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landlordrecords · 8 days ago

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FILMS/TV/PLAYS, April 2025 onwards...

I usually wait til I've watched another 100, but I reached a break in proceedings...

1) Merry Wives of Windsor (Unengaged-with Shakespeare Odyssey launches properly, with some amateur version on YouTube...The comedies are kinda tedious, with the endless disguise plots, although this one has Falstaff in it, who I can now finally talk about knowledgeably!)

2) Measure For Measure (more amateur hour...OK?!)...break for...

3) Diary of A Country Priest (actually ordered this for a few quid, which is unheard-of in recent times. Dead good)

4) Comedy of Errors (Trevor Nunn virtually pantomime version)

5) Love's Labour Lost (70s BBC version... alright)

6) Merchant of Venice (Al Pacino version...I actually turned this off towards the end when it got REALLY anti-Semitic...apart from that, obvs the best production thus far in this sweep)

7) As You Like It (Olivier version...quite appreciated the precise diction by this point)

8) Taming of the Shrew (Pickford version...Bit mauled I think for collapsing the plot & lots of mugging, but enjoyable for that!)

9) All's Well That Ends Well (ploddy amateur version)

10) Twelfth Night (Erm...Tommy Steele version!)

11) The Winter's Tale (RSC version - this was kinda OK, although as noted elsewhere, it pivots somewhat abruptly between dark & light)

12) King John (amateur, not bad)

13) Richard II (David Tennant version - by far the best by this point)

14) Henry IV Pt I (1990 version - there's several from that series in that year, & they're quite well done)

15) Henry IV Pt II (as above)

16) Henry V (Branagh version, easily trumps the Tennant one & hence easily the best thus far. Genuinely well worth a watch)

17) Hubert Robert: A Fortunate Life (quite good, evocative short about an old painter, which I watched on the Russian Ark DVD I borrowed off someone...didn't watch the latter in the end, but this was good)

18) Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers (another I ordered, by the Adrift In Tokyo guy - this one is more determinedly silly, & I liked it very much, great colour scheme as well)

19) The Philadelphia Story (wasn't OVER- struck on this, but the young girl in it [who sadly died youngish] is a real firecracker, would love to see more of hers)

20) The Search For Weng Weng (doc on the diminutive Filipino action star)

21) Christine (Alan Clarke half hour thing I had been wanting to see for ages. Didn't love it as much as Elephant, or some of the longer ones from around the same time, but bloody good nevertheless)

22) Polyester (very good)

23) 4 Days In July commentary (cos that's the only version I could find, & I'm not desperate to see it without the commentary - good stuff)

24) Robinson In Ruins (finally completed the literary shamble)

25) Hard Truths (very good new Mike Leigh)

26) Desperate Living (proper good early John Waters)

27) Mondo Trasho (suffered through the bird scene to be able to say that John Waters is the FOURTH director I've completed on)

28) Various Svankmajer shorts

29) Hard Labour (pretty good early Mike Leigh TV play, once it gets going)

30) Kiss of Death (more early TV Leigh, & later the commentary)

31) Five Minutes Films (wish they had followed through on doing more of these nice little Mike Leigh things)

32) A Sense of History (quite different Mike Leigh thing, cos he didn't write it. Pretty funny)

33) Permissive Society (more early Leigh...as the comedian said, I don't think it exists - and I know, cos I've looked)

34) A Mug's Game? (Very early Leigh bit, notable for suggesting to children that you break your gambling habit by...making homebrew)

35) A Running Jump (more recent Leigh bit)

36) I, Daniel Blake (particularly notable for, as noted elsewhere, the very moving food bank scene)

37) A documentary on Hasil Adkins

38) An American In Paris (from a musicals box set from a book swap...OK)

39) Inside Deep Throat (doc I had had kicking around for years about the porno... pretty interesting)

40) Who's Who (Shelled out for the Mike Leigh Beeb box set, featuring a bunch of those I had just watched from above, plus pretty much the last Leighs I hadn't yet seen. This one ain't my fave, but...I've seen it now)

41) Home Sweet Home (The Mike Leigh for you if you always wanted to see Bob Cryer from The Bill getting jiggy)

42) Nuts In May commentary

43) Grown Ups commentary (one of my faves)

44) Starship Troopers (finally had enough recommendations to persevere with it...good for what it is)

45) Oldboy (OG - had stalled on this while I ummed and ahhed about Sympathy For Mr Vengeance, but I just skipped that in the end. Dead good)

46) Harvey (I was labouring under a big misapprehension about this, which I won't go into but which I felt I was led into by the advertising materials. Pretty darn good in the end)

47) Mad Max 2 &

48) Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome (both of these to reach Fury Road, which I then decided I wasn't going to watch after about 2 minutes of a cut a second. Both perfectly enjoyable, but the original will remain by far my favourite)

49) A Scorsese doc about Powell & Pressburger

50) The Champion (decent shortish Chaplin)

51) The Kid (well-known heart strings- tugging full-length Chaplin. Still not sure I can be bothered with some of the other, much vaunted, ones, but this is well worth a watch)

52) Buster Keaton doc

53) Hitchcock (Alfred thingum...got a bit mauled, but I thought it did the job)

54) Safe (not perhaps something I would be drawn to subject-wise, but the director/star/advertising imagery drew me in. I believe this was beloved in the States at the time. I had never heard of it but thought it was excellent, including the acting, cinematography, music, sound design, etc. Highly recommended)

55) Some documentary stuff on the London Underground, from a box set of my Dad's

56) Paradise (TV series, with the missus - sci fi, but not ray guns. Pretty decent)

57) Murder Among the Mormons (rewatch, cos I was reading about Mormonism & had forgotten much of this, for which my jaw dropped the first time. Still a great watch)

58) Keep Sweet (continuing the niche religion theme)

59) Henry VI Pt I (another of the 1990 series. Delayed a long time cos of the dreadful sound on the YouTube copy, which has pretty much paused the Shakespeare Odyssey)

60) This Filthy World (I probably prefer John Waters just talking rather than trying, but still great fun)

61) Susana (rare trip to Fopp to gather up a coupla mid-price goodies - absolutely loved this Bunuel tale of a gleefully immoral strumpet)

62) Love On the Spectrum (new series - sorry, not sorry)

63) You Can't Ask That (Australian series, one of those things where minority groups answer dumb questions about their conditions/preferences/experiences etc)

64) Fred West & Robert Napper dox (I don't think I usually mention this sort of seediness...or maybe I haven't watched many for a while...The West Netflix one had some footage of him being taken back to the burial sites which I think has only now been released, & Napper there probably isn't enough on considering how immensely disturbed he clearly was/is)

65) The Real Animal Farm (I remember reading a great piece in Headpress decades ago about how everyone in the 80s/90s [including me] had heard of, & some people had had the misfortune to see, a beastiality porno called Animal Farm, & what was the story behind it, & why couldn't it be identified [spoiler alert: because it was cut together from various shorts]. I didn't know there was a UK TV doc episode about it though! Pretty interesting if depressing watch)

66) Long Bright River (latest series I've not quite finished with the missus...not bad)

67) Performance (more cheap Fopp booty...Had seen SOME of this before.. Pretty good start. As someone else (Ebert?) said, slows a bit afterwards, but very creative stuff)

68) Titicut Follies (I don't want to take away from the well-known fact that this depicts some pretty horrific conditions, but I feel that practically everything I read about it afterwards skipped straight past the sign that said it was a facility for the CRIMINALLY insane, not just your gran who has gone a bit doolally. Because of the way he films stuff, you have to build in the narrative surrounding it. So, for instance, in the much-noted sequence where an old, naked, vulnerable- looking ex-teacher is being goaded by a guard about keeping his cell clean, I would read that as frustration that the guy probably keeps doing dirty protests...after being locked away for fiddling with children. Happy to amend that if wrong, but you get my point. Glad things have improved since then, but dudes, one guy is interviewed and openly says he interfered with one of his children, these blokes are in there cos they are dangerous, I don't think it is SO surprising there were elements of crowd control going on. Great doc, either way)

69) Juvenile Court (same dude, early 70s, southern states. Not quite sure why the other ones aren't as well known, probably just cos they're not so starkly shocking. Still very very good though)

70) Exterminating Angel (more Bunuel, jolly good)

71) The Men Who Tread On the Tiger's Tail (BFI binge... shortish Kurosawa, non- essential bit, but well worth a watch)

72) Equinox Flower

73) Late Autumn (couple more quality Ozu ones, the latter more obviously comic)

74) Dinner For One (non-BFI, not notable except for the fact that it appears to be beloved in Europe...which is why I was there. Decent though)

75) Press Your Luck Scandal doc (not sure why it is called a scandal, he won fair & square, but very amusing gameshow history which I was previously unaware of)

76) Saute Ma Ville (back to the BFI...good early Ackerman short, to put me in the mood for...)

77) Hotel Monterey (hour long silent Ackerman tour of drab NY hotel, with noted optical illusions, good for dozing off to. To put me in the mood for...)

78) Jeanne Dielman... (quite obviously not the best film of all time, which claim drew me to it & made me stop after 20 mins the first time, but most certainly not crap either, which brought me back...Far from the enriching endurance test many have suggested - in fact, very watchable. Again, one I have to disagree with many comments on...I don't think she is imprisoned by drudgery or whatever - she says clearly she wanted a place of her own & a child, & while she is turning tricks, she appears to be her own boss, on pretty much her own terms, with regulars who are unlikely to put her in any danger. I suspect most of the viewers are the sort of people who hate & avoid housework & hence see it as drudgery. I may count myself as one of those, but I look after my parents out of choice & it needs doing & is satisfying once it is done...Which seems to be her take as well, leading to a fairly hypnotic experience, far more engaging than a lot of art house twaddle)

79) Video essay about Ackerman

80) Powell archive films doc

81) We the Ragamuffin (great fun half-hour Brit ragga musical from the early 90s)

82) Violent Cop (pretty boss early Takeshi)...end of BFI stint...

