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#also Miles was completely op at the end and literally killed everyone for some reason
demonboyhalo · 3 years
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The Technoblade Conspiracy
Even before Dream claimed there was a traitor in Pogtopia, there's been a lot of...suspicious activities happening in Techno’s streams. Others on the SMP are already distrustful of him, and the fans are as well, but I believe that we’re focusing on the wrong thing here. This thread isn’t quite a traitor theory, but rather a dive into what Techno has been hiding at large. I can say with utter confidence that the extent of what Technoblade has accomplished on the Dream SMP is being greatly underestimated.
I recommend looking at the sus Techno moments thread by @piggytechnobarb on Twitter for some of the stream clips I'll be discussing.
This is going to be fairly in depth, so the rest is under the cut!
1. There is another room under what Techno calls his "secret base"
I won't talk too much on how strange his choice of "secret base" is for now, but please do keep in mind how out of character it is for man-who-tracked-down-Squid's-college to settle for a home base so unprotected and close to Pogtopia's very well known location.
So, for some reason, there is Polished Blackstone Brick under the floor of Techno’s wall. He accidentally reveals this when a donation asks him to mine the exposed redstone in his wall, acts a bit strange for a good 15 seconds, and then never mentions it again. Sight of the brick prompts him to silently zoom in, fill the hole with stone (not cobble), and say "Don't ask questions".
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This is only so strange because there's no real reason for him to have stone at the ready, or any blackstone brick at all. Techno is NOT a builder, and if a creeper blew up down there, he'd fill it with cobble and not give a shit about aesthetics. He doesn't use smooth stone in his base, and has never built with blackstone on stream. Not only are they unusual items for him to have, it's unusual for him to make a point to not have the viewers question it. Yes, it could just be Techno being dramatic, but why did he go silent for a straight 5 seconds at the sight of the blackstone?
Considering who he is as a player, it is completely in character for Techno to build a second base. The lake he lives under is incredibly near Wilbur and Tommy, and he's well aware that all an enemy has to do is watch his stream to infiltrate his base. Techno goes to the extremes when they aren't even required (Ex. His insane skill in party games, beating Skeppy in as niche of a game as Grinch Simulator, etc.) So I don't think it's a stretch for him to go the extra mile, and hide a bunker/resources/extra armour and what have you from even his own viewers.
2. The overpowered illegal villager farm
For those of you who don't watch Ponk, he recently stumbled across an area that is supposedly banned on the Dream SMP - a villager farm. In the clip, his voice is astonished and his confusion is palpable, and he goes so far as to say "It's a full scale arms race" because of how many good trades there are. The location is laced with traps, though he doesn't mention what exactly he had to get past to find the farm. Ponk's reaction is far too genuine for the farm to be his, but then that begs the question, whose farm is it?
...Who is willing to risk Dream's wrath by breaking his rules? Or, alternatively, who is capable of making a secret pact with the server owner to allow such a farm? The answer could only be Technoblade.
Ponk says it himself in the video, he does not have the time to build this. Whoever made this had to have carved out a hidden cavern, lead at least 14 villagers down there, breed them until only the ones with the best trades were left - all off stream, and without another player catching them. Whoever made this had to spend hours of work with no content to show for it, and who do we know has been grinding for DAYS on the server? Technoblade. Not to mention, all the villagers are numbered, and all but one are fletchers.
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The signs above each stall are so important, because going so far back as SMP Earth, Techno has a history of dispassionately breeding mobs to his benefit, and then killing any mob not performing well enough. For example, his horse farm: where the horses stay in numbered rooms rather than all being named. The villagers in the screenshot above are numbered rather than named.
Wanna hear a fun fact about Fletchers? They're well known for accepting sticks for emeralds, but will also take string for that trade as well! And guess who has been seen waiting at the spider spawner collecting string by Sapnap, Awesamdude, Quackity, and multiple other players? Technoblade.
Technoblade also has every reason to be breeding villagers for special arrows and crossbows, because he's said on stream that he wants to try spamming multi-shot crossbows in combat to take out huge groups of enemies. He said at a later point that he had run into trouble with getting multiple crossbows with the enchantment multi-shot, and implied it wasn't going to happen. But has he ever been the kind of person to be stopped by something being challenging? Absolutely not.
Think of literally anything Techno has done - his Bedwars win streak, beating MC with a steering wheel, the Potato Wars - what I believe is really happening, is that Techno is lying about how equipped he is so that no matter what side he ends up fighting for, his enemies will have no true way of knowing how powerful he is.
3. Dream might be his secret ally (AKA The Glowstone Incident)
This brings us to a...confusing moment in Techno's stream that sparked a lot of questions. It pointed me towards 2 different, but not necessarily exclusive, theories.
The Glowstone Incident precedes as follows: Techno needs glowstone but can't find any in his chests, so he puts on his BRB screen. He says that he is "hacking" and asking Dream to use game mode to give him the glowstone. Typing can be heard, and then multiple chests are opened. Techno takes off the BRB screen and he now has three stacks of glowstone dust. This was absolutely bewildering to watch live, and was one of the most blatantly suspicious things he has done in front of his viewers. (You can find the exact clip on the thread I mentioned, it is...so weird)
Theory A: Though unlikely, Techno could be Dream's secret ally, and Dream really did use creative to give him the stacks. Or, he potentially gave Techno OP permissions so that he could get the glow stone (and any other materials he’d want) himself.
