#i also just admittedly don’t have that many points for rt in the first place

[apollos-boyfriend]

fully going broke this rt stream or making my millions. all or nothing

people who actually bet their channel points are stronger than any us marine. i am so attached to those little guys i can’t stand the thought of losing them to a bet

[itsclydebitches]

While I don't entirely agree about Pietro and Ironwood's shared responsibility in the creation of Penny and aura transfer, one thing we don't really know about is their motive for creating them. With Ironwood, we know that the general reasoning is that he wants to control the Maiden powers, both who possesses them and the transfer. With Pietro it's a bit more complicated since he was only introduced last season. If he knew about the Maidens before, it's possibly that his goals/motive aligned with Ironwood, but changed when Penny was brought to life. Its also possible he had an entirely separate reasoning/end goal, and Ironwood green-lit the plan to eventually try and fulfill his own goal.

We admittedly do lack a lot of information, but what I take issue with is that what we do have is being ignored. For me, I try to only work with what the story gives me, not my assumptions about what must (“must”) have happened based on my personal feelings about the characters. What we actually know is that Penny said, “My father’s the one that built me!” with just some “help” from Ironwood. We likewise know that, seasons later, Pietro himself says that he “looked inward” to find “the next breakthrough in defense technology” and he agrees with Ruby’s summary that “[he] wanted a protector with a soul”: “I did.” We learn he proposed the project in the first place because he’s surprised when it was “chosen over all the other proposals.” That’s what we know. It’s admittedly not a ton, but it’s something, and that something says that Pietro is the one who proposed this project, had agency in doing so, and seems incredibly pleased with how Penny came out in the end. Her existence as a weapon with personhood is what he was aiming for. If he had different motivations than Ironwood, they’re never mentioned. If his feelings about Penny changed drastically upon her “birth,” they’re never mentioned. If Pietro was actually, secretly forced to create a weapon by Ironwood even though he never wanted that, it’s never mentioned. So my real question is: if it’s never mentioned (or even implied) why in the world would we assume it’s there? Why would we entertain the idea until we actually have an inkling that it might be the case? We have the story clearly telling us Thing A (Pietro was Penny’s creator, ethical problems included), yet many fans turn to Things B, C, D, etc. instead. 

Truthfully, the reason for that isn’t hard to understand. The story has done a great deal to (both accurately and inaccurately) paint Ironwood as the villain and paint Pietro as the heroic father, especially in the last episode. Which means that acknowledging that responsibility chucks a massive wrench into both characterizations. On another post discussing this, a responder’s instinct was to say that maybe Pietro wanted a daughter and Ironwood wanted a weapon, cleanly separating the two in terms of morals, despite there not being any evidence for this, nor a reason for that “maybe” explanation to exist in the first place. We know what Pietro wanted because he told us (and the story gives no indication that he’s lying). He wanted the latest “defense technology,” a “protector with a soul.” That’s the canon. But it’s a canon that doesn’t fit into the neat, black and white box of Ironwood Bad; Pietro Good. So rather than grappling with this (which requires acknowledging that RT may have just written both characters badly), it’s far easier to come up with a headcanon explanation that keeps Ironwood 100% bad and Pietro 100% good. Maybe Ironwood lied to Pietro, maybe Pietro had a change of heart (a whole significant character arc we never saw), maybe he had his own goals, maybe he was pressured into it... so many "maybe”s, but none of which have any evidence attached to them. In an admittedly sparse backstory, the one reading we do have some evidence for - Pietro willingly created a child weapon to defend his Kingdom with - is the one people most want to ignore, because that’s the one reading that complicates the (otherwise enjoyable) father-daughter scenes. 

Pietro is, in many respects, a great character. He provides two types of diversity (race and disability), is the creator of a fan favorite, is often funny, clearly brilliant, and his scenes with Penny are legitimately heartwarming. Most fans don’t want to undermine all that good by acknowledging the black stain RT (unintentionally?) left on his character. For me though, I try not to ignore what the story tells me in favor of what I want it to have said. I didn’t want Ironwood to shoot Oscar when that goes against everything else we know about his character, but he did. We have to deal with that. I didn’t want Pietro to have created such an ethically dubious daughter to adore, but he did. We should deal with that too. If we start down the “It’s possible that...” route when we already have a canonical explanation for things, it’s unlikely to ever end, because at this point people just don’t want Pietro to have done something that bad. He could shout next episode, “I willingly created a teenager to fight a horrifying, dangerous war for us!” and the response would be “Well, it’s possible that Ironwood pressured him and we just don’t know about it yet. That’s just Pietro’s internalized guilt talking.” When we decide to favor those preferences over what the canon gives us, there’s nothing the canon can do to convince us otherwise. At what point are we willing to look at the characters we like and go, “Yup. You’re not as good and perfect as I’d like you to be”? 

[afoolforatook]

I liked your post on Qrow and grief. I think 99% of rwby discourse is people being upset with writers choices and handling of characters vs being defensive of character actions as commentary on real world situations. Like most Adam discourse is between the writers decision to make a civil rights leader an abusive villain vs people noting that abusers can and do hijack social justice movements. One is anger at the writers not the character the other is concern about the character not the writers.

Thanks (sorry, I just forget asks exist sometimes....oops)

Honestly, I avoid discourse as much as possible (the tiniest bit of possible conflict makes me feel physically ill, thnks rsd, which is why I never really actively participated in fandom as a creator before FG) so I can’t say much on other issues such as Adam, but I can see that. 

I think the issue usually starts when there’s a disconnect between understanding characters and their actions in the context of the world and story, and the context of why the writers choose to frame things the way they do. 

Which personally, is where most of my own frustration comes from about RWBY’s writing. Because there is so much of it that is genuinely brilliant, deep, powerful storytelling that has all the building blocks for some important subversive storylines, and has such amazing attention to detail and thought put behind it, but then doesn’t always get developed consistently enough to pull it all together with the appropriate tone/intent. We know they can do such powerful things with all the potential they set up, so when it falls flat, for reasons that seem like inconsistent direction and intent, or narrow understanding of complicated topics, or just plain sloppy oversight, it can be really disappointing

Grief is one of those topics that I take very seriously when it comes to how it is portrayed in media, and it’s something I hope to be able to be a part of creating better realistic representation for. So many people believe they understand grief because they’ve seen it in movies and shows and books that rarely show it in all its complexity and diversity. And so when they see characters, and even real people, grieving in ways that don’t fit that mold, that may seem callous or toxic from an outside perspective, it can feel like poor writing or characterization. Because we as a society don’t talk about grief, not really, not honestly, it makes us uncomfortable. So, through no fault of their own, people don’t understand how that kind of trauma changes how you think, and affects you on a daily basis.

There are a lot of complicated topics that RWBY has a lot of potential to do important, powerful things with, in how they tell this story. Some they have handled well previously, and some they *really* haven’t.  Mental health, abuse, racism, classism, lgbtq representation, morality, trauma, grief. And I certainly won’t say any single one of those is more important than any other. 

But, personally, grief is the one that will hit me hardest if they mishandle it. There will be other places to turn for diverse, informed, meaningful narratives about all those other topics, and of course the same is true for grief. I certainly don’t want to have those topics mishandled in RWBY, and RT and CRWBY have a responsibility to put in the work to avoid that and to admit when they don’t, and if all of those things were just horrendously mishandled it would be upsetting and infuriating, but in the end, there would be other material, other, diverse, creators to turn to. 

But RWBY is in a (certainly not completely unique, but fairly rare) special position when it comes to showing the place that grief in all its complexities has in storytelling. And how, in turn, storytelling can play a huge part in helping people process their own grief.  

Because RWBY is a story, a world, created by a man (of color) who died far too young, and whose legacy is now carried on by his friends and family (and a company that, while certainly popular and well known in its niche, is by no means mainstream). They know grief. And they have a rare opportunity —with a story perfectly built to address this kind of narrative— to be able to provide others who are grieving with a complex, inspiring, empowering reflection of their experiences, which are so often absent, or oversimplified, or treated as shock factor or tear-jerkers in media. 

For most other projects in that kind of situation (sudden loss of a young creator, a creator of color, not already backed by a huge production company, with not only story and animation development to work on, but a unique soundtrack that is one of the things at the core of the show’s appeal imo), the story would have most likely been abandoned after the creator’s death. Roosterteeth, and RWBY, certainly have a not insignificant following now (and even did to a lesser extent, at the time of Monty’s death, less than six months after the end of volume 2) but RWBY was still pretty new, not nearly as popular as it is now. I watched the first volume when it was brand new, and I think the start of volume 2, but then didn’t come back to it until the end of volume 6, so I don’t know for sure what things were like in both the fandom and production following Monty’s death. But I am sure that RWBY’s survival is due to tremendous work and dedication and love for Monty and his creation. Volume 7 ended on the fifth anniversary of Monty’s death, and regardless of your opinion on the quality of the show over that time, the fact that it has come this far at all is almost miraculous. 

For a story, and a team, so well suited for this point of view, to not simply ignore the topic (as so many writers do, aka one tribute episode and then it’s like it never happened), but to actually address it, only to fail to do it true, honest, important, justice, would be (at least personally) devastating. 

None of this is to say that because of their grief, or in order to ‘properly’ honor Monty, CRWBY was obligated to make grief an important part of this narrative, especially so soon after a loss and in a project where it is impossible to separate their feelings for the story from their grief over Monty. They did not owe us, or ‘Monty’s memory’, their personal trauma. Not everyone wants or needs to put their grief in their work. To have decided to gloss over that narrative thread and aspect of character growth, or included it but never make it a main theme, would, admittedly, still have been somewhat disappointing, but understandable given the circumstances. 

But they didn’t do that. They gave it a prominent role. (Also admittedly not as much as I would have liked at times, but still much more than plenty of other stories) In the music, in the symbolism, in the character development, in the main plot. Grief, in multiple manifestations, is a huge part of RWBY. I am immensely grateful for that, and regardless of the issues I have and may have in the future, that is something that will always be very important to me. 

But, in making that choice, they gave themselves an obligation to follow through. To consciously make grief a complex part of multiple characters’ narrative, and then fumble the execution and turn that pain into cheap shock factor or poorly framed justification is, in my eyes, an irresponsible failure that could work to only damage the vulnerable people you had gotten to trust you. Especially when it comes in the form of showing a character finally starting to recover, only to get torn down again out of nowhere. 

I’m not saying that this is already a failure in how they’ve handled Qrow’s grief, there’s just too much still to happen to be able to say that or not. But any trust I had in their intentions and narrative direction was destroyed by Ch12 (which is a different topic all together really), so I’ll just have to wait and see.

Ahhhhhh this got wayy too long (and probably not put the best way, oops brain dump.)

