#massive in both the card game as well as the plot sense

[inkblackorchid]

Me: Man, I wonder if someone’s written this specific kind of fic I’d LOVE to read, I should check

Also me: *remembers that this specific scenario is already in my fic idea list because I have, in fact, checked all the relevant tags before and found that nobody has written it yet*

Me: Ah. Fuck.

[forcedhesitation]

I definitely do not have the time for a full essay's worth of commentary on the Casting of Frank Stone, but I definitely could give you that if I did. There is...a lot to take apart there. I am certainly...fascinated...by some of the writing & gameplay choices they made, to summarise my thoughts somewhat vaguely.

A few spoilery comments under the cut.

Like I said, I don't really have the time to offer extensive analysis (a full paper) of the game, but I do want to say a few things.

First and foremost: Do not purchase this game. In the words of Mr. Otzdarva himself: Go and watch someone play it instead. Your play through will be 95% the same as theirs. It is not worth your 50 dollars. If you still want it after you've viewed someone else's playthrough, that is your own right.

I honestly became annoyed with the writing much faster than Mr. Otzdarva did, and at first I thought it was because I was spoiled by BG3's infinitely better writing. But no, it's rather that he was being very patient. He finished with a rather negative opinion of the game, after thoroughly going through it to test just how much control you as the player really have.

I will be fair-- It is certainly a visually stunning game, as far as Supermassive titles go. Much better looking than The Devil in Me. The music is also incredible. And some of the voice acting was well done and added much needed life to otherwise bland characters.

But good grief is the writing utterly nonsensical!! Even if you respect the "a multiverse exists, so anything is possible" fact which is canon to Dead by Daylight itself, it still doesn't make any damned sense. I mean, is it ever explained why there is time travel involved? Or how it is even possible? Did they simply expect people to just assume that Augustine figured out time travel in a certain timeline? Does it have something to do with the Entity, since it can clearly traverse time? If so, why was Sam able to voluntarily time travel to Madi & elder Linda's timeline? Why and how the FUCK is Frank Stone first bound to the mill and then camera using what is clearly the same magic as the horologium, when we know the Entity has not yet been brought to that timeline??

And playing the "anything is possible" card would be fine to explain certain things, I will concede, but it really starts to feel meaningless when you realise just how many massive plot elements are never explained and that none of your choices really have any impact on the ending of the game. The story literally ends the same no matter what you do. And to be fair, I do not think it is a bad ending at all. Barring the corny "trial starting" sound that they jammed in at the last second, I thought the ending was one of the better parts of the game. It works great to make you feel hopeless, and like there is truly no escape from the Entity. I just feel that this format of a "your choices impact the outcome of the story" game was the incorrect format for the story they wanted to tell. Because it truly doesn't even matter if you get everyone killed, or you save everyone-- everything happens the same way and the world's fate is the same.

There are other things that bothered me, too. I thought having Frank Stone appear as this corny, glitchy spectral monster for most of the game was...a terrible choice, both design wise and writing wise. Now, I do not think killing him in the opening was necessarily a bad decision. I honestly thought it was a bold choice that functioned well to surprise the viewer and urge them to continue, so they might discover how the story plays out after the death of the titular character. But keeping him as this ghoulish creature, that honestly looked as though it were from some solo indie developer's first low budget horror game, was awful. He did not feel threatening whatsoever, just wildly out of place in a visual quality sense. I hate the final design much less, it is certainly much more threatening and much, much more gruesome, but it still does not make sense as to why he looks that way. The Entity still had not taken him, why did he appear as this inhuman monster before his entry into the Fog? They should have kept a more humanlike design until the very end of the game, when the Entity arrives. Then, a transformation sequence where the Entity mutates him should have been restricted to the ending where no one from the cast is seen in the Fog, so players at least get something different in that allegedly "unique" ending. After all, if a cast member does get taken, at least you get to see visions of what followed the 1980s storyline.

Also why did Augustine work alone when she is clearly part of the Black Vale? The excuse of "the cult didn't exist yet" doesn't work here, because she can time travel and is fully aware of the multiverse she exists in. Like... I thought elder Linda's mention of secret passages being for staff "so they are seen as little as possible" was foreshadowing for Augustine having fellow cultists aiding her, but it just went nowhere. Another thing that goes nowhere is the baby that Sam can save at the very beginning. Should the baby live or die has absolutely no impact whatsoever on the story, which feels like an enormous mistake to me. That baby should have grown up to be a character that the cast could have interacted with to gain...oh I don't know, some piece of important knowledge, or an item, that could then later change the fate of the cast. This way, the player's choices in the 1960s segment actually have an impact on later gameplay, rather than meaning absolutely nothing.

I'd also love to know why the hell elder Sam was sent alone to prevent this situation from occurring, when the Imperatti (I think they were called? The parents of the Pariahs, or something, right?) would have surely realised the gravity of this situation? Like, how does this make any sense? And this is far from the only moment that makes no sense at all.

Why do Jaime and Robert have almost no relevance whatsoever after the 1980s segment concludes? Robert is guaranteed survival of this segment, as that part of the game is written so that two characters always survive-- be that Linda and Robert, or Sam and Robert. As annoying as Stan was, I didn't hate him because he had great dialogue that pushed other characters to have different dialogue than what we were used to. But it felt scummy that Robert was just given this sad, offscreen death instead of being included in a lot more meaningful way.

Not going to lie, it reminded me of how in Stranger Things 4, Patrick was the one teenager whose trauma wasn't really explored or given the same respect as the others. It's like the writers went, "Guys, guys! It's okay! We still have the other Black guy! This makes our game Diverse, and therefore no one could possibly complain!" Meanwhile, we get an entire cutscene about Madi's nightmares, and elder Linda's movie career and associated trauma is talked about numerous times. But all we know about 2024 Robert is that Stan took advantage of him, and then he later died, utterly miserable. Also, Sam somehow knows about this and he and Stan know one another, despite this Sam being from a different timeline than elder Linda, Madi, and Stan himself.

And Jaime, poor sweet Jaime, he really just feels like he's there as someone they can conveniently kill to shock the player. The first chance he has to die results in a horrible, very graphic death (although not the most graphic in the game by a long shot) that I feel many players will encounter because they see it as reasonable to visit the curiosities shop first, and then to later attempt to save Chris (even though her fate is the same here, regardless of what you do). And even if you should keep Jaime alive through that first confrontation with the spectral Frank Stone, it's not as though his survival impacts following events. He can die again, when fleeing Frank with Bonnie and an injured Linda. Why they have Linda, who has a gaping hole in her shoulder, attempt to pull Jaime up the platform alone while HIS OLDER SISTER just WATCHES is beyond me. But writing his death, whether it be here, or earlier, to have no impact on Bonnie's fate, or any future events, is plain bad writing.

You cannot save Bonnie, no matter what you do. And this scene makes no sense. When Frank grabs Bonnie, Linda points the camera at him, which should work. There really isn't any reasonable explanation as to why this should not work, or should not even momentarily distract him (Which could have led to a different ending where Bonnie lives and Linda dies instead?), because in the storm drain, so much as yelling at Frank causes him to abandon whoever he's attacking to seek out the new target. I suppose, at the very least, 1980s Bonnie's death does serve some kind of purpose in the 2024 storyline, because it serves as foreshadowing for Madi's potential fate. But just like Robert, 2024 Bonnie is given a sad offscreen death and we never really learn about how she or Jaime survived that night at the mill.

And I will say, it just feels shitty from a player point of view, to make it so you cannot save certain characters. Like, I'm sorry, is that a canon event? Where is Mr. O'Hara? Because Madi must be a god-damned anomaly, being Bonnie's daughter!! And Chris- god- Chris who mysteriously travels through time...I really do hate this part of the story because understanding its purpose can only happen if you manage to get the secret ending where she goes through the projector screen and DOESN'T burn and die. Which would require you to not have taken the pocket mirror or given the "protective" amulet to her. This unlocks a secret ending where she goes back in time to the moment where she, Jaime, and Linda were inintially shooting in the mill, right before Sam interrupted them. I took this as the writers trying to show us that there would be one timeline in which Frank Stone is never released (not sure how he ever was in the first place, really), likely saving them from the Entity. But other than the player somehow luckily getting this ending, I really don't see the point of Chris' time travel, because she can also be sent immediately back in the horologium, which does nothing meaningful. And why does it have to be Chris? Why not write it so it could be her or Jaime, so that maybe the player's choice to have her and Jaime breakup or not actually has some kind of impact on the gameplay?

One of the worst things about the game though, and I cannot stress this enough, is how badly the references to DBD are integrated. I love a good reference-- it can serve to add a little playful flair to a moment, or even go so far as to have the viewer look at the piece from a different perspective they had not previously considered. Buuuut... this is only if the reference is done well. And, well, what this game does could hardly be described as tolerable, even. In was so heavy-handed, it felt almost as bad as product placement in a Michael Bay movie. Many of these "references" felt out of place to the degree that someone with no knowledge of DBD would be likely able to pick them out, because they heavily disrupt either the game's aesthetic or the gameplay itself! One generator was funny, and honestly expected, but THREE of those damn things? Clunky, corny, and honestly? Lazy.

Unfortunately, I feel those three adjectives describe how I feel about the game overall. I feel bad for the people who put hard work into making it, because there is potential there for something great. But it really felt as though they were pushed to release this game as quickly as possible, so BHVR could sell us a 50 dollar, five-to-six-hour advertisement for their next DLC chapter. Hard to think anything else, really, when completion of the game is followed by a a literal ad for it.

All I can say is-- I really hope we get 2024 Linda as a survivor. It seems more likely that it will be Madi, but it is possible we could have a two-survivor chapter (unless they specifically outlined in the roadmap that there are no upcoming 2-survivor chapters?).

Madi and 2024 Linda would be cool though. We have no older women as survivors, despite having more than one older man. I think it's about damn time. And I love the mother/daughter bond that can sort of develop between Madi and 2024 Linda in the game.

[madamscream]

My typical way of experiencing... well, everything, if we're honest... is to avoid having any expectations. It's something I learned how to do, and I stick to it pretty well. While it was originally mostly a bulwark against a chaotic childhood making my lil autistic ass have to figure out how to do without any sort of routine, the most profound effect it has these days is drastically increasing my enjoyment of media.

The only time I find myself disappointed with something, in that sense, is when they do something that it literally would have been better to have done nothing at all. Solmare has managed to do this a few times.

And YET. Here I am. I think so much about Obey Me that I can't help but speculate, and I've gone and got my hopes up because I've realized that there are some really fucking cool things they could do. I'm feverish, so this might get long... gunna put it under a cut.

So. I started playing the OG Obey Me about a year and a half ago. The fourth season either came out right as I started, or was already out. I never was really effected by the wait time for the next season drop, and the limbo that left fans in, so I get that my perspective is different than most.

But my perspective is this: they had a cool story with some neat concepts, both story-wise meta game stuff, but the game play was so ass it could barely be called game play, the balancing is insane (I've scraped through the main story using countless glow sticks but most of the extra lessons are still beyond me will full teams of lvl 100+ cards), and they'd written themselves into several corners they didn't know how to get out of.

Then they released Nightbringer. It has it's issues, sure, but as a game? I enjoy it about 1000% more than OG. The story is one of being thrown back in time and trying to find your way home, which we managed last chapter. On April 13th, the game will have been out one year. I think that's when they'll drop the next season but...

It would be so wildly cool if they also merged the games. The MC's just returned to the timeline from OG, supposedly, though hadn't Solomon suggested that... y'know, everyone had noticed you disappearing? OG is at it's end of life. It's pretty clear they're going to shut it down at some point. I want, so so so badly, for 4/13 to hit, a massive update to be available, and the entirety of OG's story line to have been ported to NB. I want the accounts to merge together. I want to have all my cards and I want there to be a new Nightmare chapter with all the old cards from OG and I want the plot moving forward to be a mess of scrambled timeline shit, trying to figure out who NB is, and stress. From a game dev perspective, they have the chance to do something so so wildly awesome and I KNOW they won't. I KNOW I'm going to be disappointed. But FUCK it'd be cool...

I have so many ideas on how it could be done... and I'm well aware it'd probably piss a lot of people off still, but people are pissed off anyways. I think it'd make more people happy than it did angry.

And I know some people don't like Ruri-tunes but like... at least it's a game. I'm no huge fan of rhythm games tbh. I honestly hated them before Ruri-tunes, but I disliked the dance battles so much that I've started liking rhythm games more just because it was suck an upgrade imo

Anyways. That's the end of my rant. I want them to do meta shit that ties into their story basically. Thank you for coming to Mal's fever talk.

[findingjoynweirdstuff]

Expanding on the “Schlatt’s book made Dream self-aware” theory

Okay, I know this theory sounds ridiculous...but hear me out.

I haven’t for the life of me been able to come up with any other possibilities for what this mystery’s answer could be, but now I’ve had the idea.

What if Schlatt’s book made Dream self-aware?

---

Let’s go over what we know about Schlatt’s book.

---

With regards to the prison, which Dream mentions the book pertains to:

Dream: “It’s just an option, because if you can’t kill somebody, you might need to lock them up.”

“I have someone in mind, but we might have to wait to do that.”

Bad: “It’s gonna be Tommy.”

Dream: (chuckles) “Tommy’s exiled. I think, for now...Tommy could end up in it, it just depends...if he does more evil, bad stuff, but...”

-

(They discuss the Crimson a little, as it had just been discovered that day)

Dream: “Speaking of creepy things...I actually have not ever to this point brought this up, so this is interesting...Do you remember whenever I switched sides? I was helping Pogtopia and I was trying to...mostly just ‘cause I didn’t like L’manburg, and Manberg, and I didn’t like their government, and I switched sides to Schlatt.”

“But the reason I switched sides was because he gave me something in order to switch sides to him, and I mentioned that...”

Bad: “What’d he give you? I remember that! What’d he give you?”

Dream: “He gave me something...very, very, very good. BUT -- that card is always up my sleeves until...until I need it.”

“I won’t go into specifics, but what he gave me was a book.”

Bad: “What kind of book?”

Dream: “The book.”

Bad: “But what kind of book?”

Dream: “A book with massive value.”

Sam: “A book containing what, exactly?”

Sam: “Maybe information? Oh! He gave him--”

Sam and Dream at the same time: “--information.”

Bad: “Information about what?”

Dream: “Mmmm...I think that it puts me in danger if people know I have this information. I can’t clarify what it is, otherwise -- I don’t think -- you wouldn’t -- it wouldn’t be a danger to you, but to other people, that...”

Bad: “Oh...okay. I’m really curious now.”

Dream: “I...we’ll find out.”

Sam: “Wait, so you’re saying...Schlatt traded you information to join his side, which you accepted, so it must’ve been valuable.”

Dream: (chuckles) “I think it’s the most valuable thing on the server!”

...

Dream: “I think that, in pertaining to the prison, it may be important, but -- so maybe I’ll have to tell you guys once the prison’s construction is done, but...we’ll see.”

“I think you wouldn’t believe me if I told you what he gave me.”

---

Now, let’s go over what Dream had been acting like up until the point that he turned.

- He had fought alongside Tommy and Techno in the Battle of the Lake.

- He was willing to trade a disc to get Spirit’s leather back from Skeppy. He still cared about Spirit.

- He claimed that he’d had a change of heart about L’manburg, that Schlatt was worse than Wilbur because he threatened the peace between their nations that had persisted up until that point.

- He supported Quackity during the Election because he figured that Quackity having a cabinet member from Dream SMP and a cabinet member from L’manburg would be an excellent way to maintain a truce between the factions. He did not vote for Schlatt. He said he “endorsed justice.” 