We all remember their meet up on that ocean hill, where Dream gives Techno golden apples, diamonds, and other such materials for the battle against Schlatt. It seemed to be a one-off gift that was more for Wilbur's benefit than Techno's, but there's potentially the chance that Dream saw an alliance to Techno to be more beneficial than working only with Wilbur, and contacted him off screen to make deals.
Going back to the Village Farm - for a player to get the exact enchantment they want for a reasonable price, breeding them is the most logical option. It's the route Techno would take regardless of Dream's rules on the SMP too, as he tends to show little regard for what the creators want (Ex. Taking over SMP Earth, exploiting Hypixel Skyblock, etc.) However, it could also be possible that Dream gave Techno permission to do this, and so the reason Techno is keeping the farm secret is so that the viewers don't know of their alliance.
Theory B: Techno has hidden resources in his base that he doesn't want anyone to have even the chance to see. Whether it is to hide from enemies watching (or to hide from Dream in particular because Techno knows he's breaking the server's rules) there are secret chests that Techno has with extra resources that can be heard loud and clear in the video.
They could be simple ones hidden in the walls...or in the blackstone brick base hidden under his floors. Saying he’s “hacking” rather than the reality of him just checking all his chests again is on par for Techno’s usual dramatics - yet we can clearly see that there’s no glowstone in any of his chests. This is why I believe he got the glowstone from some unseen resource. With the BRB screen on, Techno prevents his viewers from actually seeing how he got the 3 stacks of powder, and it keeps the location of his hidden materials safe.
Personally, I feel theory B is more likely, but there have been moments where Dream has acted Sus so...be on the lookout y'all.
4. Techno not participating in MCC
For those of you who watched Techno during the Potato War, many will remember that MCC 6 had a stressful undertone. Because of how much effort and time Techno had been putting into farming on Skyblock, taking a break to compete in another event was distracting. It ultimately led to him losing time that, from his perspective, would have been better off spent farming.
Techno might not be as blatantly grinding on the Dream SMP as he did with the Potato War, but it's undeniable that other streamers have seen him online for stretches of 10 hours and more. When asked about why he wasn't participating in the next MCC, Techno didn't say he was taking a break - something that'd be entirely reasonable and honestly well earned - he said "I don't want to."
It could be awkward phrasing by virtue of Techno's personality, but what I think is more likely is that Techno has learned from his past mistakes. Rather than "waste" time competing in MCC, Techno might be planning to use the time everyone on the SMP is gone to his advantage. He could sneak into enemy territory, set traps in certain areas, or maybe even perform some illegal acts that Dream would never allow. Either way, I suspect Techno has something planned for the 14th.
Honorable Mentions:
Dream poking fun, or blatantly covering for Techno?
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This clip of Techno's secret Something??? next to the spider spawner, undeniably suspicious
Techno had around 5 stacks of wool in his inventory at one point - he absolutely could be bed mining the nether not only so that he has multiple sets of OP netherite, but possibly because he's preparing the gear for another person (cough cough Philza) or people
Techno's collection of ghast tears. He's studied Crystal PvP and made plenty of 2b2t references in the past (Look up FitMC for more info on those things) So it could be possible that Techno is hiding stacks of end crystals so that he can decimate multiple players in an instant
All in all, I'm 100% convinced that Techno has some serious plans hidden behind the scenes that he's not going to share until it's time for him to unleash utter chaos. We know he's keeping secrets, we know he's had the time, and we know he's capable.
I hope you all enjoyed my research and feel terrified of what Techno could possibly have done off camera :D
If anyone else has different theories, corrections to what I wrote, or other moments where Pink was Sus, feel free to comment!
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steve0discusses · 3 years
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S5 Ep 14: So If You Put a Fraction Into a Duel Disk, the Card Explodes
We left on quite the cliffhanger last episode, so I’ll fill you in:
I did not get the haircut.
Like I seriously considered getting a Zigfried for a cool 3 or 4 minutes there, but then I decided to wait a couple of days and I basically forgot.
But, back to the arc finale, Seto has decided to walk, not run, to the Kaiba lab in order to fix the virus rapidly eating his entire company.
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I just want to point out that Zigfried went through a LOT of work to get Seto Kiaba to go “uggggh” turn around, and pretend to calmly walk away. I’m used to Seto losing his nut kind of a lot and blowing things up but this season he’s like “be chill be chill be chill” so that the entire world doesn’t think he’s a spaz on TV.
And little aside about Seto’s design choices here, I fell down a hole of interior design videos, and can I just say: apparently these wood frame things on the wall are back in style? Good on you, 2002(3?) Seto Kaiba. Don’t think that current designers are painting them purple but...we’re halfway there to Yugioh fashion.
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Meanwhile, Pharaoh decides to remind everyone that these stakes are hella low. The worst that happens is that Zigfried deletes the plane that Yugi needs to fly home...which would be an impressive virus.
Like it’s hard to tell if Yami even has a solid concept of “capitalism” and whether or not he cares about or understands the makeup of Seto’s company (which up till now has operated like a small country and not a business...which is a little more Pharaoh’s understanding. Either way...hard to tell if Yami would shed two tears for the loss of Kaiba corp.)