[throwingideasatthewall]

Clone Wars:         Season 2

      Episode 1 Holocron Heist

We just   had     a heist

[One   nonsense    enough    to knock    me into   nonsensical   incoherent      rambling...]

    Two

Okay...

I’m prepared...

To do.   nonsense...

  Urgh

   Okay..

[Title      Screen]

  [Woah!]

    ....  ..    

Aight

    Okay

A lesson learned,    A lesson earned

Oh..

     That         snapped me out of it,

     A lesson earned                  is           a lesson earned

        [you don’t need a        person to tell you     basic         common sense                                you can figure out yourself]

  ....

   Assumed authority is     bullshit                                       Don’t need to                                    earn any-      [Sorry,              Still           Recov-       er-         ing           From           Last          ep-        Isode]

                  Okay...

                   Any-way

                   Jedi on a                        planet                             . .

                     Some-how                         tr                            ap                               ped                                 -                          Surrounded                               Clones                                  -                                Right-                                     -                           Why?

                           Like - if you needed parts-

                           Okay-

                             I’m                                  in  

                               -terested

                                 Any way...

                                     Wait                                      cruisers?  

                                      Gun   ships?                                                                   R-escue

                                       Oh                                              wait-

                                          That’s                                              Good

                                            Oh                                                  No,

                                              It’s                                                    Plo..

Jokes       About       How       He      Got       His      Men      Blown      Up                         Just                                gonna                                 put                                   this                                 over                                 here

                              Been a                                 while

Also Hey     yeah      what         is         he        doing         here?

  Doesn’t         he       have      Jedi        things        to       do?

      Get           a         new         fleet?

        I mean                th-            (Don’t                Condone               Child               So-                L                diers!)

  But    every     time       it’s     always    Obi-Wan      and    Anakin    because        all         the           rest        of          them        are         too        busy

     So             What-

     Alright          -          Whelp           -          I      don’t       care         —-

   Whelp          —        Ex-plo          —         Is      this       just       going         to       be       an     action        piece?        (Nothing       wrong        with           that;           just        need           a      different      mindset,)

     From          the     applications             of        child       soldiers           -          To          Shoot-

    -Why?

      It’s-       Nice-

-Droids

   Plo-

 General-

     ?

Ev-

Neat-

Good-

 Whelp-

  Grab ‘em to the medic        And Go!

   (Seriously       Windu figured this out yesterday.)

    Grunts

    You’d         think        the Jedi would give the      order?

Seriously,         Good miss,          Five           Min-           Got          Some           One-          Killed

   “ Asoka,”

   First Asoka       mention in the first five minutes

                                [maybe they got her character                                     better.]

                                  -Jungle

                                    You sent-                                         A child

                                    That                                        Logically can’t improvise                                      ...                                              Into                                              a jungle

                                      ....

                                      The  

                                     Fuck    

                                    Skywalker?                                     

Con-tact      Her        -         Dead      -       She’s very likely      dead-       -      Anyway       -        Hope   Anakin     taught       her    those    moves-       -      That’s       a      lot       of     emotion          -           In        the        movements;         Again;

     Monotonous,           Stunted,            Robo              Tot              -ic

         That’s                How              Child-

Nope-

   Tone’s          Off

So,         just           to           go            over;

       1. Tone ❌        2.  Dia-                  Log                   Ue- (?)

        3. Move               -ment    ❌

              I’m hop-

Extract-

     Taught-  

     Okay- 

     Teach         -ing   s

     Aight           Mary          Sue-

      I’m        sorry         but         the        light          is       literally       coming         out!

      Whelp-

      Okay-

        So it’s Ahsoka an    adult yet?

         Like that can be explained away as   acco-untability

          Otherwise,     she should   have a hard time        with        one       Droid!

      (No wait didn’t Obi-Wan just call her                  ‘young one ‘)?

                 Nope!

           Movie, get over there in your               shame corner

  That-        Was painful       over-      reacting

 And         Focus-

   I    Don’t        -      You    couldn’t      have     forced          it     more             if     you    tried         -

        The             Force-           d cha-          nge i          -n         Perspective           Not      Apprec  -iate      D-        . . .    .      Moving         on

  Whelp        ...

    Get            In          -

   That’s           a      direct      order-         -

  “Can’t-”

   Nope!

   That’s            It-

   Tone ❌

   Dialogue; ❌,?

   Move;   ❌    Ment

  Turn in your bad  

  writing card,    

   Movie

   ❌

 (Not a series strike,        Just             A          “Fuck         You,          Strike

          On the            Movie                 And,                This            Chara              -cter

                               (We just had such a good-

                                              Maybe; it gets better?

                                                                               Skipped ahead;                                                                                          It doesn’t

                                                                                       Sigh-

                                                                              *Puts on earmuffs

                                                                                 Meta-phorically

Aight      Back        To       19:06      (Original      time     stamp;           Play

*Think

 Friendly      Fire-

 Nvm

*Thing      Ex-plodes

   In-       stantly

Whelp-     

 You   called       her   before      a   council            ??

   Child          -ren          Can’t          Think           -

Okay

        Movie

       Children                  can’t                         think-

    From ag-

      “This is-”. 

       It should                    be   

         -But                           The              writers                        -                refuse                      to                  write                                  her                                   as                                   child                           -       

The       Pro-

“I-

The          Pro-            Blem         As         the     story       seems   to         be        placing            the               Jedi            on            a            high          pedestal     

        .....                Their             actions               here                as              reasonable       

           .....                         But                          it’s                  not                            ...                If Ahsoka was a child it would be a cruel use of power showing how used only to put the younger generation down before they’re                  old enough to understand it

              And how they’ve given Anakin the illusion of power   

                  -Boomer                               Bait

              If she’s an adult;                           This would be a show of        how             she’s childified by her peers

               As it stands;       

               The writers refuse to chose

Concerning,  due to the fact that  

Child-ify                 Ing            An                Adult       ......    Is    Wrong

  And      adult-ify        ing        a       child       is    wrong         ...      

  Un        equivocally,

Tally    Of       How     Many       Times       Ahsoka-        Is        Adult          -ify          Ied-           ;     

      This is necessary

 [Excuse for odd formatting           The “Movie”,                (Under the                picture)                  Caused                    Tumblr                    To                  heck                   up                  my               spacing)

           Continuing                   on;

“Time    away      from     the      battle-       field,”

  Good,        For          A        Child       Solider        -     (And   would’ve     been       a     good     show      that      any     kind   -ness     from     them       is   performative           ...

                   “Guard duty,”

Tally   Of      How   Many      Times      Ahsoka-       Is      Adult         -ify        Ied-         1

 Cite;      Child     ren    Don’t       have     that    much   emotion,        Nor    Pre-      fer      ence-        -

                 “Longer                       now,”

                    Dick                         —-                     Kinda

                     It’s                          better                            for                       ��   children                             not                              to                               be                                in                              battle                                  —

                              So                                 not                                     a                                  complete                                    dick...

                                But                                   not                                    optimal...

                                 “Sorry”

So he said by people who don’t wanna take accountability for their actions and just stop doing the thing and     stop bringing the toxins into the world                                  

Point;     If you    were sorry    you would       stop     doing it,       stop     bringing         it        up,       and            do      better...     —-       Trying         to       control         the      narrative         isn’t          nice          (When           the          truth            is        objective)

       Only           the           self           may            be          both             .....

Security      -

  “Knowledge,”

    *Bag-age

      “Hm,”

  . .. .

   ...

...

Fisto  

...

 In-side

 St-upid      Forbid       Den    

Know-ledge

   (It’s likely   about     plants        Or      Weapons)

Also;

     Boomer         Bait!    

     (That’s something they offer younger         generations to follow their           stupid outdated tradition)

      It’s always          worse...

     (Also, this isn’t about Ahsoka trying to steal the         Holocon thing is it?

      Because her character is already                                                  -hateable- enough

        And if she has enough initiative             to steal the holocon

          - She’s an adult

           And should              be allowed entrance             anyway

          “Jedi            Council,”

             So,                  lady was a Jedi?

               Aight,

                Keeping an eye                     on that                        ...                  Aight                       -   

                 No

                 Went through one.                     drug trip

                   Already

                   .....

                 [Okay...

                ..Got                   a Drink                  of water                   ——                        Interrupt                     -ion

                  Wait I thought he was just a                     ball of                     fuck your plot

                  You’re telling me he actually works                      for                       Palpatine?

After   threaten       ing      Palpatine?

   This      dude           -        fucking         drug           trip            -

...Ser     vices

    I       honestly       thought          he         was             a          [fuck           your          shit]            guy

Now    he’s      a     de   tec- tive

Noir    ....

Movie     that’s      too      many     genres        .....

  You-     need       to    slow   down      .

          Your main            Chara-                   Isn’t                 Even               Esta-                    Blish                      -ed                      Prop                          er                         Ly

            Nevermind                    the           characterization

                 Note if it had been established he changes things every so often that would be neat

                 As                   it stands

               This                  dude is a                 fecking roller coaster

             Not any                thing                resembling                   good

[Giving    your      aud-   ience     a       drug   trip   isn’t   good   writing]

      It makes        them         dizzy!]

      So...       

    Holocron

    Like Palpatine is literally doing this just to fuck over       Ahsoka?

     Also, this is going to result in Ahsoka    being     unchild     -like       To take them out      too?

   I’ll get the -      counter     ready

[yes I have seen it    literally            every   Mall cop/ security guard movie   ever

The   fun     .    seeing how your    (Good)    chara      cters         -     interact     with      the   scenario          -       That’s      not   happening       here        -          If she was a child this would show how    Anakin‘s orders react with the environment

    If       she’s      an    adult;        We’re working through a checklist;         About        what we know about         her;

      Likes, dislikes, how they might come up in a   situation...

       The suspension...            coming when they do

With      Ahsoka...

  What do we know about her?

   Honestly?

    We know she likes         fighting         (Already in enabler of toxic behavior           -against other living beings)

       We know literally       nothing else about          her

       Except...

      That she’s      perfect...

Re-moving         All      Tension;

  Deal

I’m surprise he just wasn’t like    oh      yeah      sure,”

   [Ditches         with       the money]

    ...         ..

   Oh they’re actually talking   strategy

   Usually it’s just         ‘fuck em’ up            And that’s all             we ever           hear

Er-

Whelp-     Yodi’s    dead

Alas,       Poor      Narc

[assuming he can actually sense     disorder in the ranks]

 Gen.      Leader      Ship.      Tox

 He should know     he shouldn’t be doing that

  Focusing     on him       self

    And        practic        ing     accountability          ....       Constantly     micromanaging           and      checking            in            on             your           peers                   ..            Isn’t           going          to make             them           more           likely           to be       accountable..

        It’s         going            to          piss         them             off              ...

      Your (evident) distrust creating a toxic environment              As you were refused to               trust their   char   -acter

  You can’t give me   respect the guy that was just snooping      (Through the whole   uni-verse)

      That’s           the         point...