83) Eric Satie doc (early 90s Beeb thing...feel like I had seen chunks of this before, but v good anyway)

84) Phoenix Nights (maybe slightly marred by time, but good to see it all at last, great line-up of actors)

85) Rockets Redglare! (FINALLY bagged via a Bluesky correspondent. Fairly low production standards, but he is a great subject and interviewee, and was doomed from the offset)

86) Public Housing (yet more from the Titicut Follies dude...this one is an epic, set in mid-90s Chicago, with ghetto house strains occasionally breaking through)

87) Whores' Glory (great doc on prostitution, filmed in Thailand, Bangladesh & Mexico. Most people seem to find the Mexican post-apocalyptic landscape most depressing, but the squalid Bangladeshi complex with hundreds of prostitutes mauling clients mauling them, many of them clearly underage, was like a vision of Hell)

#film tv plays

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etoiile · 1 year ago

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hello ami 🤭 your post asking ab kdrama recommendations appeared on my dashboard (all the way back from april </3) and if you are still interested, i have some list of dramas that might be to your liking!!

twinkling watermelon (2023): this drama was so so fun to watch bc they captured the elements of youth REALLY WELL and so as a fellow teenager i felt like i was a part of their journey!!! also has this plot of trying to make a school band twisted w time travel so i think it’s a fun mix

twenty-five twenty-one (2022): like twinkling watermelon, this drama focused on the process of growing up from a naive teenager who frolics around to an adult who suffers the pains of reality and the adult society. SUPER GOOD, but it may be a bit boring if you’re not too interested in genres like coming of age

lovely runner (2024): this drama is currently all over socmed and is still airing so you may have seen it (or you may be watching it rn!!) SUCH A CUTE ROMANCE it encapsulates teenage love SO WELL and also the characterisation of the male lead is just 100/10 😣 also plot is quite interesting once again this is like a time travel type of thing

my demon (2023-2024): A MASTERPIECE PLS the chemistry in this drama was INSANE both the FL and ML are super attractive their visuals will draw you in and the plot is v detailed so it ’s honestly a great drama overall LOVE IT

anyways i hope some of these piqued your interest, and mb one day if you ever choose to watch one of these i will have a kdrama buddy on this platform hehehhs 💗

AHHH TYTY SAKI!! i will def start watching one of these once finals are over ^^

#ami's chit chats 🤍#ami's friends 💋

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variousqueerthings · 2 years ago

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This is what happens when you travel alone for too long

It's A Town Called Mercy, also known as "the one people say is super duper good in season 7" or "oh it's V for Vendetta but a Western"

and... yeah it's pretty good. I feel like it's one I cannot help comparing to other stories like it, and I'm not sure if it manages as much as they do, but I'm going to sit with it for a bit, and in the meantime! Ranking!

sexism rank objectification (female character is ogled/harassed/turned into a sex joke by the doctor and/or a lead we’re supposed to root for and/or the camera): 10/10

sexism rank plot-point (lead female character is only there to serve plot, not to have her emotional interiority explored): 3/10

interesting complex or pointlessly complex (does the complexity serve the narrative or does it just serve to be confusing as a stand-in for smart, this includes visually): 8/10

furthers character and/or lore and/or plot development (broader question that ties into the previous ones, at least two of these, ideally three should be fulfilled): 5/10

companion matters (the companion doesn’t always have to be there, but if the companion is there, can they function without the doctor– and overall per season how often is the companion the focus or POV of the story): 4/10

the doctor is more than just “godlike” (examines the doctor’s flaws and limitations, doesn’t solve a plot by having it revolve entirely around the doctor’s existence): 7/10

doesn’t look down on previous doctor who (by erasing or mocking its importance, by redoing and “bettering” previous beloved plotpoints or characters, etc.): 5/10

isn’t trying to insert hamfisted sexiness (m*ffat famously talked a lot about how dw should be sexier multiple times, he sucks at writing it): 10/10

internal world has consistency (characters have backgrounds, feel rooted in a place with other people, generally feel like they have Lives): 4/10

Politics (how conservative is the story): 3/10

FULL RATING: 59/100 (if I can count….)

it's the politics that got this one. that and... the Ponds are still just kinda there this season. and other stuff. ah well, it's not terrible, on the whole

OBJECTIFICATION: Listen, there is none. not an off-colour joke, not an ogle, not a strange costume choice

there's not a lot of women in this story generally, Amy is kind of the only one who matters, and this one little girl who's in two scenes and doesn't have any lines, but I think that's something we'll get to later on when discussing this

PLOT-POINT: Eh, Amy doesn't really matter so much in this, apart from the scenes where she calls out the Doctor, which isn't really her, so much as him. it's not even a complaint as such, but I do still wonder... if this is a sign that maybe her story should have ended in The God Complex, since we're three episodes into s7 and she's not got much to do for her own story

COMPLEXITY: it's a good setup, town in the Wild West, beset by a gunslinger from space, because they're harbouring an alien war criminal who has since been repenting by healing their sick and bettering their lives generally

it's there to open the doors to discussions on morality

CHARACTERS/LORE/PLOT: ah soooo, there's stuff here about the Doctor, subtextually, and I appreciate that it didn't do what God Complex did and spell it out so much (even though God Complex is still The episode of all time for this era)

the alien the Doctor has to choose to protect or throw to the gunslinger killed a lot of people in order to stop a war -- okay wait, before I go more into that as "see, like the Doctor," I have a question. has the show added the lore that it's the Doctor that killed the Timelords yet? because I don't think that comes up until later

we have last of the Timelords, we have the stuff at End Of Time where he sends Rassilon/Gallifrey back, but I think... that the Doctor pressed a big button and they all died is the 50th anniversary, no?

point being, one can begin to have a little wonder if this works for oneself or not, in terms of lore. 2005 nu!who established all the Timelords are dead, so far so good, End Of Time the Doctor sends the Timelords back to die, because allowing the Time War out would kill everyone, okay, the Doctor killed everyone... is an interesting thing I haven't thought much about until this moment. and then later on ofc (Chibnall era) we're getting the Doctor is in fact the most special Time Lord, the OG who through experiments gave the others time travel and was then force regenerated and had their memory wiped

it's an interesting thing, all this lore... it adds a lot of baggage to a story about a loser alien who's just out to experience the Universe (and who in the nu!who era is a war survivor with PTSD). in the classic!who series the Doctor is already an outsider, because the other Timelords think they're a fucking weirdo (simplification), and while I think -- biased because my era -- that nu!who made a good choice to have the Time War, so that it could strip away some lore and gradually re-introduce it to a new audience, perhaps we're getting... a teensy bit unwieldy here, in terms of who the Doctor is

that is more of a question to myself than an assertion. in any case, in this episode, war criminal, doing penance, nothing is too heavy-handed in playing into the Doctor that one cannot take it as one wants to, arguably the more obvious thing is the Doctor saying "today I honour the victims first, his, the Master's, the Daleks," which is fun, considering the last time we met the Master, the Doctor was desperately trying to get him to stay, because well... last of their species + the Master and the Doctor are Some Kinda Way about each other, so it's considering the fact that when the Doctor tries to hold an "everyone's lives have equal importance" morality constantly, this has had adverse effects on... victims of violence (especially with regards to the Master), and being the judge on this is no good, but also who is the Doctor to judge who deserves to die, etc.

there's also a question about the Doctor travelling alone (Amy says this) becoming more ruthless in exacting things like punishment

COMPANIONS MATTER: well sort oooof, Amy is mostly there to give another point of view to the Doctor's, especially with relation to "can i say that some people need to die," but I'm not convinced that couldn't have been done with someone else in the story, perhaps by refocusing the importance of the child, since there's that whole VO that's talking about her great-grandmother who was there... idk, they're not... really doing much in the story beyond that, especially Rory (who seems kind of fine with them sending this guy out for execution, and that is never explored)

“GODLIKE” DOCTOR: nah, I think this episode did relatively well on having this be quite a Doctor-focused episode, without making the Doctor solve everything (or indeed... anything)

there's this bit that Jex the war criminal say: Looking at you Doctor is like looking into a mirror. There’s rage there like me, guilt like me, solitude, everything but the nerve to do what needs to be done. Thank the gods my people weren’t relying on you to save them

and I can see that's meant to be a bit of an Anti-Doctor moment -- the Doctor is not the great saviour that so many previous episodes have set them up to be in this era, the Doctor is a hypocrite, a coward, etcetc.

IIIII am not sure if.... oof, this is subjective. the idea of this as a continuity of exploring the Doctor's inability to save everyone, and need to be in control of situations, and "honouring the victims" there's just something about this episode that doesn't quite emotionally land for me, and I will continue to try and figure out what. the point being, it's meant to be a strong character piece, but I'm not sure it manages it

I'm also highly dubious in an episode that's exploring the Doctor's morality and what he's all about, about why the Doctor never asks the victim's name or background or... just anything really. but we'll get to that in politics

PREVIOUS DOCTOR WHO: here's some of the "crux" of why I'm not sure it manages it, and it's more to do with "previous Doctor Who episodes of this era," than classic!who

in the sense of continuity of emotional journey. I think it's that seasons 1-specials had one long clear arc, one can pinpoint on the whole why the Doctor goes from s1ep1 to The End Of Time. and I'm not convinced that this episode works in this era, because I don't see that same arc in this era

maybe Twelve's era, from what I've heard of it, which deals with a lot of repercussions of having gone too far with things and not knowing if they're actually doing good on the whole, etc.

the main "big" arcs of this era have been 1. the relationship between the Doctor and Amy, a woman whose life he changed forever due to meeting her as a child and breaking a promise to her, which affected her entire upbringing and bent her towards the Doctor in an unhealthy way 2. the relationship between the Doctor and River Song, who is Amy's child and was kidnapped after being born and "brainwashed" into wanting to kill him, only to fall in love, but also if one takes this idea to its actual natural conclusion in conjunction with point the first, the Doctor's continued influence on Amy Pond continuing to be disruptive to the point that her child's entire life is even more (in fact solely one might say) in orbit around the Doctor, and never has the chance to break free from that destructive influence 3. some shit about a prophecy and a question and blabla, that has about zero emotional weight

there haven't really been stories about the Doctor's morality, so much as the Doctor's far more personal relationships, again The God Complex did this soooo well by introducing Rita as a possible companion and her rejecting the Doctor's whole schtick

so while technically this episode is fine as concept, I don't think it's grounded in an emotional continuity, which is a shame. give it to Twelve! watch Capaldi have these emotions!

“SEXINESS”: can you believe, a whole episode without a single sexy joke? wow, a rarity.

INTERNAL WORLD: so it's a Western town, it doesn't neeeed to be that fleshed out I guess, but I do feel like I wish the townsfolk were a bit more than just quaint set-dressing

we hear about Jex the war criminal's influence on this town, but we don't really see it

the Doctor even says to the gunslinger "this is their home, not the backdrop for your revenge," but it doesn't feel like anything but a stereotypical Western township, which is a shame

POLITICS: HA okay the other point where I am not 100% sure about this episode. it has good intentions, is my first point, it's not like it sets out to make conservative points or needlessly sexually harass Queen Nefertiti (sighs at prev episode)

buuuuuuut I just rewatched V for Vendetta a couple of weeks ago, as is the ritual on Guy Fawkes Night, and it's a very similar story, although ofc in V for Vendetta they're experimented on for far more nefarious purposes than "winning a war"... or are they. because that is my point, and maybe it's a pedantic one that a single 45min episode couldn't possibly have the time for, which is that a society/government that allows this sort of violence is "ends justify the means" and these types of governments are always at war in their heads

the idea of a neat divide between peace-time politics which are free to be nice, and war-time politics which necessitate the hard choices is simply not reality, and so the conceit that there was simply nothing else he could do but experiment on people and turn them into killing machines, it's... on shaky grounds

and it's kind of dependent on those grounds to work, because not only is this guy now repenting by doing good, the ends justified the means. they ended the war! millions were saved! (now where have I heard that before about an atom bomb?)

on top of that, the gunslinger isn't really as well-developed. who was he before he was experimented on? what did being forced to kill do to him? did he have friends on the experimenting tables die in front of him? who is he?

it's all well and good to say "but we don't do this Doctor, every life matters, including the war criminals" but why is the war criminal so well-developed, and the gunslinger -- the victim -- not at all?

those grounds are getting shakier by the Minute

why is this story not about the victim? why does the Doctor not go to hear the victim, not in terms of figuring out whether he should give over the war criminal, but just to be kind?

there is one scene in it where the gunslinger enters a church, sees a child and leaves again, because there's a neat thing in this that the gunslinger Will Not Kill Civilians, but that's such an interesting thing that's under-explored too. what if the gunslinger had to change his programming, because the original maybe didn't make a distinction between "enemy" and "civilian" (after all in these kinds of "wars" every person is an enemy, including the children)

what if the programming fights back when he's really upset and Jex the war criminal realises that this is his fault? what if a child died in this episode... that's getting a bit messed up, but let's entertain it for a second? or a parent died protecting their child and the gunslinger has to run from the town to stop the programming -- the programming that's been forced on him through mutilation and experimentation and that violence can never be undone? what if this story was about the victim, and not about a repenting war criminal?

gunslinger, after Jex self-destructs: "He behaved with honour at the end. Maybe more than me"

DID HE???? He just felt bad really, you're the most trauma-inflicted character we've had on this show in some fucking time

so yeah, it's grounds are. shaaaaky. shaky shaky shaky the more you think about it

another minor thing is that none of the main driving characters had to be men, but there's five extra characters in this episode with lines and big-to-small arcs (marshall, jex, gunslinger, young boy, mayor-type) and everyone else is backdrop, which is just kind of... in your cool scifi Western all the women were silent? why did the little girl not get to speak?