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And, despite what I say in the caps, I feel like Leon and Zigfried are the first villains we’ve ever had that Yugi and Pharaoh didn’t unintentionally disclose that they are 2 people to. Zigfried and Leon are just...completely oblivious to how effed up Yugi’s bean is. They think that’s just a normal kid and lol no dudes...y’all got distracted by Seto Kabia but you have a literal Egyptian God just hovering around in the background and dating 3 people by accident.
Like when the show shelves the main storyline, it is very funny how it’s all “And we’re gonna put the Pharaoh crisis on hold--just put a pin in it. No one will notice this child is two nervous wrecks stitched together” and then Yugi and Yami just kinda hold it in and watch all patiently until it’s their turn to get off the bench.
(read more under the cut)
In the giant computer tower, Seto Kaiba shouts out a string of orders and numbers, admired the many sonar detector looking windows open on every monitor, and then sat down at his desk to like...check the firewall, I guess?
The virus is past the firewall. It’s um...it’s inside the firewall, pretty sure that was the point, but youknow, it’s a kid’s show so they’re just throwing out computer stuff that has no meaning to the writers of this show.
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Mokuba thinks fondly of how Seto Kaiba has never screwed him over (which I mean...maybe not on purpose, ((except for that one time he did screw him over on purpose to get Gozaburo Kaiba to accidentally give Seto Kaiba the company, but you could say that was a grander scheme that he knew Mokuba would see through, which...)) but Seto certainly has screwed Mokuba over accidentally. At least once.)
And meanwhile, Yami fixes everything through card shenanigans.
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So here’s the shenanigan this episode: I don’t go over cards here but this one requires a limited amount of explanation.
So every round the golden castle deletes half of Yugi’s cards. So he was like...I’ll just draw down to one card. They can’t delete half a card...so that means the card must delete one of the two cards on the field which means it must delete itself.
...which is like the closest Yugioh will probably ever get to abusing a glitch to do a speedrunning tactic like GDQ.
Anyway, like I stated in the title: there are no fractions allowed in Yugioh. If you do that to your priceless one-of-a-kind card you got from winning one of Pegasus’ murder tournies, it will irreparably bust the card.
I’m sure at least one of you will correct me with the proper way to insert a fraction into your duel disk. Cuz like...as I say multiple times so we never forget, I barely pay attention to this card game and I’m just flying by the seat of my pants.
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I want to say Seto and Mokuba were in the hacker chairs for like...3 minutes maybe before they realized “oh...Yugi fixed it...” and walked the half a mile back to the duel arena.
and also, as I’m looking at Seto’s glasses here, I just realized...all of Kaiba’s team wears sunglasses all the time. Inside, outside, night, or day...
They haven’t outright said this...but what if those aren’t sunglasses?
Is Roland and that other Roland wearing fancy cyber glasses? They are, right? Because they wear them indoors?
Damn, they can’t take a piss without being on call with Kaiba Corp, can they?
Now the problem is...Yugi played all of his cards (he has two in front of him face down, but none in his deck) and after milling himself, this means he’s now basically a sitting duck for Leon to take the title of “King of Games.”
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Leon insists that he defend whatever scraps are left of his card honor and not duel a person who is carrying no cards and Yugi was like “COME AT ME BRO THIS IS THE ONLY WAY I KNOW I’M ALIVE.”
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He didn’t even have to do a horror on Leon, he just...played cards good? I skipped it, I’ll be honest, but overall Leon’s card honor was...saved? Maybe? I mean he also go destroyed when his competitor had not a single card in his duel disk so...
...Leon will have to work on his card honor off screen because he’s pretty well humiliated at this point.
But stumbling onto the playing field like he’s half dazed/daydrunk, Zigfried is like “You forgot I already won, bastards!”
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Which is when we find out that Zigfried’s “delete all” virus failed to press “enter” and deleted basically nothing. Just like when my Mom attempts to send something in Gmail but doesn’t press “Send” and tells me that Google is down and broken.
Sorry my bro has informed me that he ALSO has had to help my Mother locate the “Send” button and I just...I know she absolutely did that but I’m in denial that this Riddle of the Sphinx has happened to her multiple times.
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Honestly, the pep talk we get from Leon at the end to cheer up his bro was a whole lot of “we will pick ourselves up and we’ll do better next time. Together.” and sure you can translate that as “we’ll be honest next time” or you can translate that as “next time we will be not nearly as obvious about inserting a virus into their computer until it is done doing the job, bro.”
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Just like Dartz, we didn’t really get a whole lot of retribution or closure when it comes to Zigfried. But, unlike Dartz, Zigfried didn’t do too much murder, so I guess this is fine. He tried to cheat in a card game...
...and I guess tried to delete Kaiba Corp but youknow...
...people let him have that. The police saw the ticket of “this man tried to delete Kaiba Corp” and they just...didn’t arrest him. The judge saw that ticket and didn’t put out a warrant. They just let Zigfried have this, almost like “better luck next time, ya?”
And then Roland clocked out for the day and went home, thus ending this arc.
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Look at all these characters, most of which we never saw duel even one card.
We also got one shot of Mai for some reason although she was not in this arc.
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AAAHHHH. Every time I’m like “the show is done screwing geography” we get another freakin geography spook!