         A         dis-turbance          in the force

     Yeah?

     Intruders there will   be

     Okay, bullshit       he can see that

   Like;           Peri-pheral            Okay

    (Still tox that you don’t expect your peers          in a peripheral.          to be able to hold             accountability)

But this is galaxies     away        (Ac-tually.    on    Corousant)

  But.      He         Should        n’t       Know        That-

  ‘The      Narcs    pulling    authority     again,       master,”

  “Shh,       this         is         what         we        train-    I mean groom -        you         for!,”

     “But          You            Said,”

      (Con-tinuing             Earl-ier,)

   [Seriously        I meant to bring it up                                earlier,

             But are they really inhabiting                      Zero the hutt’s                         old hotel]

Like it could just be a Noir hotel

 But the positioning       and location         seem         familiar             . . .

     Tell        me...

    Who          the       frick           is          this?            ?

   “What            you        are      doing      back      there?”

    ...   ..

  Aight...

 Assis      -tance

    God          Lord,           He’s           Try             -ing

        -

    Main     tenance

     If I don’t idea   (who this guy was )or what was going on    then maybe that would make sense

       As it stands,             Nope,

        Crash-               es

        What’s             that?

         ....

       What?

       Seriously.             all he did was put another thing into another thing?

        ???

        ...

      Aww, he actually trusts           Bane..

    Thank you         ...

    Door..

    Techno         Service         ...       Droid

     As in a      “tech      -nical  service droid?          (Rt          (IT)     Tech             Guy?

     Or a technical     assistant         (One made of       tech)?

      (Or one specializing in    techno dance moves?)

     Also   is he supposed to get them      in?

  Is    that thing?

 They-   didn’t     really     establish     much-

 Butler      Droid...

Change?

 Todo...   “You are what I say    you are,”

Roomba- kicker

Also, having a roommate is just straight up       detective fiction...

 Like     buddy-cop detective but still     detective

  With noir,      Which       is supposed to be focused on independence        Dis(trust) in society        Which is       admittedly       (toxic)

   Or         seems          to be

     Those two   themes...

          Directly contra-      dictory

[with   Griev-      ous     they       made       it    work,     But     he   wasn’t      this    -         ]

“Uh,”

You    are    not   “The   Doctor,”       -      [that work      ed as    manif-   estation      Of    Greiv-     Ous’s      Toxic    Be-      Hav       -ior-         And      Human      Want        For        Com-        Pan    Ion-        Ship        -       Or         At        Least-      Vul-          Ner-          Aba-              ili            Ty-           -           This          Guy            -          So far he’s a       n(e)igh        invulnerable       Douche          Bag            -            With           No            -thing          Humane-            -           Not           quite      Ahsoka         levels              -       Intend       -ed           To be          an adult            -          Just-            -            Really needing to go     ham -           On the arrogance            And            inhumanity               (He sold his soul for      money- But makes it look      so good- what                    he                   does-                  Gets a sick       kinda  enjoyment from it,”)

             That’s how you   have,  to pull it off

             As it stands;    there’s      no    emotion     with      this    character

Is   the   robot   supposed to be like his   morality pet?

But he’s a   dick to   him   too

Really   he gets nothing   from me

How do even in the    “I-don’t-feel-anything-I’m-so-edgy-and-cool     look at me!’

  Vibes

   There’s nothing     fun...

   Yeah you can throw all the   ...clichés         you want in there

   [But that doesn’t work       if you don’t use them          properly]

     [I see the team up        with a female bounty       -hunter]

    [Predictable         “I work Alone...]           The only thing          those stories               share

            In minute]

But ‘once the effect of’   ‘wow that’s a lot of things.    Has worn off

 The story and character left   heartless

“Non-of- your       Bus-        iness,”

  Doesn’t have the     cockiness to make it      work

  [this isn’t    power-         Ful-]

    Down       right        ..cringe

      As it tries to shove shove two genres.. .    At least...        That don’t          Quite          .work                ...

        Least not the   way they’re trying to make them     work  

.....

..Today

 It’s noir

 The point is      no one’s          in a    good mood.. ...

Aight,

Wasn’t that-

Also,   shouldn’t      he    know-

 Based on how      open-     She     is-      To un-     veiling        her       mask..

   - -

   Robot

So sh-   ouldn’t she ask the robot to leave the room?

(If it’s such a big deal     to her?”)

   He can just run their       face through a     face scan       no?

 Mid-rim

   I thought he didn’t have a way   in?    [That’s a   pretty pathetic   way in.. .]

    [Palpatine’s      screwing           with            him]

       [Giv           -ing            Him             a          hard          time         and       satis    -iating           -          The    ab-    omin-      ations    desire      for    blood🎵,

    Two      birds,         one       stone,

     Also,       Movie,           That’s           the       wrong      amount         of      planning           for        the      wrong      genre          -        We don’t care how the   bank ro    -bbers      Art      -thieves

      Got           There

       This           isn’t           Heist              -           [Money           Heist,              Not              Terr-              Esc]             Got              It           Wrong              [Pre              dict-                   The                  Plot-]               Last                Time.                -

           The                 Focus              isn’t           Character              building-                  - it’s the                   ‘out of depth                     characters reaction to the                    scenario,’

And the wacky hijinks that    ensue

 Using their   talents...    

   Contrast-      ed against the environment        (Mall        cop        example]     

     Which seems to be the best       fit

   Stealing         the-  Holocron-           -         WHAT WAS THE         PURPOSE-

        Well-                At least they ack          -now-ledged                 Planning          really isn’t part of the subset,

                 Good                    (For them?)

                Aight                    Impossible                     ...

             What are the              emotions?

           [like they              literally.             just through in                   the              “the only place...”

             Why..?

             So quick rehash                    (Sorry                      but I can feel the                        drug                          trip coming through,)

                      (Effects-                             Of                            Dealing-                           With                              (bad) excess character;

                         (Deserts                               Metal...)

                       [Refresh]

                       He has a map of the Jedi temple                            Chip                            (Oh so that’s what that-                              (Isn’t he                            still-)  

                    [Changlin’]

                     Aight

                 Bog

                  [Refresh                        End]

                  [Voice                       acting?

                  [Mouth                         sync]

                      ...                        ..                      Aight

                      ..

                    In                         Tru-

                   Maybe                       take                        the                       teen- off guard duty

                     A thought

                    [but-seriously

                       No high                           Alert?

                        Only these   two..?

                        Info-     -Mation

                      Baggage

Seriously money would be a better   option

                        Or       just    street     cred

                     (Adult) humans,                         Aren’t that Liniar...

                    Any way...

                    East   Tower                          ....

  Well that’s better than some   dusty    old     books        -      Holos

  (Seriously at least that’s   present    baggage.)

  Whelp

   Nobody       notices         this       bullshit!

       On a supposedly          secure a       military          base            ....        ...

      Also in the Mid- day break           fecking           daylight!               (With the         hiest it made sense,                 That was a hostage                 political situation                Meant                  to draw in a huge                                              crowd;

               How?

              Cool                   Alright,

               Hey                   isn’t                   she                supposed                     to                      be                    standing                      still?

                 (Guard)

                  Doing patrols?

                   Like                       no                    emotion,                       Face                     Forward,                    Professiona                  -lism

                Not                 Greeter

             (Didn’t they literally call it       guard duty?)

              Like just say you’re sending her to   library service...

              Assis                  -tance

              Again,                  Wrong                     Field...

              They’d                    be                  talking                     to                    the                  library                   helper                    (Official)                      Con-

                 Bother

Not   how a   child   reacts Tally   Of      How   Many      Times      Ahsoka-       Is      Adult         -ify        Ied-         2/3  

   Cite;      Asoka       shows    intentional       over involvement      instincts        more       befitting          of          an          adult            ....

     Good

     Fully    understand        able      reaction          (Kinda)

    (Don’t          yell         at       children)

      Don’t      over involve       yourself             in          the          future            ....

    (But if you’re an        over-         involv         ed         and           (un-)childlike       abomination              (Getting          shoved             for              this                is               likely                 going                  to               happen)

              Dude was actually nicer than       an adult

             Enabler

             (Rule                    Of                    Excess                   Society;                    While                   excess                  verbalization                         is                      ex-                  pected,                   Getting                   in                     someone’s                   way                    (non-sport                        Ing-)                         (Or con     -ferr       ed-)            U-pon

                       Is                          not,                            Attemp                          ting                            to                          move                           them                             away                               the                           customary                                five                              times                                is                            expected)

                            Aight,

So the librarian was right there as     she     harassed        her     client)

    (Not saying;           But           you should get involved        in tox that doesn’t involve you)

      Just don’t         think that would excuse           Her         from ire

      “I can’t do anything right,”

Tally   Of     How   Many     Times     Ahsoka-      Is     Adult        -ify       Ied-       3/4

 Cite;      Child         -ren          Aren’t aware of      self        Ahsoka would repeat a line      blank       -ly

   “Likely      ‘sorry’

   Then back   away

  [Or      the      or     dered    rea       ction-)

    Aight

   Whelp

   Yes

   Just at the librarian be the      pro tag

(She’s      Tox        But..    .        Less         Tox..    ...

   But           Still..

  [Make         [Better]   Pro-ta  g        Than      Ahsoka           ]     

   In..   ...

  That’s a        library   computer..

   You      need        a      pass-        word.       -    The     robot-

   How?

  -

  What?

  Weak     Point?

  You know for     Boomer bait         They      mis-construe        How the library        works a lot

     [I know           -Hav-             Ing            Dealt-]

       Talk-ing            in the            library,

         Is pretty           off

         Like there’s        a reason people are encouraged            to go into the hallway             to take phone calls

          Loud

         These are the guys that value    meditation

          Dude.     Would be shushed       By   Several     irate      Jedi          ...  

    Told to     take it      outside          ...      ...

   I-

[I feel bad   For the Roomba]

[like dude, gaslights him      and then takes       his memory]

Like, Adults      Out     of     it.   ...

  But      ...Droids

   [we don’t know much about the       sentient ones     Or how much   senti ence]

    But          this         whole       scene...

    Makes me feel     dirty

    Like;       it’s played     for humor

    When;       it should be played            to how much         a bastard           this guy               is

      Screw-   ing         with       anything-  

       Like            That              ...  

      Toxic            ...    

      Sick..

  How?

     Aight..

    What.         .

    Re-          Cyc

    Why?         ... ..

Kenobi

Jump-ing coincidence

     [i’m con   -clusion]

       Damn,        the narc

         [No one   tell him   anything]

   [Might       fake         a       heart       attack]

    Comm.

     [How half assed is         Yoda’s peripheral?]

     Venti -lation

  -That’s        Smart-

   Almost       -Too             -Smart-

        👍  

  -Tower

    High         Alert

   Place            the       Temple        -

    Wasn’t, already?