He had some sort of humanity to him, some sort of moral compass.

- And, very importantly...

He'd been repeatedly outsmarted by Tommy.

In the Disc War, in the Railway Skirmish, the Spirit Scam? Tommy kept slipping away with leverage against him. 

---

So how do these points add up to self-awareness?

Well, let’s go through ‘em!

- Schlatt. That guy in particular.

The only guy to have permanently died twice. Tommy referred to Schlatt’s ban as the first “death” of the server while he was in exile, and it makes sense that Schlatt’s ban would be seen as a canon death - it influenced Tommy’s character arc and was treated like a death in the story.

And when Schlatt came back...well, he was a little bit different, wasn’t he? Somehow, he was always several steps ahead despite being an “idiot.” Time and time again, he kept pulling out the tricks he had up his sleeve. Time and time again, he was more aware than he let on.

Pogtopia never outsmarted him. Ever.

He knew something no one else did.

And now that Dream knows what he knows, notice how he hasn’t been outsmarted by Tommy ever since? Tommy’s tried, but it didn’t work. Now, Dream always seems to be several steps ahead. Always pulling the strings. Always saying the right things.

- It puts Dream in danger if people know, yet doesn’t apply as much to Sam and Bad.

Having self-awareness makes you incredibly powerful. Of course Dream wouldn’t want that information falling into the wrong hands.

But why not Sam and Bad?

Well, what do those two have in common?

Not only are they neutral parties, but they’re both two of the original eight members of the server. They both keep memory of a time before Tommy. Before plot. They’d be shocked to know, sure, but they likely wouldn’t turn on Dream for it. They’ve been here before the Story.

- It’s information. And it’s the most valuable thing on the server.

Think about that for a second. Dream said that the only thing he cares about now are the discs, because they give him power over Tommy.

But this piece of information is somehow more important than those discs. It supersedes them. The discs are the entire plot! And yet this is more important.

Perhaps even the script itself?

- With regards to the prison and its prisoner, Dream kept talking about the future. Someone who’s a threat now or in the future. Sure, Dream’s smart and can plan well, but this is a long, long game plan to have over the course of several weeks. 

And what is Pandora’s Vault if not one giant plot point to avoid killing off characters? The prison is meant for a person who Dream can’t kill.

Dream can’t kill off Tommy, because that would end the story.

- It’s so shocking that the other characters wouldn’t believe it if Dream told them. I’d say gaining self-awareness is pretty surprising, right?

---

So, Dream’s lost all care for anything on the server except for the discs. He no longer cares about Spirit, or even his friends, just the discs, because Tommy cares about the discs.

The discs are what keeps Tommy fighting. Now that L’manburg’s gone, it’s the only thing that’s keeping Tommy fighting. He’s willing to die trying to take them back.

I’ve mentioned in previous posts how Dream’s character motivations seem eerily similar to the writers’ motivations in the meta -- to keep the story going, to keep everything entertaining and fun, to make the SMP thrive.

That’s the only thing that seems to keep him going right now. He doesn’t care about anything else. The discs are important because they keep the story going. As long as Tommy keeps fighting for the discs, Dream’s story will never end either.

Tommy wants the endgame, but Dream would never let him get there. Not on his watch.

Because Tommy’s right: Dream is scared of him. Tommy’s the only one who can end the story.

Dream wants the story to keep going. He wants it to keep beginning again and again, and never end.

---

He said this when Wilbur blew up L’manburg, starting the story anew:

“This is the start, Tommy. It may feel like the end, but this is literally just the beginning.”

And now:

“In all destruction, there is a new beginning.”

“Beautiful, you know? The unfinished symphony, right?”

“Tommy? I’m not done with you. Y’know, our story’s not over -- L’manburg’s story is over -- our story’s not over.”

“I don’t think our story will ever be over, Tommy.”

“I think that...you’re just too fun."

And of course...

“...It’s just a game.”

[noctilucentstorm]

Ghost Game Review: Episode 15

The Fortuneteller’s Manor

Ruli’s friend Mika asks her to find Mephisto, a fortuneteller rumoured to grant wishes. Meanwhile, during her day job, Jellymon finds a human statue.

This show currently feels like its on a roll for me, but then again I’m always a sucker for the heroes coming together as a team. It’s the first episode the three main digimon are equally working together and it feels well-earned at this stage.

Can I also say how much I love these little details like Ruli’s ringtone giving her away? Nice horror movie vibes!

Worldbuilding/Plot

I’ve really enjoyed how well the universe is keeping straight the power level rules, meaning Phelesmon will likely return. Given his methods of materialising his Boogiemon henchmen, I wonder if Dracmon will end up joining his ranks.

This episode throws up what at first seems like a contradiction, but I wonder if it’s actually relevant based on previous episodes. We already have seen digimon manipulating information on the Internet (eg Zassoumon), so I wonder if it was Phelesmon himself spreading the rumours of a fortuneteller who grants wishes? Keeping numbers low so no everyone gets to have their “fortune read” would only serve to build up the mysteriousness and hype. He just has to make sure those left aren’t going to ask where the previous patrons have gone, and if they do… well, he can always use more fear.

Characters

Phelesmon is not the first digimon scheming against humans, but he’s certainly one of the strongest the our heroes have come up against so far. Plus, he has long-term goals. It might feel strange at first that he retreated when he was clearly stronger, but given he managed his goal of materialising several of his henchmen, I don’t think he wanted to go through all that effort and then potentially lose them.

The humans he turned to stone were similarly of little value other than as trophies, so it makes sense for him to turn them back to normal to get any interest away from him. After all, he doesn’t know the kids have a thing against killing.

Now that we’ve dealt with the villain of the episode, let’s get to Ruli and Angoramon. Although I wasn’t really expecting anything special for Angoramon’s evolution, I was a bit surprised at first that he seemed to only evolve because Ruli showed up for him rather than needing to protect her or some other grand gesture. However, I think that’s also what makes Ruli and Angoramon’s relationship a bit subtler than the others. It’s perhaps easy to forget that Ruli and Angoramon were forced into their partnership due to the circumstances, so both have needed to learn to trust the other before their partnership could flourish.

Ruli is very much a person who follows her heart. She has a large group of friends even though she is most loyal to Aoi and Mika, and I think it says something that she gets along better with Jellymon than she does Angoramon. While she is still more interested in the paranormal than digimon, episode 13 seemed to be a turning point for her. She is no longer openly disappointed when the culprit turns out to be a digimon and she was genuinely interested in getting a new DIM card for Angoramon. Given she has her own social media site and is a 13 year old girl, it’s not that surprising that she cares about appearances. Halloween was ok for Angoramon to be wandering around as a hologram, but to introduce him as one of the hologram ghosts to her friends probably feels like a massive challenge to Ruli.

Of course, as the audience we can see that her friends are probably not the type to judge, especially someone deemed a friend by Ruli, but as someone who still remembers that anxiety of wanting to fit in, I can’t help but sympathise. That’s why it’s an important moment when Ruli uses her V-Bracelet. It’s the right thing to do, and that is what earns Angoramon’s respect and affection.

This episode was less about Angoramon’s feelings because he learned to put his trust in Ruli back in episode 11. I can only speculate, but in this episode it felt like he really respected the way she was helping Mika find Mephesto, similar to how he has helped digimon in the past. It’s fitting he evolves not just to protect Ruli, but more importantly her closest friends, who she cares the most about.

[popculturebuffet]

Of Moons, Millionares and Mothers (Ducktales Season 2 Arcs)  Part 12: Happy Birthday Doofus Drake! (Commissioned by Weirdkev27)

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to MMM, my look at the ducktales season 2 story arc! And after a long absence, even longer because I had to move “The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck” up a few slots for scheduling reasons, the Louie Inc arc is back... for the rest of the arc minus the finale! 

Yeah as i’ve mentioned before for this last stretch the various plot lines sorta glom onto one another. Though ironically enough despite this Glomgold being in this one his appearance has nothing directly to do with his bet with scrooge.  I mean he probably DID think he could win the bet if he was the last one standing, but his plan probably began and ended at “Make Dummy of myself, con teenager, ????? HAHAHAHAHA I BEAT YOU THIS TIME SCROOGIE”. and it wasn’t necessary to mention said bet when it’d come to an end in a few episodes anyway. We’ll discuss how underserved his arc is then. 

Whlie that plot dosen’t get any real mention, the other two are key to this one: Louie’s call to Goldie is finally paid off and Della gets to bond with another one of her sons, this time my boy Huebert. Aka what this dude was like as a child. 

Search your feelings you know it to be true. So how horribly with Louie’s desire to learn from Goldie backfire? How much will Doofus creep me right the fuck out? How adorably wholesomely nerdy will my boy be? These questions will be answered, along with a full review under the cut!

In short: about as much as you’d expect, way more than you’d expect despite being ready for it this time, and very much he’s a good good boy. 

But for the longer answer, we start at the manor where Scrooge senses a disturbance in the force... and the Darth Vader reference will only be all too relevant later today. For now he decides to see what’s making his Spider-Sense act up. And so we get two short glimpses of what I WISH were episodes: Team Magic fighting either a direbear or a werewolf, or possibly a bearwolf, and Dewey and Beakley dealing with a literal tempest in a teapot. 

What he sees next IS actually in the episode as Huey and Della psyche themself up to play Epic Legends of Legendquest, an everquest style mmo, saying a geektsatic chant together. It’s adorable as all hell. We’ll get back to them in a moment as they disturb scrooge but it’s not what he’s looking for.. no what he’s looking for is Goldie who as you’d expect is sitting in his chair throwing some coins in the air like she’s two face, and we get a great lead in to our opening as when Scrooge asks how she got in Louie simply says “She’s with me”. Cue the theme song:

Okay so now we have the intro down as usual let’s split up gang and look at both plots. First the really easy to cover one

THE REALLY EASY TO COVER ONE:

The reason is not that it’s bad, in fact as the last part of this retrospective showed a bad or incredibly flawed in that case plot is even harder to cover because I have more to pick apart and more to make fun of. 

No this one’s easy simply because the plot is incredibly simple. And that’s not a BAD thing. Sometimes all you need for a plot is “A chubby man is putting animals in robots go put a stop to it” or “stab this tower to death with a trading card game. “ You can put complexity in that and still have the journey be pretty easy to follow. 

In this case as said, Della and Huey are gaming together, bonding over having the same intrest as mother and son. And some of you may nitpick and say “well how is this mmo still up after eleven years? Surely it would’ve closed out by now.” And to that I point you to my friend Glen, who STILL plays the classic versoin of Runescape on a daily basis. Or to the fact Everquest is STILL online, I checked.. I might actually start an account. Not the point. Or the fact that while World of Warcraft changed massively, the original version was just relaunched last year. So an old game that requires little server matinece and still makes gobs of money STILL being online and still having Della’s account available is surprisingly the LEAST farfetched thing this series has done. 

It’s also the second of three plots focusing on Della and one of her boys, each one following the order they accepted her in. Said order is pure logic: Dewey accepted her instantly becaues he was the most obessed with her absence and as shown by the christmas episode was the one most bothered by her still being gone by then. So of course he’d be the first to get an episode, and of course Louie would be last because he’s the most difficult and has his own plot this season this ends up tying into. 

Thus Huey ends up snugly in the middle of the two extremes: Like Dewey he accepts his mom and wants her in his life and like Louie he still struggles with her. But his struggle is less dramatic: Louie struggles because his shifty nature clashes with Della trying to be responsible with her newly reunited kids, as we’ll see next week. Huey.. is just very diffrent from his mom. Sure both are woodchucks, both like prepearation and both are nerds... but Della is more the cool nerd who does a dooby behind the school and rides a motorcycle while Huey is happy riding a total dad van, logging time on his switch and getting as in everything. Both like d n d but one plays a fighter and the other a mage. It’s a struggle I have in a diffrent way with my mom: it’s always hard when you zig in places your parents zag even when it’s something you both love. 

And this plot hinges on it as Della quickly finds out that her son is grass nerd and is forging and shiz, planting crops behind a dome and refusing to level up, instead just gathering experince. The first part I get.. but in general experince the higher level you are in a game the more shit you can do, so I’d at lest got ot the check point, become an outer god and then grow tulips. 

Della naturally is bored silly.. but in a nice twist dosen’t STOP playing the game or trying to play with her son and gardens with him. She wants to play with him and try his way even if it bores her because a good mom sometimes just tries. But Huey is likewise a good son in return and when Launchapd shows up on a dragon, because of course he plays this and of course he has a dragon, and clearly has more exciting stuff going on, Huey tells her she can go with him and dosen’t begrudge her wnating to do thigns HER way. He gets that while they ARE playing together.. questing is just what she plays this for the same way painstakingly farming is the way he plays this. Neither way is bad and Della simply wants Huey to TRY new things, but isn’t going to force it on him.

In the end i’ts HUEY’S decision to step outside the bubble and go to the checkpoint.. which being a part of the duck family naturally goes comically wrong as a monster immeditly destroys all his hard work and sends the poor boy into a panic spiral. 

But we do get a really sweet moment as what snaps Huey out of his panic attack? Seeing his mom about to be crushed by the monsters tentacles.

So to save her he hits the save point and his level goes OVER 90000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000...

Sorry got a cramp there. 

00000000000000000000000000000000000000!

Complete with him looking like he just turned into broly and did the kaoiken at the same time and kills the thing.. a bit too much as della has to drag him away from the keyboard to calm hhim down before he kills everyone. 

FAMILY BONDING!

Why Did Louie Apologize To This Sociopath Again?:

Moving back to our A-Plot, Louie admits to Scrooge’s face he’s going with Goldie because Scrooge’s whole thing about having “ethics” and “working hard” isn’t doing it for him. Scrooge warns him to be careful and Louie says he’s got this handelded and... one jumpcut later he’s locked in a treasure chest in his room while Goldie loots all his things because she has no qualms stealing from a childrens. 

She is impressed with Louie’s attempted crocodile tears.. and does end up finding a use for him when she passes across an invitation to doofus eleventeenth birthday ceremony. Louie’s reaction is understandable...

As you all know in the original series Doofus.. was pretty obnoxious, meant to be an adorably dorky friend to the boys.. who instead was a mixture of fat shaming jokes and stupidity.  But while the crew updated other weak characters like Beakly, Bubba and Djon to be actually good, likeable, intresting folks, with Doofus... they just didn’t like Doofus NEARLY enough for that and decided to make him into the billionare version of Anthony Fremont, aka that kid from the twilight zone who liked to send people to “the cornfiled” and used his massive and horrifying godlike powers to make everyone else do whatever he wanted. And if you haven’t seen that twilight zone episode, do it’s REALLY good horror and i’ts sequel from the UPN version, following a grown up Anthony and his daughter, played by Anthony’s actor’s Bill Mumy’s real daughter Liliania Mummy aka Panini and Leni Lou, is also REALLY good and worth a watch.

So yeah Doofus is instead an abusive billionare whose mentally abused his parents into being his butler and maid and cultishly worships his departed “Gameemama” whose death gave him the money to abuse his parents in the first place. He also tried to enslave Louie and left a lot of mental scars so shockingly the boy DOSEN’T want to go back there and just as unsuprisingly, Goldie dosen’t get how immensley dangerous and fucked up this kid is. But Louie needs a mentor in cons so he has little choice. 

Doofus’ birthday.. is as horrifingly and hilariously fucked up as you’d expect, with mouse traps as horderves and a cake that on the outside says “Not Full of Hair”. Guess what it’s full offf?

It is hair... though that is a close guest Dormammu WAS in next years cake. 

