WITH THIS, and not for one second think how fucking traumatising ALL of this is FOR NO GOOD REASON. Not even good plot, this was all for logistics they could’ve fucking covered up in a hundred other different ways.

Caroline Forbes: Do we even have to mention it? Is forced to endure pregnancy she has NO obligation to endure, is not even given a single scene to process the pregnancy and come up with a coherent response that isn’t “I will do it for you” forces herself to marry a man who is as old as her dad in human years for said children, said man turns around and tells her she is not these children’s mother to her face when she was literally FORCED into giving birth to two children that aren’t even her own. Looses all character development and becomes Mother of child ™.

Hayley Marshall: Nah bro I shouldn’t have to TELL you, but ok, gets pregnant with an abusive psychopath’s child, ykw the list is too long, y’all know the drill choked when wanting abortion, experiences atleast 7 near death experiences in the nine months she was pregnant all because Klaus wanted to play King to three streets and one marsh, and she was KWEEN of the werewolves, has the most violent birthing experience, her child revolves around Klaus’ redemption, hence her character fully revolves around said child and directly/indirectly Klaus, is turned into a fucking animal when she decided to do one damn thing for her own child, is nothing more than “Mother of Hope” throughout the show.

Freya Mikaelson: Of ALL the different things a women in literal captivity FOR HER ENTIRE LIFE can experience for backstory Trauma™ OF EVERYTHING they could choose, they yet again go for traumatic pregnancy, a self-induced miscarriage and a SUICIDE story revolving around said pregnancy, her selling point to the Mikaelsons is “I lost a child I won’t let you lose yours.” LIKE ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? Forget misogynistic writing that’s just paper-thin-rumpled-trash-in-trash-can writing.

Esther Mikaelson: Chooses to give up her first born child for the prospect of multiple children, in Lenore’s body actually bloody tells Hayley she can have more babies if Hayley allows her to make Hayley Human, Hayley CONSIDERS THIS SERIOUSLY. Is actually shown to want to become human so she can have more babies.

Sarah Salvatore: Black woman who is KILLED by Damon to give manpain TO DAMON, like bruh wtf?? You seriously had Damon kill a pregnant black woman and give him manpain in the form of guilt to redeem him? YOU MADE A WOMAN’S MURDER ABOUT HER MURDERER’S GUILT?? JP and her team of writers cannot get more fucked up than this

Feel free to add to this, and if any fucker ever dare come to your page trying to fight that tvd/to is not MISOGYNISTIC in its ENTIRETY, you send them to this post, and this post only contains pregnancy related batshit crazy misogyny in the show, if we went through everything that is misogynistic, I’d say the transcript of the show is an entire comprehensive list of all of it. And seriously anybody who believes JP’s writing isn’t the most misogynistic sexist piece of writing that’s just a steaming hot pile of rotten shit, Well then I sincerely suggest you fuck off to some other corner of the world where TO/TVD stans can gather and lick white manpain experiencing male dick.

Sincerely someone who has watched TO/TVD top to bottom and is traumatised.

LOL yes exactly, like I don’t understand how someone could see this and say that it’s not so soaked in misogyny that nothing in the show can be separated from the violent sexism. Saying “well this character stood there in one scene and didn’t say anything sexist so you can’t call the entire thing sexist and if you do then you’re basically doing the same thing as calling all men sexist” (and like I don’t want that anon to start that argument again but LITERALLY WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT ANALOGY) is an absurd, fatuous argument. 

#anti thirstday #Anonymous

[opalgelance]

HOLY FUCKING SHIT BATTLE OF HEART AND MIND WAS A LITERAL MIND FUCK

- WHITE DECOLORING GEMS

- THE DIAMOND FAMILY WAS REALLY FUCKED UP

- WHITE FUCKING BROKE STEVEN AND PINK LOST HER FUCKING MIND

- ROSE CAN NEVER COME BACK

- EVERY CRYSTAL GEM HAS A NEW OUTFIT I HAVE NO FAVORITE BECAUSE I LOVED THEM ALL

- EVERY CG + STEVEN FUSION WAS STUFFED IN HERE AS WELL AS MY TIED FOR FAVORITE WITH OPAL FUSION, OBSIDIAN

- FUCKING LAVA FUSION I LOVE HER SO MUCH THE CRACKS IN HER HAIR AND HER MAGMA SPIT THAT BECAME A FUCKING SWORD KILLED ME

- RAINBOW FEELS VERY FAMILIAR WHO VOICES THEM???

