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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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@elfysparkles88

#listen it's a universal problem#I love my mans Scott#everyone is always bagging on him WHY#Scott Summers#X-Men

Its because Scott Summers is inevitably compared and contrasted with those around him, and he has the great misfortune of running in the same circles as an all-star line up of like....just the absolutely most Ridiculous People to Ever Ridick.

We’re talking about a guy whose dad was abducted by aliens and from there went on to decide, welp, guess I gotta become a space pirate now, jaunty earring and all, no, shhh, shh, no, there are no alternatives, I gotta, no, I said no - SHUT IT, I SAID I GOTTA BE A SPACE PIRATE NOW ITS THE ONLY WAY. Oh btw, meet my fianceé. She’s an alien mercenary who is a little like a skunk but don’t call her that to her face or she’ll shoot you in yours. How’s that for swoonworthy, am I right, son?

We’re talking about a guy whose own son was a literal sixty year old Grumpy Old Man overburdened with world-weariness, wildly unnecessary shoulderpads and arthritic joints when Scott was barely hitting his third decade. With said son now randomly being a moody sixteen year old again, with a pet sentient sword he talks lovingly to, because apparently Nathan Summer’s take on teenage rebellion was to act out by being all LOL Fuck Time Travel Paradoxes and then rebelliously zooming around the space/time continuum while blasting a soundtrack of MCR probably, until he finally got a bead on his older self and shot himself in the face while being like “its not that I’m angry with you, I’m just disappointed” and look this is the part where your eyes are gonna wanna just glaze over so your brain can have a break, shhh, shh, don’t ask questions, just let it be, it happened, its a thing.

We’re talking about a guy whose brother rode a merry-go-round of “Am I a good guy this week or am I a bad guy because Reasons or sometimes Brainwashing or sometimes I Don’t Even Fucking Know, Look Don’t @ Me Bro, I Just Fucking Work Here, I’m Not In The Loop” for most of his twenties until dying in a fiery explosion only to inexplicably return years later as a coma patient who finally woke up one day and said “Whoa, just got back from tripping around the multiverse and boy do I have stories cuz apparently I’m the Nexus of All Realities, so hah, SUCK IT, big brother, and yes that is TOO a thing, shut up, LET ME HAVE THIS. Oh and also btw don’t spend a lot on your wedding gift for me and Lorna because I’m gonna leave her at the altar once I realize that I’m actually more in love with the random nurse lady who changed my bed pans while I was in a coma having a romantic rendezvouz with her in Paris in my brain courtesy of her psychic eight-year old kid trying to play matchmaker for her cuz like, she doesn’t date much apparently but its whatever, this is FINE, I have no objections. Ugh why are you looking at me like that Scott, no, I don’t need to “talk” with someone about everything I’ve ‘been through,’ ugh I’m HAPPY you asshole, god, why don’t you ever want me to just be HAPPY ugh you just have to control EVERYTHING with your over-bearing BS like “I am concerned your decision-making processes might be affected by all the people tampering with your decision-making processes over the years” like umm DID I ASK? No? I didn’t think so? YOU’RE NOT MY REAL DAD, SCOTT, UGH THAT DOES IT, IM RUNNING AWAY TO BE A SUPERVILLAIN AGAIN AND THIS TIME ITS TOTALLY YOUR FAULT, YOU’LL BE SORRY WHEN I CRY HAVOK AND LET LOOSE THE DOGS OF WAR THIS TIME FOR SURE, AND OMG FOR THE LAST TIME I KNOOOOOOW THAT’S NOT HOW ITS SPELLED, ITS ABOUT THE AESTHETIC SCOTT, ITS CALLED HAVING A SENSE OF STYLE, UGH, LET ME LIIIIIIIIIIIVE.”