So our heroes plan is to pose as aunt and nephew, and infilatrate the party, and while Louie understandably given who we’re dealing with just wants to grab a goodie bag , containing gold, herilooms and headless mickey mouse dolls, and run but Goldie points out that’s not the con. That’s just being a bad party guest. She wants to heist all of them by being the last one standing, as it turns out naturally the party for a greedy, abusive, sociopath who needs either therapy or  Dr. Loomis to put a stake through his heart like he tried to do with Micheal Meyers before having to pass it off as a joke, is only stocked with rich assholes pretending to have children so they can get more rich. And the bagle boys who aren’t rich but do like free money. 

Doofus then makes his entrance, seemingly going to show up in a clam like the painting of venus, but thankfully we’re spared a naked 10 year old boy. No instead he pops up behind Louie like he’s micheal fucking meyers in case you thought I was kidding with that halloween refrence. 

Doofus also proves that in addition to being the kind of villian Jordan Peele wished he’d thought of first and had to go with “weird cloud kite thing” as plan b for his next movie, he’s not SO out of touch with reality that he dosen’t see the beagle boys aren’t childrens or that Percivil B Peppington, that willy wonka looking guy, brought Johnny from ottoman empire. Look i’ve seen older people still play teenagers. He drops them all into his honey bin.. which naturally contains bees. 

So yeah the stakes are high if they get caught but now it’s been widdled down to three pairs: Our anti-heroes, Glomgold who has brought his son Sharkbomb along who given glomgold can’t conceive after a shark blew up his privates, is naturally a puppet he carries around and Mark Beaks with everyone’s faviorite goodest boy, BOYD!

Yeah I love BOYD and we’ll get more into him later. We’ll also get into Sharkbomb whose just.. objectively one of the most insane and hilaroius things they ever did with glomgold. Just everything about him: the fact that everything Glomgold learned about children clearly begins and ends with 90′s sitcoms, the fact he’s named after the two things he loves more, their photos with each other clearly shot at an old sears studio glomgold keeps in his basement, and the fact that even when glomgold MAKES AN IMAGINARY SON FOR HIMSELF, said son can’t stand him in any way shape or form becaue he clearly can’t picture anyone loving him deep down but can’t realize this and wow this got deep. 

But their heartwearming family photos bring up an issue: Goldie has none and Beaks is willing to press that weak point. Louie quickly covers with a photo booth impressing goldie. 

Fear has now given way to overconfidence, Louie’s other natural state, so now the boy is ready to scam and with Goldie now treating him as an equal, she asks him to pick the target.. which is naturally Glomgold since in any situatoni he’s the weakest link. Even when looking in the mirror as he usually just punches it after getting pissed off at his own reflection then yells curse you mirrorrrrrrrr. 

So naturally he goes down easy. It’s pool time and after talking to shark bomb alone for a second and telling “him” that goldie has a crush on glomgold, all she has to do is make some eyes and Glomgold naturally thinks the woman who dispises him for good reason is suddenly into him because of course he does. And.. louie has to do nothing else. My boy ends up fighting with his own fictoinal child because natural order of things and ends up taking his head off because this is why Glomgold dosen’t have children. That and no one wants to. He goes into the bin leaving our heroes with just one more obstacle. 

BOYD is a bit trickier because as far as Louie can tell he’s clean: he’s a good kid who just happens to be the son of a skinny weiner. It’s not until he tries to log onto the wifi that he finds a weird one “Beaks Osomething Youth Dorid” and then puts the dots together: there are NO photos of Boyd as a baby or before the last two days, and Beaks would never reisist baby’s first click bait. Granted that’s a bit of a stretch as that would’ve been ten years ago and probably on facebeak instead of Instagull. 

Point is BOYD’s a robot and Louie easily takes him out by asking what he did two days ago... and is then horrified by the results as BOYD has a mental breakdown from the reilziation he’s not a real boy and goes beserk before ending up in the pool. While Louie DID want to get rid of the kid he didn’t want to BREAK him, literally and figuratively: he just wanted to prove he was a robot. Louie clearly didn’t realize that BOYD didn’t know that, and that said revelation would drive the poor child to a mental and physical breakdown. Mark’s reaction is as you’d expect “I’m going to need a really big bag of rice”. 

Hilariously given what’s about to happen and how Doofus is going to treat BOYD from here on out, Doofus is pissed off and wants to know who did this and Goldie, naturally throws a child under a bus. Metaphorcially.... she’s only done it for realises twice. 

However while Goldie is more than willing to do a treason to get by, she’s not prepared for just how horrific doofus REALLY is. She was expecting one of those greedy kids from Willy Wonka who die horribly in candy related nightmares.  Not one of the villians of Get Out: The Preschool Years. Coming this fall to Crackle!

So when Doofus has BOYD attack Louie and then string him up as the most dangerous pinata of all man, Goldie shows she DOES care deep down and shields the boy.. which convinces Doofus she passes the test and he makes the woman into his new Gameemama and Ejects Louie. Louie is content to leave with the loot... but realizes he cares too much. Sure she betrayed him and sure she’s a theif.. but she still tried to sav ehim when the chips are down and even if she hadn’t... no one, NO ONE deserves to be trapped with Doofus. 

So we cut to Doofus having Goldie in a transparent box and arm chair because of course, when Louie uses BOYD to burst in and cut her loose. However he also realizes that as effed up as Doofus is, he gets that at his core.. the kid is lonely> It dosen’t excuse his actions.. but not having ANYONE around but his parents who he abuses horribly, to the point the only children at her body were a super fighting robot and a former victim trying to swindle him. What he needs it he thing that keeps louie himself grounded and what ultimately gave him his own concsience: he needs a brother. So he sets BOYD for child mode and makes the drakes his parents, the three warmly embracin geach other, BOYD, after what we’ll later learn is a decade of hardship, rejection and being treate dand used like a tool, finally gets parents who treat him like what he is: a child. And for the drakes they FINALLY get a child who love them and isn’t an abusive nightmare from the darkest pits of my nightmares. 

Doofus dosen’t take this well... but BOYD unteitonally serves up some Karma as apparently Gameemama’s will was nonspecific enough it means all her descendants get some.. and that means he’s entitled to half the fortune and being a sweetheart, that means he puts it in his parents account. The Drakes are now truly free... and Doofus, after two episodes of getting away with being a creepy absuive monster, finally gets grounded. 

This is a good satisfying ending, showing that while Louie can lack compasion and be selifsh at the end of the day he’s a good kid. He might, much like his uncle, deny he has a heart sometimes... but in truth he can’t help but help people evne if it directly costs him because he was rasied right. Donald taugh thim empathy and Scrooge is trying his best to teach him respect and hard work. And while he likes to pretend those lessons didn’t sink in and he can do whatever he wants deep down.. the kid has limits. 

Before we wrap up I do have to bring up the life and crimes of scrooge mcduck, i.e. the episode tha tFORCES louie to apologize for this.. depsite the fact he did NOTHING wrong when it came to making BOYD doofus’ brother. he did so SOLEY so Doofus could have someone to hopefully teach the kid empathy and keep him company, and to give to badly abused people a child who loved them back. He didn’t likely KNOW BOYD would rightly redistribute the wealth, not that he’s opposed to it nor does Doofus not deserve it and even if he did again.. Doofus deserved it. The kid abused his parents for god knows how long, fincially, mentally and god knows how else. While i’ts mostly played for laughs it dosen’t change the fact of what he did to them or how badly he was. The kid can change, he’s only 12 he’s got time, but it dosen’t mean he dosen’t have to or get sa free pass fo rbeing THIS monsterous. And even then.. all his parents did was GROUND HIM, and as Astro BOYD shows, it only lasted a few months at most. Louie being the bigger man is fine but th eepisode tries to put it on the same level of Scrooge you know, leaving someone’s brother to fly off non sentient and making one of his worst enemeis an even WORSE person simply because he couldn’t be arsed and letting some people remain goats for profit. It’s not the same and watching this episode again shows how BADLY they misread the room. 

Anyway naturally Goldie bolted with the money and Louie mopes home.. not over the money but over thinking she cared, with Scrooge, naturally consoling him. The old man admits it dosen’t get easier.. but does , without overly pushing it, show that Louie did learn something: He can’t be like goldie. When your like her you have to shove everyone else aside to keep getting ahead, to keep finding an angle and to be ready to betray even the people you love most. Louie simply isn’t that bad and that’s good... and as Scrooge put sit maybe he had more of an impact than he thought... and is proven right as Goldie puts one of the photo booth pics in her wallet. 

Final Thoughts: This episode is excellent and a highlight of the season. Allison Janey as always is fantastic, both plots are engaging and the main plot has some of the best jokes in the series from Glomgold’s dead gay puppet son, to Mark’s need for a bag of rice to Doofus over the top insane creepy shenanigans, i’ts just funny and the second plot is light and sweet and a nice compliment, breaking up  American Psycho Juinor to give us some fun bonding> It’s an excellent episode. 

Next Time: Louie nearly destroys all of space and time and Huey slowly goes insane as a caveman proves his reasearch wrong. All this and a studied the blade joke too!

If you enjoyed this review and want to see more of my work consider joinnig my patroen. And I know with Tumblr+ in the air and all that your probably skeptical of “join my thing to get exclusive reviews” but in addition to that, as part of my special membership drive, your joining gets you ONE FREE REVIEW, public and on tumblr for all to see. THat’s right from now on anyone who signs up for my patreon gets a free review of thier choice of any episode of any show. Want to mak eme watch charles in charge for some reason? Well you can for only a buck, and get me to review amphibia, the great north and tuca and bertie for my stretch goals in the process. So sign up today if you’d please and if you can’t that’s fine too just reblog this review, like it and let me know your thoughts bellow. 

[mozillavulpix]

super anti-komahina salt

and this is to go further beyond

I saw a komahina fan post a write-up and it just irritates me so I want to break it down:

“If you think Komaeda is batshit insane or that his character is only about his obsession with hope and you interpreted Hinata's feelings about Komaeda as just hate of course it wouldn't make sense. Except neither of these are true for their characters.”

This is the basic surface-level narrative Komahina fans argue against, and fair enough, it’s a massive generalisation. But this argument also just irritates me because it implies everyone who doesn’t ship them do so because they don’t understand the characters well enough.

“long story short Komaeda's obsesses over hope as a coping mechanism, because it's the only thing he can cling to.”

I can agree with this in a way, but in my opinion I don’t think he’s so weak that it’s impossible for him break free from that mindset (during the game) if he really wants to.

“Komaeda doesn't like Hinata because he thinks he is talented and above him, Komaeda says he loves all ultimates but it's not real love. His love for Hinata is different. In the SDR2 drama CD he mentions that he loves Hinata because he tries to understand him.”

I can agree with this. Although the Drama CD is literally just the Free Time Events, I don’t think it’s some kind of ‘gotcha’ like people think it’d be.

But also keep in mind, yes, Hajime tries to give Nagito a chance and doesn’t immediately run away screaming because scary person he can’t understand, but Hajime also doesn’t particularly act more saintly than all the other kids towards Nagito after Chapter 1. Nekomaru and Kazuichi seem to at least try to hear Nagito out before they punch him in the face. Mahiru seems like she was the first one to consider giving him breakfast. Hajime tries to stop Akane from attacking him after the Chapter 1 trial, but mostly because he’s resigned to the fact it won’t change what he did, and he then changes his mind and gets pissed off when Nagito decides to taunt him about his amnesia in response. And it’s Sonia who finally settles everyone down. So yes, Hajime tries to understand Nagito, but in the actual plot itself that’s not a special trait unique to him.

It’s only ‘unique’ if you choose to do the Free Time Events, and the Free Time Events...are basically not canon. They’re more like a what-if scenario the player chooses to view, and the dialogue was written from that perspective.

As in, maybe it’s canon that they’d interact like that if they spent time together on the island, but it’s not canon that Hajime does and wants to do that during the story. Because you can do them for everyone.

“And they reach a mutual understanding in DR3 because the two of them are more alike than Hinata would like to admit.”

Um...

Well, this is why DR2.5 is bullshit

I agree they’re similar, but I think both of them knew this from the very beginning. It’s not exactly a reason for reconciliation and forgiveness. The fact they have similarities is the exact reason why Hajime is so upset at his betrayal, and snaps back at Nagito every time he brings that up. So I don’t know if that’s really a good reason to explain why they’ve forgiven each other come DR3.

“Komaeda doesn't see himself as above untalented reserves either, because in 2-4, after realizing the truth about Hinata he says that they are the same, stepladders for hope. He was lashing out at all the students for being despair. They are similar, because they both share the same views that talent is everything.”

And then Hajime gets his character development for the rest of the game all so he can realise talent isn’t everything. So...?

“Now from Hinata's end, a lot of people seem to miss this about him, but he is someone who denies his feelings when they get inconvenient, he is called a tsundere by monokuma” 

I guess this is a diss against the surface-level people and people who are like “but the text literally says this”. But even then, the game literally shows Hajime’s inner thoughts. If he’s conflicted about things, the text generally shows that too, even if it’s with a careful inclusion of a ‘...’

So I don’t think we should take that trait as an excuse to literally ignore what the text says.

He was felt pumped when Komaeda was out of critical condition, but he thinks "why do I have to feel pumped, oh well best not to think about it"....because Hinata likes to avoid facing things that inconvenient him. Hinata finds it hard to trust Komaeda and doesn't play along with him, because he is afraid of getting caught in his pace, and not because he hates him and thinks he is better off dead.

This part literally read like a high-schooler’s english essay, and maybe this kid actually is a high-schooler, tbh. Because that is one big leap from “Hajime finds it difficult to deal with his feelings” to “since Hajime finds it difficult to deal with Nagito, it means he doesn’t hate him”.

“I don't think Komaeda is a fundametally bad person but is shaped to be what he is because of his luck cycle. In his last FTE, Hinata asks what Komaeda would do if didn't have his luck cycle, and his answer was something along the lines of " a normal life, devoid of hope and despair". And we get to that his innermost desires is to live a normal life in the OVA, and his character song zansakura zanka.”

He can also just decide to not believe in his luck cycle.

Also, in the OVA, he’s embarrassed by that inner desire and tells World Destroyer he hopes no one saw that maybe he wishes for a world without talent.

Like his desire to be a good person is so hidden that he doesn’t want people to know.

“Hinata even mentions Komaeda isn't trying to trick anyone for selfish reasons in his report card, so it's a shame to see so many people attribute all of Komaeda's actions to malice just because of what Hinata thought of him in chapter 5 because it wasn't clear what Komaeda's reasons were at that point.”

Okay, a few things to unpack here:

Just because Nagito is doing things ‘for the greater good’, doesn’t mean it’s not also selfish. Hajime isn’t going to say that because Hajime doesn’t realise that. You can’t exactly trust him with being able to articulate everything about a character’s worldview. Izuru would. He probably does in Chapter 0. (And that’s why he seems disgusted by him).

Also, there’s “maybe Hajime is a slightly unreliable narrator because he tries to avoid thinking about difficult things”, and there’s “actually, the majority of how Hajime views Chapter 5 is unreliable because he didn’t know for sure if Nagito’s plan was malicious or not, it was just his gut feeling”.

What about the video message after Chapter 5? What about having to spell out ‘KILL US ALL’? What about Chapter 0 showing how in the real world Nagito had completely lost it? It’s not like the game was trying to present Nagito as any little bit more sympathetic after the trial. If anything, every piece of new info reinforced that mindset Nagito was filled with malice, up to the ‘fake Makoto’ saying that he somewhat understood him. The fake Hope made by Junko to trick them.