    Left it undone

   Way to go     smart     guy           -      Cool        -        But      kinda    pointless..

 Aight-       Never mind

  I-  Might’ve       Been      Wrong-

 Al right

[Seriously,   no one hears this?]

 [In most heist movies      they at least had the    intelli-     gence-

    [No hate       -villains can be stupid]

  Do you some small well           re-lativel unknown library

   [or at least not the one     at the place they were robbing]

   Because everyone would      recognize that the actions occurring match up to what he’s describing         And the description        Of their       building.]

   Aight

   Neat-

   Past

  Whelp-

  Aight-

  Shred-          (Un-acc         Oun         T-able)

     K-Pop

     Well        that’s            a       name...

    Whelp..

Cool.. ..

Bane    ...

Whole..     temple

   And I heard you very          obviously        plotting...  

   So...  you’re getting kicked

Also he could be possibly looking up     intruders plans.. ...

Like pretty one dimensional     opinion    of on ‘High Alert’, lady

  [Especially       for a         librarian.]

Thank    you

 Whelp...

  There went my expectations

   Also,     Every Jedi leaving the library didn’t notice that that     shit?

   Like,  they didn’t have guard’s ready to apprehend him 

   ...On the           Other              Side?

         Okay...

         You just           moved her...

         Do you know this could’ve been an episode             with a lot of emotional depth              Showing how terrifying adults that abuse children can be             adults that            swear to have their interest in heart               And how overinvolvement               Is harmful              regardless of who it’s coming from                (Neglect- of child-                   And - accoun                       tability)                   Working off the                “blank line”,                 ‘I can’t do             anything right,’                    And the Jedi                -Council’s treatment of                   her                “Foreshadow                   -Ing,”                    (I use              that word              loosely)   

            Their            down-                fall

             Instead                     we                got                  this-

           And              he just abandons            the computer-

     Aight,             Just contin          -ued on - with          -out his         instruction

       Despite          see-ing           how bad           that          went.       Al-right

     Okay-

    Aight

    Really?

   Without    instructions?

   .

   In

    Calls       friend

     You were               fine       without him       the last few        seconds              .....

      “Give-”

   Not gonna      question that?

      “Voice-”

       She’s            a changling..

            “Now,”

          Hidden

          You’re              in a vent?

           Oh, Skywalker has           immediate            intuition               ...

           And a breech           didn’t somehow sound off alarms

          Yeah. .             Good..thing you didn’t close up the thing              ..

        Whelp..

        How?

       Okay. .

      Shame..           they didn’t get a hold of a force sensitive         kid             (I- don’t want it to       happen)

       Just-

      .. .

   .. Here

     Hurry          I can         Hear..       .        Bull-        Shit         .

   You have rocket boots        they have the force

    You shouldn’t         hear shit-

   Sur-prisingly,         No Ahsoka

     Good

    The lower       the counter stays..   

       The        better          for       humanity

 [and my      brain]

   [Vent]

   Seriously,       you didn’t tell your       partner?        About the Jedi on       High Alert?

   Ser-          Force-

   How deep         is that        thing?

   [Aight,          Pat-

    You’re telling me they still haven’t figured out the        Holocron?

     We only           saw-

     Shouldn’t one of you go one way and the        other go the other?

    To cover     more ground?

    They’re-        Really       putting       a lot      of faith-

In the   Comms

  Also shouldn’t there be more   Jedi crawling over the place?

   Seriously,         it’s just these two?

     [We know Plo       isn’t doing anything important.]

    [We saw       him near the opening?]

    And        Kid Fisto..

     Heck...          Is   everybody else doing?

    A-ight

   “Closer,”

    Shouldn’t it be      ..further

     Archive..     [Library]         Comms?

     Got it-

     Whelp..

      Okay..

      Not, putting up that       door,

      What are you         smiling about?

      There’s plenty of lasers

     And      you don’t even know        where the thing       you’re looking for               is

           (Inside the compartment)

      ....

   Aight

   Might- not have been a   smile-

    Look for       the open         vent   

    (Dude clum-           Un-          Acc             ountable)

       With             Vents

        Also look at all these        assholes standing around          doing nothing

  Also, no one’s going to check up on the child 

  Like, Ahsoka surely got that message      right?

   Temple-

   Deep in the         temple-

   Use-less

      ...

    ‘Cause you’re idiots       who don’t check for open vents           Or cover      more ground?

   Or...  

    [Get, anyone to help you, in this big ass vent,”

   It’s not very hard to see       why.. .

   Ass         -itance

  Ahsoka’s,         not gonna get blamed for this      is she?

   Won-

   Yeah, the narcs      pretty     useless

    Also, why can’t you have the dude just shut off those lasers like he did the rest?

  Done

    Oh, they address it   

     Good,

     Yep,

     How?

     But...

   Okay...   

...

    Okay   

   ....  

    What’re you         still       doing          ...

   Okay,

  What’re        you      doing?

   [Is the Holocron seriously right       there?]

     That’s. lucky

      Weirder               and             Wei-rder

         Hey isn’t your personality        over-written?

           By the               chip?

            Aight

          S-eriously?

         Still              Here?

         On- alert-?

Coin-     cidence?        !

  Augh

    Is that’s seriously the alert?

     Several          minutes-

       No wonder         those guys           were so late...

          ...

       Sense           De-          Cep          Tion

     Po-          S-ing            As            A           Jedi.

       Okay           now         Yoda’s            just         reading             the          death               report

     Jo-casta

     What?

       But           that’s         actually             a           good            idea                -              If shits about to go down you might as well find the person who might hold them accountable instead of letting you get the shit beat out

       Run-

       Serious-ly           shouldn’t she just shout out her name?

       [Like I know                       - High Alert-                     But Ahsoka isn’t going to be much use against a                    Adult...                Either way                                        Might as well   find her [and     scare off the intruder-]

  Also how come     “innocence”        doesn’t get           the same notification

       Did they forget his              wristwatch?

       [Like-            seems important-]

       Who are you?

           Dang                 It?

            You               were             supposed                  to                report                 back!

               Also no one           heard any of this before

           Also; are you going to tell me that AHSOKA, the child   soldier,      Is going to beat this guy       When      the fully trained elderly Jedi got her ass kicked?

   Nah.. .

   “You,”

    Dead

Tally   Of      How   Many      Times      Ahsoka-       Is      Adult         -ify        Ied-           4/5

   3x

-Un-orthodox show of initiative              1x

-Counter          1x

- Surviving this            1x

(4x) 

  Getting her on the           run!

        1x

Tot; 7/8

-Surviv-ing;

   - 1x         - 1x

    -1x

    -1x         -1x

    -1x

    -1x

    -1x

    -1x

   -2x         (I’m tired of counting them        one by one-)

     -2x

     - 2x

     - 2x

     - 2x

     - 2x

    - 

    Er

    Okay

     Whelp

    Aight

    -Right

    Shape

    -Skill

     -Ew

     Whelp

      Okay-

      Where did         your get your skills from?

     Abomination?

     Aw-  

     Todo-

   -Yet

    What-ever

    Butler

    Tech

   Neither         of       which       have     anything        to do         with       ironing        doors        open           ....   

      ....       There       he goes

     Sy-mpathesize-  more with him            than this douche bag even if his          turn does make a little sense

     Aight.

     Whelp

      Finally found that          vent.. .

       Right

       No, he wasn’t

      “Comms,”

        Not            Holo-          Cron

      .....

     Completely un-realistically        

Tally   Of     How   Many     Times     Ahsoka-      Is     Adult        -ify       Ied-        28/29        And         1/2

    (1/2 because referring to the action what respectively doesn’t count as a whole- sin-          It does deserve note that you decided to repeat your bad writing-)

         Jedi

   She       Says-

  (Un       Be        Li       Ev        Able)

 Holo      -cron

 Jedi       To      Open      It     ..  

Okay,   

..   

Up-     To-

 Again, with the   communication     center-!

  Dude, just wanted a   Holo-cron

   (Seriously        that was very tortured      logic,       Think the writers;     just wrote this scene        Then realize but wait       “why are they in the Holocron/             Comm           Cent,?”

     And that’s how        Anakin/Obi-Wan           Obsession with the com      center began...

    [sorry but there was no reason for them to be in the        Com center!

      That I’ve heard!]

   In

   Aight,      What?     What       -ever

   ...  ..

  Wrong-

    Yes

    Com-          Center-

    Ser-iously     even he doesn’t know what’s up

   You   heard      me

  And        my     stupid      plan

    To send you to the     Coms center to justify Obi-wan’s     obsession-

    Craw-          ling

     And we have no reason      to-o

   Why?

    Now!

   Yelling- doesn’t mistake the clear lack of   reason

   What-     ever-

    Right

    That’s one way      to do it

    Really

  Also, how does   -that not-

That was less than   one minute

Also,   but no one else will hear that but   these two      . .

 And they’ll   still progress to the   comm center        ...

“It came from the com center,!”

   How!?

You, guys,

  Comms,       Archives,

   Aight,       Nice

  Com-munication        center-

    Ha-           ha-          ha-    (I’m sorry   but that has come back around      to kinda funny,”

 [something Happens across the     galaxy]

Obi-won; It was the com’s center

—-

Aight,    right, 

...

O-kay

...

How??

 Where?

 Okay      ...

Cloak       Ing?

 What?

[you can’t defy the   rules of logic that much       (Physics)       You need to explain where he went   otherwise it’s a loony tune      Of    sus-    pen    sion-

Okay?

What??

I thought-       the thing-  

....

O-kay

right

Take it,

Which       ,One

 That-

 Right

What-      Ever-

  Aight-

He knews

 What-      Ever

  Don’t call   your eggs

   Move

  Restraint

  Whelp

 Use-less

    Just     There

     Whelp

     Nope-

      Okay-

       He           Try

      [Hey         guys,]

       Off               That’s           some         assumed          authority              over         familiarity..

        Aight..

      Okay,

      They’re really            letting             him             get            away             with              the             story

         Tries-

       What?!

       -When-

      Bomb-  

        Both-

[Also   Mace   Windu        is     still      the       only       semi-efficient      Jedi...

   Asshole !

    (Can’t          make the text bigger enough to display my           outrage!)

   [they      played that off         as humor!]

     That was a scream of death!

     Of         Murder!

   [if that was a sentient-       And my God     it seemed damn close!     Dude was just murdered

   The surprise-        “ I didn’t        see it coming, h        onestly not his fault kind!”

      One that would call for      immediate robotic vengeance!

    * im-mediate    ac-countability

      If sentient,

   What the Hell?!

     That-

     Horror        -        fy-            Ing-

      Oof

“Was        it     sentient?      Crud, I      might       lose        my       least       toxic    credentials

  (           )

   Whelp

    How?