We’re talking about a guy whose other little brother randomly showed up and started killing people one day being like “hahaha surprise, bet you all forgot about me, PS, I’m REALLY FUCKING MAD AT YOU ALL FOR FORGETTING ABOUT ME” because the world’s most powerful telepath made everyone forget about him and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day they all had once and this is fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiine, this is normal. As is the way his newly discovered slash remembered slash resurrected slash recently returned from spending the last decade fucking around as a disembodied energy ghost on a rock up in Earth’s orbit little brother then decided the Earth just wasn’t big enough for the both of them, the both of them in this case meaning both him, singular, and his Angst, as a wholly separate and towering entity in its own right. So instead he fucked off to space and decided to conquer a vast alien empire and spend the next several years being their god-emperor or whatever until he got bored with that. And also he kinda sorta killed their dad for a bit but whatever, its fine, he got better, and then he also kinda sorta died for a bit himself but whatever, its fine, he got better, and there was that whole interstellar war between himself and the Inhumans but whatever that wasn’t even his FAULT, Scott, THEY STARTED IT, god, do you ever stop JUDGING ME AND MY LIFE CHOICES and PS I’m still mad at you for killing Xavier, you fucking asshole, not because you did it but because like, you KNOW I wanted to do it, I had a whole fucking villain monologue moment about it and everything, you were literally there, UGH WHY WON’T YOU LET ME HAVE NICE THINGS?!?! YOU ARE THE ENEMY OF FUN AND JOY AND HEY MAYBE YOU WERE THE REAL VILLAIN ALL ALONG, DID YOU EVER THINK OF THAT? HUH? MR. I’M THE BOSS, WAIT WHO’S THE BOSS? OH YEAH STILL ME, SCOTT, I’M THE BOSS, YOU GOTTA STOP BEING A SPACE EMPEROR GABE BECAUSE YOU CAN’T BE THE BOSS, ONLY I AM ALLOWED TO BE THE BOSS BECAUSE I’M THE BOSS AND I SAID SO AND YOU GOTTA DO WHAT I SAY OR I’LL TELL DAD.”

And that’s not even getting into how we’re also talking about a guy who basically ended up divorcing his first wife and suing for sole custody on the grounds of “Well, your Honor, she tried to sacrifice our son on a literal demonic altar in order to summon Hell to Earth to destroy everything just to get back at me after I left her. Yes, your Honor, I understand that is in fact Asshole Behavior, but there were extenuating circumtances, you see, the woman I left her for was my first love before her who I thought was dead. And also, she was literally my wife before my wife was. No, I don’t mean I was married before Maddie, I mean Jean was kinda pretty much already Maddie before Maddie was Maddie. Its this whole clone thing. Look, I’m just saying it was a complicated situation and I know I have my part to play in it, but I still stand by my conviction that trying to sell out our entire planet and species to the legions of Hell while using the innocent blood of our ten month old as the Golden Ticket to the Chocolate Factory was still a little over the top and not really the right way to handle it either. Also, I contend that I can provide a better home environment at the moment than someone who is insisting on being addressed as The Goblin Queen because what even is that, honestly, Your Honor, and also, she also brainwashed my brother into trying to kill me on her behalf, which to be fair does happen about every other month anyway, but still, like. Dick move, you know?”

And we’re also talking about a guy whose second wife who was kinda sorta his first wife but only in that It Ain’t Bigamy If Its A Clone Thing way....like, I mean. Its kinda hard NOT to come across as the bland one in the relationship when your second wife occasionally moonlights as the AirBnb of choice for a cosmic parakeet goddess of rebirth and fiery destruction who is pretty infamous for the ragers she hosts every time she pops into town for a visit, all smiles and (literal) sunbeams (of scorching lethality) and “Lol hey hot stuff, remember me?” As if someone who ate an alien civilization’s sun the last time she hit a Mood is like....really in danger of ever being “New phone, who dis?”ed. But that is neither here nor there, much like the sentients of Alpha Centauri Bumfuckville after she went all Goodnight Sun, Goodnight Moon, Goodnight Solar System on their corner of the galactic neighborhood, because.....tbh I don’t think she ever actually said “why” there. Its one of those things where if you don’t already KNOW why a cosmic parakeet goddess of rebirth and fiery destruction has decided its nighty-night time for this particular zipcode.....like.....that’s not really something you just ASK, y’know? Its....tacky, probably. Also, low on the self-preservation instincts, probably.

Plus we’re talking about a guy whose second marriage to Yet Another Woman It Probably Should Have Registered As A Bad Idea To PIss Off Like This ended in like....so, okay, this was a bit more His Bad than even Round One was, courtesy of a “Groundbreaking. Revolutionary. Show-stopping” reinterpretation of what was up until this point te much more ambiguous and metaphorically named “Mental Affair” concept. Though it must be said, Scotty always has skewed a bit more towards the literal minded in his personal approach to things, so, y’know. That tracks. But regardless, the pattern remains consistent here, as once again, its not always easy to register on peoples’ radar as anything other than the Plus One when your newest paramour prides herself on being both the entire planning committee AND star attraction of Victoria’s Secret (assuming that said Secret is Secret Aims at World Domination) Presents: A Renaissance Faire. But in an evil and also kinky way. Except now with sixty percent less evil on account of how Emma’s reformed these days, but not a hundred percent less evil because she’s not like, REFORMED reformed, cuz that would be boring, eww, could you imagine, no, you couldn’t, because she won’t let you and she can do that, she’s that good at telepathy and that bad at boundaries. Still the same amount of kinky as before though, but like. That’s just about Strong Branding. After all, at the end of the day Emma Frost is above all else, a good businesswoman.