- SUNSHINE IS LEGIT A LOVE YOURSELF COMMERCIAL FROM THE 90S IN A CORPOREAL FORM

- FUCKING PINK STEVEN STILL SCARES THE EVER LOVING SHIT OUT OF ME HOLY FUCK

- WHITE HAS A WHOLE CHARACTER ARC IN 5 MINUTES

- SO DO BLUE AND YELLOW

- JASPER NEVER FUCKING TALKS BUT

- WE SEE A WHOLE FUCK TON OF GEM DESIGNS INCLUDING JASPER, BIGGS, CENTIPEEDLE, THE BEETLES, THE PUFFERFISH, AND A LOT MORE

- IM STILL NOT OVER THE PINK STEVEN THING IT WILL LEGITAMaTELY HAUNT ME FOREVER

- EDIT: I forgot to add how mindblowing the animation is in the Pink Steven scene?!?! I was just so stunned by the scene itself that I didn’t mention that the lines are SO clean and crisp, and the animation literally looks 3D, and that seems to be because the legendary James Baxter did it, and from what I saw from his work on the Adventure Time episode, he’s an absolute master in the art of animation, and I feel like I’ve been blessed seeing that animation with my own damn eyes

Ok, now that I’ve calmed down a bit, I have to say it felt really REALLY rushed but I still enjoyed it a lot! I do have a few gripes with it though:

- I wish we could have seen Sunstone, Rainbow 2.0, and Obsidian before this, or at the very least seen Sun and Rainbow before, with Obsidian being this big stressful event because as we’ve seen 4+ Gem fusions like Alexandrite can be very hard to keep stable, and they had one chance to fuse and keep it together

- Steven said one sentence to Pink Pearl, and White didn’t recognize CG Pearl, which is really weird. Pink didn’t even react to Steven, or realize that he had Pink’s Gem. We don’t learn what happened to Pink Pearl either. Steven seems to already have connected that White’s Pearl was once Pink’s, and when talking to White, it seems like he is understanding what his Pink dreams really meant, which is weird bc it seemed like he didn’t understand that they were memories before.

- I felt like with the exception of the Pink Steven scene, the Diamond fight at the very beginning and the confrontation between all 4 Diamonds, it didn’t really feel like the characters were reacting as much as they should have? Like, it takes a second for Pearl to figure out that she and Steven fused, and her reaction is kind of cut off, but Garnet doesn’t really react to fusing with Steven? I also feel like Obsidian should have been a bigger deal to everyone, but it felt like Garnet was like “ok, lets form obsidian then” like they’ve done it a thousand times?? Yeah, they’ve fused with Rose before, but Steven? And Alexandrite has always been a big deal, since she’s so unstable, while on multiple occasions in season 1 the Gems were pretty clear that fusion was for emergencies only. Obsidian is literally a White Diamond only level emergency, but while it was a big deal for the audience, the CGs (including Connie, Bismuth, Lapis, and Peridot)  weren’t as shocked by this as I would have thought? Peridot says “they’re huge!” or smth like that, but not much else. For me it was really frustrating when Blue and Yellow, and ESPECIALLY Amethyst, Garnet, and Pearl, were drained of their color, it felt like it SHOULD have been a Keeping It Together level of horror, but it wasn’t on the characters’ faces, which was disappointing. It took me out of the action on my first viewing because it looked like the CGs weren’t that bothered by it. WHITE IS LITERALLY MIND CONTROLLING THE DIAMONDS AND YOUR FAMILY STEVEN WHAT THE FUCK I have to say that the Pink Steven scene was legitimately disturbing, and I applaud the storyboarders for that, I just wish it could’ve continued throughout all of the horrifying scenes.

- Steven didn’t tell anyone about his Gem being ripped out, possibly because there wasn’t any time left in the episode, and that was really weird to me. Like, you got HALF OF YOUR SOUL RIPPED OUT STEVEN. Like, White and Connie HAD to have said something, right? Was it just not shown?