     No        Way-

   A-ight

   Shit

  -shit

- she did     nothing  

   I-

  Call      Sec-

  Whose       that?

    Whelp

     Okay..

     That          Who

    Dys-   functional          family          road         trip             -           War

       No          shit

 Oh wait at           the comment table was by all the other Jedi

       So...

       the whole time Obi-wan was just complaining        he didn’t want to do the job

     Skywalker          agreeing with him...

      And...  wanting to ditch their post

 In chara,

   Just, a little bit funny      when you think about it

  Right,

 You bought            them      all the way         here?

      ...

Also look isn’t the unchild-like abomination adorable when she’s talking about punishing people more severely

Holo-cron

The heck     is a       holocron...

Wait-

 What-

   Why-

   How-

   ??

 Why is this     being allowed to      happen?   -

    ...

  Snitch

[like seriously how is it helping her   case, whatsoever?

Plea     Bar-gin

Aight,

Okay

That was just a completely random target   on his list...

- -

The one accountable adult

Keeper       Kydra      Crystal-

- Holocrons

   Data

     -

   You get out of here         youngling

     Force         Sensitive       Child ?

     Are we really going to get into the        powers        eugenics?             (Or         power        genetic       superiority)

       Also would it be a kin to basically every child or just any child destined for leader ship

   (Like gen       leader ship?)

    Cause..

Also, yeah   good idea keeping that around

And you named...

...

Young’lings

 Future

Oy!     You put that back where,   it came from so help me

Future  

vision

is cheating

In reality,   if you did have that power,    you should keep     your mouth        shut

And it completely negates   the point of a choice based universe

   (Takes all the       risk out of it)

    Making the story     completely useless

    (For the sake of tension       I’m going to ignore        that..)

    Going on the       assumption...

     That’s the Jedi           are just a bunch of          narcs

       Who           like        claiming they know the future

       When in reality only the future              knows the future...

           Worn.                 Them

              Oh so it’s just School    roll call...

    Contact

   You must

Ya no dude’s already a    headstart...

Ahsoka

 Dude,  he just override   the punishment   

  Does he   have the authority to do that?

   [I     don’t     think        so]

 Cad bane

   He      probably isn’t

   And you already know him From the previous episode

    Good for         Obi-won

      Aight

     Mace Windu         don’t give a fuck

      Kid Fisto              disappeared

      And. .       Luminara(?)

       Went to go get a snack....             ?

        I don’t             know

        Yoda

        Got          Overruled

       Aight,           Okay

  .....

     This episode...

         Makes me feel disgusting              Watching                The middle                 At least

           It’s very clearly                 boomer bait...

           The beginning...

          Focus-ing on the           importance of taking orders           (With no                       sarcasm                                   to my understanding,)

       Progressing,               Into, 

             Dah, de, dah,                          Generation                        ____                    doesn’t               understand                  books!

                  *We might  if they got out of our way, let us do our thing, dis-covered and pract-iced excess, on our volition

                   *if we wanted   to

Honestly   convinced.  I should’ve      given       them          a        strike       right       there 

Out     of  

Malicious

 Won’t   (Out of restraint)

But     a   thought   none-       the-  

 less

Being        a     (toxic)      Boomers     Fantasy        in   which    they,      the     all   powerful      all   knowing       adults     must       help       poor     Ig-      nor        -ant       (Child)-

(I’m sorry   this really       disgusts me)

  -with enough initiative            To praise their Brilliance

         (It’s re-ally   di-sgusting)

           This isn’t            seen as an overreach                   Or con-                Des-cion                      Of                       A                     Gen

And gives no   in-dication it recognizes how creepy what it’s doing is

Apart from the lighting in the council room

  *Which       I’m now convinced is permanently broken

    And continues with the assum-ption of a   life-time                       Over the future

     Breaking; the story pretty thoroughly

     And announcing the       return to      mediocrity...

     (Border       -ing on attempt at          lower        standards)

 (Also they playoff the death of a semi-sentient species      For            Humor?

       He          died        screaming!

[radramblog]

Top 5 Games, ever...?

This was sort of on my mind, considering the recent GOTY post I made. Come explore the hyperfixations that managed to stick around long enough to be my top 5 list. 

5. Uhhhhhh

So turns out I haven’t figured out what number 5 is yet. I suppose instead I’ve got to split it among the honourable mentions, huh.

Kirby Super Star Ultra is probably the best game from the GBA/DS era of the series and is just a blast to play. It introduced Masked Dedede, and all the banging music and memes that come with it, and probably deserves a spot here just for that.

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth removes all the awkward Flash Stuff from the excellent original, and adds so, so much more content- the game’s final expansion still isn’t out yet as of writing but even now there’s just so much to unlock. While some aspects of the game can be pretty unforgiving, you probably aren’t going to be exposed to the worst of it unless you get into it pretty hardcore, and if you do, you’ll get used to it. It’s a roguelike, after all.

Speaking of roguelikes, FTL: Faster than Light is chaotic yet serene, brutal but fair, and a bunch of other pretentious dichotomies wrapped into a neat little bow. It takes some getting used to the mechanics, but once you get the hang of it, building your little ship up and up in the face of all odds is extremely satisfying. Have fun dying hopefully not too many times.

SPEAKING of permadeath, Realm of the Mad God gets a spot here just out of sheer hours I’ve spent with it. After a messy few years with a not-so-great owner lead me to dropping the game, it seems finally to have recovered and has devs and community that actually freaking care about it, which is nice. Also, it’s free, and the recent transition to unity has the game looking better and playing smoother than 12-year-old me could ever have dreamed of.

Terraria isn’t just 2D Minecraft btw, its actually more of an RPG/Metroidvania thing, you probably know at this point, but its pretty good hey. Still haven’t fully dove into 1.4 but considering I thought Red was done at 1.1 I’m not complaining with what I have played.

 4. Fallout: New Vegas

(...ish??)

I’d argue that between the primitiveness of the original Fallout games (I’ve tried to get into them, but I just can’t) and how…meh… the other Bethesda ones are, New Vegas is the only one in the series to stand up strong. Obsidian’s excellent writing and tweaks to the gameplay of 3 make New Vegas feel like an actual world, rich and characterised, which was something I found lacking in previous open-world RPGs I’d played up until that point (which admittedly might just have been Skyrim). It’s a game that challenges you to make choices that actually matter for more than the mere moments of an altered dialogue tree, both in dialogue and character building, which helps make the game actually replayable. It is also the first game in a long time that really sold the idea of DLC on me, seeing as each of the game’s 4 expansions adds an entire new region of world with its own stories and unique gameplay, tying together with the main plot but standing on their own. I am excluding Gun Runner’s Arsenal from this for obvious reasons, though it isn’t like GRA is a bad DLC or anything- on the contrary, the sheer scope of modifications and munitions makes playing a repair/science-based character incredibly fulfilling- but it just isn’t at the same scope as the other 4 (Courier’s stash barely counts seeing as its just oops! All preorder bonuses).

New Vegas is one of the few games I have actually 100% completed, achievements and all, but I’m still pretty sure there are bits I’ve missed, paths I haven’t taken, characters I haven’t talked to. Despite its inhospitability, the Mojave is always a comfortable place to return to.

 3. VA-11 Hall-A

(Hey look, my phone background)

Vallhalla is a masterclass in storytelling, atmosphere, and aesthetic. Like all good cyberpunk dystopias, you get themes of class and transhumanism and artificial intelligence, but they aren’t the point of Vallhalla. Through the window and lens of cyberpunk and PC98 nostalgia is focussed a surprisingly human story centred around the protagonist, Jill, which through multiple replays still hits me in the feels just so. Of course, Jill’s story is not the only one being discussed, as every single patron of the bar has their own life going on, and the glimpses we get imply a rich, often interconnected, world. Glitch City is, frankly, a shithole, and it’s not like you don’t get some assholes coming into the bar while you’re working it. The first patron you serve, in fact, is a great example of this- Donovan D. Dawson, essentially a parody of J. Jonah Jameson, is a colossal prick and knows it- but its clear he has his own system of morals and it is mentioned that he’s excellent at his job, much as he gripes about it. He’s rude and more than a little sexist, but frustratingly charismatic and authoritative, and he’s just one of many people who show up throughout the game. Vallhalla is the perfect game to sit down, grab your preferred beverage, and just relax with.

 2. Total Annihilation

(This image is on the steam page for this one, despite blatantly not being from vanilla TA)

I think I actually need to explain this one. Total Annihilation was a game released in 1997 made largely by Chuck Taylor, who would later go on to produce spiritual successor Supreme Commander. It’s an RTS game featuring exclusively robotic units with a fairly chunky aesthetic, allowing the visuals to age better than some, and a fully orchestrated soundtrack by Jeremy Soule, who would later go on to do work on a whole bunch of stuff, most notably Skyrim.

Total Annihilation is an intensely nostalgic game for me, being one of the first games I ever got to play as a kid outside of edutainment stuff, and I’d argue still holds up today (especially with the excellent Escalation mod). What it lacks in story (it’s pretty basic, but functional) it makes up for being miles ahead of its time mechanically, being the first (?) RTS to function in 3 dimensions- heights of things actually matter, hills exist and certain units climb them better than others, shooting down airplanes is difficult without anti-air but possible if you aim *just* right. While appearing pretty similar and having largely analogous units, the two factions of Arm and Core are well fleshed-out in terms of aesthetic and playstyle- Arm preferring fast and cheap equivalents to Core’s slow but powerful- and the unit variety is sufficient that strategies can vary wildly based on the map. Both campaigns as well as those from the game’s expansions are challenging, but satisfying, limiting the units you can produce to force exploration of different playstyles.

Total Annihilation isn’t something I tend to binge play for hours anymore, but I’ll pick it up for a bit every so often, and I don’t see that stopping for a long time (especially due to the recent steam release).

 1. Pokémon Emerald

(At the top, where it belongs)

Yeah, this was inevitable. Pokémon is my favourite series ever; Emerald is my favourite in the series. Go figure.

Emerald, being the final game for the franchise’s days on the Game Boy, reflects everything Game Freak had learned in the first 3 generations of the series’ history. The game’s balance is challenging but fair, never spiking so tough that it is insurmountable but never holding your hand either. The AI opponents are throwing odd combinations of mons and moves at you from every corner, double battles are everywhere but rarely mandatory, and the variety of available mon both before and during the postgame is excellent. The added features on top of Ruby and Sapphire are great- Battle Tents serve to replace 3 of the contest halls (they should have all been under one roof to begin with) and provide a taste of what would later be available in the Battle Frontier. The Frontier is probably the single most expansive and challenging postgame in any Pokémon game, providing the game with a longevity that is sorely needed due to the inaccessibility of Pre-DS multiplayer. The game also manages to tie together the plot of both Ruby and Sapphire into something that feels natural, and provides the series’ first ever actual cutscene, which felt a lot cooler at the time than it sounds now. The return of animated sprites gives the Pokémon a level of life far beyond the static sprites of RSFRLG, and in my eyes wouldn’t feel the same until Black and White several years later. The return of the Pokégear phone in the form of Match Call, as irritating as it is to some, makes the world feel alive in a way that Sinnoh and Kanto probably never will, in addition to making grinding a fair bit less tedious and more beneficial. It is, altogether, probably the perfect Pokémon experience, and in my opinion only one other game comes close (its Platinum).