But yes, she is also a big fan of the Aesthetic, with that aesthetic being Her Whims On Steroids because like they say, go big or go home, and Emma Frost does not believe in going home when she can simply acquire your home instead. Hate the game, not the player. She didn’t make the rules, she just came to win. Point being, its hard to follow up an act like Jean-Who-Is-Sometimes-Phoenix-And-Sometimes-Dark-Phoenix-And-Oh-Hell-She-Cant-Even-Keep-Track-So-How-Could-Anyone-Else-Really, but say what you will about Emma’s wardrobe, she’s more concerned with clothing herself in unapologetic take no prisoners ambition, and as such, her being the follow-up to Scott’s epic romance with his childhood sweetheart turned literal cosmic embodiment of fire and passion, like.....this was never a big checkmark in the con side of a pro and con list for Emma. It was more like oh, yes, hello there, Challenge Absolutely Fucking Accepted.

Which, y’know, all the points to House Frost for showing spine and boy howdy, that’s a spine alright.....but at the same time, going head to head with someone who is classified as a galactic threat when people are deliberately low-balling her, like, for no other reason than you’re bored and your manicure appointment isn’t for another couple hours.....like that’s the kind of thing where it has to be pointed out that there were possibly alternative options worth considering somewhere in between ‘having no spine’ and ‘spiting cosmic entity who can kill you with her brain by stealing her man and saying come at me bro because like....my spine, let me show you it.”

But again, just to reiterate the premise here.....our thesis here today is that Scott Summers Gets a Bad Rap For Being Bland or Boring or Not Standing Out, But In Reality The Issue Is Just That All The People He Knows Are Truly Ridiculous People.

In other words, Scott Summers is no more the Everyman of the X-Men than any of his Truly Ridiculous Friends and Family.

Because an actual everyman would have bounced out of that madhouse way the fuck back in Chapter One: In Which Things Just Got Ridiculous.

Cut to Scott Summers, in contrast: *looks around, purses lips, weighs options* Nah. This is fine.

See also:

His daughter, who didn’t so much arrive after the traditional nine months of waiting and preparing for a bundle of bouncing baby joy but instead just like...plopped back into the past as a full grown woman hailing from a dystopian future she was hellbent on preventing by any means necessary, even if that means had Scott frantically shouting RACHEL NO as she screamed RACHEL YES and sprinted straight at someone like Selene (a villain who has survived 17,000 years of pissing people off and making enemies of actual, literal gods) while thinking “oh yeah, I got this.”

(To be fair, she probably DID have it, or would have, if Logan hadn’t chosen that moment of all moments to have his once-centennial contemplation of “Wait, what if....murder is...NOT good?” Never underestimate the daughter of a cosmic goddess.)

Or see also also:

Scott’s original classmates, including Doctor Hank “I’m not an over-archiever, I’m just stress-eating because its lunchtime and I’ve only revolutionized two whole fields of scientific study so far today,” McCoy, Warren “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful, hate me because I’m a billionaire, wait no, I’m just kidding don’t hate me at all hahaha I’m too sexy” Worthington III, and Bobby “I may look cute and unassuming and like my only priority in life is video games but sike, I too am a potentially cosmic level immortal being of nigh-unlimited power or at least I will be whenever I get around to tapping that potential like I’m currently tapping xy up down A + BBA like a boss, now shhh, don’t interrupt me while I’m kicking ass at Mario Kart I said I’ll GET TO THAT LATER, ugh, JEEZ, my priorities are FINE, Scott, like get off my back already, you’re not even my real dad” Drake.

In conclusion:

Scott Summers is valid, and there may be legions drinking his Hatorade, but make no mistake, its not that he’s Less Than, its that every single person in his social circle is just that damn Extra.

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oursidae · 5 years

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long ass rant abt bl3

just, so many spoilers under the readmore, things i thought the game did poorly and things i wish were changed

I should have expected it to be not great being that, borderlands was NEVER fantastic with its writing and character development. Ive been spoiled by tales from the borderlands tbh. I think borderlands three tho was like… fantastically underwhelming.

I had a blast with the beginning of the game up through the end of the first vault, where the excitement peetered off.