But we went back to California in order to get a scene of these guys in an airport to get a flight to Japan...
which means Rex and Weevil just...were they shipped home by the Kaibas? Because way to ditch getting arrested by the American Government, hot damn. They are...literally terrorists who destroyed a Caltrain in a plot to kill everyone in the world so like...really surprised Rex and Weevil are in public...but maybe all the FBI were dead at the time so they just didn’t know?
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Meanwhile, Duke has to go back to Death Valley and call a tow truck for his car, RIP.
I sure hope he got PTO during this stunt and isn’t going home to a pink slip.
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I’m not sure of Dukes life or anything going on with Duke. I’m sure the thing about Serenity is him joking because we have all forgotten about that girl by this point...but also...is Duke...still living in the Tenderloin? The crime rate is very, very high and the ground isn’t solid, so it will liquefy if there’s an Earthquake, but it is one of the few places in the Bay Area that doesn’t light on fire every year. He has that going for him.
I just really hope Duke moves out of the Tenderloin one of these days, he needs a better life.
Meanwhile, Rebecca does one last crime.
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This is like a post-epidemic reaction to a hug, but in 2002(3?).
I don’t think I’ll miss Rebecca too much. Wanted to like her more, but she was under-utilized, like most of the characters on Yugioh. Not even just talking girl characters here--most characters on Yugioh are super under-utilized, just Tristan Wallflowers doing nothing, but also being selectively OP as hell about very specific things they never, ever need to do.
Speaking of the devil:
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Yugi...just saved his entire company...
But Mokuba is just has to make sure to make it seem like they owed Mokuba and not the other way around. Just in case.
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So off they go on this massive plane. It’s probably more to do with the length of the trip as to why the plane is so big but also...
This plane is overcompensating.
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But before we analyze that, lets close the book on Seto Kaiba’s very short therapy arc. Overall, it was a nice distraction, but I can see why people call it a filler arc, as it really doesn’t affect...anything going on in the major plotlines, which makes me think it could have been a movie or a game or something. But overall, it’s not bad, it’s just not what you’d expect if you were a Western audience.
Like I’m preaching to the choir, but typically, Western stories are entirely plot focused, and so our arcs always give or take away from that plot. But in a Eastern story arc, it may instead be character focused, where the climax is a character evolving or coming to some sort of cathartic realization, which this arc was, in a big way. We still had some plot, because this is a Shonen, but overall it was about characters, and specifically whether or not Leon and his bro would reconcile or change--which they did.
We did get to see a little more growth on Seto in that he...didn’t go bonkers and hallucinate during a card game. It’s been a while since we’ve had him not do that. Seto was very chill this arc, which makes sense, it was a very chill slice of life arc for everyone involved.
So, next we move on to the next one, which bro has informed me...is
still not Bakura.
According to Bro, the next arc didn’t even air in the Japanese version of the show? Like he’s got a lot of spicy Yugioh headcanons so he could be wrong (He did tell me that he thought that Zigfried was Seto Kaiba’s ex boyfriend when he saw this as a kid which...that sure is a way to interpret this arc, and it probably wasn’t just my little brother who went down that thought tube there...)
(Bro Note: To be fair, I didn’t watch much of this arc as a kid.)
But he says the next arc was originally a movie. But they released it in the States as episodes to be part of S5, just to put more episodes in there. Which, if he’s correct, makes it seem like we’re getting like the Mulan 2 experience kind of shoved in between this arc and the next
But um..
according to bro it has virtually no card games.
.......
I’m so used to only capping 10 minutes an episode, what?
Anyway, until then, here’s the link to read the rest of these from the start in chrono order:
https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono
I’m kinda itching to do a Season Zero, it’s been a hot minute--so those take a little longer to do, especially since I need to go to a different site I haven’t...checked out yet...I’ll be back...eventually? I just know that at some point in Season Zero they fight it out with yo-yo’s and I want to see it.
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kitkatopinions · 3 years
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Is it bad that i want ironwood to be alive in the show and travel with the ace ops and have a redemption? I know most of his fans are happy that he is dead so they cant ruin him anymore but still, his ending is so wrong to me like they redeemed cordo, emerald, FUCKING HAZEL, but not james? I was pulled back into rwby because of james and the atlas arc. v6 last episodes pissed me off so much i didnt even watched the finale to this day but then i saw scenes of james and winter and the ace ops in v7... and now i just want him to swim up from the ruins and be the amazing character he was before v8. His death is so fucking sad to me even with how much they ruined the character... he deserved a redemption arc the most (and better writers, sorry the ask got so long but james ironwood gives me so much feels)
You know, I am right there with you, anon. Here's the thing about James. We didn't see an on screen death and the writers kept his semblance completely unmentioned in volumes seven and eight, but made it public. Yes, Miles Luna said 'rest in pieces' (the total douche) when talking about him in a cameo, but tbh, Miles Luna is sloppy and unprofessional, he could straight up say whatever to try and make the next 'twist' in RWBY surprising.
In fact SPOILER ALERT. I don't remember who, but after Avengers Infinity War when Loki died, people in the project 'confirmed' that Loki was good and truly dead this time, and of course no one believed them and of course no one was surprised to see some version of Loki escape alive in End Game. They had a better ability to twist a not-quite lie out there, due to multiple universes and time travel or whatever (idk the details, I stopped paying attention after I watched and hated Thor Ragnarok.) But still, it stands that if you want to make a character death believable in today's day and age when 'character death' is taken back so regularly and sometimes multiple times per character, writers should A. show the death/show a body (which they didn't do for Ironwood or Watts,) and B. Not leave any character threads hanging.