If you compare Chapter 5 in 2 to Chapter 5 in V3, you can see how the positioning is different. V3 does the “the villain tries to make himself look the worst he can in the mind of the heroes when in reality his real intentions were different” a lot better. More flat-out intentionally - the protagonist kind of literally giving a monologue about how the character was morally grey and even at the end there they couldn’t say they knew their true intentions. But also it’s just not as...sinister as 2-5. No ominous chanting, no dismembered limbs, none of the characters feeling completely out of their element and terrified. I think it’s text that Nagito is supposed to be villainous in Chapter 5 and even past Chapter 5.

So...

I can at least understand where Komahina comes from, but god it annoys me

Unpacking it like this, I can see it’s not even fair to argue back a lot of it - the stuff people are saying do make sense and are arguing against kinds of people I have seen.

Besides, I’m not arguing Komahina ‘can’t be canon’.

My view is just I think Hajime deserves better than a character like Nagito, who never repented for his actions on-screen or even gave much of a hint that he wanted to repent for his actions.

And that it’s still easy to argue that Nagito is a bad person even with his trauma.

Not everyone who calls Nagito an awful person is an idiot who doesn’t know how to read text past the surface, you can still make a nuanced take with that conclusion

for god’s sake

[crazynekochan]

Dangan Persona Palace #8 (holy shit, this's a long one)

[Haven't written for this AU in ages but college sucks. Thank god for summer] Ruled by Hajime Hinata/Izuru Kamukura (it’s a weird mix). Captives are Chiaki Nanami and Nagito Komaeda (will be trapped forever if not rescued in time). This one is rather odd since, in the original timeline, Hajime and Izuru share the same body while in this timeline, as facilitated by the big bad, Izuru is his own person. Hajime's shadow is rather basic, he's the king of the castle, self-aggrandizing, and yet clearly insecure about himself. But Izuru's shadow is where things start going sideways then take a sharp corkscrew on different axes because he's the head patient of the facility, bound up in a straitjacket over a hospital gown, representing how Izuru (either version), just feels like some sick experiment. But there’s something off: Izuru in this version as his own person is just bad with emotions, but the shadow represents both universes’ versions of Izuru, so the shadow Izuru switches between being very emotional yet showing it poorly and having no emotions at all. In addition, the shadows also fuse into a combined form on occasion, looking like a filthy mental patient with a crown on their head that shocks them on occasion (like electroshock therapy that Hajime was subjected to as part of the IK project). In his boss form, the shadows split into 2 enemies: the Beggar King with 10K Faces (shadow Hajime, representing him as the Wild Card with a ton of Personas) and the Faceless 100-armed Mad God (shadow Izuru, representing how even with his many talents, he feels emotionless and empty). The actual palace itself is a strange mix of a standard fancy castle and an abandoned hospital where horrific experiments were performed on the patients. Many of the rooms and puzzles rely on the mixing of the 2. The enemy shadows mostly are various gods and deities, generally high-ranking ones, or absolute horror shows. What is very significant are the 2 mini-boss fights of this palace: a Shadow Nagito and Shadow Chiaki, set near the end of the hospital side and castle side respectively. This is technically related to plot developments a bit later on in the story but for the moment let's just call it "magic fuckery" and move on. Basically, Shadow Nagito is considered the model patient of the asylum while Shadow Chiaki is the "King's" closest advisor. The fight against Shadow Nagito is honestly really sad because it's very clear that he doesn't really understand what's going on or why he's hurting people, with this overwhelming sense of dread and misery coming from the Shadow. The fight itself is just as bad as you'd expect fighting a version of Nagito with his insane luck. His boss form is a torn to all hell voodoo doll of himself with a massive pin straight through his head among others. He uses Curse and Bless skills and almost every turn, he either misses or gets crits, with actually hitting him being a similar pain in the ass for anyone without a high luck stat or right after he got a critical hit on someone. Fortunately, his terrible health means that the Shadow has similar bad health and frankly, his defense is absolutely godawful, so if you can actually hit him, it would be a short fight. He's beaten down and honestly so fucking sad that they just have to take him to his room to rest and just take the key off of him to the final area. Now the fight against Shadow Chiaki, that's the real son of a bitch right there. The shadow is sincerely, incredibly bored by pretty much anything that comes to her path and she just wants shit to be over with already, sheesh, completely against how much real Chiaki cares. Because she's partially based on the original human Chiaki and there's some of the AI Chiaki from DR2, so when her actual fight comes, the Shadow's form (a spin on Sleeping Beauty where she's more of a very bored hikikomori, still in PJs and not even bothering to try sitting up) is glitching like a video game. That's not the worst part of it, though. The worst part comes when Akane, as one of the ones with the best speed, makes her first

attack and turns out, the glitching makes Akane glitch out as well, which is pretty much a special status where you act as erratically as possible and pretty much scrambles the metaphorical controls to hell and back. Akane tried to grab an item to cure the status and threw Kazuichi at the Shadow too, making him a liability too. So now part of the party is "glitched" and since they don't know how to fix them without possibly hurting them or risking getting infected in case it's a contagious effect, it's pretty much persona skills and items only until the fight ends. A detail made significantly harder by the fact that Shadow Chiaki, like regular Chiaki, knows everything about video games and basically it's a ton of meta bullshit that makes it one of the most annoying fights in the history of Persona or even the MegaTen franchise. By some great fortune, she's got bad defense and speed stats so if you can outspeed her, you can kill her fast. After the battle, shadow Chiaki retreats right away, conveniently leaving the key to the final boss room. In the final room, the 2 shadows are bickering while Nagito and Chiaki are in 2 cells behind them, respectively furnished like a very fancy hospital room and an awesome gamer pad. Which would be very nice if they weren't being held captive by the manifestations of their best friends' (lover in Nagito's case about Hajime) worst repressed parts of themselves in a parallel world. They confront the Shadows, both of them highly unamused with their "real" counterparts and especially taking time to just eviscerate pretty much every failing the Hinata-Kamukuras ever had, in this timeline and the original. Then, with that all resolved, they morph into the boss forms and thus start one of the hardest battles the party had ever faced because my god, these fuckers will just not go down! But that's not the end of everything, sadly, because there's a 2nd fight after this that I will elaborate on in the next part because this is getting way too long

---

Mod: The fighting against all the shadows must be pure hell. Because Nagito's BS luck is straight up unfair in every way there is. Chiaki's glitch status effect is disturbingly scary. And fighting against Hajime and especially Izuru is basically god tier level of difficult, since in the original (canon game) timeline he is basically superhuman and unbeatable. Also the designs you came up with rock! I can't even say with one I like the most, since all sound so awesome and fitting to them all. Well done

Going through the palace must be so confusing for the party. Because they can understand Hajime's part. He has one hell of an ego and thinks he's better than everyone else despite him really not being any better than anyone and being rather average. However Izuru makes no sense to them until they at some point find out the truth of the new time line, since Izuru isn't an experiment here after all unlike before

[meta-squash]

Brick Club 1.3.1 “The Year 1817″

This chapter is just a massive list of a ton of stuff that was happening around 1817. This time, I finally did what I’ve been meaning to do the last 2 times I read the brick. I finally looked up and wrote down a little bit of info for pretty much every reference in this chapter.

What I got out of that is that it’s a lot of Hugo talking about all these people who supported Napoleon when he was emperor, who then suddenly turned around and supported the Bourbons once Napoleon fell. It’s actually really interesting looking in to all these people and seeing just how many of them supported Napoleon until his exile to St Helena and then immediately turned around and supported the Bourbons without seeming to feel much conflict. Hugo’s also just generally mentioning a lot of popular writers/performers/artists/politicians/etc of the time.

Hugo is definitely establishing the political and cultural tone of the time here, but it’s hard to get an adequate sense of that as someone who is 200 years out from that point and only really recognizes the Medusa wreck, Moliere, and Jacques-Louis David in terms of familiar references.

I am having fun doing this little bit of research, and it’s making me wish I knew how to get a good starting point for properly learning about French history. Mathurin Bruneau’s whole life sounds like an absolute trip and I want to know more.

There were a number of references I couldn’t find any info on. I assumed Ordy was the Polish city, but I’m not sure. I can’t find any info on Voltaire-Tourquet, and I don’t even know if that’s a person or a place. Also I could find almost nothing on Pleignier etc, and nothing on the des patriotes conspiracy, only that it was a thing that apparently happened, whatever it was (contextually I assume it was a plot against the monarchy but I couldn’t find any details). Nain Jaune into Miroir--I assume those are both newspapers? But all I could find was info on either a card game or a fairy tale story. There’s a whole chunk of names and references that I couldn’t seem to find anything on (Hugo doesn’t help much when he doesn’t supply first names): Piet, Bacol, O’Mahony, Chappedelaine, l’Epingle Noire, Delaverderie, Trogoff, etc.

I think Lafon is Jean Lafon, the priest who undermined Napoleon via propaganda/rumors/etc? I may be wrong. I also definitely don’t understand the “King of Rome” reference at all. I assume this is commentary on monarchy vs republic?

Hugo also specifically mentions a few socialist philosophers/thinkers. He tosses praise for a few of them in among the criticisms and just plain old facts.

I did enjoy Hugo’s particular little bit of sass about Angoulême being given the status of a seaport town, considering it’s 100+ km from the water.

We also have another Hugolian pun here. Forgive any translation mistakes, google translate is not always my friend (and I really need to find a good way to learn French that isn’t duolingo): “Même quand Loyson vole, on sent qu'il a des pattes” is the line. “Loyson” becomes the homophone “l’oison”, which translates (I think) to “Even when the gosling flies; we sense that he has legs.” Or something like that.

Hugo’s description of a steamboat as “a thing that smoked and clacked along on the Seine, making the noise of a swimming dog” is such an evocative image. I’d love to know why he calls the steamboat a “machine of little value” and “a utopia,” especially because just above, he praises Charles Fourier, who was a founder of utopian socialism. I thought for a minute maybe it has to do with his daughter’s death? But she didn’t die on a steamer, I don’t think, so I have no idea.

He does go on to kind of expand on all these people that he’s describing who supported Napoleon and then turned around and supported the Restoration, saying that “Traitors showed themselves openly, stripped even of hypocrisy; men who had gone over to the enemy on the eve of a battle made no secret of their bribes and shamelessly walked abroad in daylight in their cynicism of wealth and honor...” People who had at one point supported the Revolution or Napoleon suddenly and unashamedly ingratiating themselves to the Bourbons and supporting the Restoration. The snark comparing political hypocrites to people ignoring English public toilets with a sign that says “Please adjust your dress before leaving” is too funny.

I love Hugo’s weird propensity for listing off a ton of things that either set the tone of the scene or that are somehow symbolically important and then at the end of the chapter either explaining his metaphors outright or handwaving the entire chapter away with a “this isn’t really that important. Well, it kind of is, but not really.”

I think what’s really interesting about this whole chapter is the way he lists off so many cultural figures and events of the year to set the scene--and yet I don’t think a single one of these people or events have an effect on Fantine’s fate.

[headcanonrepository]

I have a lot of thoughts about Neo. She's an amazing character to theorycraft about given that we still know next to nothing about her even after all this time! And my wife and I steadfastly refuse to believe that what we see is all that's going on with her (come on, her whole thing is manipulating her image, you can't just read her at face value!). So here's a bit of a masterpost of our predictions/theories about what she's doing and why:

Until the fall of Beacon, it's pretty obvious what she's doing and why so I won't go into too many details. She's Roman's trusted right hand woman, she's obviously very loyal to him for reasons we can only guess at but One Thing hinted at him finding her on her own and taking her in. (Which would be interesting if the show contrasted that past against Cinder's, Nora's and Emerald's...they're really fond of orphan girls developing co-dependent relationships with the first person to show them a crumb of kindness, huh? Anyway, that's another post)

Everything she does for Cinder at Beacon is following Roman's instructions. I'd like to think he had an exit strategy that didn't involve being Grimm chow, but we didn't get to know anything about it. Either way, they are so close to being done with this and then Roman's 'death' happens (not to beat a dead horse but as I’ve said before, if the Hound is a person, it makes more narrative sense that it's Roman and until I see some concrete proof, I'm going with supposed death. Either way, the important thing is that Neo thinks he's dead)

So Neo is pissed. She wants revenge. And Cinder is absolutely at blame, her plan got Roman killed. Neo tracks her down with a little help from the criminal underworld and has Cinder on the ropes until she pulls out the maiden card. It’s worth noting that throughout that fight, the cinematography makes sure that we see Neo noticing both Cinder’s bandaged (Grimm) arm and her subtle manifesting of the maiden powers (fiery punch) before she actually relies on maiden powers to stop the fight. 

Cinder tries to persuade Neo that Ruby is who she should really want to kill. Now, I don't think Neo believes that for a second. She keeps fighting Cinder after her first attempt to shift the blame onto Ruby, only stopping after Cinder uses a blatant display of power Neo can’t or won’t match. My guess is either: she realized that if Cinder drew on her full power, she wasn't going to win OR she realized that her true target is whoever/whatever controls the Grimm and Cinder isn't it. Potentially both, with Cinder still being a target for revenge but only after the bigger problem is dealt with.

So she seemingly teams up with Cinder to get information/lull her into a false sense of security. And she gets a lot of information very quickly - Cinder tells her about the relics and maidens and Salem pretty much immediately in Haven vault. (Cinder really underestimates people if she thinks they’re on her side and if that isn’t going to bite her in the ass this season, I’ll be very surprised. Probably won’t be Neo, but her treatment of Emerald has been a problem for a while and that’s got to hit a breaking point soon)

They get to Atlas and bide their time/gather information until they find out where the relic is and how to get it. Neo makes a point of 'telling' Cinder she wants to go after Ruby but after being told no, she doesn't push it any further. At this point, Neo knows where Ruby is and had a great opportunity to go after her if that's really what she wanted. And at any point after the dinner party, she could have split from Cinder to go after Ruby if she wanted to. She hasn't.

She gets the relic for Cinder. She toys with ORNJ in the process but her main aim isn't to kill. She’s literally fighting with one hand behind her back at one point. In fact, she hangs around much longer than she had to, she swiped the relic off Oscar off screen appearing as ‘someone else’ - she could have made off with it without a confrontation at all. She hung around so everyone got a good look at her and knew she was there. Nora even identified her. Almost like she wants the good guys to know what she's doing and who is doing it. Then she goes. (Random thought: I know CRWBY have said the ‘Oscar punch’ was an animation error but what if that literally is Neo ‘showing her face’ in the least suspicious way possible and CRWBY don’t want to say it because it’s too much of a spoiler?)

Cinder doesn't seem appreciative of her actions and dismisses her contributions and she appears put out by it. I suspect that's more for Cinder's benefit - a lack of any reaction might be suspicious.

Cinder and Neo deliver the relic to Salem and from here on out, every whale scene Neo does as little as possible to draw attention to herself, staying out of Salem's notice, standing off to the side or behind Cinder, doing nothing to draw suspicion...but she's watching and listening in every scene. 

She doesn't want Cinder to go after Penny, but winds up going anyway when it looks unavoidable. In the resulting fight with Maria, Neo comes off as she isn't even trying; she's slower than usual, less lethal. I believe it's plausible deniability for not helping Cinder - she was busy. But she did make it super clear to Maria that she knows who Ruby is, and Maria is alive to communicate that at some point. Neo only gets the upper hand when Maria is distracted by Penny’s fall (or to see it another way, when Cinder has enough free time to pay a second of attention to the other fight in the room and see that Neo isn’t really trying).