Firstly, i wholly believe Maya was done horribly. Compare her death to say, Roland. Even if you hadn’t played BL1, you had almost the entirety of 2 to get to know him and his character and his place in the world of borderlands. Maya’s death was INCREDIBLY early in comparison. And not only that, the characters dont get to mourn aside from a few offhand voicelines. Mordecai mourned for bloodwing in a more substantial way - you get two full side quests about it. Zer0 says one offhand voiceline for maya. They were her friend goddamn it, i wanted MORE.

ava is a good character but the fridging of maya just makes her into… what, a brat who accidentally got her killed and now has her powers? it would have been more interesting for them to develop alongside each other through the game and if maya died near the end, youd have cared a lot more about ava too. she’s just really one note right now.

Speaking of side quests, there were very few. They were sparse and honestly i dont think they added much to the plot of the game or the world.

in borderlands 2, side quests, at least in my eyes, were what forced you to explore the map. in borderlands 3 they forgo a lot of side quests in favor of the crew challenges, which were far less rewarding imo. like, build claptrap a gf with parts from dead claptraps in the world. disable COV radio towers for moxxi, kill fauna for hammerlock, people for zer0, etc, but except for zer0 and hammerlock you just get very similar voice lines in return. as well as xp. they dont add to the plot or worldbuilding or characters in any way.

the lack of side quests i think really hurt my enjoyment of the game, because in bl2 it was the sidequests that got you to know the main cast and see that they were working behind the scenes. like brick and his slabs, moxxi asking you to sabotage opportunity, ellie and scooters more jokey side quests even!! it made them feel real with motives outside the main quest. bl3 didnt really have any of that past the first vault (i say this because lorelai gave some good sidequests.) in 3, moxxi and hammerlock only give u one side quest each. marcus (who gave u a lot on bl2) didnt give you any. he was literally just there to run the ammo shop.

some of the more hyped characters dont really do shit. the b-team, mordecai/brick/tina dont really do…anything, they bust hammerlock out of jail, and then give you one side quest per person. thats really it. i hoped that, considering their roles in bl2 and their relationship to lilith, theyd have big roles here too. they didnt. they were truly forgettable.

aurelia showed up to fill a villain slot and died. maybe im a sucker for redemption, but i hoped theyd had more in store for her. and they just…didnt. just like, a whole mission of wainwright calling her a harpy while hammerlock really wants to convince her to not be evil only to get fucking shot by her, like,,,,

vaughn is a joke. they did him truly dirty. his character development tanked into a “haha look at him hes strange and naked” joke. tftbl ending vaughn would NEVER. i wish theyd acknowledge the events of tales from the borderlands AT ALL. or had vaughn and rhys SPEAK TO EACH OTHER.

rhys is another thing, i rly dislike the relationship theyre pushing w him and sasha even tho sasha literally didnt show up in the game. apparently theres echo logs of him obsessing over and searching for her (i didnt find these in my own game but like, i believe it) and her picture on his desk and god DAMN it just let it rest,

BALEX was bland and so immediately misogynistic that i hated him on principle.

so then theres this character Typhon Daleon. he is the first vault hunter, but to my knowledge the only mentions of him occur in bl3. in fact, i dont think he’s mentioned in a main quest until after you kill troy and meet him in person, you only hear of him in the typhon logs which are optional. Then in the final quest you learn troy and tyreen are his kids, then he dies. i had no attachment to this character! he should have at least been built up in borderlands 2, if not in all of the previous games to get me to at least go “huh neat!” when its revealed hes alive, his kids are the villains, etc.

tannis… they handled her being a siren poorly, my gripe isnt that i called it, its that it isnt really explained how she got her powers. i was pissed for like a good while after she reveals that she has ANGELS powers because i assumed somehow she stole or manufactured them. theres an eridian recording that KIND OF explains it, but again, those are OPTIONAL. idk if i just blanked out when she went, oh, by the way, heres why, but to my knowledge its never explained to the player in a main or side mission, at least until you see ava get mayas powers. its infuriating.

worldbuilding wise, this is a much smaller issue, but i wish there were nonhostile fauna on the other planets. pandoras whole thing, the big meme the big laff, is that everything wants to kill u there. so it wouldve been nice to like, see some fauna thats docile. runs away from the player, is chased around by the carnivorous fauna or bandits or something. maybe a hammerlocks challenge could be to use stealth to kill a docile animal or something, it just would have been nice,

i also didnt think the ending made sense, lilith,.. punched the moon and disappeared? died? also brick and mordecai DIDNT GET TO BE THERE FOR HER OR WITH HER AT ALL. after all of bl2 where its SHOWN they’re good friends who care about each other, youd think theyd get to witness her death/disappearance. on top of that it felt like the whole game was building to something with lilith and the climax was so underwhelming.

i just want to beat randy bitchford with a rolled up newspaper until he stops being a piece of human shit and borderlands can develop the characters and world.