Oh also, they got rid of the font from Ruby and Sapphire, thank fuck, that shit is atrocious.

[sinfulavenue]

Episode 44, Wish Review

(Manga spoilers)

THIS - EPISODE - WAS - FAN - FRIGGIN- TASTIC!!!!

Aajajaxjcjszjcjdxn I feel so illiterate right now, I could literally just keyboard smash for the next minute to convey my excitement over this episode but that would be extremely lazy and this episode deserves better.

After a bit of a difficult beginning to season 3 with my enjoyment at times being marred by deleted scenes and a pace that never stopped to breathe, this episode reminded me why I fell in love with Attack on Titan in the first place. AGH the feels! I think my heart exploded!

It wasn’t just the action that made episode 44 great, it was the emotion. Literally last week I said that emotional detachment was a bit of a problem this season but certainly not in this episode, I was right there with the characters, feeling everything and oh my God it hurt!

EREN!! 💔

I’m woman enough to admit I cried ... and hugged my Eren plushie for an hour afterwards! ….(yes I have an Eren plushie alright and no I can’t sleep without him!)

The soundtrack was damn amazing too! Hands down the best episode of season 3 (so far) but I hope the best is yet to come.

Once again Kenny stole the show!

So the storming the cave scene was just ajsakajxshshcj PHENOMENAL! It was so good! I absolutely think the anime did it better than the manga because we got LEVI VS. KENNY ROUND 2!

Akashsbzk! Sorry for keyboard smashing so much but I’m finding it hard to express myself in proper words right now. My heart literally stopped at that moment when Levi was chasing one of interior MP’s, about to go in for the kill when there’s this almighty YEEEHAA! (or whatever the hell that noise was supposed to be 😂) then a gunshot and suddenly I’m like OH SHIT KENNY’S HERE! 😱 Ajzabsshwjdshs!

I know not all the changes have been popular this season but who the hell is going to complain about an additional Levi vs Kenny scene? I’m so grateful for this addition because while the first Levi and Kenny fight was spectacular, this one felt a lot more up close and personal, Levi fought with such anger and determination and this time there was nobody else getting in the way. The pair were really going for one another, blades clashing.

Thank you so much WIT for this godsend of a shot!

It was just so satisfying to see the uncle and nephew engaged in a one on one battle, creating even greater tension between the two characters before their complex history is finally revealed in a future episode.

Ha! Maybe if Kenny had focussed on actually fighting instead of dishing out sick burns he wouldn’t have got his ass kicked 😂.

I have to say Traute really shone in this scene too, using her wits to figure out what Levi’s squad were trying to do, even avoiding a strike from Mikasa which is saying a lot because that girl is a killing machine!

But please God tell me someone is looking after Hanji!!!

Historia’s Dilemna

In the manga Historia shot Eren a murderous glare before Rod came in with his box of syringes. It’s a shame this was cut but she still still gave him a few severe looking glances showing that her father’s manipulation was starting to work. Historia outright stated that she was going to eat Eren and fulfill her duty.

Kenny sure knows how to make an entrance (although I’m a little confused how he is miraculously no longer bleeding here).

I loved that of all people it was Kenny who tried to talk Historia out of going through with this, even if he was only doing it to spite Rod. Kenny tried to make Historia see that her father is nothing but a manipulative coward who won’t become a titan himself. However it’s a little sad that most of Kenny’s dialogue here was cut (although I guess we can’t really be shocked by cuts anymore 😒). In the manga Kenny outright told Historia that everyone including her father wished she’d never been born and drew her attention to the fact that he only started caring about her when his legitimate children were wiped out. Kenny also mentioned how Rod had tried to hide the fact that the Reiss family had lost the power of the titans and only started spilling when Eren sealed the hole in Trost. It’s a shame that this was cut as it gave some context as to what was happening behind the scenes the whole time and also showed a more perceptive side of Kenny. Keeping his full dialogue would have added even greater build up to Historia smashing the syringe but don’t get me wrong the whole scene was still amazing.

On another note, this episode gave us the first glimpse of Uri Reiss!!!

“I shouldn’t have happened”

OH MY GOD! My boy!! 💔 My poor, poor boy! It hurts even thinking about this scene. To see Eren’s fiery soul so broken ... it was beyond agony. In season 2 Hannes talked about how Eren always got back up, no matter how many times he was knocked down but this time Eren didn’t get up, he was so plagued by guilt for what his father had done that he was willing to die without a fight.

It hurts even more when you think about how he didn’t even had a choice, the titan power was unwillingly bestowed upon him and now he’s caught up in something greater than he is with no way out.

Honestly I think this was one of the saddest moments of the whole of Snk and kudos to Yuki Kaji for that powerful voice acting because it takes a lot to break my heart of stone!

Eren’s feelings of worthlessness clearly sparked a deep empathy in Historia because while he was saying all this we were shown a brief flash of her being rejected by her mother.

“I want you to live a life that you’re proud of”

Oh God and just when I thought I couldn’t get any more emotional, Historia suddenly remembers Ymir and hesitates before injecting herself. Ultimately it’s the words of Ymir that stop her from eating her friend in the name of fulfilling her royal duty.

Aghhh! I was in pieces by this point and when she smashed the syringe to the ground my tears of sadness became tears of joy and I wanted to jump around the room screaming!

Admittedly Historia went a little crazy after that, saying fuck humanity, hitting Eren and calling him a crybaby but cut the girl some slack she’s been through a lot!

OH and about that ending! THAT ENDING!😱 ajwjdwksjdwjefe

This is the most excited I’ve been for the next episode since this season started!!

The Remaining Episodes of the Uprising arc

So I think there is a great possibility that (with great restructuring) some of the skipped scenes will appear in the next few episodes. Here’s why.

So when it was announced that there would be 24 episodes in season 3 it was my assumption that there would be a fairly even split between Uprising and RTS, (as they are both 20 chapters long in the manga) so I reckoned 12 episodes each.

However the Uprising arc ends on chapter 69 and this episode (the 7th episode of season 3) took us to halfway through chapter 66 meaning there are roughly three and a half chapters left to cover. That really isn’t a lot and based on how quick the pace has been, three and a half chapters is unlikely to fill five full episodes. This is what makes me wonder if some of the skipped scenes will be worked in somehow, because if they aren’t then I can see the arc ending by episode 10!

I just want to put this out there. If the Uprising arc is concluded in less than 12 episodes I will be extremely angry and disappointed because this arc deserves better than being crammed into a measly 10 episodes and it certainly deserves just as much screen time as the RTS arc.

The preview of episode 45 looked like it could be setting up for the scene where Levi tells Historia to become the queen and I’m still holding out hope that the rest of Eren’s titan experiments at the cabin will appear in a flashback. I get not having them at the beginning as it wouldn’t have been the most exciting way to kick off a new season but I’ll be pretty sad if those experiment scenes have been cut altogether. Honestly it will be such an anti-climax if Eren just gains the hardening ability without us seeing the blood, sweat and tears he went through trying get hard (hehehe) back at the cabin.

But the real question is how will the arc end? Will we still see Historia punching Levi? If so then how will this come about if all the scenes leading up to this moment are missing? Will these scenes be worked in but in a different way? Or will the ending be completely different?

I realise I have more questions than answers so I guess we will have to wait and find out ... I’m sure WIT have a plan right? 😅

I don’t want to end this review on a sour note because this was such a good episode so instead I will end by saying once again how much I enjoyed episode 44 and I eagerly await episode 45!

[queerzaza]

submission

loooooong post, sorry mobile users!

I’ve followed you for years and always enjoyed seeing your posts on my dash, but never had the opportunity to message you. I guess I’m breaking a 3 year (!!) streak lol. This one is a lengthy multi-parter, so apologies ahead of time: Just a little about me. I’m fairly pragmatic when it comes to love. I met a kind-hearted boy at 20, and although he wasn’t my type at the time, something about him called to me. He was scrawny, ginger, and partially color-blind; and seemed like my perfect match in an odd, mixed up package. Like, he was perfect, but assembled weirdly. I’ll elaborate on that in a minute.

He drew me in and I ended up losing my virginity, and falling into a 7 year long relationship after the fact. I was happy. He spoiled me rotten and gave me every bit of love that had been lacking in my life up until that point. He was with me through losses, deaths, and moving across the country. It’d always been my dream to move to California; something about it called to me, and he indulged me with a reckless roadtrip across the country, with no prospects and little money.

It wasn’t until recently that things…changed. Not for him. He still loves me as fiercely as he did the first year, albeit a little more jadedly. (I’m not an easy woman to get along with.) What changed was…something odd. Here’s where I elaborate on earlier.

So, like I mentioned earlier, I’m fairly pragmatic when it comes to love. HOWEVER. I’ve always had these recurring dreams for as far back as I can remember about a specific person. It was always this red-haired boy with red converses who kind of lingered in the back of my dreams. His most defining characteristics were those shoes and the smell of the ocean. He was this awkward, insecure dream kid with a big heart and a thousand ideas about how the world worked. I remember him so clearly because he as a constant in my dreams. He grew with me, and changed, and I kind of had the feeling that I’ve been searching for this specific dream someone my entire life. As far back as I can remember, I’d been scanning crowds for a face; looking for certain attributes as if my heart knew what it wanted before my mind did. Even in past partners. My relationships before C were two weeks flings where, inevitably, I’d get off-put by my partner and find a reason to leave. They never felt “right”. never knew what I was looking for but I was always left feeling disappointed. And with C, his wild red hair and rangyness felt almost perfectly what I was looking for…. But like he fit incorrectly. Right piece, wrong puzzle.

Then, a few months ago, I think I finally “met” dream man. I’d joined a small comic fandom and quickly became attached to a small-time character. I decided to google images of said character and this man popped as a casual cosplayer for the character back in 2008. For some reason, at that moment, all those feelings of “not quite right” slotted into place and I felt like I’d found what I’d been searching for my entire life. In my mind, he was the boy I’d been dreaming about for years. Everything from the freckles on his right cheek to the curve of his lips was spot-on. It sounds so cliché, but I feel like I knew him. I guess it’s a cliché for a reason. Anyway, in reality, I knew nothing about this man except that he made my heart stutter and my soul ache with a familiarity; I wanted, NEEDED to know more. Anything and everything. Through a stroke of luck (and admittedly, more than a healthy amount of google searching), I found him. And literally everything publicly available about his life played out like a mirror image of my own, in reverse. He’d been with a woman very, very similar in appearance and personality to myself, he had the exact same descriptions as C (including the ginger and partial color-blindness, which was a very weird coincidence), and just… his nature. Down to his music habits and general awkwardness were similar to my own. AND THE SHOES.