FULL RATING: 59/100 (if I can count….)

It's a good concept, executed at the wrong time in the story, and executed very clumsily

the good parts relate to the concept itself, and not spending valuable time being massively sexist

the problem is that it's just not smart enough to explore what it's trying to explore, and it's such a heavy topic, it better know what it's doing or it'll fall flat on its face. I wish it had come at another time with better writing, because I really wish it was better

I also wish that people were more adventurous about writing women. two historical Moments this season and neither have been kind to women for different reasons

is it time for the Ponds to leave? we'll find out next episode (I say, like I don't know their arcs)

#im watching nu!who #im watching eleven who #a town called mercy #the measurement

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pheonyxian · 2 years ago

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Baldur's Gate 3 Sexless Any% Part 3

I think some of my mutuals are using this as an actual way of knowing what BG3 is actually about so I figured I'd use this edition to talk about the plot and npcs a bit. Might slow down or stop these at some point? I thought the original premise was funny but I don't know if it's liveblog an entire 100 hour game funny. Regardless feel free to block the tag I'm adding if you don't want to hear any future rambles. Do love/hate it when a game I didn't intend to like so much gets its grubby mind flayer tentacles wrapped around my brain so hard.

The OC PC: RPing through the game as my OC Ank. I wasn't sure if picking an oc with strong psychic powers would rub against the mind flayer plot but so far it's been a perfect choice. Ank is traditionally a villain but I'm not playing a villain for my first play through, so it's been fun to rp him in a scenario where he's g o o d and his life didn't take a turn for the worse. He's also traditionally blind, but obviously the game isn't set up for that. I was originally just imagining cutscenes playing out differently if sight was involved, but maybe it'll be more interesting to consider him in a pre-blinded state. I'm sure certain repeated actions in the ocular region won't have any u n f o r t u n a t e effects.

Mind Flayers: The setup for the plot is that mind flayers have infected you (and your companions, and a large number of npcs) with mind flayer parasites and you have to remove them before you turn into fully grown mind flayers. Except for some reason you haven't turned yet and you get cool psychic powers with them.

The Guardian: In addition to making your own character at start, you also can character create your "guardian." Everyone I know just hits the randomize button because they've already spent an hour fussing over every detail of their character, but I knew this was coming and already planned my guardian out. And uh, like I said, Ank's traditionally a villain and the only guardian-like character he's ever had is uh... I'm going to be honest with you, if the guardian turns out to be the big bad of the game that's going to be funny as all fuck. I'm sure there's very little chance of that though, it's not like there's anything evil about telling you to s h o v e w o r m s i n t o y o u r s k u l l.

Withers: Withers is more of a mechanic than a character. I do want to know his story though. He's an undead or lich or something who will revive dead characters (for a cost) hire generic undead companions (for a cost, I guess if you want to resign your poor companion's unfortunate fate) and change your cast (for the same cost as undead friends.) I guess money still has use in the afterlife. I haven't had to use his services yet but I've had a lot of close calls and dwindling Revivify scrolls so it's only a matter of time.

Volo: Just Gale but a bard. Not a playable character Bard mind you. At least not yet. I don't know what his deal is. He offered to extract the mind flayer parasites with a pair of needles which I almost agreed to to see if he'd actually poke Ank's eye out.

And updates on companion stories:

Shadowheart: Decided that after a week of traveling and nearly dying together it was appropriate to breach topics again. Pretty sure the game expected me to ask these immediately once the option was available but like I said, we respect boundaries in this house. Anyway, Shadowheart's a cleric of Shar, who by context I'm assuming is bad. The way she put her worship didn't sound that bad, about embracing the darkness as a way of stripping falsehoods, right up until she started talking about toppling governments and killing innocents, so I'm keeping her at a 2/10 for being batshit insane.

Also her magical artifact is required for keeping me alive and she stole it and do we really want the e v i l cleric to have that kind of p o w e r over M E?

Lae'zel: Lae'zel sits at the very strange crossroad of honorable and completely ruthless. She's totally fine with killing your enemies but you have to do it the right way, and b r a i n w o r m s isn't the right way. I'd say the right way is whatever works. 7/10

Gale: All of my attempts to pry into Gale's backstory (boundaries? what boundaries?) were foiled by poor dice rolls so no updates on his dark and traumatic past. I did give him two magical artifacts to slurp up because he looked like he was going to die of heat stroke at camp. I've been avoiding spoilers but I had heard that it's hilariously difficult to not accidentally romance Gale due to a bug, and the fact that you can start his romance path without realizing it. Thankfully Ank is smart enough to realize that when you cast spells together that makes the air smell like rosewater it's time to high tail it out of there. 2/10 as smooth as a slip n' slide.

That said, I don't know if it's been patched yet, but according to the internet there's like a 50/50 chance the game thinks we've already banged. Tbd on that one. Sexless any% is slowly turning into Oops! Fucked Everyone thanks purely on technicalities.

Astarion: Based on the way people talk about him I genuinely thought the pompous personality was just a facade and that he'll eventually tip his hand and reveal he's been evil this entire time. But honestly based the bits of backstory he's (refreshingly, compared to the rest of these idiots) given out I think he's just the guy who, once given the keys to power, will drive right off sanity road. Regardless, he used to serve an abusive vampire lord so I guess we're going vampire hunting in the future. 10/10 bad influence gay best friend who tells you to chug and shove parasites up your eyes.

Wyll: Wyll is a warlock who serves a fiend that forces him to hunt down and kill demons, which sounds like a fine deal until some tricky wordplay came in. After refusing to kill Karlach (Tiefling, not demon) his patron changed him into a Tiefling too. Honestly? Upgrade. 6/10 nice guy but surrounded by more colorful characters.

Karlach: Ok here’s why Karlach is a 10/10 character even without taking sex appeal into consideration. She’s a Tiefling who served in some demonic war against her will and had her heart replaced with an infernal engine that constantly burns her and anyone she touches with searing hot pain. Despite this she has constant big sister energy and her biggest complaint is how touch starved she is. I don’t even care if it comes bundled with a sex scene, Karlach is getting a goddamn hug before the credits roll.

#BG3 sexless any percent liveblog #if you know my character Ank though please do read this one #He’s having a time

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randomboo256 · 28 days ago

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Archive: Problems of the Wild

Yep, I'm bringing back my old "Archive" series for two more entries, and these are major ones. The prior entries in the Archive series mostly consisted of texts I wrote while in high school to then privately share amongst my friends. This one is no exception. In fact, this was my biggest and most carefully made review at-the-time. For whatever reason, I never posted it. As you may have guessed from the title, it's a lengthy criticism of 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and one that I wrote back in 2019, then revised in 2020 then again in 2021. The additions that I made in 2020-21 will be clearly labeled as "Addendums" throughout. As for why now? I figured that, since the Nintendo Switch 2 is looming on the horizon, I should finally rerelease my own legacy content with no meaningful alterations, except I'm not charging you an extra $10! What a steal!

This was written years ago. The following may or may not reflect my current opinions. I simply wanted to post these archived thoughts on this blog. To that end, it has been left unedited.

An updated retrospective on the often ignored issues in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Squadila! We are off!

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (TLOZ: BOTW) is truly an anomaly of the Zelda franchise. It, unlike its predecessors, completely changed up the formula that other Zelda games often strictly abided by, and the game wants you to know that. So far in fact, that on the game’s page on Nintendo’s online storefront, the Nintendo eShop, it reads: “Forget everything you know about The Legend of Zelda games.” So what did it do?

Breath of the Wild is the first game in the Zelda franchise in which the game had an open-world, which abides by a current gaming trend widely popularized by The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Open-worlds, like other gaming trends at their time, were lauded by critics, often leading to important criticisms of the game going overlooked.

An easy example is Bethesda, the company behind Skyrim as well as a handful of other open-world games like it. Bethesda’s games are riddled with tens of hundreds of technical flaws and glitches. Critics and fans alike overlooked these glaring flaws and gave Bethesda a pass. This led to Bethesda to not only fail to improve their craft, but to try less and less to make a good game as time went by. This led to Fallout 76: an unfinished mess of a game with more bugs than one could count and scummy microtransactions galore.

A similar case happened with BOTW. The game was lauded by critics and fans, despite having numerous flaws. Mostly because of the defining feature: “You can do anything you want, when you want.” So what are the flaws? Let’s start from the top.

I just wonder what Ganon’s up to...

The plot of BOTW is nonexistent at best. Because of the dedication of “You can do anything you want, when you want.”, the story had to take a backseat. It’s hardly there. Here’s the plot: “Go kill Ganon. He’s a bad and he's doing a bad.” Hell, even that’s a stretch. We never see him doing anything bad. Or at all. All he does is float around the castle. He certainly looks evil. But that isn’t enough. The rest of the story is just backstory (and not very interesting backstory at that). It’s all about people long dead that you can’t do anything for. It’s all just meaningless fluff to convince you that there is more plot going on than there actually is. And also, the voice acting leaves something to be desired.

Addendum to the story

It’s a shame the plot is so lukewarm, considering the plot is generally the best part of Zelda games. They also try to make emotional moments between Link and Zelda, but they fail because you never see Zelda in person until the end, and when you do it’s underwhelming to say the least. Even if you ignore that and just focus on what is given, the plot makes no sense. Let’s go over some of the plot holes off the top of my head.

After 100 years, why hasn’t society rebuilt itself?

Why are the majority of towns still in ruin? The world acts like the disaster happened last sunday. 100 years is a long time. Look at the real world. Not even a century has passed since WWII and the world is completely different. I get that there are monsters, but if the monsters were that much of a problem, why is anyone still alive?

Why is Zelda still young? Everyone else has aged. Why didn’t she age? Oh because she wouldn’t look like waifu bait anymore. I see.

How has Zelda been able to hold Ganon back for so long?

What is she even doing anyway? They never explained it.

Why is it that right when Link is starting to wake up she “can’t hold him back much longer”?

In fact, why does she lose her grip right when Link walks into the final boss room? You could beeline straight to Ganon at the start or spend 500+ hours climbing mountains and either way she loses her grip when you walk in. Maybe she got excited seeing him and lost grip…? But they don’t say that in the game nor does it come off that way.

Why did it take 100 years to revive Link? It isn’t like he died and they resurrected him with magic. He was alive. Why didn’t they just heal him? This is a game where eating apples can revive you from the brink of death.

If Zelda is holding Ganon back, why is Ganon seen flying around the castle?

Why does Ganon have control over everything if Zelda is “holding him back” whatever that means?

What exactly is Zelda preventing Ganon from doing? Preventing his physical pig form from leaving?

What’s the point of holding Ganon back anyway? He won already, has he not?

What does Ganon want?

In fact, what is he even like?