the good parts of the game were…the graphics and the bossfights. the boss fights were all unique and interesting and FUN. katagawa jr, troy, the second vault monster, and tyreen were my faves in that order. hammerlock and wainwrights relationship was adorable and i liked the credits art of wainwright proposing. clay was a fun character but like all the others, didnt have development.

i also had a lot of glitches. my game would crash if i navigated menus too quickly, i had an issue with effects from shields staying on my screen even tho they should have ended, as well as a lot of glitching after cutscenes, most notably falling through the floor after the troy bossfight. a lot of my quest objectives glitched and wouldnt activate until i reloaded, which was frustrating.

i DID like the game. but i dont know if ill do a replay past promethea. i was just wishing itd be a whole game on the level of the Commander Lilith DLC.

TLDR i wouldn’t have minded the game being so lilith centric if the other characters got to matter at ALL.

#bl3 #borderlands 3 #borderlands #bl3 spoilers #borderlands 3 spoilers #borderlands spoilers #my post #had to get that out of my system #not to mention the amount of gays you kill

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loki-n-thedoctor · 4 years

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6 and 30 ??

This is gonna be a little weird to post on my main but I guess my art blog is now under the blands control for a bit soo uh whatever~

6. Tell us about a setting/world you’ve created!

I did have a world-building post somewhere tho, it’s probably horribly outdated and I’m kinda scared to look into it now but I will take the pics from it because they are still relevant.

So the thing is that each planet in the universe is a part of this cube system, its metaphorical obviously just to visualize the possible paths between the planets that in reality are scattered across the galaxy. Each “cube” consists of 27 planets divided into 3 levels, they share similar energy aka have similar beings living on them and similar ecosystems. The planets can connect through breaches with their neighbors(so B5 could connect with B2 but not with B1 or B3), first with the ones on their own level and later with the other two (it’s usually the middle 5th planet that connects first in this case but that’s not really relevant cuz that doesn’t happen during any of my plots).

The breaches usually appear naturally just by themselves and are later turned into public paths and can even have highways going through them. They mostly open when planets are old enough yet it can happen at any point. They can also be enforced by technology, but it’sss kindaa dangerous. Obviously. So there’s the Watchman(that’s the red dipshit Howard here) who is this demi-god like being that is supposed to waTCH Over and make sure that everything goes nice and smoothly and that all planets are cool with each other. Each cube has it’s own Watchman, they are basically immortal but can be temporarily destroyed, during this time the other Watchman appears. Howard lives in his own pocket Delta Dimension.

In canon Beta5 is connected with Beta4, and later Beta4 connects with Beta7. The fact that Beta8, the home planet of the Greyhounds(u know the spiky ears, shiny eyes) is not connected with any other planet is like the main conflict lol. Also, everyone is aware of this system, so there’s no oohh mann it’s alieenss,, Actually, everyone on the Beta level can be called a human, that counts for the Greyhounds too but they just have a name for themselves anyway.

Beta5 is this main planet plot-wise, it’s very earth-like, but it’s just a one big continent mass and there’s no division on countries, etc. They kinda treat Beta4 like a different continent rather than a different planet and they have been connected for like over 200 years. Most of my OCs are from Beta5 tho. People from Beta4 are not that much different, they mostly really like color green I guess?? (see: Audrey and Gabe, then there’s Gordon who just went. I’m blue now and yall can’t stop me). Beta4 is also slightly more advanced and industrialized than its neighbor.

Meanwhile, Beta8 is on friggin fire. Huge parts of the landmass were destroyed by the constant meteor showers and sunk into the ocean that it’s also partially lavA because of the volcanic activity and earthquakes and there are also acid rains and oh man this is not looking good huh, and the rest is barely habitable. The sky is almost permanently covered with dust that stops the sunlight. The good thing is that their species was already adjusted to long nights so they are somehow managing the situation, but there’s also that oh noo no stars :’’’’’C Nevertheless, they are super advanced so maybe they will somehow get out of this situation. Literally. [cue Tim Roswell]

Oh yeah, right they are also at civil war “because” of Roswell.

Greyhounds do not have electric powers, but they are mostly immune to electricity and can conduct it in a way. Roswell uses a special gauntlet with which he can shock people or create electric barriers, while Nekor is an ex-medic and his gloves are way way weaker than Tims(yet still dangerous to B5 humans), but for example, Oscar does not use any sort of shock gloves but has special “electric knives” with which he can redirect the electricity. I thought that I could clear that out because I’m not sure if it was obvious or not?? ?