With Ironwood, they didn't delve into enough emotional responses to things (like Oscar/Oz getting shot off a cliff, or Qrow ever confronting him,) which leaves his story feeling like it lacks a solution and like there's still a lot to be resolved there already. But confirming his semblance outside of the show proper, which seems to act as a form of at least partial mind control, is obviously one giant thread too. Of course, this is MKEK, so the likelihood that they were foolish enough to give Ironwood a semblance that forced his actions at least in part and then not address it, kill him off, and expect everyone to just be happy with that on top of the lack of emotional depth they bothered to give other characters in regards to his 'fall' is high. However, that doesn't make James feel dead, he still doesn't feel like a dead character to me, yet, even if I know a lot of the reasons for that feeling stem from bad writing.
But on top of his semblance being a very big thread that was left untouched, his semblance also would be a very easy out if the writers did want to bring him back or if they wanted to bring him back and redeem him. His semblance could help him survive Atlas and Mantle falling, and it could easily be explained as having pushed him into his acts of villainy. It would still feel like a big ol' retcon (especially with how hard they tried to convince everyone he's pure evil,) but for once, I would like a retcon that actually goes my way in this show. XD
On top of that, you're absolutely right that in the show where Hazel can get 'death equals redemptioned' and tell life lessons to Oscar, Ironwood could be able to be redeemed even without the semblance. In the show where Hazel can beat a child while victim blaming the already-a-victim-of-abuse guy in the kid's head for *checks notes* training young women to be able to fight the soulless monsters who will devour anyone (four to six year old child or not,) and then get redeemed within 24 hours of that... yeah, Ironwood could be able to be redeemed. Emerald can murder Penny, try to kill everyone else at Haven, try to murder Penny again in Atlas, and then join the friend group enough that everyone good naturedly ribs her, including Penny who giggles over Emerald saying 'switched sides' despite the fact that Emerald never once apologized for literally murdering her in cold blood. So yeah, I don't think it'd be off brand of the show to have the 'does bad for good reasons' guy get redeemed even if they did make him express regret that he hadn't tortured children. Clearly, the standard isn't 'if they apologize they're worthy of redemption,' and the standard isn't 'if they only always had good intentions they're worthy of redemption' or 'only kids who are villains can get redeemed,' or even 'so long as they haven't tortured or tried to kill children they're worthy of redemption.'
However, here's where things get a little tricky. Because the standard in RWBY seems to have much more to do with what was done personally against the main group that made them mad or sad, rather than actual moral standings, harm done to the world, intentions, etc. I've talked about that idea in another post, that the show (whether intentionally or otherwise) is treating going against Ruby and her team as worse than actual criminal acts. Emerald's actions are easily brushed aside without her ever admitting she was wrong or trying to apologize, but Ozpin's act of not explicitly trusting Team RWBY with dire secrets months after knowing them is so unquestioningly bad that he has to give an in-depth and very serious apology while explicitly saying he was in the wrong, which the mains then begrudgingly and seriously accept (even though they were laughing with Emerald mere seconds before.) Which isn't to say that I don't think Ozpin had anything to apologize for, just that the framing of Ozpin's dialogue and reception versus Emerald's is ridiculous. Therefore Ironwood being redeemed after wishing he could torture, shooting a child off a high place, and threatening to destroy a town... In the narrative of the show, that can be brushed aside fairly easily. But both the show and the FNDM at large have constructed a narrative where going against the mains is what's treated as hard to come back from and worthy of all the ire and disgust in the world - unless the character comes crawling back, bowing to Ruby's whims in every plan, and regretting ever doubting Ruby's amazing simple soul and the protagonist approved goals she's decided on.
If the price of Ironwood coming back and being redeemed is him kissing up to Ruby and joining the gang of people who just pat her on the back and assure her she doesn't ever need to change or listen to others... I might kindly ask MKEK to keep him dead. Ironwood belongs to his fans now as far as I'm concerned.
They can bring James back, and they even have an easy way to redeem him in their back pocket. But I don't trust them as far as I can throw them, and with the way they've been writing their show, I'd just as soon let James rest.
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kiwiquii · 6 years
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You are 15. You have just started grade 11 at school. You have a good group of friends, 20 or so people that you genuinely enjoy being around. You have a boyfriend and the relationship is going well.
Its march, near the end of the first term. You notice some people in the group are not really getting along, and for some reason, 15 of the people get up and walk out of the group. They refuse to rejoin the two.
The 5 left includes you and your boyfriends friends.
A couple of weeks later, one of your friends tries to go to the group of 15 to talk to his girlfriend. He gets literally shoved out.
You send a private message to the 'leader' of the group asking her why she split the two. She tells you x was flirting with her ex and she didnt like that.
She tells you that you are a nosy bitch for questioning her. Half an hour later, you get 5 other people sending you messages
"You are a piece of shit"
"You dont deserve to have friends"
"I have hated you for years"
To this day you agree with all of these.
Its June. Your boyfriend hits rock bottom, runs away from home and drops out of school. You tell him to go back to school at least, he is a very intelligent person.
He tells you you are being a bitch for refusing to support him.
You then realise that everything that had happened in the relationship wasnt normal. He liked to physically abuse you. He often said something like "if you refuse to kiss me right now i will kill myself". He often got upset if you wanted to talk to your friends one day.