In fact, why is he like this shadow-y thing in the first place? This isn’t established in the series, and it certainly isn’t explained in Botw. Maybe it’s for the sequel.

How would I change the plot? Well here is what I would change it to. I think that the game’s plot would have been a lot better if Ganondorf was completely free and did rule the world. Make it so it was only a couple years passed. Zelda is free, but she’s in hiding, alongside Impa. Once Link is free, the dead king tells Link to go to them. They tell Link to go free the Divine Beasts. When Zelda realizes that Link forgot about her, there could be an emotional moment where Zelda gets upset and leaves the room. After you complete the memory quest, you can return to Impa and Zelda and talk to them. Zelda will be happy, and she will mention that she forgot to give you the Champion’s Tunic, which now serves as a reward for completing the quest.

Throughout the game, we would actually get to see Ganondorf in cutscenes and we can hear about the things he did from the npcs. Link could slowly free places like Kakariko from his rule. Once everything is done, Link defeats Ganon and we get a nice wrap up to a romance plot with Zelda. Why not? They clearly wanted to do that in game and got cold feet.

It didn’t take me very long to come up with a lot of improvements to this plotline, and I think that one of my biggest problems with the plot.

You must die!

BOTW is praised for its combat. “It’s the best in the series!” - BOTW fans. I’m here to argue that it’s style over substance. It’s crazy and flashy, but that’s it. Aside from some elemental mechanics, minor stealth, and counter attacks, it’s the same thing as the other games.

But there is one mechanic that makes it much worse than other Zelda games: weapon durability. In BOTW, shields, bows, and everything from mops to the Master Sword, can break after enough use. Bows rarely break, and I never really used my shield a lot because it doesn’t even block most attacks (another major problem with combat in this game).

The big one is weapons. The problem with this is they often break between 1 to 6 uses of that weapon. Because of this, an enemy encounter inherently takes a toll on you. You need your weapons for more important things. Therefore, it makes it a much smarter idea to just avoid combat altogether.

Which soils the idea of the “The combat is the best in the series!”. Even if it was, you wouldn’t want to actively engage with it for a number of reasons. Because not only does it waste weapons, but it wastes food, which is used to restore health. Because in BOTW, even the smallest of enemies pack a major punch. Expect one-hit KOs. Many, many one-hit KOs.

Even when you’re powered up enough to handle those hits, they still pack a wallop. You will have to restore that health via consuming food. But you again need that food for more important things. But to add insult to injury, when you do kill those enemies, you get something like a weapon or food that’s worse than the ones you wasted, or a pitiful handful of rupees.

Addendum to the combat

Upon further inspection, I would like to add onto my thoughts on the combat.

While there is a large variety of ways to fight, most are incredibly ineffective or more tedious than the simple solution, which I’ll explain in a second. But first, the weapons.

The weapon types are very unbalanced. Big weapons take too long to use and are so hard to aim that they’re practically useless, or at the very least quite inferior. Most enemies are fast, so fighting slow is a bad idea.

Swords are better. They swing fast enough and do good damage, but because of their short reach you have to get right up in your foes face, and considering most enemies fight exclusively melee, you often get hit. Swords pale in comparison to past Zelda games. You’re limited to basic horizontal swings that stick you in place. It makes sword fighting feel very stiff. Even OoT had more complex sword mechanics.

The best is easily spears. They may deal the least with each hit, but they hit very fast. More importantly, spears are so long that in many cases, it can hurt enemies without getting close enough for them to hit back quick enough. Many battles devolve to walking around in circles jabbing the enemies. But once you get lighting weapons, fights become a joke. The lightning spear is the best weapon in the game. One jab shocks the enemy in place (dropping their weapon). In the time they take to unstun, the spear will recharge. Jab them as soon as they unstun and wait for the spear to recharge, etc. The cycle continues until they die.

Not to mention that most enemies are bullet sponges (as in they have an absurd amount of health) as well as the aforementioned ridiculous amounts of damage they deal. This game uses a ragdoll physics engine (specifically a modified Havok engine. Garry's Mod also uses a modified version of Havoc. A little fun fact.), so you either get pinned to the ground as you get pummeled to death, or by the time you get up, another enemy comes at you and you have little to no time to react. So essentially, every fight is either you infinite the enemy, or the enemy infinites you. Great.

Many things were removed from combat that were in past Zeldas, specifically Twilight Princess. Here’s a list of some:

You can't swing your weapon while moving.

All forms of sword swings outside the basic swing, jump (which is clunkier now), and spin (which has never been that useful) have been removed, making Link feel more robotic.

Rolling is gone. Not a super useful move, but it was very iconic. Just another Zelda thing BotW removed for no reason.

Sword fighting on horseback has been nerfed.

Link now only attacks one side in a pathetic jab.

Link can no longer spin attack on horseback.

Link can no longer quickfire arrows, slowing down combat.

While quick spin attack is still in, it still drains stamina, which partially defeats the point of the quick spin attack as it's supposed to be a faster and free spin attack, but it requires practice to consistently pull off in a combat scenario.

While partially already covered, all the unlockable sword moves in Twilight Princess to my knowledge are missing, with the exception of the shield bash, however that has been nerfed.

The dumbing down of sword fighting to just "press button to swing" makes sword fighting feel way more repetitive, and generally less useful. Relying on unorthodox strategies is more or less required both to be effective and to have any fun with the combat system. With everything considered, it's odd people are quick to say this game has the best combat in the series. It adds less than it takes away, as well as introducing unique problems such as the weapon breaking system.

Jumping left/right to dodge attacks is WAY worse than other Zeldas. Z-targeting once would make everything revolve around the enemy you are trying to fight, so when you dodged, Link would dodge wrapping around the enemy. But in Botw if Link tries to do that, Link just dodges to his side, no matter where the enemy is. It could be because other 3d Zelda game engines were being designed from the ground up to be 3d zelda game engines (not modified from an already existing engine), but it could just be because this game was poorly designed.

Also, some people say that combat taking a toll is a good thing because… idk. Maybe in a better game they could actually run with that concept and do something fun with it. Make a game where combat is intentionally discouraged in that way, like a horror game, a stealth game, a survival game.... wait those genres already do that.

Sarcasm aside, Botw clearly wasn't designed with that in mind, so the game suffers from it as a result, instead of benefiting from it like it could have. I mean, what does botw have to lose if weapons didn't break and if arrows were as easily replenishable as past games?

Nothing imo. I think that those merely serve as annoying and unnecessary systems in a game that doesn't blend well with them.

They come off as annoying rather than fun.

Like an inconvenience rather than challenge.

They discourage you from engaging in the combat and rather just avoiding every enemy like it's the plague.

Gee… It sure is boring around here.

This is a big one, Despite the massive size of this world, there isn’t much to it. The game is an ocean wide and a puddle deep. On your grand exploration of Hyrule, you will:

Find Korok seeds

Find the occasional shrine

Find Korok seeds

Find one-note NPCs

Find Korok seeds

Run into generic wildlife

Find Korok seeds

Find cool little structures that are otherwise meaningless

Find Korok seeds

Find a rare special shrine (i.e. Eventide, that completely dark area, mazes)

And find Korok seeds.

That is, if you find anything at all. 4/5s of the time you find nothing or you suddenly realize you’re exploring the same area again because everything looks identical. But, getting around can be fun. It normally isn’t. But it can be fun. You know, once you spend an extra $20 to play the dlc chapter to unlock the motorcycle. Horses are still as clunky as always, and they are much slower than what you can do on foot, and running around everywhere also isn’t ideal.

This game is incredibly repetitive. You found a mini-boss in the overworld?! Cool! I hope you like fighting it a lot, because you will do it again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, etc. Did you like the boss at the end of [Insert divine beast]? Well, you have to fight it three more times with slight changes. Oh, so you do want that motorcycle? Well, you gotta fight it 4 more times! Yep, that’s where your $20 went! Boss refights! Did you like fighting [insert any enemy]? Well, I hope you like fighting it a lot, because there are very few kinds of enemies. So you will fight it again, and again, and again, and again, and again, and again, etc.

But it doesn’t just stop at enemies. Remember food? Well, because enemies hit so hard, you will need a lot of food. How do you get food? By making it. How do you make it? You need ingredients. How do you get ingredients? By finding them randomly or buying them. How do you get money? By finding them randomly or by selling stuff. How do you get the stuff to sell? You find it randomly. And you make each dish one by one. It’s tedious! And it isn’t fun.

All Korok seeds are all one of about 6 puzzles. All shrines feel identical, and so do the Divine Beasts. The extra dungeon at the end of the dlc also just reuses elements from the already similar feeling Divine Beasts. Hell, almost the entire map feels identical. Combat feels identical. Everything feels identical! The entire game is “Great! Now do it again.”

It’s kind of like life in that sense. It is incredibly boring, repetitive, and if you try to do anything out of the norm, it’s a great risk that will likely lead to death or will really mess you up. But that is NOT a good thing. Let’s leave games similar to life at Animal Crossing. At least Animal Crossing is somewhat charming in its mundanity. In fact, speaking of charm...

Addendum to the exploration

Let’s ignore the world itself now, because even if the world was massive and diverse, the game still messes up its exploration, and that’s mostly because of one thing: stamina. Link has a stamina meter, which essentially just exists to heavily restrict certain moves.

What moves? Well spin attacks, climbing, gliding, swimming, and running. Yes. Running in a massive open world game is limited. Not only that, but once the meter is fully drained, Link can’t do anything until it refills. Additionally, it stops your current climbing/swimming/gliding, making you fall and normally lose a lot of progress.

My question is this: what do these systems add? Nothing, other than being annoying and slowing you down. Having infinite stamina wouldn't break the game. It would just make it much faster (something the game really needs) and more convenient.

When it comes to climbing and swimming, these actions are incredibly tedious. It devolves into just holding up and waiting forever for something to happen. You can speed it up, but that consumes all of your stamina real quick.

The only option is to sit your ass down and wait for something to happen. Even worse if you end up running out of stamina, which will normally end up with you stuck back at square one, resulting in a complete waste of time. Between stamina, the rain, and your IPad powers needing to wait to refill, it's like entire game feels like nothing but waiting for things to happen half the time.

“Great! I’ll grab my stuff!” - Zelda Series

In BOTW, there is almost nothing Zelda related. If you remove the few easter eggs, returning species, and the Master Sword (which feels lazily slapped in) and you would never have been able to tell it was ever supposed to be a Zelda game at all. In brief, the main dungeons in BOTW (aka the divine beasts) feel so half assed compared to literally any other dungeon in any other Zelda game. They used to be these large, multilevel labyrinths full of puzzles, and while that's still kinda true now, they still pale in comparison. The puzzles feel watered down as well, especially considering the lack of true dungeon items.

This especially hurts with the lack of the series' signature charm. Even the series at its worst in the past had maintained the charm it established back when the games first started being RPGs. But BOTW just doesn’t have that charm. The game removes so many iconic things from Zelda that’s not even worth attempting to list them all. It’s faster to list what they did keep, and that’s because they didn’t keep much.

It also lacks when it comes to music. The game has little music. What is there ranges from decent to unmemorable to outright annoying. The music is often just random unconnected notes from a piano. It sounds so lazy. The Zelda franchise has a ton of memorable tunes. Not only does this game not use any of those tunes, but it adds nothing to that list.