So Neo doesn’t want to be there. And she doesn’t want to help Cinder out once she is there. Why not? Either she's still after revenge against Cinder and giving Cinder more power (via winter maiden) wouldn't help that and/or Salem said no and Neo is trying to be as passive and non-confrontational as possible to slip under the radar while she gathers information on Salem. My money is on both. 

If Cinder had had Neo and Emerald's full help against Penny, I don't think Penny would still be around. And that would mean the Winter Maiden powers would be with either Cinder (bad for revenge), Emerald (Cinder would just kill Emerald, leading back to option 1) or Neo (Cinder would try to kill Neo and while Neo might be able to escape, she's got a massive target on her back and she'll not be able to get information on or plot against Salem anymore, which would be bad for revenge in a different way).

What does this mean for the future? Well, Neo is going to keep pretending to be on side until she either has information or an opportunity to mess up all of Salem’s plans. She knows Salem needs the relics. I could see her breaking Oscar out and sending him on his way with the lamp at some point (and TBH, I would love to see what the main guys make of that and how they try to rationalize her behaviour). Or she could use the rifts forming in Salem’s team to undermine Salem’s plans (but I think Oscar is already on that one). Or she could be waiting a lot longer before taking action. 

Basically, there's only two ways I can rationalize Neo's fluctuating character motivations and abilities. Either a) CRWBY aren't thinking about her as much as I am or b) Neo is playing a very long game of revenge. After all, it's best served cold, like ice cream! ;)

Until I know for certain otherwise, I'm going to believe it's b.

[mnthpprt]

Chapter 24: Blame It On The Juice

We finally arrive at the tavern and take a seat at a small table near the bar. Arthur is the only one to remain standing up, and he leans closer so I can hear him over the chatter.

“First round’s on me, darling. What would you like?” he asks. I ponder for a moment before answering.

“I’ve always wanted to try absinthe.” He nods, and looks over at Theo.

“Whiskey for me, half water.”

A few minutes later he returns, balancing three glasses between his hands, and proceeds to set them down on the table, careful not to spill any of them. Outside, it has begun to pour like there’s no tomorrow.

“Pernod Fils for the lady,” he says, imitating a waiter, “and whiskey for the ratbag.” Theo punches his arm, scowling, and sips his drink, making me laugh. Judging by the amount of teasing and insults between these two, they could either be good friends or truly hate each other. I know it is the former, because they seem to spend a lot of time together. They even walk their dogs at the same time every morning, and they do so willingly.

I take a small sip of the pearly green liquid, and am surprised by the sweet taste of anise and fennel in the drink.

“Yo, this is good,” I point out, satisfied. I lift my glass when I notice Arthur doing the same, and Theo begrudgingly joins in.

“To the green fairy, may she bless our dear Anaïs for the first time!” toasts the writer, holding back a laugh. I follow in with my own comedic announcement.

“To the Salon des Refusés du Salon des Refusés!” I say, jokingly, referring to Theo’s exhibition. The groundbreaking art I saw there would have been criticized even by the rejects of this time. “And to your and Vincent’s success, of course!”

“That, I can get behind,” Theo chuckles. “To you idiots.” He punctuates his covertly affectionate statement by taking a gulp of whisky, and Arthur and I follow suit. “So, hondje, you know about art. What is it like in your time?”

I am taken aback by the question. I don’t really know where to begin.

“Well... For starters, it’s incredibly different. To understand it one needs to know the history behind it, you know? Like, what happened between now and then for it to get to that point,” I explain, pausing to take another sip of absinthe. Theo leans forward on his chair, his blue eyes piercing me with interest. “I guess the main movement that started everything would be Dadaism. Do you know about World War One?” Theo shakes his head.

“One? By Jove, there are more?!” Arthur exclaims. I nod, my brows knitted together. If he lived through the first one, the Great War, I am concerned about how he might react if I continue. He seems to want to know more, so I keep talking.

“Arthur, if I remember correctly you died a few years before the second one. What was it, 1920 something?”

“1930,” he corrects me.

“Well, the Second World War started in 1939. It lasted for about six years, and it was brutal. But that’s not the point of this conversation.” I turn to Theo. “So, as you can tell by the name, the First World War was, well... massive. Pretty much all of Europe was involved and severely affected, both by the unprecedented death toll and the poverty that came after. People suffered while the rich clung to what they had, and the art world became increasingly inaccessible. You’ve seen yourself how conservative the elite can be when it comes to their precious culture.” He agrees with a nod. “So a movement emerged in response to this traditionalism, which some artists deemed unacceptable in a world where all of the rules had seemingly been broken already, and devastatingly so. I don’t know where the name came from, but Dadaism represents all the nonsense, everything that is irrational and ugly and primal. What these people were making was basically anti-art. Instead of it being aesthetically pleasing, their work strived to create a reaction in the viewer, to make them think.” I pause to drink again, and glance at Arthur. He knows what I’m talking about, he lived through it.

“And what does it look like?” Theo asks. I laugh.

“Oof, good question. It can look like anything, from sculptures made of random objects piled together to drawings and prints... More than anything, Dadaism was a concept, an ideology. It established that art should be reactionary, and not necessarily for the pleasure of the viewer. This became the basis for what in my time we call ‘conceptual art’, which is basically anything that makes a statement without it being explicit in the piece.”

“Like a riddle?” Arthur asks. He has already finished his glass of whisky.

“Something like that,” I chuckle. “But not always. One of the most outrageous ones I can remember is this man, Piero Manzoni. In the 60s... the 1960s, that is, he produced a series of cans labeled as ‘Artist’s Shit’, supposedly filled with... well, his own shit. It was meant as a critique of the art world at the time.” Theo’s eyes widen, and I hear Arthur let out a boisterous laugh. “Apparently one of his friends said that they were actually filled with plaster, but no one really knows for sure, because they’re too valuable to be opened. I think one of them was auctioned for like 300.000 euros.”

“Euros?” Theo asks after sipping his whisky, trying to recover from the surprise.

“Oh, right, that’s a new thing,” I remember. “So after that Second World War I mentioned before, a bunch of countries in Europe created a coalition, to protect the peace, and all that. And then, around the time I was born, it became a proper union and they changed the money, so we all use euros now. Well, then. Then?” I take a big sip of absinthe and savor it for a moment, frustrated with my own tangled words. “Ugh, time travel is so confusing. Anyway, one of those cans is worth, like, 100 million francs in ‘right now’ money, I think.”

Theo chokes on his drink. Arthur is just staring at me with his mouth hanging open, completely incredulous at my nonchalant statement.

“That is absolutely preposterous,” he finally says. I shrug.

“I guess that proves Manzoni’s point, doesn’t it?” I down what’s left of the absinthe and set the glass in the middle of the table. Arthur scoffs.

“No, no, she’s right.” I am surprised to hear Theo agree with me. He looks rather impressed. “Collectors will buy anything with the right name attached to it. Artist’s shit,” he laughs. “That’s brilliant.”

Maybe it’s his adorable dimples, or maybe it’s the alcohol running through my veins, but I have the sudden urge to mock him.

“Wow, who knew you had a sense of humor, knabbeltje!” I put emphasis on the word, causing him to blush, which subsequently makes me giggle. Arthur puts his fist up, laughing, and I bump it. “Ayyy, you learnt it!”

Theo gets up abruptly, and for a moment I fear I have offended him, but I relax when I see him walk towards the bar. He soon comes back with only two glasses, and leaves again to get his own. I sip my new drink, also containing the green liquor from before, and let out a little moan.

“This drink slaps,” I declare, and Arthur tilts his head in confusion.

“Slaps? Gods, Anaïs, it’s like you’re speaking an entirely different language.” I laugh and proceed to tell him about the ‘snack’ thing, how Theo called me a ‘knabbeltje’ and I took it as a compliment, so now he can’t use it on me anymore. Arthur laughs too when I finish the story. “Oh my, is that why he was blushing? Here I was thinking you two might have- Ow!”

I elbow him before he can finish the sentence, in part because I don’t need to hear it, and in part because I see Theo approaching. When he sits down, Arthur’s face lights up with an idea. I wonder what he’s plotting.

“Let’s play a game,” he says. “Bet I can deduce something about each of you. If I’m right, you drink, and if I’m wrong, I drink. Anaïs,” he turns to me. “There is something between you and Leonardo. You two have been in an awfully good mood lately.” I blush and sip my drink. “Ha! I knew it! Our sweet darling and our dear friend have been basket making in secret,” he exclaims. Judging by his face, I assume that’s an euphemism for sex.

“We have not!” I smack his arm. Although that doesn’t mean I wouldn’t like to. “Okay, my turn. Theo!” I choose loudly, pointing my finger at the art dealer. “You act so tough because you’re protective of Vincent and want to be taken seriously so nobody messes with him.”

Theo drinks before clearing his throat, and then turns to his friend.

“The reason you’re being so annoying lately is because you’re jealous of Leonardo,” he states. Arthur simply leans back on his chair with a smirk.

“Drink,” he commands. Theo obliges. “You have already scoured this bar for my next potential conquest, and you disapprove of all the options.” Theo drinks again.

“Is that what you do when you’re not pestering Sebastian for more coffee?” I laugh. Then a thought occurs to me. “How do they not find out about...? You know,” I ask, tapping my canine with a fingernail. I can’t risk saying it out loud in a place so crowded.

“They simply look like love bites, dear,” Arthur winks. “And they are, in a sense.”

“Huh.” I tilt my head, trying to imagine what that would be like, but I fail and move on to the game. “You sleep around so much to try to forget your guilt.”

Finally, he drinks. I don’t know what he feels guilty about, but I could recognize that emotion on anyone. However, I don’t ask any further. I do not want to pry.

He changes the topic by pulling a deck of cards from his pocket. I guess he does not like losing at his own game.

[terrorhqs]

                                             𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐕𝐀𝐋𝐄; 𝐦𝐢𝐝𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭.

you find yourself wandering to the clairvoyant’s tent as the night winds down. the seer is cloaked by darkness, by shadow, and they do little to beckon you forth as you sit. distantly, you hear the raucous laughter as a sovereign of fools is crowned in the theatre. brittle whispers from the clairvoyant before you steal your attention, and you turn your gaze forward to fix on the tarot cards laid out, onto the slender fingers splayed on top.

“how’s this all work then?” you start, chuckling nervously. “shall i pick one?” you’ve never had a tarot reading before. at home, you were fraught with nerves, fearful of what you may find in a dark parlor holding hands with tittering strangers. this feels different, somehow, as if anything that can be gleaned can be chalked up to a drunken dream - a mirage in the north.

you start to reach - a raspy voice stops you. it’s the clairvoyant’s voice, yes, but something is... strange. a tinny, echoing quality, lilting, as if his voice is experimenting with itself. 

“what are you? by god, mercy,” he rasps. 

“what?”

“men! help! agathe!” wailing and rasping. “it is swift!”

you stumble back, chair falling, just as darkness descends upon the entire carnivale. in an instant, a gust of infernal wind blows all the blazing torches out. there is but black and the light of the moon - and even this is meager guidance, half-hidden by pale, mordant clouds, veiled in a fog’s film.

when you look back, the figure is gone. the clairvoyant enters not a half-moment later, frantic to gather his paraphernalia and move on, ignoring your dazed befuddlement.

sailors are notorious for their superstitions, but the wardroom officers are quick to try and quell the hushed murmuring. what kind of northern wind kills the light of dozens of torches blazing unbidden all night? 

“it is only the weather, sailors.” booms the captain from the theatre stage, naught but a silhouette, the cadence of his voice unhurried as it carries through the city of tents. “allow your eyes to adjust to the dark, follow the light of the moon out, calmly, and get to the ship. nothing to fear but the bottle-ache come morn. those able to escort the guests ought to.”

the orders are clear, and everyone shifts to begin shuffling out - until a cry rings out. one of the ship’s caulkers points to the caribou head mounted upon the wall, a prize from an earlier hunt. “i saw it blink! the head! i swear it!”

“do you dare incite hysteria? get ahold of yourself.” the captain calls, the promise of repercussion coloring his voice. 

behind him, past the canvas, a shadow lurks in the moonlight. the silhouette is that of a man, perhaps a member of the crew listening in, still and silent and largely unacknowledged. then, it shifts. it morphs, growing in size, growing into something not human nor animal, its maw dwarfing the makeshift theatre. those facing the officers erupt into gasps and panicked yelling - to grab the guns, to get back onto the ship, towards shelter. but even those willing to face the beast, those who run out and round the tent to confront it - all they are met with is the chill, and footprints where it once stood.

elsewhere, there is chaos.

THE MARKED, lingering in the theatre when pandemonium strikes, spots what appears to be an apparition manifesting on stage in wisps and blurs. they cannot comprehend where its limbs begin and where the shadows end: it seems to melt inside them. it points, mouthing silently. THE HARUSPEX finds them in a state of terror, transfixed - looks towards the stage, and sees nothing. it is time to leave.

THE LOVER searches for her partner in the chaos, but runs into THE IDOL, who is struck by shock for reasons unknown and refuses to move even as they are pushed by the crowd. They keep whispering a name, like a prayer or mantra, one THE LOVER would have remembered in normal circumstances as being akin to the DEVOTED’s surname. THE LOVER is left little choice but to attempt to rouse them from their stupor.

THE INTREPID is among the first to guide the crew back to the ship, but in the disarray, is accidentally jostled as they near the docks, loses their balance, and falls into the shallow water that has grown colder in the night. THE SOCIALITE, mercifully, is nearby and notices, and is quick to pull them out and usher them to the warmth of the ship. each moment is critical.

THE ENIGMA, never without their arms, glimpses an amorphous shadow grow longer, taller, from inside the Hall of Games. Without wasting a crucial delay, an expert dancer on the floor between life and death, they take aim and fire through the canvas - only to receive a very human yell in response. on the other side of the tent, THE DEVOTED has only just been grazed by the bullet - but the wound, while shallow, flows.

The CAPTAIN has led the band of running people over onto the beach, only to find a stray outline dotting the shore - THE SCION. They have known each other well enough, but this is the first time they meet without the gild of their family status or an admiralty gala. It takes a moment to start speaking - but as they do, they notice something eerie. The sea, which had been a steady droning throughout their nights and days, falls quiet. From the water, a guttural, animal voice begins to shout.

Among all the supply crates unloaded off the ship, there is also THE PURSER’S ledger that found its way among the paraphernalia. They left in search of it shortly after the crowning of the topsy-turvy sovereign, and are in no small measure taken aback to see THE EMPRESARIO labouring over it in the dying lights. The candle in their hand barely illuminates their face. But when THE PURSER starts shouting for an explanation, the candle garners a life of its own - it flares in a white blaze before consuming itself in a fire, scalding flesh and paper alike.

THE GODKILLER, having accumulated their trove of stolen trinkets and treasures throughout the evening, stands apart from the crowd to assess their prizes - only to find they’ve gone missing. Did someone steal them back? Does someone know what they’ve done? THE DOE-HEARTED, calling for their uncle, runs into THE GODKILLER sifting through the dirt and rocks - only to see the massive shadow from earlier pass through the tents. 

THE COMMANDER was still hacking away at the dregs of his dinner, sitting opposite from THE SHADOW. When the pandemonium begins, both heads turn with precision - only to see that their hands are coated in something treacle-red. Like molasses, it covers the plate and mess-table, stretching over and under their nails. Instead of sea-biscuits, the plates now hold raw, pink flesh. The SHADOW stares unblinking - his eyes seem to say: Do you see it too? The COMMANDER has no answer; they no longer know what’s there and what isn’t.