I ended up telling C about him. I remember sitting C down and saying, “Look, this is going to sound batshit as hell, but I think I might have found my soulmate and I have no idea what to do now that I’ve found him.” Which, in hindsight is a weird and shitty thing to say to your lover. But C had gone through 7 years of hearing about my dreams, and must’ve realized I was coming from a baffled, well-meant place because he ended up listening to the entire story, looking at the similarities, and just kind of agreeing with me. He encouraged me to reach out to this guy to try and explain what I thought, but there’s no real way of telling someone, “Do you believe in soulmates? Because I think we are and I’d like to explore that, platonically.” I didn’t want to leave Ca nd I doubt this person would leave his MARRIAGE, so now here I am.

I know this a convoluted mess but I’m tired and just wanted to pour this out before I lost my nerve. I was hoping for your (or really, anyone fellow reader’s) insight on what I should do/whether I’m mentally unwell/do soulmates exist or am I projecting. That sort of stuff. I’m not leaving C. I love him. But I also don’t want to leave the idea that there’s something greater at work in my life, the idea of destiny. I think about ignoring this other guy and I fall into a scary, shattering depression. I’ve tried three times now, and everything loses color and food tastes like nothing. I’m at a loss.

Anyway, thank you for sitting through this. Please be gentle with me lol.

do i believe in soulmates? well, i think there’s a whole universe of things we don’t have answers for and this is one of ‘em. i mean, no one knows for certain if the concept soulmates is a “real” thing, rt? which means, it’s a matter of faith and you can manifest many things with tht on your side. what you feel in your heart is what matters and trusting tht heart is generally a v wise decision. 

personally, i’m with C. why not reach out to Dream Dude (DD) and see if he’s interested in being friends? the not-knowing has gotta be agonizing! plus, C’s supportive of it too. as to your second part, none of us tumblr folx can determine if you’re suffering from a mental illness. tht’s a medical diagnosis which can’t be figured out from a single ask. sorry dove. however…

i can say, the depression you report is disconcerting. it wouldn’t hurt to reach out to a mental health professional and discuss how to best manage your feelings/emotions. they could assist you in keeping the ability to taste and see colour. also, if your relationship is rocky, couples counseling can be a boon.

i hope you send DD a msg. just let him kno; this is wild, but he matches someone you’ve had reoccurring dreams about. tht you think the pair of you would make great friends as you point out things you have in common etc.. then just see where it goes. 

i also hope other turtledoves weigh-in to this post, but what i hope most of all is tht you never stop taking care of you and following your heart. good luck dove!

[pcinvasion-blog]

New Post has been published on PC Invasion

New Post has been published on https://www.pcinvasion.com/dawn-war-3-review

Dawn of War 3 Review

Round up the Ork boyz, pledge allegiance to the scarily theocratic God-Emperor, and polish the Eldar webways, because the factions of the 41st Millennium are going to war. Not that they ever really stop. Dawn of War 3 is Relic’s third real-time strategy outing in Games Workshop’s colours, and they’ve switched things up once again. Where Dawn of War was a somewhat traditional base-building RTS, and Dawn of War 2 was all about control over small squads and talented commanders, the third game attempts to marry a little from both; while also keeping its eye on the looming influence of MOBAs on the contemporary multiplayer landscape.

The aim is presumably to satisfy proponents of both prior titles and excite (or keep hold of) those who’ve gravitated towards Hero-centric multiplayer over the past few years. There’s perhaps even a glimmer of hope that Dawn of War 3 could nudge its way into the increasingly crowded realm of competitive esports. But the risk here is that the hybrid approach pleases no-one, and the esports gambit proves as futile for Relic as it has so many others chasing that particular dragon.

Admittedly, not enough esports feature Gretchin being stuffed in vents.

The structure of play in both the majority of single player campaign missions and the title’s one and only multiplayer mode share significant similarities. Whether you’re playing as Orks, Eldar, or the Space Marines (the three factions present at launch), base and troop construction relies on the acquisition of resource points that will then provide you with Requisition and Power. Like Relic’s Company of Heroes 2, there are a fairly limited number of base structures; generally speaking, a couple of infantry barracks (basic and specialised), a vehicle building, and an armory for upgrades. Some, like the vehicle building, tend to be locked off until you’ve upgraded your main command center (or, in the case of the Orks, built more Waaagh! towers).

Capturing more resource points means more Requisition and Power to pump into your base, troop production, and the resource points themselves (creating a cycle of even more resource generation). Single player missions also have cannisters of resources laying around at certain points.

Cover still exists to an extent in Dawn of War 3, but is very different to the mechanic found in DoW2 (or, indeed, CoH2) where almost every wall-like object was a potential blockade. In this game, cover takes two forms; shielded ‘domes’ (usually near resource points) that can be captured and held for major protection against projectiles, and ‘stealth’ areas. Units placed in the latter cannot be seen unless an enemy unit also enters the stealth area, or are revealed by a scouting unit or troop ability of some kind. The lack of much cover, combined with the increased speed with which units can melt away in seconds under fire, turns almost any battle between forces into a set of bloodied corpses much faster than in previous titles. Combat in this game can be resolved very quickly.

There’s no longer a dedicated ‘Retreat’ button, but knowing when to back out of encounters and reinforce squads back at base is still important.

This fight looks well in-hand though.

All of that, the base building, resource capture, control over multiple troop units (which each have preferred foes and clear ‘counters’), is pretty firmly in the RTS category. Things arguably get a little more MOBA-influenced with the inclusion and function of Elites, and a couple of mechanics specific to Dawn of War 3’s multiplayer.

Elites are the heavy-hitters of Dawn of War 3, much tougher than regular units and with unique cooldown abilities. Some are named characters (many from prior Dawn of War games) like Blood Raven leader Gabriel Angelos, or Ork Warboss Gorgutz. Others are the more specialised units from the tabletop game, like Assault Terminators or an Eldar Wraith Knight. You take three of these Elites into a match (single player levels sometimes mix this up a bit, but in multiplayer it’s always three), and each one has a ‘summoning’ cost based on their overall strength and qualities. Alongside your Elites, you also select three army doctrines; more on those and the system of unlocking a bit later.

In order to call in one of your Elites, you need a special Elite resource (which doesn’t really have a name beyond that, it’s represented by a purple diamond). This ticks slowly upwards of its own accord but can also be gathered more quickly from Elite resource points. These only appear only in multiplayer and are likely to be hotly contested.

The existence of these Elite units isn’t exactly a big flashing MOBA sign in and of itself (various RTS titles have had special, powerful units since forever), especially as these units do not really level up during the progression of a match. However, the incorporation of more Hero-like figures does have an influence on the design and layout of the handful of multiplayer maps.

Death to all power cores.

As mentioned, there aren’t a huge number of multiplayer maps. Eight in all (three each of 3v3 and 1v1; two 2v2). Due to the nature of the multiplayer mode, they’re all pretty symmetrical.

To win a multiplayer match in Dawn of War 3, it’s necessary to take out an opponent’s dangerous base turret(s) (protected by a shield generator which must be destroyed first), and then destroy their main Power Core structure. Shield generators and turrets appear on the maps in default positions and will often funnel attacks down specific ‘lanes’. You’re likely to see players pushing hard on one flank or the other in order to get at one of the turrets and fashion a route to the Core.

Along with that, matches go through four phases of Escalation. In phase one, you get partial (25%) refunds for destroyed units. Later phases dramatically ramp up the amount of resources coming in from each point (up to 150% at peak) and boost their defenses, upping the stakes for holding and capturing.

This mechanic, in combination with the (partial) lack of cover, the need to destroy default base structures in order to triumph, and the increased fragility of most basic units in combat, all seems designed to push players on the offensive. Turtling and fortifying resource points will only get you so far. Losing units in Escalation phase one is less of a disaster than usual, and making an early claim on resource points will pay off in later phases. But it also means full on rush tactics won’t immediately succeed, due to the barrier of the victory conditions. This aspect appears designed to make exciting comebacks more viable, as the defensive base buildings and the Escalation mechanic delay any definitive tipping points.

Bubble cover won’t help much if a melee maniac like Angelos is on your case.

A little bit of meta-strategy is added by the differing strengths and unit costs of your Elites. Opt for a ‘cheaper’ set and you’ll be able to harass key areas early. A more balanced, or cost-heavy, trio will be more dangerous, but won’t be appearing until later parts of the match (a part you may not even reach if things go poorly).

My experience with live Dawn of War 3 multiplayer matches was restricted to the closed beta weekend, which featured plenty of players (including myself) still feeling their way around the new systems and mechanics. The review build enabled skirmish matches with the AI too, but that’s obviously less instructive than matches against real players. With that in mind, there’s no way of judging longer-term aspects like the intricacies of whether one Elite ability or another is too overpowered and in need of balance. It’s also difficult to be sure if restricting multiplayer to the one game mode will be a problem for longevity, but I suspect Relic will ultimately need to introduce new ones to revitalise matters.

Those who played Company of Heroes 2 will probably want some reassurance over the system of unlocking army doctrines. In short, most aspects can be unlocked at a more rapid pace than CoH2. A caveat here that the review build values may differ from the final release version; but the patch information I’ve seen on that suggests the ‘Skull’ resource earnings for unlocks will actually be boosted. It takes 200-300 Skulls to permanently unlock an Elite unit, and you receive 80-100 from playing a single player campaign mission on Normal difficulty. By the end of the campaign that should leave you with 1,500 or so, plus the small stockpile you begin the game with (this, too, is said to be increased for the final release).

I’m a friend of Sarah Conn … wait, hold on, PURGE THE XENOS. That’s it.

Basically, a campaign play-through should leave you with at least enough to unlock four Elites or so, plus a scattering of army doctrines (which cost 50 apiece at the time of writing). That’s plenty with which to embark on your multiplayer career. If the campaign is of no interest, then earning Skulls purely through multiplayer is absolutely viable too. You don’t seem to get any from playing skirmish matches against the AI, though (unless, again, this was just a quirk of the review build).

Dawn of War 3’s army doctrines are an improvement on CoH2’s rather bland ‘+3% to attack damage’ offerings. You can take three into a match, and they provide units with additional abilities. Things like making your Tactical Marines run faster, or giving your Ork Boyz a healing effect when they loot scrap. Nothing that’s likely to turn a match on its own, but useful stuff to augment a strategy around some favoured units. The main downside here is that the UI for browsing and unlocking these doctrines is incredibly slow and awkward.