I don’t have any other map right now, but I thought that I might throw it in here because I really never talked about that before. The colors represent territories under different influences: yellow - Eos(that’s Roswells Lab, he’s in charge of everything to put it short), purple - The North Lab( Simmone’s lab, I did not post her yet tho but she was in @lavend-ler ‘s fic shameless promo [x], she was hesitant about joining forces with Roswell but they are cool now, her lab is responsible for the force field around the planet that is supposed to stop the meteorites), blue - Dyne Labs (run by a pair of twins named Ria and Kim, they are Roswells and Rylands old friends, they do lots of different research also humanitarian work), green - Valiant(responsible for agriculture, run by an older guy named Everest that totally doesn’t like Roswell).

a fun fact: my other ocs(the animal ones) also use this cube system, but are mostly from the Alpha Level

30. Tell us about an OC whose personality is totally different than when you started out with them!

I’m gonna go with an easy answer here and just say Vincent. He was this classic /stoic, impatient, dont talk to me im angy, smoking detective/ type and now he’s just /i would die for you/ with the most used phrase being /are you alright?/ and * adopts all of the children* trope

I do still use his original design as a different character tho :’ D

@dystant37

#dystant37 #i totally did not put it into my drafts and then forgot for the rest of the week #sorry about that #:I #spokpost #oc stuff

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bluebaric · 7 years

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Keep on scrolling, folks

so the lovely @grammarkid tagged me in this. I am,,, honored, I’ll try to be at least somewhat interesting.

1. are you named after someone? quite a few people, if my parents are to be believed. My dad had a weiner dog named maggie when he was a kid, so I guess she’s my namesake? Oh, also my dad’s ex gf who turned out to be a lesbian. irony at its finest.

2. when was the last time you cried? like, a week ago? i mean, *coughs* never

3. do you like your handwriting? not really, its nothing special 4. what is your favorite lunch meat? turkey or ham, i guess?

5. do you have kids? dear god, i hope not

6. if you were another person, would you be friends with you? i like to think im p cool, but i'm sure all of my friends could tell you how very not cool i am. so, probably?

7. do you use sarcasm? i don’t think i've ever used anything else

8. do you still have your tonsils? i hope so, or a doctor in wisconsin is going to get a very angry call about that “ear surgery” i got years ago

9. would you bungee jump? if someone offered to take me bungee jumping, sure, but I'm not going to seek it out myself

10. what is your favourite kind of cereal? plain cheerios. i’m bland

11. do you untie your shoes when you take them off? who has time for that?

12. do you think you’re a strong person? physically? absolutely not. emotionally? *brushes away tears* t-totally

13. what is your favourite ice cream flavor? chocolate or reece’s peanut butter cup

14. what is the first thing you notice about people? idk, i think i probably notice different things about different people. whatever stands out i guess

15. red or pink? pink

16. what is your favourite physical thing you like about yourself? i like my eyes, and my hair can be nice if the planets align in my favor

17. what color pants and shoes are you wearing right now? blue jeans, no shoes but slytherin socks, despite being a ravenclaw

18. what was the last thing you ate? slightly stale cheez its. real exciting, i know

19. what are you listening to right now? a playlist of songs from the 2000s. trying to get some of that sweet, sweet nostalgia

20. if you were a crayon, what color would you be? either that one color of blue that tiny me found far superior to all the other blues or dark green

21. favorite smell? clean laundry or vanilla

22. who was the last person you spoke to on the phone? i literally can’t remember the last time i talked to someone over the phone.

23. favorite sport to watch? not huge into sports, but women’s soccer is pretty cool

24. hair color? according to a friend, brown with blonde highlights

25. eye color? what most people would call hazel, but say green/brown/blue bc there are rings of all the colors and i’m extra about my eyes

26. do you wear contacts? nah, glasses all the way, they cover my face so i can avoid wearing makeup

27. favorite food to eat?

fried rice owns my entire ass

28. scary movies or comedy?

comedy, i am scared of everything, i don’t need more of that

29. last movie you watched? heathers, because i am s o g a y for winona ryder

30. what colour shirt are you wearing? green

31. summer or winter?

winter. I look dumb in shorts and layers are the best. oversized hoodies, hot chocolate, not feeling obligated to go outside, it’s the perfect season

32. hugs or kisses?

hugs, bc they are soft and friendly and not bc i'm a total loser

33. what book are you currently reading? Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. only like five chapters in, but it comes highly recommended by a friend who’s book tastes I trust dearly and i am enjoying it so far

34. who do you miss right now? my friends bc we never get to hang anymore

35. what is on your mouse pad? don’t have one, i'm a scrub

36. what is the last tv program you watched? the l word. i'm trying to watch it on netflix

37. what is the best sound? the lemonade mouth soundtrack

38. rolling stones or the beatles? never really listened to either, so i'm just going to say Queen and go

39. what is the furthest you have ever traveled? vancouver, i think?