THE VETERAN is quick to prepare the ship, though some unease nags her, begging for attention. The realization brings a sharp sickness to stomachs - the ocean is silent. The waves below them still moves, but no sound can be heard, the stillness jarring. When she turns to THE NOBLE to confirm the silence, the girl is found glassy-eyed staring into the open sea through the won telescope, shaking. Any attempt at reaching THE NOBLE through her stupor is unsuccessful. When the girl finally returns in spirit, she cannot recall how or when she returned to the ship. The ocean is roaring. 

THE CHRONICLER and THE CLAIRVOYANT are stumbling as they return to the ship, clinging fingers suddenly wrenched apart following a sharp yelp. Among them, a sizzling sound beings to pick up, then whimpering. They watch as angry burns swirl into runes pressed onto the seer’s skin, unseen fires melting wide paths from the boy before stopping right before the girl’s skirts, now-thawed ice leaving the water pooling THE CHRONICLER red-tinted and too viscous. 

THE CHAPLAIN had accompanied THE WILDCARD in the maze of wonders shortly before everything precipitated. As they’re sat there mulling over Shakespeare’s dreams and nightmares, a very real terror materializes - with a smell of sulfur and a sputtering of electricity, the projector goes out. The band snaps clean in two. It should be over, but for several seconds, the images continue to move on the paper-wall, shapes deformed and liminal. Both priest and soldier can only gape as they struggle to make sense of it.

THE DOCTOR and THE ROMANTIC, in the meantime, have ventured to climb one of the tamer bergs. Atop, they can marvel at the vast expanse of the bay and the sea beyond - perhaps they can even glimpse their trajectory ahead. But further ahead, they see something - a ship parallel of the Promethean, from their perch, they can make out its name: Agathe. They see no lights onboard, hear no distant yelling - no signs of life. They refuse to blink, watching the ship disappear into encroaching fog. 

The SONGBIRD has stumbled upon THE STOWAWAY, miles away from the rest of the revelry folk. when the murmur begins - at first they think it is the gravel shifting under a man’s boot. but then sounds begin to form: Hjælp os. Vis dit ansigt. Spoken over and over again. THE SONGBIRD, rendered desperate and death-white, begs the translator to explain what it means. No answer comes. The murmur doesn’t stop. 

after a long and harrowing night, morning comes as if nothing was ever amiss. carnivale is as the crew left it the evening before - without its grotesque aberrations. the caribou head remains still, the projector has stopped, no shadows lurk in the canvas - only tents to be broken down and debris cleaned up remain. with little evidence of whatever machinations were at play the evening before, save for whispers and memory, there is still a voyage ahead. there are preparations to be done. there are new terrors to face.

therein lies our first plot drop, players! you’ll notice we have paired prompts, and we can’t WAIT to see how these play out on the dash! keep in mind that you are, of course, welcome to write interactions not outlined by the plot drop.

the timeline spans from midnight of the night of the carnivale to the end of the week, just before they set sail for the passage. you may write out events of the evening, where everything has boiled unto a point of chaos, or the morning after, or any of the days still left in their layover on land. in this time, the people of the Promethean may hunt for fresh meat and fish, attempt to accompany the icemasters in climbing the surrounding icebergs, explore the little town of godhvn, or study the natural flora and fauna.

[thesteadydietofeverything]

Top 10 Games of 2019

This was an extremely good year for games. I don’t know if I played as many that will stick with me as I did last year, but the ones on the bottom half of this list in particular constitute some of my favorite games of the decade, and probably all-time. If I’ve got a gaming-related resolution for next year, it’s to put my playtime into supporting even smaller indie devs. My absolute favorite experiences in games this year came from seemingly out of nowhere games from teams I’ve previously never heard of before. That said, there are some big games coming up in spring I doubt I’ll be able to keep myself away from. Some quick notes/shoutouts before I get started:

-The game I put maybe the most time into this year was Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. I finally made the plunge into neverending FF MMO content, and I’m as happy as I am overwhelmed. This was a big year for the game, between the release of the Shadowbringers expansion and the Nier: Automata raid, and it very well may have made it onto my list if I had managed to actually get to any of it. At the time of this writing, though, I’ve only just finished 2015’s Heavensward, so I’ve got...a long way to go. 

-One quick shoutout to the Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney Trilogy that came out on Switch this year, a remaster of some DS classics I never played. An absolutely delightful visual novel series that I fell in love with throughout this year.

-I originally included a couple games currently in early access that I’ve enjoyed immensely. I removed them not because of arbitrary rules about what technically “came out” this year, but just to make room for some other games I liked, out of the assumption that I’ll still love these games in their 1.0 formats when they’re released next year to include them on my 2020 list. So shoutout to Hades, probably the best rogue-like/lite/whatever I’ve ever played, and Spin Rhythm XD, which reignited my love for rhythm games.

-Disco Elysium isn’t on this list, because I’ve played about an hour of it and haven’t yet been hooked by it. But I’ve heard enough about it to be convinced that it is 1000% a game for me and something I need to get to immediately. They shouted out Marx and Engels at the Game Awards! They look so cool! I want to be their friend! And hopefully, a few weeks from now, I’ll desperately want to redact this list to squeeze this game somewhere in here.

Alright, he’s the actual list:

10. Amid Evil

The 90’s FPS renaissance continues! As opposed to last year’s Dusk, a game I adored, this one takes its cues less from Quake and more from Heretic/Hexen, placing a greater emphasis on melee combat and magic-fuelled projectiles than more traditional weapons. Also, rather than that game’s intentionally ugly aesthetic, this one opts for graphics that at times feel lush, detailed, and pretty, while still probably mostly fitting the description of lo-fi. In fact, they just added RTX to the game, something I’m extremely curious to check out. This game continued to fuel my excitement about the possibilities of embracing out-of-style gameplay mechanics to discover new and fresh possibilities from a genre I’ve never been able to stop yearning for more of.

9. Ape Out

If this were a “coolest games” list, Ape Out would win it, easily. It’s a simple game whose mechanics don’t particularly evolve throughout the course of its handful of hours, but it leaves a hell of an impression with its minimalist cut-out graphics, stylish title cards, and percussive soundtrack. Smashing guards into each other and walls and causing them to shoot each other in a mad-dash for the exit is a fun as hell take on Hotline Miami-esque top down hyper violence, even if it’s a thin enough concept that it starts to feel a bit old before the end of the game.

8. Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I had a lot of problems with this game, probably most stemming from just how damn long it is - I still haven’t finished my first, and likely only, playthrough. This length seems to have motivated the developers to make battles more simple and easy, and to be fair, I would get frustrated if I were getting stuck on individual battles if I couldn’t stop thinking about how much longer I have to go, but as it is, I’ve just found them to be mostly boring. This is particularly problematic for a game that seems to require you to play through it at least...three times to really get the full picture? I couldn’t help but admire everything this game got right, though, and that mostly comes down to building a massive cast of extremely well realized and likable characters whose complex relationships with each other and with the structures they pledge loyalty to fuels harrowing drama once the plot really sets into motion. There’s a reason no other game inspired such a deluge of memes and fan fiction and art into my Twitter feed this year. It’s an impressive feat to convince every player they’ve unquestionably picked the right house and defend their problem children till the bitter end. After the success of this game, I’d love to see what this team can do next with a narrower focus and a bigger budget.

7. Resident Evil 2

It’s been a long time since I played the original Resident Evil 2, but I still consider it to be one of my favorite games of all time. I was highly skeptical of this remake at first, holding my stubborn ground that changing the fixed camera to a RE4-style behind the back perspective would turn this game more into an action game and less of a survival horror game where feeling a lack of control is part of the experience. I was pleasantly surprised to find how much they were able to modernize this game while maintaining its original feel and atmosphere. The fumbly, drifting aim-down sights effectively sell the feeling of being a rookie scared out of your wits. Being chased by Mr. X is wildly anxiety-inducing. But even more surprisingly, perhaps the greatest upgrade this game received was its map, which does you the generous service of actually marking down automatically where puzzles and items are, which rooms you’ve yet to enter, which ones you’ve searched entirely, and which ones still have more to discover. Arguably, this disrupts the feeling of being lost in a labyrinthine space that the original inspired, but in practice, it’s a remarkably satisfying and addicting video game system to engage with.

6. Judgment

No big surprise here - Ryu ga Gotoku put out another Yakuza-style game set in Kamurocho, and once again, it’s sitting somewhere on my top 10. This time, they finally put Kazuma Kiryu’s story to bed and focused on a new protagonist, down on his luck lawyer-turned-detective Takayuki Yagami. The new direction doesn’t always pay off - the added mechanics of following and chasing suspects gets a bit tedious. The game makes up for it, though, by absolutely nailing a fun, engrossing J-Drama of a plot entirely divorced from the Yakuza lore. The narrative takes several head-spinning turns through its several dozen hours, and they all feel earned, with a fresh sense of focus. The side stories in this one do even more to make you feel connected to the community of Kamurocho by befriending people from across the neighborhood. I’d love to see this team take even bigger swings in the future - and from what I’ve seen from Yakuza 7, that seems exactly like what they’re doing - but even if this game shares maybe a bit too much DNA with its predecessors, it’s hard to complain when the writing and acting are this enjoyable.

5. Control

Control feels like the kind of game that almost never gets made anymore. It’s a AAA game that isn’t connected to any larger franchises and doesn’t demand your attention for longer than a dozen hours. It doesn’t shoehorn needless RPG or MMO mechanics into its third-person action game formula to hold your attention. It introduces a wildly clever idea, tells a concise story with it, and then its over. And there’s something so refreshing about all of that. The setting of The Oldest House has a lot to do with it. I think it stands toe-to-toe with Rapture or Black Mesa as an instantly iconic game world. Its aesthetic blend of paranormal horror and banal government bureaucracy gripped my inner X-Files fan instantly, and kept him satisfied not only with its central characters and mystery but with a generous bounty of redacted documents full of worldbuilding both spine-tingling and hilarious. More will undoubtedly come from this game, in the form of DLC and possibly even more, with the way it ties itself into other Remedy universes, and as much as I expect I will love it, the refreshing experience this base game offered me likely can’t be beat.

4. Anodyne 2

I awaited Sean Han Tani and Marina Kittaka’s new game more anxiously than almost any game that came out this year, despite never having played the first one, exclusively on my love for last year’s singular All Our Asias and the promise that this game would greatly expand on that one’s Saturn/PS1-esque early 3D graphics and personal, heartfelt storytelling. Not only was I not disappointed, I was regularly pleasantly surprised by the depth of narrative and themes the game navigates. This game takes the ‘legendary hero’ tropes of a Zelda game and flips them to tell a story about the importance of community and taking care of loved ones over duty to governments or organizations. The dungeons that similarly reflect a Link to the Past-era Zelda game reduce the maps to bite-sized, funny, clever designs that ask you to internalize unique mechanics that result in affecting conclusions. Plus, it’s gorgeously idiosyncratic in its blend of 3D and 2D environments and its pretty but off-kilter score. It’s hard to believe something this full and well realized came from two people. 

3. Eliza

Eliza is a work of dystopian fiction so closely resembling the state of the world in 2019 it’s hard to even want to call it sci-fi. As a proxy for the Eliza app, you speak the words of an AI therapist that offers meager, generic suggestions as a catch-all for desperate people facing any number of the nightmares of our time. The first session you get is a man reckoning with the state the world is in - we’ve only got a few more years left to save ourselves from impending climate crisis, destructive development is rendering cities unlivable for anyone but the super-rich, and the people who hold all the power are just making it all worse. The only thing you offer to him is to use a meditation app and take some medication. It doesn’t take long for you to realize that this whole structure is much less about helping struggling people and more about mining personal data.

There’s much more to this story than the grim state of mental health under late capitalism, though. It’s revealed that Evelyn, the character you play as, has a much closer history with Eliza than initially evident. Throughout the game, she’ll reacquaint herself with old coworkers, including her two former bosses who have recently split and run different companies over their differing frightening visions for the future. The game offers a biting critique of the kind of tech company optimism that brings rich, eccentric men to believe they can solve the world’s problems within the hyper-capitalist structure they’ve thrived under, and how quickly this mindset gives way to techno-fascism. There’s also Evelyn’s former team member, Nora, who has quit the tech world in favor of being a DJ “activist,” and her current lead Rae, a compassionate person who genuinely believes in the power of Eliza to better people’s lives. The writing does an excellent job of justifying everyone’s points of view and highlighting the limits of their ideology without simplifying their sense of morality.

Why this game works so well isn’t just its willingness to stare in the face of uncomfortably relevant subject matter, but its ultimately empathetic message. It offers no simple solutions to the world’s problems, but also avoids falling into utter despair. Instead, it places measured but inspiring faith in the power of making small, meaningful impacts on the people around you, and simply trying to put some good into your world. It’s a game both terrifying and comforting in its frank conclusions.

2. Death Stranding

For a game as willfully dumb as this one often is - that, for example, insists on giving all of its characters with self-explanatory names long monologues about how they got that name - Death Stranding was one of the most thought provoking games I’ve played in a while. Outside of its indulgent, awkwardly paced narrative, the game offers plenty of reflection on the impact the internet has had on our lives. As Sam Porter Bridges, you’re hiking across a post-apocalyptic America, reconnecting isolated cities by delivering supplies, building infrastructure, and, probably most importantly, connecting them to the Chiral Network, an internet of sorts constructed of supernatural material of nebulous origin. Through this structure, the game offers surprisingly insightful commentary about the necessity for communication, cooperation, and genuine love and care within a community.

The lonely world you’re tasked to explore, and the way you’re given blips of encouragement within the solitude through the structures and “likes” you give and receive through the game’s asynchronous multiplayer system, offers some striking parallels for those of us particularly “online” people who feel simultaneous desperation for human contact and aversion to social pressures. I’ve heard the themes of this game described as “incoherent” due to the way it seems to view the internet both as a powerful tool to connect people and a means by which people become isolated and alienated, but are both of these statements not completely true to reality? The game simplifies some of its conclusions - Kojima seems particularly ignorant of America’s deep structural inequities and abuses that lead to a culture of isolation and alienation. And yet, the questions it asks are provocative enough that they compelled me to keep thinking about them far longer than the answers it offers.

Beyond the surprisingly rich thematic content, this game is mostly just a joy to play. Death Stranding builds kinetic drama out of the typically rote parts of games. Moving from point A to point B has become an increasingly tedious chore in the majority of AAA open world games, but this is a game built almost entirely out of moving from point A to point B, and it makes it thrilling. The simple act of walking down a hill while trying to balance a heavy load on your back and avoiding rocks and other obstacles fulfills the promise of the term ‘walking simulator’ in a far more interesting way than most games given that descriptor. The game consistently doles out new ways to navigate terrain, which peaked for me about two thirds of the way through the game when, after spending hours setting up a network of zip lines, a delivery offered me the opportunity to utilize the entire thing in a wildly satisfying journey from one end of the map to another. It was the gaming moment of the year.

1. Outer Wilds

The first time the sun exploded in my Outer Wilds playthrough, I was probably about to die anyway. I had fallen through a black hole, and had yet to figure out how to recover from that, so I was drifting listlessly through space with diminishing oxygen as the synths started to pick up and I watched the sun fall in on itself and then expand throughout the solar system as my vision went went. The moment gave me chills, not because I wasn’t already doomed anyway, but because I couldn’t help but think about my neighbors that I had left behind to explore space. I hadn’t known that mere minutes after I left the atmosphere the solar system would be obliterated, but I was at least able to watch as it happened. They probably had no idea what happened. Suddenly their lives and their planet and everything they had known were just...gone. And then I woke up, with the campfire burning in front of me, and everyone looking just as I had left it. And I became obsessed with figuring out how to stop that from happening again. 