The only good song in the game is the song the game plays for 30 seconds at the beginning and never again until the end credits. Even then, the Smash bros version is superior, so this game adds nothing in this category. Well, that and some of the dungeon and battle themes. Admittedly, the cutscenes have pretty good music, but most of the gameplay itself (aka the vast majority of your playtime) is very lacking. You're better off just listening to a playlist of Zelda songs from other games while playing.

Not to mention the technology. This is a Zelda game. Technology has never been a factor, aside from small doses here and there. This game spits all over all of that. I know they try to justify it in the game through story, but it just feels jarring to see sci-fi elements in a fantasy game. It’s not even hard to rewrite this game to remove the technology. Zelda is known for magical mystical adventures. This contrasts so hard with BotW, and not in a good way. At this point, they should just give Link a gun.

The game is so different that I can’t help but wonder if it was always intended to be a Zelda game. Throughout BOTW’s development, Nintendo was constantly teasing a new Zelda game. But maybe, just maybe, something just fell through; they didn’t like the ideas they had (or something of the like) and the game was scrapped and then replaced by an ambitious new IP they cooked up. That’s just a theory, though.

“Forget everything you know about The Legend of Zelda games.” If you forgot everything about yourself , and then proceeded to act entirely different, then you aren't you. You’re someone else that looks just like you. In my eyes, at least.

Imagine if Nintendo released a new Pikmin game, but called it and themed it as a Mario game, going off about how it’s the way Mario is from now on. Imagine the response that would get. But that’s what BOTW is to Zelda, but instead of being a Pikmin clone, it’s an uninspired copy of every other open-world game on the market. The game clearly took some notes from Bethesda. Probably too many.

Addendum to the lack of series elements

The most likely cause of the lack of Zelda staples is the same reason we went from the cheeriest 3D Zelda game, Wind Waker, to the darkest, Twilight Princess. It’s because anytime Nintendo is faced with criticism towards 3D Zelda, they way overcorrect in the opposite direction. That’s the main reason why the 3D Zelda games are so distinct from one another. To fully understand Breath of the Wild, you must understand what came before: The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword.

Skyward Sword (SS) was a game made for the Nintendo Wii, and it damn well wanted you to know that, in basically all aspects of its design. The obvious thing to point to is its overreliance on motion controls, which later games simplified down just to aiming, including BotW. However, that’s not the most important thing in the game that was influenced by the console.

The Wii had a very large market of mostly casual gamers, people who didn’t normally play video games. As such, Nintendo designed the game so that not even Grandma can be left behind not knowing what to do. To achieve this, they did several things. First off all, the game, especially early on, likes to hold your hand. They added hint stones that straight up explain puzzles for you, and, more pressingly, your partner, Fi, would explain quite literally everything for you in excruciating detail. Partners normally served to offer some advice, as well as provide certain menu options. Fi cranked that up to eleventy seven, constantly interrupting gameplay to explain basic stuff you probably figured out moments before she said it. As an aside, she also had little personality of any kind, which made it even more annoying.

It didn’t stop at hand holding, however. The game design itself was designed very differently to a typical Zelda game. The overworld was designed the same as dungeons. As such, it felt much more linear than a normal Zelda, even though Zelda was always about that linear. It’s just now the game itself makes that abundantly clear. My assumption for why they did that was that they didn’t want the casuals getting bored or something.

Now, I should state here that Skyward Sword is still a very good game, but the forced motion controls completely overshadowed the rest of the experience in the eyes of the public. Casuals were never a reliable market, especially by late in the Wii’s lifespan that Skyward Sword released in. By then, iPhones really started skyrocketing in popularity, and the Wii was an old fad. This is something Nintendo would only understand fully until the Wii U’s failure. That left Skyward Sword only to be bought by the leftover gamers, and they screamed and ran when they saw the motion controls. All of this led to Skyward Sword selling substantially worse than Twilight Princess, the previous 3d Zelda game.

This caught Nintendo’s attention, and they decided to make their next game the polar opposite to Skyward Sword in many ways. They completely ditched partners, made the game completely open (I’d argue too open), and got rid of dungeons almost entirely. Skyward Sword was also a game that doubled down on things from prior games. BotW is a game that removes so many things from previous games, while not adding much to compensate. In that sense, many of BotW’s differences are just being different for the sake of being different. That explains a lot, doesn’t it?

My boy, this peace is what all true warriors strive for.

Every game can live or die based on its difficulty. I would say this one dies. Because of the “You can do anything you want, when you want.” gimmick, the entire game is the same level of difficulty. It’s a high bar at first, but a little over halfway in you surpass the bar and then the rest of the game becomes a cake-walk. So the game starts off at its hardest point and ends off at its easiest point. I have never seen difficulty this botched before.

Oh boy! I'm so hungry, I could eat an Octorok!

I’ll admit. There is some fun to be had just playing around. Just having stupid mindless fun. You know, doing stuff like biking around from point A to wherever the road takes you (if you catch my drift). Clearing random shrines as you see them. Doing and experimenting with random stuff. It reminds me of Garry's Mod (in more ways than one) in just playing around and losing yourself with that level of freedom. No real goal in mind.

But then, I realized something. Despite the momentary joy, it left me feeling completely unfulfilled. It’s the junk food of gaming. Sure, it tastes nice, but you’re still going to be hungry after you eat it. So you just eat more and more, and before long you have diabetes grow sick of the taste and just want to eat something that will actually fill you up. At best, that's what BotW can hope to achieve. Since doing everything by the game’s actual design isn’t good, all you have left is to have your own fun.

“I won!” - BOTW

Well, despite all of these flaws, BOTW was praised beyond rationality. I clearly disagree. This game is easily one of the most flawed games in the franchise. “You’re lying. You’re only saying all this stuff to be contrarian.” I’m saying this genuinely, as a fan of this franchise.

So I must hate it, right? Wrong. The game can be fun. But is it the best game ever made? Hell no. It has WAY too many flaws to ever be considered anywhere NEAR that in my eye.

But the biggest issue is that the concept of “You can do anything you want, when you want.” is flawed. A game can’t have no rules. That’s a mess. But BOTW has rules. So… you can’t “Do anything you want, when you want.” Besides, Garry’s Mod is a game with no rules. And it gets very boring after awhile, even with the memes it brings.

Good games have structure and order. BOTW doesn’t. “You can do anything you want, when you want.” is a gimmick, and not a long lasting one at that. It’s a shame what happened to Zelda. I really enjoyed a lot of the games in this series, but if this is how things will be from now on, I’m less than thrilled to say the least. Oh well. I give this game a:

4/10

-Maycie Hughes 2019 (Revised 2020-21)

-------------------------

Huh, so that was my old essay, huh? Yeah, I definitely don't agree with everything I said there. (Seriously, why did I end with a review score, and why one so stupidly low? Even with the problems I have with it, it should be at least a 7/10). Anyhow, this review definitely be very different if I rewrote it today, especially considering the sequel. A lot of this really comes off as overly aggressive ranting, which makes sense considering I wrote this in the middle of my "edgy" phase. Ugh. I'd recommend reading my post "Tears of the Kingdom Revisted" from last year, as well as my new post "Problems of the Kingdom" for a more updated and thoughtful opinion on these titles. Oh, what's that? Why wouldn't I just remake it in this post? Well, because then I'd have no choice but to charge $80 for it, and that's too much for ya.

#gaming #review #legend of zelda

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joegualtieri-blog · 1 month ago

Text

Young Wade

Deadpool v 1-3 by Skottie Young, Nic Klein, and Scott Hepburn

Someone always has to follow the classic runs at Marvel and DC. Commerce always comes first for them,* so the proverbial field cannot be left fallow for long, especially not star characters, and Deadpool is definitely that for Marvel now. Gerry Duggan (and Brian Posehn) wrote more than 100 issues of the character over multiple series at a time when Wade Wilson's popularity exploded again thanks to the films starring Ryan Reynolds. For younger readers, it may be hard to believe, but in 1997, when the first Deadpool ongoing series launched at a time when Marvel was looking for books to fill space left by several comics being outsourced to Wildstorm and Extreme Studios, Wilson was at best a C tier character. He did not even really make into the 1992 X-Men animated series, appearing in a background, non-speaking role. That first ongoing run written by Joe Kelly changed a lot for the character, but was constantly under threaten of cancellation. Supposedly, that instability drove Kelly away, but the sales stayed just high enough for the book to continue along in various permutations Daniel Way's relaunch in 2008 (first in Wolverine Origins) finally hit for the character, and leveled him up to a star, at least within comics. The Duggan/Poeshn run itself launched following Way's run, so sometimes you can get back-to-back popular or great runs. Asking for that to happen a third time in a row is probably folly, and this case certainly did not defy the odds.

Young's run only lasts 15 issues, and alternates artists between Klein (#1-3, 7-9, 13-14) and Hepburn (#4-6, 10-12, 15). Klein's work is... interesting. There is an ugly quality to his work that feels akin to underground comics artists like a Crumb or Deitch. That's quite different for a mainstream Marvel book, but I cannot overall say that I cared for his style. Hepburn's figure work is less unique, falling into a sort of aesthetic that feels like a more acceptable “indie style” that pops up at Marvel or DC from time to time like Chris Samnee or Paolo Rivera. I generally prefer Hepburn to Klein, but his work, while similar to the artist I named, is not as pleasing.

The overall plot to Young's run centers around Deadpool's old friend Weasel trying to get out of Hell by setting Deadpool up to become Mephisto's assassin. The best issues of the series though are one-offs. “Tears of a Clown,” #6, stands above every other issue in the run. Wilson wakes up depressed and calls out of work. Another assassin wants him dead and keeps feeling despite Wilson not even fighting back. Young and Hepburn actually create a powerful portrait of depression in this issue, and it stands with the best Deadpool stories of all-time. The noir pastiche, “Heartless,” in issue nine is the other big standout. Someone has literally stolen Wilson's heart. He turns to Jessica Jones to find the culprit and make sure that no one is using it for cloning or other nefarious purposes. It turns out that a sweet, elderly man stole it to keep his wife alive. Unfortunately, this issue is marred by objectification of Jessica Jones. Most of the other one-offs are at least conceptually interesting (one set in Weirdworld, a zombie attack the mall where Deadpool has his office, kids hiring Wilson to kill Santa Claus). I was quite disappointed that the Weirdworld issue did not impact the larger storyline, as in it, Wilson marries Jennifer Kale, and then abandons her. She swears revenge, which comes to nothing in the run.

Part of the issue for me, other than not particularly enjoying the main plot, was that I just did not particularly enjoy Young's sense of humor. His fourth wall jokes, which are often self-deprecating, are good, the rest? Eh. But humor can be idiosyncratic. As popular as Way's run is, I never liked his take on Deadpool. Kelly, Simone, and Duggan remain my standard for the character. Young also revisits elements of Duggan's run a bit fast. His daughters appear in the run, despite the mind-wipe at the end of Duggan's run being there at least in part so future writers could ignore them. The first arc turns on a weapon Wilson picked up during the space issue of Duggan's run. More space might have let Young build his own run and make it stronger. *The exception to this is Jack Knight.

#deadpool #skottie young #nic klein #scott hepburn #comics review #jennifer kale

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thewritegrump · 7 months ago

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D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with mhbv? / P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an "architect" or a "gardener"? (How much do you plan in advance, versus letting the story unfold as you go?)

D: Is there a song or a playlist to associate with mhbv?