- That brings me to how ridiculously rushed the ending was, because here’s what happens in the last 5 or so minutes (seriously, I’m looking at the time the ending starts)

      - Steven gets home while Sadie’s having a concert on the beach

     - WITH THE FUCKING DIAMONDS

    - Lars also gets home with the Off Colors

    - Sadie and Lars say hi for an awkward amount of screentime

    - THE DIAMONDS HEAL THE CORRUPTED GEMS INCLUDING JASPER, CENTIPEEDLE AND A LOT OF THE GEMS WE’VE SEEN OVER THE SERIES AND THERES NO DIALOGUE BC STEVEN IS SINGING A SONG OVER THIS WHOLE PART

     - The Diamonds leave, seriously, after less than a minute of screentime on Earth

    - The CGs are on the beach, with NO recently cured corrupted Gems to be seen, and it’s kind of like the theme song, with Greg grilling hot dogs, and the CGs sit on the beach with Steven (just Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl now) and Steven sings a song. The End.

It just felt really rushed? So were the Diamonds’ “redemptions”, but this was insane. Every plot line in the whole series is supposed to be solved in 5 minutes? I mean, there’s a lot left unanswered, but it felt like they were trying to tie everything up with a nice bow, and it was rushed. Also, you know how everyone said that the Gem designs at the ball were lazy and that we only saw a few new Gem types because the crew didn’t have time to design new Gems? (I personally really liked the cog Gems bc I love gear designs but I know a lot of people didn’t like them and that’s valid) BULLSHIT LOOK AT ALL OF THE UNCORRUPTED GEM DESIGNS THEY LOOK AWESOME. But why could they not have done that before? They designed at least 10 new Gems for a minute or two long scene. Yeah, they were based on the already done corrupted Gem designs, but that’s fine! We could have easily seen Ocean and Biggs Jaspers at the ball, or even at the Zoo, in a flashback (like We’re Only Falling Apart, the war scene in Single Pale Rose, Your Mother and Mine), the ending of Legs From Here to Homeworld, but we didn’t, and I can’t understand why. Now it’s strange that we didn’t see any uncorrupted counterparts on Homeworld. What, is every single corrupted Gem part of a super rare Gem type? Yes, we’ve SEEN Jaspers before, and we HEARD about Nephrites, but even at the start of this episode we had some cool silhouettes of Gems, just like in The Answer, and they were never fleshed out into actual Gems. It’s just kind of strange that they had all of these templates but never used them. Plenty of fans have used the silhouettes and corrupted Gem designs to make Gemsonas, but the crew couldn’t? Just paste the color palette of Biggs or Ocean onto a Jasper base and you’re good! That’s essentially what happened this episode but I STILL LOVE THEM SO MUCH I will protect Ocean, the Beetle, the Centipeedles and the waterbear Gem with my life, BUT they could have appeared MUCH sooner as background Homeworld Gems

- EDIT: Since I’m always criticizing the animation and character models, I feel like I have to note how impressed I am with a majority of the animation in this episode. I felt like during the Blue vs. Yellow scene in particular though, Yellow’s expressions felt... odd. LET ME EXPLAIN FIRST PLEASE. See, for me, while I don’t like exaggerated facial expressions most of the time, I can get past them as long as it’s for comedy relief or to express raw emotion. The problem for me was that Yellow’s expressions were drawn as if she was supposed to be in a comedic scene instead of a heartwrenching, emotional outbreak uncharacteristic of Yellow, where you are supposed to feel with her, to feel her pain. But for me, it felt like she was pulling faces like she was trying to make a crying baby laugh, and I felt like Patti Lupone’s expressive, heart-wrenching voice acting didn’t match up with what I was seeing on the screen. 

  - As I said above, James Baxter’s Pink Steven animation slayed me, I’m still dying haaa

   - OBSIDIAN WAS THE BOMB/COM THO her hair is so amazingly detailed, it had to be hard to animate that.

  - Most of the lines were crisp. One of my main criticisms is how starting in season 3, while the animation and art quality went down, both were hindered further by the blurry lines, which I KNOW is because they resized the art. When I’m resizing an arm, or the head when it’s out of proportion, the resized lines become blurry whether you’re shrinking or expanding a section of a piece. But in this episode the lines were pretty crisp for probably 80% percent of the episode? And I’m counting all 44 minutes, and considering how bad it usually is, I’m very pleased.

tl;dr I LOVE THESE EPISODES TO HOMEWORLD AND BACK but there are a few issues I just can’t see past and some of these issues just threw me out of a great episode to ask myself why??? But also I’ve rekindled my love for Steven Universe and FOR ONCE I can see past some of the bad character models and animation because this episode was just so good!!! 

#battle of heart and mind #steven universe spoilers #su critical #not all of it but some of it #I’m so nervous to post SU critical but I have a bunch of positives too so please don’t kill me with fire??