What surprised me is that every time the sun exploded, it never failed to produce those chills I felt the first time. This game is masterful in its art, sound, and music design that manages to produce feelings so intense from an aesthetic so quaint. Tracking down fellow explorers by following the sound of their harmonica or acoustic guitar. Exploring space in a rickety vessel held together by wood and tape. Translating logs of conversations of an ancient alien race and finding the subject matter of discussion to be about small interpersonal drama as often as it is revelatory secrets of the universe. All of the potentially twee aspects of the game are balanced out by an innate sense of danger and terror that comes from exploring space and strange worlds alone. At times, the game dips into pure horror, making other aspects of the presentation all the more charming by comparison. And then there’s the clockwork machinations of the 22-minute loop you explore within, rewarding exploration and experimentation with reveals that make you feel like a genius for figuring out the puzzle at the same time that you’re stunned by the divulgence of a new piece of information.

The last few hours of the game contained a couple puzzles so obfuscated that I had to consult a guide, which admittedly lessened the impact of those reveals, but it all led to one of the most equally devastating and satisfying endings I’ve experienced in a video game recently. I really can’t say enough good things about this game. It’s not only my favorite game this year, but easily one of my favorite games of the decade, and really, of all-time, when it comes down to it.

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “Beaks in the Shell!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Ben Siemon

Storyboard by: Sam King, Kathryn Marusik, Stephan Park, Emmy Cicirega

Directed by: Jason Zurek

We go virtual!

The episode begins with GizmoDuck and Huey chasing after Gandra Dee, who just stole a cube that causes shockwaves. While he does end up grabbing the massive short circuit-causing cube before it drops into Duckburg's water, Gandra Dee ends up getting away in the end. He wasn't really too competent in this quest, either, as he got caught in a trap and he had to be told by Huey that he can fly out of them. Huey's like someone who yells at the TV when a plot hole happens. Whether this failure is because GizmoDuck is still not as competent as he wants to be or something else is not too obvious, but anyone who watched the previous major Gandra Dee episode can guess that something would have affected his crime fighting when it comes to Gandra Dee.

Back in Gyro Gearloose's lab, Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera has another project in the works that is a secret from everyone: a new virtual reality cloud space that is both a space for scientific collaboration and a potential romantic destination. Let's just say that it may as well have been that something else, and that something else is hidden from everyone else, including his own M'Ma, about as well as his secret identity. Not that he was going to tell his special someone that they didn't buy it.

We go into the aforementioned virtual reality cloud space, where Gandra Dee is already generating beakers full of green chemicals, the universal sign of science in children's cartoons. They can also kiss under the happy little pixelated trees, because they are still an item despite Gandra Dee's record of blinding children and threatening to short-circuit all of Duckburg. Fenton is almost ready to share this scientific breakthrough to the world, but Dee doesn't want to do that because she thinks people would shut it down because of all the purple glitches. This plot point made me wonder if there was going to be something more than just "oh, Gyro can fix those", like if they were going to be a major part of the plot, or that it was supposed to represent that this romance is not going to last.

We later learn that this cloud is also important because they can do dangerous experiments without worry of injury, and, combined with their ability to generate anything they can imagine, this could be a good set-up to an interesting creativity vs. creativity battle. Maybe the purple glitches will come to life as monsters, or maybe FOWL will find out what's going on here and invade it with their own creativity. I mean, who else would have the idea to invade this Gizmotopia?

Fenton: (putting his arms around his one true love) This is going to be...

Mark Beaks: ...the greatest scientific achievement in his-zizz-tory!

Oh, it's Mark Beaks advertising a new Waddle phone update that partially fixes a bug that makes the phones explode into flames. Granted, there's no hint that there's going to be any convergence between these two plots besides Beaks coincidentally finishing Fenton's sentence, with an extra "zizz", but, really, it's inevitable.

Now, Waddle only has one investor, and the investor tells the CEO that he has to come up with an original idea, which he simply can't do as every idea he can come up with, like coffee cups with apps, was already taken. This isn't really the episode's B-plot, and, as said before, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that he's just going to give up and attempt to steal whatever Gyro or his intern are doing. One other thing that's a bit confusing is that nobody seems to recognize Mark Beaks anymore despite being the CEO of a company that apparently still makes phones a lot of people use. It could work as another sign that his company is going down, and that's why he seems so desperate here.

Meanwhile, Huey ends up barging into Fenton's office with a new discovery about Gandra Dee that could lead to her capture, only to see Fenton doing a kissy face while wearing his GizmoDuck helmet. He puts two-and-two together and realizes this must be some sort of virtual reality cloud space. Fenton tries to get him away from that by saying that the GizmoDuck helmet only works on his head, and he just does not have any additional VR headsets for guests. Manny the Headless Horse makes his appearance in this episode with a bunch of VR headsets, apparently hearing that excuse as a request for those, and Huey comes into the world to marvel at all of its wonders, including that very special guest.

Gandra Dee: What...the...f...

Huey: FOWL?!

I see what they did there. Gandra has to generate a weighted blanket to calm Huey down after that revelation. At first, I was going to make some joke about how this is a really bad way for the Duke of Making A Mess to go out, but it makes sense. Stress will be one of the major parts of Huey's part of the plot, and weighted blankets are a good way to relieve that. It's also another reminder that this is a world where ideas can come to life, even if it's just a virtual one. I would question how a virtual weighted blanket would work, but this episode does seem to go with the "one's mind makes it real" scenario.

As Huey keeps asking questions on why Gandra Dee is working with Fenton, we get the little sad backstory on Gandra Dee courtesy of her generating a flashback of her losing a science fair to someone making that one volcano experiment. People just don't understand that she wants to push the boundaries of science with...okay, I'm not sure what that is supposed to be, but it does shoot a dangerous death ray. Because of her experiments need for danger, she can only do experiments on herself, which is why she happens to be a cyborg, and the only people who would fund her work happens to be people like the evil buzzard bent on world domination. She adds an additional comfort to Huey that she already plans to quit FOWL for good after using their resources to make this. After making puppy dog eyes at the little kid like a little kid makes puppy dog eyes at their parents, Huey accepts this for the sake of both science and love.

This leads into our actual B-plot: Huey trying his hardest to keep a secret, and his anxiousness and stress is really getting the best of him even in the beginning. One of the first people he has to confront is none other than Fenton's M'Ma, who, despite Fenton's words to Gandra Dee, did not buy that his project was not some sort of romantic exploit. This leads to an interrogation scene. Crackshell then shows up before M'Ma could actually interrogate him further, and Huey has to try to motion to him what exactly his lies were. It's the usual set up for plots like this, the guy gets caught up in the lie, and he tries desperately to keep the secret a secret. There's not a lot that I haven't seen before, but I can not say this is bad, either.

One creative thing they do end up doing is the very next scene where, after Huey "goes to the bathroom", Huey comes in a room with confidence to answer the big question on why Fenton would keep secrets from his own M'Ma. Eventually, he has to bail again after hearing that one of the secrets is that Fenton is GizmoDuck. Why? Because that was actually Louie playing the part of Huey, and somehow, the schemer of the three nephews is the last person in Duckburg to know GizmoDuck's secret identity. He tries to go back only for M'Ma to ask "Huey" about "Louie's Kids", that fake charity he had in The Other Bin, and Louie cracks under pressure and reveals Huey put him up to it. Huey runs to Fenton's house to essentially yell out that he can't take hiding this secret about the GizmoCloud anymore, thinking the only person in there is a still-in-the-GizmoCloud Fenton. He has no reason to believe there's any desperate CEOs hiding in the wastebasket.

We cut back and forth between this plot and the "Gandra Dee not wanting to open the GizmoCloud" plot, and it turns out to be more about her than anything else. We get the lines about how she doesn't want the world to think of her badly, and how he doesn't care what they think about her, and this heartfelt moment doesn't last too long. Mark Beaks may not be a creative man, but he at least knows how to hack into things. Honestly, it seems like this world didn't have that much security to begin with.

Mark Beaks shows up, locking them in a hashtag captcha before Gandra Dee can defeat him with the combined power of a Terry Bogard power wave and a Rolling Stones reference, and he decides he's going to use his new "WaddleCloud" to steal other people's ideas without anyone telling him. Fenton can still use his creativity powers, and he tries to do that to summon the GizmoDuck suit...only for Mark Beak's stealing powers to take it right from him, giving him the power suit and the ability to add Waddle logos to all the buildings in the skybox.

Fenton Crackshell can still use his creativity abilities to sneakily motion his hands to tap Morse code for help. By the way, yes, he is comatose. It's just like Sword Art Online or that one episode of Black Mirror. Also, how lucky that the one person taking a stress rest in the room, Huey, happened to know Morse code. He tries to take the VR headset out of Mark Beak's head, only for it to give him an electric shock, and the computer displays a little Mark Beaks head telling him that, "ah, ah, ah, you didn't say the magic word." I'm not going to give any hate on this episode for lazy references. If anything, this joke is perfectly fitting for Mark Beaks.

All of this convinces Huey that he doesn't need to keep the secret anymore, which pretty much ends the B-plot with him just randomly yelling out to a mail carrier about how Mark Beaks hacked into the GizmoCloud. He then says he's going to find people who can actually help. It's like he's aware what he did made no sense. Before GizmoDuck can use his finger lasers to delete Fenton and Gandra from the program, or whatever that would entail, his world is suddenly invaded by Huey, M'Ma, and Gyro. How did they manage to get in this hostile cloud takeover when it's implied Mark Beaks put Dennis Nedry-levels of security on it? Pineapples. Well, or Gyro helped them. Either way, it's not really explained.

It may seem like I didn't like this episode that much, so I'll say one thing I did like a lot besides the Louie scene: the weekly final fight scene all of that buildup led up to. The people all use their creativity in a pretty cool way here that I won't entirely spoil here. I also like how Mark Beaks' lack of creativity fits into what he does in it; he just combines everyone else's ideas into a super robot form. I was expecting him to fall over due to so many conflicting ideas, but they end up doing something else that was also pretty funny. Funny by Mark Beaks standards, anyway.

It's not much of a spoiler to say that the good guys win, but there is a little bit more to the ending. Namely, there is a major cliffhanger at the end of the episode. While it's a good cliffhanger, It does feel a little disappointing that a character that was built up in this episode essentially becomes a mere damsel in distress. Then again, I felt the same way about Lena in The Other Bin before the big revelation about her in The Shadow War. We'll just have to see what happens.

How does it stack up?

There's some good scenes here and there, like the blanket, the Louie scene, and the final fight scene, but with everything else, I just found it mediocre by DuckTales 2017's high standards. I'd put it below New Gods On The Block, which has a fight scene similar to this one, and I didn't really love that one either. I can see people disagreeing with this one, especially if they were really into Gandra Dee or Mark Beaks, and I'm sure the last minute of the episode is going to lead to somewhere fascinating. I really debated on whether or not this should be the first two Scrooges episode of Season 3, and I originally gave this a 2 just because I didn't think it was as great as everyone else thought it was. However, I then thought about some of the episode I would give a 2, and I think the good scenes in this episode are just too good to give the whole package a two.

Long story short, Three Scrooges.

Next, we meet some friends for life, through thick or thin, with plenty of tales to spin.

← How Santa Stole Christmas! 🦆 The Lost Cargo of Kit Cloudkicker! →

[popculturebuffet]

The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck: The Master of the Mississippi! or “How Much Satisfaction Can There Be?”

Hello everybody. I’m back to the life of scrooge mcduck.. it’s been an eternity hasn’t it and that’s for a simple reason: I had other reviews to do, especially comissions, I kept pushing this back further and further as while I love this series i put my paid work ahead of any other projects, until Kev, i.e. the guy paying for most comissions out and out asked that this be done before I got to the rest of The Ride of the Three Caballeros. It’s also why I finally put a loose schedule in place, to keep projects from slipping so the MANY retrosectives and what not I have going can move along at a steady pace and I can slot in comissions easier, 5 bucks an issue or episode if your curious. So now things are a bit tider, i’ll try to have an installment of scrooge’s storied past up a week from now on, so keep an eye out for that, minus christmas week as I have something else planned Duck Comics wise. So with all that out of the way and any exposition able to be baked into the plot proper, we can FINALLY get back to the life and times of scrooge mcduck

PREVIOUSLY ON THE LIFE AND TIMES OF SCROOGE MCDUCK:

A Young Scrooge got his inspiration, his start and also scared the crap out of some asshole scooby do style. Also his sister Hortense was adorable. SO there’s that. But eventually with some inspriation from what he didn’t realize was a ghost, Scrooge decided to head to america to find his Uncle Pothole. So that’s where we left off, with Scrooge heading to

Since then as the scrapbook page explains, Scrooge has worked his way up the Missippi to Louieville, Kentucky... which is where Rosa lives, and it is not a concidence it’s set here as a result. But much like how the Marvel staff being in new york in the 60′s lead to that universe having it’s unique and vibrant New York setting that’s lasted to this day, sometimes a creator using where they live as the basis can lead to really great and intresting stuff and here he had a valid reason as Louieville was one of the main hubs on the Mississippi river and thus a massive boomtown. 

Not the kind of boom town I meant but I can never say no to boomtown. But yeah it’s not only a bustling hub usually anyway, but things are extra amped up given it’s Derby time. I mean the Kentucky Derby’s no steel ball run but what could be? So naturally the crowds are booming and scroogie is impressed. I mean he’s a 13 year old boy from a poor community in Scotland. This is huge to him. But he has no time to dawdle and asks the closest random gentleman where he could find his Uncle Angus, who was mentioned last time and is the one needed for this. The guy is genuinely helpful and points him to his uncle... but as I only noticed on this read through also uses a knife to swipe his bag by cutting the handle off. It’s part of why I admire this series so much: rosa snuck so many small background gags into the margins you can always find something new reading it or always get something fresh out of it.  We also meet Gyro’s grandpa Ratchet. 

I mean there’s no might about it. David Byrne is rich and he’s the delightful weirdo we all deserve and the autistic icon I needed. 

I have no context for this, I just figured searching David Byrne in Tumblr’s Gif Search would find something delightfully batshit in that way only hec an do and I was right. 

So as the tweenager enters the gambling establishment, we find Uncle Pothole, whose playing poker with local asshole and tophat enthusiast Porker Hogg...whose name keeps tripping me up as I write this as he’s not the only pig named porker I know of but is far less memorable than this one

He and Pothole are playing cards, and while Porker can go on for days he can’t go on for eight weeks.. or even two days really and prepares to finish it. He puts up his boat the Dilly Dollar, which Angus takes offence to since Porker sank his. Angus offers up the location of the Dreenan White, a legendary, and real legend at that, riverboat that sank. Since Angus was a Cabin Boy on the boat, he knows where it is. So the final hand is dealt and Angus wins with five aces, mostly because Porker’s ace ejector jammed. When Scrooge questions if this is dishonest, Angus explains their under riverboat captain rules which basically means you can cheat your ass off and it’s not only expected it’s an insult NOT to. So Angus takes Scrooge with him, seeing the boy as a good luck charm and finding out to his shock Scrooge is his nephew, but gladly takes his newly found relation under his wing as he relates to his coming to america to find his fortune, having done the same. 