Oh man, I have playlists for SO many fics. I pretty much always have one for whatever I'm working on at the moment, plus a general 'smut-writing jams' playlist that I go to for those kinds of scenes and fics. >v> I would share them, but my Spotify is linked to my actual irl name so... yeah, not gonna doxx myself publicly! ^^;;; I suppose I could just make a list of the songs in the playlists, but I don't think anyone really is interested enough to justify taking the time to do it.

I do still have the MHBV playlist. Well, there's two- one that has all the songs I took chapter titles from, and then the 'vibes' playlist I listened to while writing the chapters and songs that overall fit the themes and vibes. ovo I used to delete the playlists once I finished the fic, which I regret, but thankfully I stopped doing that. TTvTT

P: Are you what George R. R. Martin would call an "architect" or a "gardener"?

I don't know that I really identify with either, because the amount of planning I do in advance varies wildly based on the fic. Different projects demand different levels of forethought, honestly, so I'm not really an architect nor a gardener. Rather, I'm more of a chemist, perhaps veering toward something of a mad scientist about the writing process.

For a project like MHBV, Kaitra and I spent a week or two drumming up a 70-page outline. Granted, most of this is character interaction stuff, since the Karas in the fic all needed somewhat different personalities. Reading a fic about 15 carbon copies down to behaviors and personalities sounds confusing and boring as hell to me, so I sort of just made each one their own unique and easily identifiable variation. And so I needed to analyze these characters and figure shit out about them so I could write them properly. That's the bulk of the outline, with maybe 10 pages dedicated to the trials that actually further the plot. The slice-of-life things happening between murders is mostly off-the-cuff stuff I wrote on the spot once I tuned into the 'footage' (me playing the scenario in my mind as I'm writing it).

On My Mind had a completely different process. No outline, no notes document, no real planning aside from the loose concept a friend gave me. If you told me it would be a million words the day that I started it... I wouldn't believe you. o-o;;; God, what a wild 10 months that was. Anyway, OMM didn't have an outline until around Chapter 100, at which point I would write like... a sentence at most describing the main kink or event of the chapter. Stuff like 'chapter [x]: ichi and yana talk about what happened in june' or 'chapter [x]: choro and ichi yukata shopping'. Just real bare bones stuff to at least map out everything I wanted to include and find a definitive ending. Otherwise that fic would still probably be going, good lord.

In Another Life was a sort of middle ground. I write the outline like a continuous narrative summarizing the story, settling on stopping points once I arrive at the nearest one around 5k-7k words with each chapter. I delete the parts I've already written so I'm unsure how long the full outline would be, but at its longest it was about 10 pages, I think? It's rather short now, as I'm almost done with the fic. ^_^ I... need to get back to writing that. Oops. Anyway, if I had to estimate, I'd say about 22,000 (how fitting with the 22) since I write about 300 words of outline for each chapter and we're now in the early 70s with the chapter count.

With the collab I'm doing with Zils, I planned it similarly to IAL, though it was much shorter of an outline, since it's going to be 6 chapters. I also need to get back to this, because my brain has been bubbling with ideas for it. >v>;;;

Don't get me started on House Of Blue. o-o There's no so much an outline doc- well, there is a doc with all the chapters I plan to write, and Tira has her own separate document of the sort, I believe. But all the lore and the thought process and behind-the-scenes info is organized into channels on my Discord server since there is so goddamn much lore that hasn't even touched the fic on ao3 yet OOP. Me and my co-conspirators also have a lorekeepers group chat where we discuss stuff we want to keep between us four until it's time to unveil it in the fic. So it's all a bit scattered, but there is a great deal of brainstorming and planning.

So yeah, the amount of planning I do depends on the project, how intricate the plot is, how many details there are to remember...

#theramblegrump #mhbv #hob #ial #omm #cross the delta

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moonlightchn · 2 years ago

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HI I only saw your reply to my ask now- Hsvbsbs im doing good! I looked up haneul and queenofheartsyeji! You're also one of the ppl i looked up at the beginning thats why im here heuehwg i also looked up cb-muse whos now clubwnderland and darkfaeskz! - 🌹

HI HELLO i died. no i didnt just got v busy soz for yhe late answer!!! haneul just came back recently, it was closed haahah yeji thooo they were neat, i remember almost ruining her marriage tho so IANWKSNA 😩😩didn't know they were still around! noice owo thr muses have evolved to be sexier and have v interesting plots 100/10 recommend aylas bot. darkfae lurks a lot but unless they dont tag me i dont think they posting either skansk much like me tho but i hand around from time to time ayeyoo

#admin talker #🌹 baby

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dinatellart · 6 years ago

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Real Name: AGATHA M. BAPTISTA

Cover name: ALEX REI

Codename: APOLLO

Imperial Government ID: IA702

game belongs to @reportsfromphilo

#reports from philomena #rfp #lads we're back in the game #today's chaotic chid...AGATHA #the demo is s good so many options #and the plot is v interesting 100/10 #moodboard #aesthetic #my edit #philo #not that proud of this but i really wanted to do smth for the amazing game

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midtown-parker · 4 years ago

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okay i just watched the fatws finale and ?????? idk how i feel..... like i enjoyed it ??? but also quite a few things fell flat so i’m just kinda 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️ idk i liked it, but i didn’t love it..

#tfatws #tfatws spoilers #the sharon as the powerbroker thing is the most underwhelming reveal i’ve ever seen #i think there were probably lots of references to other cap movies but like.... cmon marvel there’s over 20 movies now it’s hard to keep up #with easter eggs from 10 years ago #lots of things happened but all the big moments felt kinda rushed through ???#like carly’s death and john walker going good (??) and then he’s just kinda forgiven and the sharon thing #ngl sharon’s entire character felt completely pointless through the whole series #i just feel like they tried to fit too much in to the series #idek if making the series longer would have helped bc it would have just dragged on and gotten even more confusing #i’m still not 100% sure i even know what the flagsmashers were about tbf #idk honestly the whole series just missed the mark a bit for me #i love sam and bucky and i love sam as the winter soldier #but i think maybe they should have focused on that whole thing and the john walker thing more #i think that was the most interesting part of the show for me #and i think bucky’s arc felt v rushed #it just felt like a bit of a filler between the movies which will probably be seen as the big event #it was just like they started developing all these little side plots which will eventually be relevant in the movies #same goes for the wandavision finale too #like idk if marvel has mastered the mini series concept tbh and idk how well it works alongside the mcu movies......#just one gal’s opinion though

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mrschwartz · 3 years ago

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Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner: ‘I’m comfortable with the idea that things don’t have to be a pop song’

The most influential frontman of his generation is also the least at ease with it. He discusses abandoning rock norms, singing from the gut and treading the fine line between cryptic and gooey on new album The Car

Not for the first time, Alex Turner has lost his train of thought. In a booth of a downtown Manhattan diner, the Arctic Monkeys frontman is hunched forward, grasping for words to describe their new album – a black-tie orgy of cinematic soul, lurid funk and perfumed 60s strings. A waiter swoops in to save him. Would Turner like some milk for his coffee? “I’ll have a bit of milk, yes please,” he says. She returns a minute later, and Turner, having strung together no more than half a sentence, eagerly tops up his mug. “OK,” he says, rubbing his hands. “OK. Now we’ve got it.”

During our two-hour conversation, the affable introvert is determinedly, delightfully animated: he bashes imaginary woodblocks, sprawls across his moulded seat, clasps thin air and shakes it like a Magic 8 Ball. His turquoise jumper’s V-neck reveals a thin gold necklace, which he fondles while digressing into monologues on the genius of composer David Axelrod. Turner has been portrayed as aloof and evasive, but he is a man of pensive silences – an ambivalent overthinker trapped in an eccentric entertainer’s body.

He tries to describe orchestrating that new album, The Car. “Rather than strings on top of rock,” he says finally, “I was interested in switching the ‘rock band’ bit on and off.” He tweaks levels on a mixing desk in his mind’s eye. “With the Sculptures song” – the dizzyingly gorgeous Sculptures of Anything Goes – “the ‘rock band’ fader comes up for two bars here and there, and then it’s switched back off.”

He inspects this thought, then flings out his arms and freezes. He looks like a magician alarmed the rabbit is missing from his hat. Slowly, he reboots. “And I don’t remember doing that quite so … deliberately before,” he concludes. A boyish smile. “Phew!” He clutches his chest. “I didn’t think I was gonna get to the end of that sentence.”

But Turner, 36, is nothing if not acutely self-aware and very funny with it. But surely this superstar, whose new haircuts trend on Twitter, is too famous to be such a brooder. Each of his eight albums, including the two with the Last Shadow Puppets, his project with friend Miles Kane, has debuted at No 1 in the UK. Since its 2013 release, the Monkeys’ juggernaut of a fifth album, AM, has taken just one week’s holiday from the UK Top 100. It spent most of September back inside the Top 10, after the band headlined Reading and Leeds festivals.

The AM era lasted a couple of years – long enough for the Sheffield boys’ image as pomade-slick, leather-jacketed Los Angeles dirtbags to stick in the public memory for good. So when Arctic Monkeys got back to mischief, with 2018’s fantastically strange Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino, fans were confounded. Turner had assembled a cast of distractible narrators to interrogate modern society – technology, politics, hyperreal LA – in a retro-futurist concept album set in a lunar colony. On stage, dressed like a 70s geography teacher, he now addressed crowds with comical formality. Sceptics said he had lost the plot, calling it an act of self-sabotage – or worse, a class betrayal. In Sheffield, somebody graffitied a coffin on a gate at Hunter’s Bar – the area immortalised in Fake Tales of San Francisco. “Hey Alex,” the caption read. “How’s California?”

While tighter and grander than its predecessor, Arctic Monkeys’ seventh album is blissfully unconcerned with correcting the record. It swings from a louche, movie-soundtrack intro to Portishead-stark noir, improbably catchy yacht-funk and the poppy bombast of Elliott Smith’s LA era. At times, Turner dips into a slick, syrupy croon, though he recoils from the word’s stuffy baggage.

“You sort of wish there was a way around the things attached to that word [croon],” he says. “But yeah, everything’s come down a little bit. And I like that, because if it’s come down here” – he runs a finger from his forehead to his ribcage – “it’s out of your head. It’s more coming from …”

He hunts for the word. The heart? I suggest, as he flings invisible confetti from his chest.

“The heart,” he agrees, sounding a bit uncomfortable. “Or even better: the gut.”

Turner is not all the way out of his head just yet. He sings much of The Car in a falsetto that trapezes between Sly Stone and David Byrne. The anxious melodies strike a delicate balance with the sumptuous strings. “You don’t want it to get gooey,” he reasons. “But it’s nice to get to the perimeter of that. There may have been discussions about where that line is, and how many times you can get close to it.”

Still, Turner’s bamboozling lyrics preclude slushiness. Traces of Yorkshire chansonnier Jake Thackray and punk-poet John Cooper Clarke remain, but Turner’s bon mots are now elaborately encrypted. Struggle though you may to picture festival crowds bellowing some of the lyrics here (Hello You opens: “Lego Napoleon movie / written in noble gas-filled glass tubes / underlined in sparks”), you can never rule it out. The similarly inscrutable 505, an album cut from 2007’s Favourite Worst Nightmare, recently caused a sensation on TikTok.

Maybe tackling impenetrable lyrics helps bring us deeper into a song, I suggest. Turner laughs. “I like the idea of you putting that in here and everybody going: ‘Ah, I dunno, sounds tough. We won’t give it a listen after all.’” He admits to scribbling notes in his printed lyric book, teasing out themes mysterious even to him. “The Annotated Lyrics,” he jokes, imitating a 1950s ad man. “Get that stocking filler out for Christmas.”