Back to the Elites; they also have passive, doctrine-like buffs. When world’s most serious man Gabriel Angelos is deployed, Space Marine Dreadnoughts get an additional shielding effect to their melee slam ability. Level Angelos up enough (Elites get post-match experience) and that ability can become an army-wide doctrine. It’s a reasonable system, though I do foresee some problems with unlocking passive buffs from more costly Elites who, by their nature, tend to see less time on the field.

It may look innocuous, but this army doctrine interface is just the worst.

Broadly speaking, the combined mechanics of Dawn of War 3 (new and old) work as Relic intends. There’s moderate, CoH2-style base building with which to plot a long-term match strategy, control over numerous distinct squads (albeit in slightly diminished roles), more lethal combat, powerful Elites dictating the flow of matches, and the twin inclusions of specific victory conditions and escalation phases giving multiplayer match-ups a more MOBA-like pace. Whether you feel this mixture sounds like a magnificent or horrendous thing, your expectations can be either confirmed or confounded in person by the upcoming open beta.

There are times when Dawn of War 3 struggles to reconcile some of its ambitions with its legacy mechanics. The duel demands of longer-term strategic thinking and micro-management of units have been Relic staples throughout their RTS titles, and that’s also the case here. But the intricacies of (potentially) micro-managing up to three Elites, and a collection of maybe seven or eight different line unit types (all with their own unique abilities), doesn’t always gel with the hectic new pace of combat. This is partially a factor that will end up defining the more skillful players (fine), but is also a consequence of how the game communicates information.

When your lads are melting under sustained fire, it can be extraordinarily difficult to pick out the exact squad you want to (say) pull off a counter ability. The particle effects in large encounters make it pretty impossible to tell what’s going on beyond ‘massive explosions everywhere,’ and while there are (well realised, but tiny) unit cards to select, it’s not going to help much when you have four identical troop cards from which to pick in order to get the right one. It’s as if half of the mechanics are designed around giving each unit unique skills and intricate, interconnected abilities (all great stuff), but the other half wants you to see pretty light shows and ensure combat encounters are never prolonged affairs. The two don’t always sit well together.

In more restrained skirmishes the fancy effects work out just fine.

Unit abilities become much more situational, or fade in relevance once the phases escalate beyond scattered encounters between early game squads and the Elites take over. That’s not a ruinous flaw, but it does seem as if some of the troop abilities were designed around a more sedate game.

It would also help to have a better visual indicator of which upgrades or skills (if any) opposing units have at their disposal.

Where Dawn of War 3’s player support does come shining through, though, is with audio cues. If your isolated units get into a scrap, you’ll hear about it from your faction narrator along with an approximation of where it’s happening. Being alerted to “encounter with small enemy force, south” is extremely helpful when your eyes are wandering over five different other things at once.

The overall graphical approach hasn’t joyously received in all quarters, but the aesthetics of the three factions come across well. Particularly the Orks, who were always a little Mad Max in their design, but are now explicitly so. Their faction mechanics revolve around scavenging scrap, so it’s only appropriate that their buildings and vehicles all look they were bodged together by eccentric Mek Boyz.

Av’ it.

As tends to be the case in Relic’s RTS releases, the single player campaign doubles as a kind of extended tutorial (at least until the half-way point of the 17 missions), and does a solid job introducing the distinctions between the factions. The broad strokes design providing the diversity between faction types works well, and is integrated into the early missions as instructive lessons. Orks, as noted, can (and should) upgrade units with scrap, which is either generated by special Waaagh! Towers or by blowing things up. Their Gretchin builders can also create vehicles from larger scrap piles at reduced cost.

Eldar, meanwhile, are focused on clever mobility. They can quite literally teleport entire base structures around the battlefield if desired, and make deft use of Webway portals to both bolster nearby shielded troops and provide an astral tunnel back to camp. The Space Marines are a more standard military set-up, but allow units to be constructed and delivered through drop pods. They also have a chapter banner that can be temporarily planted as a buff (unless you’re sloppy enough to allow it to be captured).

Not every level of the Dawn of War 3 campaign is a total success. Some feel a little too close to just being basic AI skirmishes with a sprinkling of unique narration. One experiment with stealth (of which the second half of the level is literally just running your Elite unit to an exit) doesn’t really work at all. There’s an over-reliance on endless waves of AI troops too, albeit probably as a way to hammer home the importance of setting up a solid defensive position. For the most part though, you’re led through a suitably over-the-top Warhammer 40K tale of pious, xeno-purging Space Marines, smash-happy Orks, and an Eldar force embroiled in political intrigue.

To put some other rumours to bed: no, the Necrons don’t appear as a secret faction. But yes, there is a post-credits tease heavily implying they will be the first expansion.

Not the most thrilling screenshot, but hopefully one of some use.

PC performance seems better than Company of Heroes 2 (with which I could never seem to find anywhere near a consistent 60fps across three separate PC upgrades). I was playing this on an i5-6600 / 16GB RAM / 4GB 380X machine, and settled on the graphics settings above to get something approaching a steady 60fps. It wasn’t constant here either, and did dip into the 40-50 range when things devolved into particle effect madness. A more robust GPU would have prevented that, I’d imagine.

My biggest grudge against Dawn of War 3 on the PC options front is Relic’s continuing refusal to allow any sort of in-game key rebinding. It’s their hotkey system or bust; and you’d be well advised to check the digital manual for a list of useful commands (Home key to quickly focus on your base, for example), because they’re certainly not going to list those in the game itself. Their default hotkey layout isn’t awful or anything, but it’s such a weird, stubborn stance to bar any customisation. It can take a while to drill staples like WASD camera controls out of your mind (you can, admittedly, still use Alt + WASD to do that).

Retaining traditional mechanics while still seeking inspiration from (and successfully incorporating) popular genre developments is a skill akin to threading a Deffcopter through a maelstrom of Lascannon fire, but Dawn of War 3 has just about pulled it off. The RTS heart of long-term strategic thinking married to close-control of multiple units in situational encounters is still happily beating away. Integration of the MOBA-like aspects is strongest in the case of Elites (since MOBA ‘Heroes’ evolved from an RTS that shouldn’t be too surprising), and weakest when it’s restricting the game’s multiplayer victory requirements. Increased lethality of combat, and some difficulties in picking out units, also risks superseding some of the (otherwise rather neat) individual troop abilities. Eight multiplayer maps and one mode feels rather lean, but an entertaining single player campaign, distinctive faction design, and multiplayer mechanics which end up striding more often than they stumble give Dawn of War 3 a fortified beachhead from which to press forward.

[itsclydebitches]

I think the worst thing about V7 is they completely fail to take the cold and grimm attack into account. How many are dead from the cold? How many were killed by the grimm attack? How many were already evacuated? Despite the fact the cold doesn’t kill grimm (the whole reason Atlas is there) and doesn’t kill people (despite the show TELLING us it does, even as 3 men and unconscious woman are out in the tundra), Mantle is dying. Is it cold to leave them? Yes. Welcome to ugly real world RWBY+.

If anything, the Tyrian-Clover-Qrow-Robyn fight makes things worse for me because it  actually makes a decent amount of sense (regarding the cold, I mean. Not other aspects lol). Weiss tells us that you need aura to protect yourself from the cold and sure enough, these characters all have aura. They’re also involved in a fight so even if their aura wasn’t active due to the cold before, it definitely is now. I can believe that Qrow, Clover, and Tyrian, as powerful fighters, are all fine out in that tundra. Robyn’s situation should be critical not just due to injuries she may have suffered from the crash, but also because she’s unconscious (no aura) and lying in the snow. She’s going to freeze to death, which to my mind just further supports Clover’s “You need to stop fighting me so we can get her help” and further damns Qrow’s “Nah. I care more about freedom than the life of an ally.” Similarly, Clover’s aura breaking is also a major concern but he dies immediately after he loses it. There’s no chance for the cold to be dangerous because the sword through his chest got to him first. RWBY has managed to write a scene where the cold is indeed a threat but we understand why it’s not an immediate threat: these people have powerful aura, Clover dies right after his breaks, and (admittedly with a bit of interpretation), Robyn may have indeed been in danger and that danger may be referenced in the next Volume. If she at any point experiences health consequences for being left like that - unlikely I think given that she seems fine post-arrest, but I don’t want to slam RWBY for things it hasn’t actually done yet - or if we’re given another stipulation like she wasn’t out in the cold long enough for it to be deadly/damaging... then RWBY would be in the clear. That scene, cold-wise, is internally consistent. 

Which sadly makes the other scenes look ridiculous. RWBY demonstrates that it can do this work in one place (perhaps by accident) but not elsewhere. All living things might have aura, but few if any of these civilians would be able to control it to keep themselves safe. Maybe we can acknowledge that the Qrow-Tyrian-Clover fight wasn’t really that long - only a couple of minutes - and if the military arrived promptly after Clover’s murder then Robyn wasn’t out there very long, but we can’t say the same for people who have had their heat shut off all through the fight with Watts, the meeting, the Ace Ops battle, and now well into the morning as they’re directed towards a crater. We can’t provide an internally logical excuse for RWBY here. All of which brings us back to your questions, anon. We have to assume that some have died/will soon die from cold, so will the show actually acknowledge that? How many have been evacuated? Either it’s a lot - somewhat justifying Ironwood’s desire to leave with a majority - or it’s just a few - increasing the number who should be in danger from the cold. And the grimm are a whole separate problem where we have to acknowledge how staggeringly convenient the people’s survival is, well past breaking our suspension of disbelief. We’ve seen flying grimm in Argus ignore all the panicking civilians to instead attack military planes, we’ve seen the RWBYJNR group slam in at the last second to save everyone encountering a grimm in Atlas, and via the promos we’ve seen grimm so stupid they don’t go around a small barrier to maul a civilian before Jaune or Ren can stop them. It’s not that there are good worldbuilding reasons for this (the military has a surefire way of drawing the grimm away, the grimm are established as completely mindless beast), if anything, the worldbuilding we have gotten (negativity draws grimm, many grimm are quite smart) suggests otherwise, which leaves us with the issue that RT is unwilling to follow their own rules because, well, that’s harder. It’s harder to write a story where the heroes convincingly win after you’ve stacked the odds against them to such an extent. It’s harder to write an upbeat story when you include scenes of innocent civilians freezing to death or dying at the hands of monsters. But that’s the situation they’ve given us. They need to work with what they’ve written. The answer is not to go, “Oh shit, everyone should be dying here but we didn’t actually want an entire Kingdom to perish and have our characters grapple with the emotional trauma of that... so, uh, none of the grimm manage to kill people! The cold is no longer a danger! Salem herself won’t decimate them all for, uh, reasons! There. Problem solved” and the viewer is left going, “Actually no... the problem is still there? You’re just choosing to ignore it.”