So you break up with him. You tell him that you have realised these things arent right. He tells you that you dont deserve to be loved and you have no hope of getting a lasting relationship. You agree.
It gets to September. At this point you start to question whether its worth going on. Something happens, and before you realise what you have done, you have gouged out part of your wrist.
You realise there is something really wrong with you, so the next day you go to the school councellor. She tells your parents and you start on therapy. You think it is a waste of time.
You can't last a month without making a new scar on yourself. It gets to november and the group merges back together. You cant join them, even seeing the people who attacked you sends you into panic.
You catch the bus home from school every day. And every day, you have a panic attack because the noise and claustrophobia is too much. Music is the only thing that can help it.
Your grades are failing. You used to be a good student, not the best but rarely getting less than a B. Now you are failing every subject.
You start grade 12. At this point you have 3 people you can count on. One is a girl you met online that you talk to every day, but she lives in america. Another is a girl you have been best friends with since grade 8. The last is a guy who for some reason still puts up with you.
Your best friend is popular. She still talks to everyone in the old group and she has ofher friends. You see her once every second day for the shorter break.
The guy is busy too. You dont see him that much.
For a while, you had a group of friends on an online forum. After a few months they realised you werent worth anything and you get banned. This happens with another forum as well.
Your mother is a very social person. You go to parties every other week with your parents. You try to tell them how uncomfortable they make you, but they refuse to listen.
One of the last things you enjoy is fishing. Sometimes, the parties your parents hold are at the beach, so you try to get as far away from the party as possible to escape in the waves. Each time, you consider just swimming out to keep going until you drown. Each time, you stop yourself because you forgot to say goodbye.
It gets to grade 12, you are 4 weeks in. Since the group joined back together, you have been sitting in an out of bounds area where no one can find you. Teachers tell you that you are lucky to not get suspended. You tell them you couldnt care less
It is the first time you ride your bike to school. It happens to be the class with an air con first so you are relieved. At 9:05 the school gets a bomb scare. You are made to sit on the field. You are messaging your dad and listening to music because you are terrified. A teacher tries to take your phone. You tell them to piss off. They make you sit in the sun away from the rest of the students. You keep messaging your dad. The teachers tell you if you dont hand over your phone they will suspend you. You tell them go ahead. At one point a teacher grabs you to try and get it.
Your parents find out about everything that happened, and they take it to the principal threatening to charge for assault. They are told that if they followed through, you would be an outcast to all teachers. Because what is the word of one mentally ill girl against professionals?
A few days later, the guy you were friends with approaches you. He tells you that he wants nothing to do with you until you fix your depression. You walk out of the school, start walking home, and suddenly get an uncontrollable urge to jump infront of a truck.
You force yourself to the ground, and message your american friend. They tell you that you are being an idiot and they would punch you if they were there.
You call your parents, who come immediately to pick you up from the side of the road. You talk to the suicide hotline about everything that has happened. You go to the hospital and repeat yourself to 3 more seporate people. You are pronounced minor risk and sent home
You dont go back to that school. You dont get accepted into a new school until 3 months later. In your time off, you start running and riding every day. You find a dog park with some nice people.
Your mental health is getting better. You go into your new school and complete all of term 1 and term 2 in the single term. You fail most of your first exams. Your teacher for your strongest subject tells you there is no way you can be an A student. Your OP prediction comes back as 17.
But you keep going. You go to the city every day to do your school work. Your grades get better. You feel better about yourself. By the end of the year, you are a straight A student. You get 2 awards. You get your OP back as 9. You get accepted into university early.
But you have to pay tuition upfront, so you defer 12 months. You start looking for a job. You print off 300 resumes. Over the next few months you use all of them. You walk in to every shop in a 11km radius of your house. You get a job at Subway.
This is your first time working, so you are slow. Your manager makes sure you know this. Every shift he tells you how much of an idiot you are. You give full availability and you are lucky to get more than 10 hours a week.
So you start looking for a job again. You get something for permanent part time, 25 hours per week. So you leave subway, and of course your boss literally begs you to stay.
After 2 weeks in your second job, which has standards higher than anywhere else you have been, you get fired for being too slow.
So you look for jobs again. You get one in a seafood place. It makes you always stink but the work is decent. Easter happens, it is so busy you get a panic attack and have to take a half when you would usually only take 15.
After easter, your boss tells you he doesnt need you anymore, and you are lucky to get one shift per week.
So you look again. An employer tells you to do a cert iii in food processing so you do. You never hear back from the employer.
You get a job at a pie shop. It is very close to home. You get 3 shifts a week, 3 hours each.
So you look again. You get a job in a cafe so you leave the pie shop.
The cafe job is good. You get 20+ hours a week and its reasonable work.
After a couple of months, you realise there is a new law coming in which makes uni fees 3x as much, so you get enrolled right away. There is a maths subject you want to get into but you have to take an entrance exam for it, which doesnt come up until nearly too late. You constantly make phone calls to the uni and they tell you that you probably arent good enough anyway. You end up acing the test.
You pay your tuition out of pocket and buy a 2300$ laptop. You are proud to get this far.
You start uni and it isnt what you expected. You love your maths and physics but your 2 engineering classes are a waste of time. You start worrying that you wasted your money.
You are either working or at uni 7 days a week most weeks. You start to feel overworked and tired.