From the moment in the mid-00s when Arctic Monkeys blew up, Turner has longed to go incognito. He strode undercover into his new public life, a frightened teenager hiding inside a big swagger, collecting shiny awards for songs he had written for mates of mates in pub backrooms. In 2006, the band released what was then the UK’s all-time fastest-selling debut album – a death sentence for his man-of-the-people, kitchen-sink writing style.

On 2009’s Humbug, co-produced by Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme, Turner escaped into a rock archetype. The band’s hairier second phase amped up the sleaze and elliptical lyrics, culminating in the darkly spectacular AM. By this point, the bequiffed Turner was harder to read, particularly in his divisive speech at the 2014 Brit Awards. “That rock’n’roll, eh,” he drawled with indeterminate sincerity. “It’s always waiting there, just around the corner. Ready to make its way back through the sludge and smash through the glass ceiling, looking better than ever. Yeah, that rock’n’roll …”

At the mention of the speech, and its concluding mic drop, Turner winces, sucking air through his teeth. But, I say, since Tranquility, the moment looks more like performance art – perhaps it anticipated his scepticism towards the rock construct. He listens intently, then, on the last point, springs back as if harpooned to his seat. “That’s interesting, yeah, yeah, yeah,” he says, head bobbing vigorously. He chews it over, talking half to himself. “So we’re saying it’s tied to AM, because of the haircut and … that performer …”

He seems unsure just how much of himself was in the mic-dropping rock star.

“When you think about that, and the clothes,” he continues, “I wasn’t doing that with [fourth album] Suck It and See or [third] Humbug. It wasn’t grease in the hair.” He pauses again, considering each album’s “performer” – always a fractured reflection of himself. “Normally, the record you make encourages a certain style of performance. But thinking about the performer in relation to Tranquility, or even this thing” – meaning the new album – “I have considered that you can invert that. The performer can influence the music, rather than the other way around.”

The Car’s performer more closely resembles the Turner I meet today: brilliant company but palpably self-scrutinising – a far cry from the headstrong Brits character. Turner wrote most of the album at the piano, souping up Tranquility’s vanquished lounge singer with a spritz of Rat Pack razzmatazz. Turner and the band’s producer, James Ford, separately drafted string arrangements that the composer Bridget Samuels simplified and edited.

Turner seems mildly embarrassed by the prospect of using strings live (a proposed orchestral TV special was deemed too predictable), but the album sounds just as exquisite without them. During a stunning show at Brooklyn’s Kings theatre the week of our interview, the band premiere three songs: the resplendent There’d Better Be a Mirrorball, a fingerpicked heart-warmer called Mr Schwartz and soon-to-be staple Body Paint, whose gnomic chorus crowdsurfs along a festival-slaying melody: “Straight from the cover shoot,” Turner coos, “There’s still a trace of body paint / On your legs and on your arms and on your face.”

As with 505 or Crying Lightning, it is a head-scratcher fated for mass seduction. “Not exactly what you’d imagine singing over the loud bit,” Turner concurs, chuckling. The body paint could represent almost anything: a literal costume; a stubborn artistic persona; or in a spunkier reading, the residue of an illicit affair. “But it’s as much about the musical ideas as the lyrics,” Turner says. “On Mirrorball, before the words even come in, that instrumental piece [establishes] the feel of the record”: wistful, enigmatic, acutely reminiscent of 70s European cinema. “All right,” Turner recalls thinking after writing it in 2020. “This feels like how the next record starts.”

Turner now lives between London and Paris with the French singer-songwriter Louise Verneuil. He composed most of the album alone, using the technique he road-tested on AM and adopted wholesale on Tranquility: compose, demo, inspect, tweak and re-record, repeat the process to death and eventually add drums and vintage keyboards. Finally: bring in the band.

In the summer of 2021, Arctic Monkeys convened at Butley Priory, a wedding venue and makeshift studio in Suffolk. On a whim, Turner brought his 60mm video camera to document the sessions, later compiling his footage for the impressively chic There’d Better Be a Mirrorball video. “That gave everybody a bit of room,” he says. “James [Ford] definitely didn’t mind that I had something to play with.” During downtime, the band watched the Euros and nipped outdoors for kickabouts. “I do get caught up in those tournaments. Something about that feeling connects you to when you were a kid. You find yourself thinking about Euro 96. And then it ends, and you almost feel a bit mad for feeling like that.”

That proximity to yesteryear haunts the record, not least in the creeping jazz element, which evokes his jazz-musician dad’s records and saxophone noodlings in Turner’s childhood home. “It came out the front in Tranquility, and there’s definitely a bit more this time,” he says. “It’s one of those things that you try to fly quite close to without [crossing over]. That music you’re around when you’re a kid always has a special power.”

Strikingly, the more sentimentality creeps into the music, the less forthright emotion surfaces in Turner’s lyrics. I ask if he is equally withholding in private – does he find it harder, as he gets older, to tell people he loves them? He laughs. “No, no, I don’t think so. I like to think that outside songwriting, I find it more straightforward to be direct.” He is prone to embarrassment by lyrics from bygone years. Perhaps the more elemental style, with fewer obvious footholds, helps minimise the cringing? “I like the idea that I’m getting better at the … I sort of want to say distillation.” He handles the word cautiously. “I think I’m better at picking the moment to expose the idea behind the song. But you have to be comfortable with the idea that things don’t have to be a pop song.”

What has remained constant since the beginning, he says, “is the instinct of it all”. Even the meticulous experiments of Tranquility and The Car stem from his faith in his bloody-minded intuition. I remind him of something he said, aged 19, about the perils of fame: “When you want it and you get obsessive, you mould yourself to be whatever they want you to be.”

He laughs. “It’s a heck of a time to drop a quote from 2005, when we’re talking about stuff to be embarrassed about.” But he agrees Arctic Monkeys’ instincts and gang mentality insulated them from industry games and greed. “The name of the band seems to allude to how limited the expectations were,” he adds. “If you realised you were gonna be doing this 20 years later, you might’ve had another hour in that meeting.”

Fatalistic fans have already forecast the band’s demise based on the single’s valedictory lyrics, but while the album abounds with goodbyes, Turner seems full of optimism about the future. His bandmates are, too. “You can tell when they’re excited and when there’s that palpable indifference,” he says, grinning. Does he still get much of the latter? “Surely. Intermittently. I’m grateful for it sometimes.” He drifts off again with a dreamy look, zeroing in on the right turn of phrase. “Between the band and James Ford …” he begins, unhappy with the imperfect words he has found. “I can’t do it on my own, I guess is what I’m trying to say.”

#arctic monkeys #alex turner #the car #interview #SHUT THE FUCK UP THIS IS THE THING THAT HAS LEFT ME THE MOST INCOHERENT THIS ERA SO FAR #HE'S REFERRING TO HIMSELF IN EACH ERA AS ''THAT ALBUM'S PERFORMER''??????????????????????????????????????#WHEN HE SAID IT FOR THE FIRST TIME REFERRING TO THE BRITS SPEECH I THREW MY COMPUTER TO THE SIDE;#MY PHONE ON THE FLOOR;#STARTED PACING AROUND MY ROOM; AND STARTED CRYING #im not. i can't talk about anything that he said in this i need to sleep and then wake up in order to do so #soooooooooooo straightforward and honest. wincing about his past personas #OPENLY talkign about them??????? with THAT word????? performer??????w #IN THE THIRD PERSON?????????????????W

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dreamii-krybaby · 1 year ago

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I don’t mind its heavy lore honestly, I like that, but I feel like if they occasionally focused on the life at the colony and different character dynamics would add a lot

Like the dynamic between Thad and Lizzy could have potential, add Doll it’s better. Same with Lizzy, Rebbeca and Doll.

Also I miss the trio with Uzi, Thad and N, imagine how would it be if they added V to it

Also, I really enjoy when they add a bit of the world building on how WD’s work, like how magnets are basically drugs, how the teacher plays solitaire in his head or how the WD’s diet consists on batteries. So i wished we got more of that.

I understand why the had to shove so many characters and plot points and the entire colony to the could due to the main plot, but it’s kinda sad at the same time.

I feel like 8 EPs cutted the potential Murder Drones had, it’s a very compacted series and 8 EPs doesn’t do it justice

If S2 ever arrives I think 10 up to maybe…14? EPs would be alright

Either I think the series could have benefited from having longer EPs or more EPs and maybe a bit of filler EPs, mostly focused on some dynamics and world building, with maybe a but of lore dropped in.

Ok this section is just me going silly over Thad:

Also the dynamic between Thad and Doll would be interesting, Like imagine Thad somehow had a hunch of something weird happening with Doll and started to genuinely worry or get freaked out by her and lizzy. Maybe he gets a bit sad bc of the classmates that signed for prom queen got killed. Idk just a silly idea

Like it would be someone who would 100% sympathize with Doll and her revenge plan but would leave it if it involved hurting other people. And if he met V, he may try to attempt to make a mutual understanding between eachother (this is just a silly delusional idea, may be smth out of character)

Also would have loved for him to try to fight back in EP3-4, like specially EP4 despiste doing it reluctantly (bc he wouldn’t want to hurt Uzi despite her going solver mode) like maybe he tries to defend himself and others from solver Uzi like he tried in the pilot with J and V

Send me your murder drones hot takes on asks

BUT THIS TIME

Its especifically about secondary characters like Thad and Sam, background characters, like the litte guys N killed and random stuff on the show that ins't that relavant.

No main/important characters or main plot concepts, Just secondary stuff

#murder drones

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piratefishmama · 2 years ago

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10, 19, and 20 for the behind the scenes writing asks!

10: Do you enjoy writing dialogue, exposition, or plot the most?

I enjoy writing dialogue the most, mainly because I speak it out after I write it to double check if the dialogue is something an actual human person would say, and if that's how they'd say it 🤣, so I get to stage a lil play for myself as I work.

19: Who is the easiest/hardest character for you to write about? Why?

Easiest: is currently Eddie, I vibe with this character so much, like, we could have been twins in highschool interests wise. I love his attitude, I adore his silly vibe, he's just so easy and fun to write.

Hardest: I think... probably Argyle? He's a v good boy and I love him lots but I really struggle with locking his character down.

20: What’s your favourite minor character you’ve written?

Scott Clarke. 100% in Can You Keep a Secret.

I know ppl usually use Robin as the Gay Yoda who teaches Steve about sexuality but honestly I'm not entirely sure that she has it all figured out for herself yet, so idk how much help she'd actually be. Plus, she's not in the fic since it's set between 2 and 3. Scott, however, is canonically a person that these kids trust for really random bits of key information. They go to him for the weirdest shit and he just fondly entertains it, even Joyce went to him! He's perfect to give an actually accurate explanation that'd help this character out, and we know he'd be patient and gentle about it as a man of science.

I really enjoyed writing this character for this scene. It felt nice knowing they were getting accurate and patiently explained information from an adult who'd actually know his shit

#pirateAnswers #ask games!#thanks for asking!!

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number-1-kuaidul-fanboy · 3 years ago

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Top 10 5Ds Characters (old, sub based)

I know I was negative in my 5Ds overview but I honestly did like the first half. I wouldn’t sit down and watch the whole thing again but the things and characters that did stand out were some of the best things to come out of Yugioh. I can 100% see how this is people’s favourite show, it’s just not my cup of tea and the problems I do have with it drag it down as a whole. However, it’s still Yugioh and I still like it, so I’m gonna make a top 10 characters list for it… based only on the first half and Bonds Beyond Time though, I haven’t watched the second half. So I don’t know anyone introduced after the Dark Signers arc. Also, yes, I’m aware I just gave away one of the entries on this list with that explanation but let’s just ignore that.