40. do you have a special talent? i've never done anything special, ever, in my life

41. where were you born? grand ole richmond, va

42. people you expect to participate in this?

alright so no one has to if they don't want to, but I tag @yorklina @cypup @stabbitt @huethemudluff @camerasandbooks ur up losers

#damn this was probs really boring #whatever #it's about me so its obviously amazing

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mobianstrip · 5 years

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sonic forces me to analyze the game

this is by no means a full, in depth review of sonic forces. however, since im working on a Forces au i think its only fitting to talk about my personal gripes with the game. just to be clear, i dont hate sonic forces by any means! there are some really neat concepts about it that i enjoy, which ill include my thoughts on as well! though with that said, theres a lot about it that could have been dealt with better. this post is gonna be a bit long and messy, sorry!

now i cant speak for what the gameplay controls itself are like since i havent actually played it with my own hands, so my primary focus will be the story and general format of the game. everything under the cut!

ill start by saying that in hindsight, i think the general premise of the game is actually really neat (had the war framing of the plot not been so overly glorified and bland. more on that below). eggman taking over most of the world is very reminiscent to the initial circumstance of mobius in the early archie sonic publication. it seems especially reflective of the comic in the fact that sonic forces takes place on a planet setting more akin to that of Mobius than that of Sonic’s World/Earth, the difference being the lack of human beings aside from Eggman. while this does somewhat bother me for the fact that it paints an inconsistency with the setting, im also all for the planet being strictly Mobians + Eggman again tbh. the concept of sonic being on earth populated by humans, complete with a mock version of the united states, never really settled well with me. it always felt like just a means to make sonic more relatable, which is true, but not done because it made anything more interesting. a problem that then arises is that the origins of shadow and silver/blaze would be radically different or at least would need some retcon alterations to make sense...but thats a topic for another day

overall, looking past the inconsistency with the setting and its implications, i enjoy how the premise of the game feels like going back to the basics. but even the premise still has its problems...which is never a good sign, and this point practically sealed forces’s fate of inconsistency: the theme of war and how it frames the story is so, so poorly written

starting with whats presented at the beginning of the game, sonic is captured by eggman as a prisoner. if the writing had just left it at that, fine. however, the exposition goes on to say that sonic has been there for six months being tortured...and that tails has completely lost it. again id be fine with this - the theme of war is a darker one so these two events would make sense in this circumstance. however, that tension is just totally lost in a matter of a few episodes. you rescue sonic who is just as cheery and jokey as ever, somehow able to fight a boss despite being supposedly locked away and tortured for six months

of course i understand that its not like they could give sonic ptsd and make him look tortured and weak and so on - but why even mention the torture thing at all? the same problem is apparent with the first cutscene with tails. tails is hardly given enough time to seem like he has "lost it". i will say though that tails WAS given a bit more of an emotional response to work with than sonic overall. particularly when tails is about to be attacked by chaos, and he ducks his head in fear and calls for sonic to help him even though sonic isnt there - i actually enjoyed this small segment bc it does reflect some of what was said about how he reacted to sonics capture (aside from also being across the planet...for seemingly no reason except bc he "lost it" and to get him away from the main group so that classic sonic can appear)

frankly speaking from these two points alone, the games tone just feels kind of confused. its obvious the writers wanted some parts of the darker theme of war...and its also obvious that going all out wasnt gonna be an option bc of the nature of sonic as a character and franchise being about more lighthearted, easier to relate to stories about sonics heroism. which im fine with that being the case; sonic is a hero and more importantly a mascot that profits off of kids being able to relate and look up to. my issue is simply that the premise of this game makes consistent writing kind of doomed from the start if the writers are trying to appeal to both the kids AND older fans. they cant go to the lengths necessary to adequately build the narrative. cant go too dark, cant go too lighthearted, and not finding a balance between to two gives you a confused and bland story

on that note, i personally find the theme of war to be...uncomfortably glorified and unchecked (adding to the tone confusion and blandness). sonic forces is named so because...yknow. armed forces. armies. the whole point of the game is that theres a war going on and youre on the good guy side. i mean its not as if youre fighting against other living creatures, just infinite and eggmans robots, but still. i think what put me off the most is the first comic with the soldier cat. after they save the day, the last lines are "I'll do better. I'll be better. I'll become a real soldier and a real hero." now slap that as the tagline to a united states army corps commercial and suddenly its really...sour tasting