You join a server for lgbt people, having questioned yours for a while. After a month you have a friend, a 32 year old guy who also loves fishing and your type of music. He makes you a moderator in the 5000 people server, and the owner just says "whatever you are cool". You end up contributing more than 80% of the other mods.
Your 18th birthday comes around. You go out on a boat fishing with your parents and a couple of friends, but they force you to invite their friends as well. The boat is overcrowded, cold, and the fishing is bad.
There is a girl in the server you really like, so you ask her out. She is thousands of miles away but you were sure you could make it work.
But your mental state has been declining again, and it is everything you can do to keep on top of it. You put off going back to therapy because you dont have time.
Your university studies have been getting more stressful as well, you have massive assignments to do in very little time. You are a perfectionist, and when you get a mark back of 74% you are gutted.
But you keep going. It gets closer to when your final assignments are due when your girlfriend says she is depressed because of something and has to be away for a while. You are worried for her and hate that you cant help.
Your other friend from the server hates her. Ever since you asked her out he would tell you that you are too pretty to be with her. While she is away you are talking to him and he tells you he wants to ban her. You tell him no and you go to warn her.
She has hated him the whole time too. But she gets really upset at what he said. You get into a fight about it and she breaks up with you.
She does it nicely, but you tell yourself its because you are not good enough for her. Your friend finds out and immediately starts hitting on you, so you tell him he is an asshole.
You see her seemingly fine the next day but you havent felt worse since you left your old school. You had stopped yourself from self harming for nearly 2 years, but you have now done it 3 times in 2 weeks.
Your mother calls you a bitch. Your boss tells you to harden up. You are back where you started, a loser with no friends and a bottomless pit of assignments.
Maybe it will get better when you finish university. But you cant keep going on like this for another 4 years.
At this point, you get social anxiety bad enough it stops you getting any new friends. You havent trusted a person in years. You probably never will again.
But all through it you keep going. You try to get over all of it. But it is a lot.
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Skip to the bottom for TL;DR.Let me preface this, because I know I'm gonna get comments saying "then why play the game" and "who gives a shit about realism" by saying that the game for the most part is fun. Yet the more I played it, and the farther I got the more glaring it's flaws became. Having played enough of Wildlands to render a verdict, and having explored every nook and cranny of Bolivia, I'd like to express my opinion of the game.It is a serious disappointment, on many many levels.What I see is a game with massive potential, a huge open world with co-op capabilities, tactical stealth and shooter elements and a variety of ways to approach objectives.All of that is wasted by a mix of poor design choices, a just didn't care attitude, oversights, bugs, frustrating gameplay and a "get out the door as fast as possible, quality be damned" attitude that Ubisoft has been guilty of in the past.Let's start with the story. Ubisoft had a great opportunity to do a ''Shadow of Mordor'' style story: depending on which cartel branch you took out first, it could change the game world. Take out Security first, the rest of the cartel becomes disorganized and less competent in combat (because you took out their trainers and camps and commanders), take out Influence first, the cartel radio stops broadcasting and the cartel's grip on the country weakens somewhat. Take out Supply, and Security beefs itself up in response. Take out UNIDAD HQ in Flor De Oro, their patrols become less frequent.Nope, Ubisoft instead goes for a shallow, uninspired story in which none of the characters are given any meaningful backstory, it's just "X character is bad because Y reason, go kill him/her." It just feels hollow, there's no impact. I felt like there was no meaningful progress to the story as we dismantled the cartel piece by piece. The ending of the story (the true ending that is) literally makes your efforts mean nothing. I won't spoil it, but yeah, everything you did? Doesn't mean anything. It's such a cop-out.The world doesn't change and react to your actions. You take over a base carefully with no detection? It makes no. damn. difference. That base will be repopulated the next time you load your game or if you travel to another province and back. The SAM sites respawn, and cartel members remain in a province even if you cleared out the buchon. It has no impact and basically is a middle finger to your efforts.Honestly, in my honest opinion the world is a little TOO big. The provinces look nice from a distance, but up close structures repeat and the civilian AI doesn't react to its surroundings. Bases have no variety; its almost always variations on a few buildings, one tower, guard post, alarm. I ran into a civilian in Koani (the salt flat province in the northwest) bundled up like it was extremely cold, and I saw civilians dressed for summer. In Inca Camina, the mountainous, cold province. The fact that planes fly at a snail's pace means it can take anywhere from 10-15 minutes to traverse from end to end.Gameplay wise, Wildlands does some things right, it does a lot of things far worse though, and unfortunately those things end up ruining and weighing down the game:*The attachment system is a mess and its clear that the devs simultaneously didn't care, and half-assed the whole thing. I talk about it more here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GhostRecon/comments/5zhk7o/the_attachment_system_in_this_game_makes_no_sense/*To add, some weapon attachments are in the wrong place and not where the text says they are, which is a huge oversight. There's also multiple copies of the same attachment. Why? I found a folding buttstock in one province and another for the same weapon type in another. Why not just consolidate them into one?*The weapon variety is weirdly inconsistent. There's only three non DLC shotguns, not that many pistols, a good selection of ARs, but LMGs are lacking and the devs could have added far more SMGs.