10 Martha

I’ll admit I struggled a little bit to get ten characters for this list. These bottom two did somewhat boil down to “just pick someone” but thinking about it, I do genuinely like both of my choices. I don’t have a deep reason for this one, I just think Martha was funny and her “death” did draw emotion from me.

9 Kiryu

Again, this was kinda just by process of elimination. Kiryu’s history with Yusei, Crow, and Jack kinda came out of nowhere but it’s still a good story. He’s an interesting take on the concept of extremism and while his actions in the past were horrific, I can still feel some sympathy for the guy.

8 Misty

I really like villains, what can I say? Misty just had this air of mystery to her in her early scenes, that made her really interesting to watch. Like when she told Carly she saw death in her future which I still can’t believe was foreshadowing, that’s so clever. Her backstory and Divine’s intervention did botch her somewhat but I still like her overall.

6 and 7 Lua/Rua (Dub name: Leo) and Luca/Luka/Ruca/Ruka (Dub name: Luna)

These twins’ names are so confusing. I’m putting every variation of their names but just know that I default to Lua and Luca. These two are in separate spots, it’s just kind of hard to talk about them separately because their story is so intertwined. Between them though, Luca’s the better one. I liked both of them instantly for being fun and feeling like real siblings (switching between being at each other’s throats and having each other’s backs) but I really didn’t like how Lua overshadowed Luca, especially in that Dark Signer duel. I don't mind it being their duel and Luca coming in part of the way through to duel alongside her brother but Luca was in the Spirit World for way too long. She barely got to do anything in the duel she was destined to fight. It felt like she was being intentionally cast aside. Also, Luca was just more interesting. Her connection to the spirit world was interesting before it felt like over-padded filler and she was the one with all the pressure on her, which is more relatable. Still, I like the twins' conflicting personalities and siblinghood. They were one of the few light-hearted elements of 5Ds, a reminder of what the protagonists are fighting to protect, something really important plot wise to me that 5Ds was really lacking in.

5 Crow Hogan

This was inevitable. I loved Crow taking in some orphaned kids and becoming very protective of them in Arc V, of course I love him being every orphaned Satellite child’s father in 5Ds. I love how he seems like just a sneaky street thief at first but then you see that he has a heart of gold, being a loyal friend to Yusei and Jack and a father figure to the kids in Satellite who had no one. Crow had no one as a kid before Yusei and Jack and the game of Duel Monsters and he wants to make sure no one ever feels that loneliness and it’s just… god, he’s so sweet and simultaneously badass.

4 Jack Atlas

Out of everyone on this list, Jack is probably the objective “best” character from a writing perspective. At the beginning of 5Ds, he was a selfish snob who only cared about his status as the king, which he was willing to do horrible things in order to gain and keep. He felt like a discount Kaiba to me, and his appearance in Arc V really didn’t help his case. Then he (predictably) loses to Yusei, leaving him injured and shamed. He isn’t the king anymore, which was clearly what he based his self-worth on and because of what he did to gain and keep that status, he has no one he can genuinely feel close to. Then he meets Carly. Even if you put aside the (canon) ship, Carly is undeniably essential to Jack's growth as a character. She was there for him during his loneliest time and told him exactly what he needed to hear to pick himself back up again and become a better person. They forged a deep connection in a short amount of time. It's really no wonder Jack is so protective of her. After this, Jack becomes a much more humbled and mature character, which I liked him more as. He's still the 'gruff tough guy' of the group but he genuinely cares for Yusei, Crow, and Carly and shows that care, even if it's sometimes not in the best ways. He's no longer someone who will sell out his friends for power. He proves it in the final duel when he refuses that call to power (from the guy who previously manipulated him) but even more so in his duel with Carly, where he was ready to die alongside her so Carly didn't have to die alone. I've discussed that duel and Jack and Carly's characters and relationship in depth in a previous post if you want more details. I'm also gonna talk more about it in Carly’s section. BUT BEFORE THAT-

3 Paradox

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, he shouldn't be this high up, I know, I KNOW. But you know what? Paradox does qualify for this list. Bonds Beyond Time and thus Paradox are canon to 5Ds. BBT is basically a 5Ds movie that sets up later plots of the show (I haven’t seen those plots but I know Paradox only cameos and the little details 5Ds gives us about him are things I know about) and I have been wanting to put Paradox on a list like this for months now. Let me have this one, I love this freaking guy. He survived through an apocalypse, watched everyone he knew and loved die because of a card game and decided to go back in time and slaughter the bastard who created this card game of death. It’s the perfect story for the villain for the big 10 year anniversary event that Bonds Beyond Time was. Because Paradox is 100% correct. Not in the murdering but in his reasoning. Duel Monsters is dangerous and destructive. We’d seen it for ten years before this movie and for over ten years after. The main characters do save the world from destruction with these cards but from villains who use those very same cards. Still, Paradox is going really far. Because he didn’t just kill Pegasus, he murdered countless innocent bystanders, with the very cards he hated and claimed destroyed his time by the way. Not to mention he’s dooming entire generations of people to never exist, something he probably didn’t think about until he was dying (which I’ll get to), but the fact that he sees this many innocent people as worthy sacrifices to his goal is pretty terrifying and hypocritical. And honestly, that’s really fascinating to me. His motivation is sympathetic but the way he’s going about it makes him a villain, a really vicious one. Still, I feel bad for him. Yugi, Judai, and Yusei don’t even seem to care about what happened to his time, they just insist the future isn’t set in stone, implying they don’t even believe him and that he’s lying or something (as if someone would go to those lengths for the shits and giggles). However, Paradox knows they’re wrong. He comes from a time far beyond their’s so he knows their actions can’t prevent the apocalypse because it already happened. (I don’t know if Yusei later fixes the hecking apocalypse in 5Ds, I would assume so but BBT Paradox wouldn’t know this anyway.) Paradox, from his perspective, is the only person who can fix the broken future he comes from. That’s why he’s willing to go so far and why he’s so blinded in his pursuit of this goal to see the harm he’s doing. In his final moment in the sub, he wonders if his extreme actions were really worth it, and if they would’ve actually changed anything. It was a moment I initially found silly before giving it more thought. Paradox was so fixed on his “noble” goal of destroying Duel Monsters and felt he was the only one with the power and the will to do so that he didn’t think he didn’t think about the other possible consequences his actions would bring.

So yeah, Paradox is a really interesting character to talk about. He’s also just really funny. He has a lot of funny quotes, particularly in the dub. For a quick example: “I would say you three put up a good fight only you didn’t.” He’s so sassy and sarcastic, I swear that’s the fastest way to my heart: being funny and snarky. I know the idea of putting him over characters like Jack and Crow is absurd, but like… the heart wants what it wants, sorry guys.

2 Carly Nagisa

Okay, back to characters people other than myself care about. While watching Yugioh series, I sometimes read the Crunchyroll comment sections of the episodes and when I did so for 5Ds, one thing I saw was a lot of Carly negativity, mainly people calling her annoying or useless. Now obviously, opinions be opinions and you’re all perfectly valid if you dislike Carly… but you’re all wrong, Carly’s fucking adorable. Annoying or adorable aside (since that’s subjective), one thing Carly definitely isn’t is useless. Like I said earlier, Carly was absolutely essential to Jack’s character growth And actually, he was essential to her growth in a similar way. In the beginning, Carly cared for nothing but getting the best scoop as a journalist because if she lost her job, she would end up homeless on the streets. That’s not speculation, that’s something she straight up says. It’s understandable that she’s desperate and willing to do things of questionable morality to keep her job. It’s out of need. Still, it led to her considering making Jack’s private inner turmoil public, which she tried to drag out of him by getting him to spend time with her. She, like Jack, was willing to do messed up things to preserve her status. Both of them realised this about themselves about the same time, which is why Carly was the only one who could help him out of his funk: she understood what he was going through. I know I go on and on about this ship but it really did vastly improve both of their characters. I didn’t like Jack much at all before this development and while I did find Carly cute pretty much instantly, she did bother me a little. Like, disguising herself as a nurse to sneak into a hospital and find one of the patients is… definitely weird. She does get less weird after that scene with Jack in the tower. She still sticks her nose into things that aren’t really her business… like a lot but it’s less out of selfishness, I feel. And even if the snooping around she did in Arcadia’s base was too far, it’s the thing that gets her KILLED. Yeah… Carly being killed and resurrected as a demon was a huge gut punch for me, both because it’s just harsh to have the sweet innocent cinnamon roll DIE (in a realistic way too, jesus christ) and become a demon and because I knew Yugioh was cruel enough to force Jack to duel Carly like this, and very likely kill Carly. I was right, and their duel is one of my favourites in any Yugioh series. However, there is one 5Ds character I prefer to both of them.

1 Aki Izayoi

Yeah, this was obvious. I made so many thirsty posts about her, you guys probably just think I put her at number one because I have a crush on her. First of all, I can’t tell which ones I have a crush on and which ones I don’t anymore, I kinda simp for this entire top five and second, Aki is the most relatable character in 5Ds and one of the most relatable in Yugioh overall. I didn’t go in depth with this in any of my posts as the reasons I relate to her are very personal, so I stuck to what was funny for the sake of the memes. For this though, I’ll try to explain it. I liked Aki the moment she was introduced. She was this mysterious powerful woman, who spoke in a completely emotionless tone during her duels, even as she was hurting people. She was… kind of intimidating, I’m not gonna lie. However, there were hints even early on that Aki was severely damaged inside. That numbness alone was a hint but also the way she spoke of her signer mark, the mask she wore being potentially symbolic, and some of her lines, like the one about physical scars healing but not scars of the heart. It caught my attention. I could tell they were trying to set her up as this traumatised emotionally closed off person… like I am. I saw the most broken parts of myself in Aki. She was always hiding her true feelings behind a metaphorical and literal mask and feeling alienated from the rest of society, which did nothing but shun her for her oddities. Also, I don’t want to go into any personal details, but Aki’s backstory with her parents was relatable too, which is why it frustrated me so personally that she was forced to forgive them. It wasn’t me wanting Aki to be miserable. I’m so incredibly glad she was able to recover and find happiness, I just wish the way the writers had gone about it had been different. Her forgiving her parents should’ve been left completely up to her and the point of her redemption should’ve been for her to forgive herself and not let her father’s abuse define her. You’re not a bad person if you don’t forgive people who hurt you. Forgiveness isn’t an obligation, it’s a gift to give. I just feel like the writers were sending a bad message with the way they treated Aki in that duel, a message that could legitimately hurt people in the real world.

But anyways back to Aki. She was underused by the show, which did actually make it pretty difficult to choose between her and Carly, whose arc ended in a more satisfying way if we ignore everything post Dark Signers. Which by the way, can I sidetrack for a second and say how well 5Ds actually wrote its female characters in this first half? There are a lot of female characters with varying personalities and many of them, Aki, Carly, Luca, and Misty are vital to the plot. Heck, half of this list is women. That’s more than any of the other shows. (I may be a man but female representation is important so shut it.) Anyways, while Aki was a little underused in my opinion, she was absolutely fantastic when she was there and her relatability does put her higher than Carly in my mind.

So overall, 5Ds may not have been my favourite show but when it’s good, it’s really damn good. The top five on this list are practically sacred to me

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