war is just one of those subjects that i think needs to be handled with a bit more care. i mean think about it: the primary gimmick of forces is that you get to make your own character, to be the sonic version of yourself in this world. the plot of the game is that theres a war, and your character joins the resistance to defeat eggman. this game is pretty blatantly glorifying the idea that joining in on a war can make you a REAL soldier, a REAL hero. to some kids, that might sound pretty cool. but theres no nuance to it whatsoever, nothing thought provoking on the subject. no one steps back to be like ‘its good to do good things but wars are tough and not fun, and being a hero isnt everything’. none-a that

now do i think a sonic game could get it into a childs head that they should join the army for real? no, not necessarily. i think its possible, but i think that would also be due to a larger issue of military glorification present in modern culture in general (especially in america). mostly i just find the implications at play with glorifying the theme of war in conjunction to the avatar gimmick to be in poor taste and also entirely avoidable because...

i dont think the war and army framing even had to be a thing. not only is it just so sloppily done in general, with that fact that the supposed soldier forces on the Resistance side are literally never seen on screen except for some dialogue boxes in one episode and the rest of the time only being mentioned through other characters, but i seriously think never saying the words “war” or “army” and not including literal soldiers would have worked just as well and even been the better route. they could have just been like yeah heres eggman taking over the world, heres the resistance fighters that have come together to stop him, they are opposing forces and you play as your avatar to stop eggman - and just leave it at that. it wouldve made the glorification of war less obvious and the handling of the topics at hand appear less confused, appealing to a more lighthearted tone rather than weighing it down with frankly out of place hints to a darker subject of war

finally i wanna talk about the story as it relates to how its told through the game. the plot itself is fairly standard - eggman starts war, captures sonic, takes over planet. you rescue sonic, and together you fight eggman and infinite and ultimately defeat them. thats all good and well even if its cheesy sometimes. the REAL problem is how its executed. a lot of the exposition is given not through cutscenes, but through spoken dialogue with text box subtitles over the episode select screen. and it just feels so...stiff. it doesnt feel like world building, it just feels like being forcefed information with no substance behind it

i get that fully rendered cutscenes throughout can be expensive and time consuming, but shoot id take in-game rendered cut scenes at least. (like in sa, sa2, shadow 2005...) anything that could have provided the world building with a bit more ground to stand on would have been great. sure, there are levels to traverse which look cool...but they dont provide any sense of scale, they dont tell us what the area is like, and more importantly, you never see the other characters who are supposedly on the battlefield "alongside" you in a couple episodes. the storyline from the exposition along sounds like it could be an epic journey - but the way its told with the given game mechanics (i.e.: stage-based gameplay with no open worlds to explore) leaves a lot to be desired

i feel like the stuff explained in the comics should have just been cutscenes or exposition or something to pad out the game a bit. the comics are so short anyways so why just put it in the game? maybe not the first comic about the rando soldier saving the day or w/e...but the comic with silver and knuckles fighting chaos? the comic about infinites origins? all of that could have easily been included. at LEAST the comic with shadow was part of the DLC...but even thats just so gimmicky. they provide important background to the main plot of this game so i really dont understand why it was sidelined to comics and not just included from the beginning

the tension that the exposition already fails to build up is brought down even worse when coupled with the confusing timing of the stage complete screens, where you get your completion rank and see what new character creation items you unlocked. listen, i know immediate gratification for completing the level is important and all...but i swear, having these screens between the end of a boss fight and the cutscene showing what happens to them after being defeated seriously impairs the flow of the game. maybe having it there allows for the cutscene to load up in the background to improve efficiency, but personally id prefer seeing a loading screen as the break between a boss fight and the following cutscene after it and THEN the stage complete screen to finish the sequence off. the boss fight end cutscenes arent that long anyways for the most part, so its just nonsensical to have the stage complete screen interrupt the action when theres only a two minute scene left to it

i cant stand how streamlined forces is to the point of the main plot. what happened to games that actually take the time to explain stuff, show us extra bits to the story and how they connect? and even when forces' does explain SOME stuff, its through audio/text only dialogue. nothing visually interesting, just...dialogue. and then its off to the next level. forces' feels very bare bones honestly. the story is supposed to feel big and epic but it just wasnt given enough to bring that feeling into fruition. this is probably the only thing that saves forces’ from the war glorification issue because the game simply fails so miserably at telling a compelling story due to poor writing and poor formatting that the war stuff gets lost in the mix - and thats just sad

all of this brings me to my conclusion. fuck i wish sonic forces was a better written and executed game, because i do think it could have been so cool. i really like infinite as a villain, in both his design and personality. yeah hes kind of a whiny, edgy bitch - but he had potential. and its really gonna suck if this game killed off all that potential in one fell swoop

(then again, thats why we have fan content and aus :3)

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