*In addition, a lot of weapons are locked behind a paywall, which just smacks of greed. In fact, you can buy all the weapons and attachments if you want to.*The combat system is okay, but lacks elements that should logically be in the game (blindfire, human shields, low run to cover)*The co-op system in my experience is sloppy and glitchy, requiring multiple disconnects and reconnects so we can see each other in game. When it does work, its fun and enjoyable.For a game that calls itself a tactical shooter, it has a lot of errors. Your character throws grenades at a pathetic range, reloads weapons by pulling the charging handle with their shooting hand (highly discouraged, especially in Special Forces), there's no +1 chambering when reloading mid-magazine, your character will loudly yell when they kill an enemy with a weapon, etc.*Reload animations for weapons are incredibly samey and lack any variety (ACR reloads the same as the TAR-21, MP5 reloads the same as the Scorpion Evo 3, etc), pistols don't even lock their slides back or display accurate pistol mechanics.*Vehicle physics are laughable sometimes. Cars handle like they're on ice, APCs slide around and motorcycles are basically unusable. You shoot the tires of a truck, it explodes. Somehow.*Your character has the resiliency of a wet paper bag when it comes to vehicles. Light tap? You're down on the ground.*Character customization is great, but camouflage doesn't do anything and is useless. You could wear all black at night and get spotted as easily as wearing green in Koani.*Ammo pool limits don't come out to even amounts. 68 rounds for a sniper rifle? 225 for an assault rifle? 45 for a shotgun? How does that make any sense?*Sniping is less than optimal, you can't snipe very far and bullets drop like cannonballs (I can visibly see the bullet falling out of the sky).*There are an insane amount of bugs, some of which could have been fixed if the game had more time. They're all listed here: https://www.reddit.com/r/GhostRecon/comments/5xw6qg/megathread_feedbacksuggestionsbugs/I myself have fallen through the map, had my motorcycle launch itself into the atmosphere upon hitting a pebble, had Kingslayer files not appear on the map, had my character model spaz out while running, had dialogue constantly repeat for missions I had long completed and many, many others.*The helicopter physics are atrocious and the plane physics lack basic controls that every open world game before it has had. Like, how did Ubi think this was a good idea?*Enemies are unacceptably omniscient, to the point they can spot you in brush from half a mile away, while facing the other direction.*No helicopter fast-roping.*No non-lethal options (even knocking out counts as a kill)*Movement options are limited (no quick dive out of the way, no jumping, no forward roll or side roll)*No door breaching.*Can't move bodies.*No wire-cutters for fences. Fences may as well be concrete walls.*You can't switch back to earlier rebel drop vehicles once you upgrade them. Want an armored SUV but have level 3 rebel drop? Fuck you, you get a helicopter and you will like it.*No flares for aircraft. SAM coming your way in a medicine helicopter? Hope you can dodge.There are so many gameplay elements missing, it's almost weird given the series pedigree. Ghost Recon is known for tactical realism and variety in tackling objectives after all.Rebel missions become useless once you have fully upgraded abilities, yet they keep spawning in each new province. They're the same missions, over and over and over again. It could have been made so once a rebel mission is completed, and that particular rebel ability is fully upgraded, instead it gives you 5000-7500 of a resource. As it stands, I have ''no'' incentive to do those missions. There's no variety in Supply Raids, its the same "steal helicopter/steal plane" over and over.In fact, let's talk about the missions. They're incredibly tedious and samey. Each province has the same subset of missions and rebel missions; there's no variety, no difference. Blow up this, tail this person, kill that person, rinse and repeat. Rebel missions could have had some variety depending on the province and geography. A train intercept mission (missed opportunity there, fighting car to car on a train while a friendly helicopter flies alongside providing support would be fun) is one I would have liked to see, given the abundance of trains that make their way through.One of the most glaring flaws in this game is the dialogue. Sweet Jesus, the dialogue. It repeats and repeats and repeats so many times, it's grating. I got tired of hearing "the music that makes your culo bounce up and down!" very quickly, to say nothing of "this medal has a coca plant on it. That's kinda cool", but the worst one is "what are we waiting for? There's gotta be more of us than them. Charge!!!" Apparently everyone in Bolivia has maybe 2 lines, and they repeat them Infinity1000 times in an hour.I came into Wildlands with elevated expectations; I enjoyed the beta, and I wanted to give it a shot. Dicking around in co-op was a blast. It seemed like a fun game, and catered to my gun aficionado/Special Forces dressup desire. Yet it's so clear that Ubisoft fucked up majorly by releasing a beta/demo a week before release, and then not using the beta to fix anything.What they should have done, and should do moving forward for future titles, is release the beta, vacuum up all the feedback and delay the game for 6 months or more (with an October/November release) and polish the game to fix as many bugs as they can. They did not do that with Wildlands. They released a buggy game with shallow elements, when they could have fleshed out so much, made the world vibrant and interesting and reactive (to a degree), and made sure the game ran smoothly and played well.Should you get the game? In its current state, its hard to recommend it. If you can overlook its flaws and same-y missions and endlessly repeated 2-3 lines of dialogue, there's fun to be had in co-op. I'd wait for Ubi to patch and fix bugs, but there's the possibility that they may never fix the issues that Wildlands has. I hope that's not the case; there is a solid game under all of what I mentioned, it just needed a few more months of polish.TL;DR: Wildlands has a lot of bugs, and the story sucks. Also has a bunch of flaws and should have been released in September/October, not March. via /r/GhostRecon
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