Angus is the first of Scrooge’s many mentors and easily the best part of this chapter. He’s lively, intresting but a contrast to scrooge, someone whose not AFRAID to work but wouldn’t mind an easy victory or giving up the adventure game, as he ends up doing. He’s a lively, clever guy and very charming. I”ll get back to the mentor part of it in a bit, but needless to say in a chapter that i’ll admit, and get more into the why as we go, is not one of life and time’s better chapters, he’s a highlight.  So the two get to the Dilly Dollar while Hogg decides to follow to find where the Dreeynan Whyte is. As for why he hasn’t drudged it up Angus simply can’t as the Mighty Missisippi’ s too muddy for that, making another mark twain quoted joke about it. But Scrooge mentions the clarity pills from Ratchet, meaning he has a way to do so, and Angus is now elated and decides to head there to get his fortune, specifically near Monkey’s Elbow kentucky, which while relocated slightly to fit the story, is a very real town and an objectively great name for a town, much like Forty Fort, which is also a very real town name. Hogg overhears and after being literally booted out of the boat, as we’ll see literal asskicking is a McDuck family staple, goes to recruit some hired goons. 

Yes hired goons, as every good villian needs some hired goons. And these specific goons.. are a bit.. familiar. And you’ll find out who they are under the cut!

Yup it’s the Secret Origin of the Beagle Boys. And if your wondering “Wait are they immortal too?” well. their not these are their grandpas. Also Hogg’s whole complaint about “wearing them if there yellow” just.. bugs me. They .. they aren’t cowards.. Grandpappy’s just being smart and knows his sons are excessively dumb, as is family tradition. They have no issue with committing crimes, they just don’t want to be arrested by the first Navy boat that finds them. That’s just.. common logic. This is one of Life and Time’s weaker atrributes: Due to being built around barks stories, that means most of his foes here are the random greedy asshats of the week Scrooge faced who had some loophole to his fortune or the grandparents of said assholes. With the exception of hte Beagles, who show up a few times, Glomgold and Soapy Slick who wihle a minor vilian is at the center of one of the best chapters of the story, most of these guys are just forgettable hooligans. Not terrible, and the stories around them are good enough to make it enjoyable but nothing really distinct from what Scrooge normally faced outside of his origin story. Really Barks was simply stronger at STORIES than he was at creating villians: As Magica, The Beagle Boys, Gladstone, Rockerduck and Glomgold all show he wasn’t untalented at it, it’s just more often than not he fell back on some random asshole.

Instead of using a dedicated Rogue’s Gallery of intresting baddies, most writers of most comics just used villians of the week and maybe ONE OR TWO designated hitters. Batman’s Rogue’s gallery wasn’t big enough to form their own country at this point is what i’m saying, it just meant Rosa had to build more vilians of teh week. It dosen’t drag the story down entirely, as the story is about SCROOGE and his growth: sometimes the villians are just a secondary ingrident in a good story. But it’s still something very noticable and one of the weaker parts of the story, it’s just like I said, with the story being more on Scrooge and where a lot of his personality came from, it’s something I really didn’t notice before and really dosen’t bother me now I have. The villians are weak btu the hero is so intresting and grows so much it just dosen’t matter. Their there to provide Scrooge with opportunites to evolve, and the really good ones are saved for the best moments of that and for when a villian IS needed to change scooge as a person. So it all evens out. 

So naturally the next day when the McDucks head to get the pills, Hogg’s beat them to it, and when Ratchet refused to cut cards for his stock had them beat Ratchet while they were at it. Though oddly Angus assumes he’s just passed out while Scrooge is the one to recognize someone knocked him out. You’d think a well experienced guy like Angus would know that eh whatever. Point is Hogg is ahead and Angus dosen’t have a crew... though Scrooge and Ratchet naturally volunteer since both have skin in the game: Scrooge wanted a job with Pothole anyway and Ratchet is out a job and out his pills. Angus gladly takes them on.. but accidently sets the Dominos in place for one of Comics!Scrooge’s worst behaviors down the line. 

Yeahhh.... Pothole is partially responsible for Scrooge criminally underpaying his staff and family. That gag.. is easily one of , if not my least faviorite part about Rosa’s work. It’s a holdover from Carl Barks work naturally, and one that makes some sense: Rosa set his work shortly after barks, so some time in the 1950s, having barks works take place around when they were written. There isn’t a strict timeline of what happened which year outside of life and times, but Rosa’s works are delieberate period pieces. That’s not a bad thing and if he’s going to base most of his stuff around stuff Barks did, then it’s a good call to make.  The issue is the execution: While with Barks it was in part because there was less income inequality, it was also clearly a bit of satire, as Donald was the every man and companies could be unfair, cheap douchebags then as they are now. IT feels more like a joke on Scrooge. Donald still puts up with a lot of stuff, but he’s more liable to complain. In the Rosa stories.. it feels more like he just makes Donald the butt monkey and it dosen’t play well as.. Donald dosen’t want to be there. He has every RIGHT not to want to be there as he’s not being paid a decent wage, not being compensated in any other ways, and could be searching for a boss who actually pays him a living wage. Donald is more the victim in Rosa’s stories but he simply doesn’t realize this, or the fact it’s even worse since Donald is you know RAISING THREE CHILDREN AND SCROOGE KNOWS THIS BUT DOES NOT PITCH IN ONE EXTRA CENT.  So already without even adding the decades on, it hasn’t aged well.. but add in the modern day business where it’s a STRUGGLE to get states to raise minimum wages, the job market was hit horribly even BEFORE Corona came and made things worse, and companies horribly abuse their employees to ludcirous extremes such as time crunch in the video game industry, black friday in retail and of course the house of nightmares that is the amazon warehouse, and I say that being a frequent use of amazon.. just because I rely on a company dosen’t mean I have to LIKE doing so in any way shape or form. 

What i’m saying is Scrooge’s actions were already bad, making this joke fall flat, but it comes off as downright unfunny after all of that. Even given the times Scrooge was raised in it’s just not a funny gag that “oh ha ha a 70+ year old man ever learned right from wrong when it came to paying his family or workers”. It just paints scrooge in the worst light possible as man who never grew, in at least one aspect, from being a goddamn tweenager and is easily one of the weaker moments of an otherwise epic and well crafted saga, and as i’ve said of Rosa’s exemplary work as a whole. 

Anyways the race is on and with the DIlly Dollar gaining on Hogg’s Cotton reiver witch, Hogg has them ram into the boat and flip it over. And no i’m not descrbing a sex act. In a show of competence while Blackheart Beagle’s actions send them close to the falls too he just uses the dilly dollar as a ramp. We also get a really cool flipped over panel as our heroes are waterlogged. A snag boat shows up, I assume it removes snags and dangerous objects and complains about rescuing them. .even though CLEARLY they had some kind of accident. It’s.. never a good look to complain about having to save someone’s life or livelyhood unless that someone is Tucker Carlson. Then it’s ABSOLUTLEY okay to grumble a bit about having to do the right thing. 

So after a quick gag we’re introduced to a chekovs gun as a massive tree sprouts out of the river and spooks Scroogey.. and Angus who explains it’s a “sawyer”, something that happens when a dead tree falls in a river.. sinks in.. and then can rise right back up suddenly, violently and boat destroyingly. 

So our heroes head on and find the location and Angus dumbly assumes that Hogg, who had a clear start is just lost.. and not you know lurking in the bushes watiting to strike. And strike he does as he once again rams hard and long into the Dilly Dollar, leaving it on a sandy shore. Schwing. Our heroes are landlocked but Hogg, just to earn himself a dare to be stupid award, gives the Beagles their deed, and tells them theirs diving equipment. You can take a wild guess what happenes next. 

Angus understandably laughs at his misfortune because it’s funny.. and Hogg responds by dropping him down a well. Before Scrooge can raise a benefit concert to send his love down a well, Angus asks Scrooge to join him instead.. and soon we find out why as the Beagles only find a wrecked town. Turns out thats where Monkey’s Elbow WAS, and they build the new town near it.. with the farm Angus ended up at being where the wreck is now. 

Our heroes explore the wreck which honestly, looks really damn impressive, a muddy destroyed riverboat hauntingly beautifully lit by candle light, which Scrooge is holding naturally. I may of had my criticisms for Rosa this chapter, and I will again, but it’s moments like this that reinforce that the man is still one of the best comic book artists i’ve ever seen and knows how to beautifully meld his art with storytelling. 

Speaking of which our heroes find the safe with the money. Angus is ritch but Scrooge.. dosen’t get how he can be happy. Scroogie questions “How much satisfaction can there be in having your life’s fortune handed to you? “ It’s easily the best moment of the chapter.. while it’s only two panels before we get to Angus moving things right along... it really speaks to Scrooge’s character. Even as still a naive boy from Glasgow... his whole life has been hard work, effort working your way up. To just.. LUCK into fortune like this baffles him. To be satisfied with that and not seem to have any amibation to use it to go further, to make more of yourself. To be more. While he hasn’t quite got his love for adventure yet, we’ll get there next time, even now there’s a hunger inside him, a desire to not just get rich, that’s all fine and good.. btu to have EARNED IT. To truly feel like he made his way. 

And it perfeclty makes sense with his background: Scrooge was raised with nothing, and found out at the start of the story his family had lost everything, a once glorious clan reduced to a poor starving family on the edge of Glasgow. To him it can’t just be about getting Money.. he wants to bring his clan back. To make his family happy and proud. To make sure his father’s faith as the last of their line wasn’t misplaced. He has a lot of expectation on him and that’s bred his character. Angus.. just sorta left at a young age and has been incommuincado. He dosen’t really care about family or legacy.. not that I don’t think he would’ve sent some money back to buy the castle, I just think he was never that concerned with his family’s legacy like Scrooge despite coming from a similar cloth. He wanted the money, but Scrooge cares about the money.. and his family. It’s what anchors him. What keeps him from his worst impulses and keeps him grounded.. for now anyways but that’s a ways off. Point is it really speaks to Scrooge’s character. 

But soon the beagles find our heroes, and a fight breaks out.. and naturally even without years of experince yet, Scrooge is still a McDuck and while previously his fighting was based on ingunity.. this time the little runt’s just out for blood and suprises the beagles with a clump of mud and then beating the shit out of them. When one of them tries to respond by wacking him with a piece of wood... he instead breaks a collumn and with the dreenan unable to handle the mud without it... the place starts to collapse. However our heroes don’t make it out unschathed as the Beagles capture them and the gold... for some reason. Seriously Scrooge dosen’t fight back or anything nor does angus they just.. let hte beagles overpower them. WHen Scrooge fully fought the grown ass men just a few mintues ago. What the actual hell. 

But we do get another Badass Scrooge Moment, as once hteir on the ship, Scrooge mentions another treasure.. which baffles Angus despite you know.. the boy clearly playing at something. Yeah whlie I do like Angus.. he can be grating in parts and here he just comes off REALLY stupid. But after being tortured by running on a boat, with the beagles mistaking Angus’ genuine confusion for being a bastard man, which naturally their impressed by, Scrooge fessses up.. and you can see exactly’s coming.. the sawyer raises the boat into the air and harpoons it. The beagles try to play off the port authority but scrooge unmaks those “infamous beagle boys”.. and thus names one of his greatest threats. Blackheart vows revenge while our heroes go for a sasparillia..though Scrooge keeps the money.. as he says the memory of that adventure is worth more than anything. As for the Gold, the goverment took it back, but did give them a reward, and Angus only dosen’t give Scrooge a share because he’d have to refloat it, but offers him a job and the dollar in two years at a bargin price. Alls well that ends well. A truly poetic way to end the chapter and prepare scrogoe for the next... TO BE CONTINUED...

FINAL TH...

Yeah.. as you probably know this is NOT the end of the chapter. Instead we go on for a bit more. And a few more pages would’ve been fine, to help bridge the gap.. we see scrooge get the Dollar at a bargin price as his uncle promised, though the deal turns out to be a bit of a lemon as the riverboat industry has dried up. But then.. we get a couple page adventure with the beagle boys, where the beagles try to steal the goverment gold scrooge is transporting, Ratchet helps him escape, and we DO get the utterly badass image of scrooge driving the boat onto land and it exploding and causing a massive flood> While that is awesome.. the pacing just takes a huge hit and it’s easily why this chapter is one of my least faviorite. It probably would’ve been better if they just had a passage of time montage of events at the start of the next chapter and ended on that bit before.. but instead it just goes on a bit and really tries my patience every time as instead of moving on to a bold new adventure.. we just get some filler to help pad things out so Rosa can get it to the right page length. I don’t blame him, sometimes shit happens, but it dosen’t make it any more fun to read.  So the Dollar is scrapped and Scrooge is back at the bottom with barely a cent to his name. But he’s resolute: since the river boating days were winding down anyway he’s going west to become a cowboy, and heads off on the Wabash Cannonball as a fireman, i.e. the guy who stokes the engines, to make his way there. So we end our story for now and again.. this would’ve been much better condensed but whatever. We’re finally done. 

Final Thougts

As you could probably tell but I saved for here, and I outright even said this is one of my least faviorite chapters and one of the weakest if not the weakest. Part of it is the structure issue I mentioned, but the other part is it just.. isn’t as intresting at least to me personally. The rest of life and times have pretty unique stories that while not removed from genres Scrooge stories have covered, use the story of his rise to make them really pop as we slowly see how the iconic Scrooge we know became the legend and what shaped him that way. Here while we get bits of that, it’s mostly just a standard uncle scrooge story but with him as a kid. It’s not a BAD one, it dosen’t drag the whole of life and times down and it’s servicable but it just feels a bit more standard for Rosa’s work. Still enjoyable, but nothing really spectacular like the next two chapters. On it’s own or as one of the side stories it would’ve been fine but as part of this huge sprawling masterpiece, it’s just a bit underwhelming and just makes me eager to get to the next part every time rather than really suck me in as much as the others. Again the pacing dosen’t help with that and only makes it drag further. It just dosen’t have the weight the other ones do character wise and as such just makes me want to get to part 3 already, which naturally that story within a story dosen’t help with. Overall while not a bad comic, I don’t think any part of life and times is truly bad, it’s still not a GREAT comic like what’s to come or what came just before. 

NEXT TIME ON LIFE AND TIMES: Scrooge heads out to the wild wild west.. though instead of a giant mechanical spider he fights some cattle rustlers and meets Teddy Roosevelt HELL. YES. 

Until then, happy holidays and later days!

[newtshairdryer]

Thoughts on Descendants 3 as I watch it for the 8th time and pause to look at everybody all the time

- When Ben and Mal are walking out before the proposal, Audrey is slow clapping and it’s hilarious

-Chad seems genuinely happy to see them together but Audrey rains on his parade

-Please look at Chad’s face to the side after Ben gets on his knee his overdramatic gaping mouth is SENDING ME

-Why do they make Belle and the Beast kiss beside each other’s cheeks like a french greeting? For real though they’re Belle and the Beast...they should be kissing in celebration .-.

-Right after the Carlos/Beast chest bump there’s an extra in the background of Bal just having a blast popping bubbles

-Speaking of the bubbles I have no clue where they’re coming from

- Dude in the background when Audrey says ”What is wrong with you people?” bein shady AF to her

-That one girl in the wheelchair that has been in every single movie needs a name cause we all just refer to her as that one girl in the wheelchair lol

-Mal has her own purple fucking limo and she’s not even royalty yet

-Their money is so vibrantly coloured

-Those cards Celia fan out are definitely, well, a fan. They’re all attached- she’s not even holding onto some of them lol

-Mal resting her chin on Ben’s shoulder to watch him and Celia in the limo. soft

-The scenes in the limo make Ben look really big and awkward because they’re all shoved into a small space and he’s in the middle where the smallest person usually goes...but he’s the biggest person XD

-The barrier takes forever to close and there are a ton of people right there, why has no one attempted to just jump through it yet lol

-What if Hades put his hand through the barrier and it just like...cut it off LMFAO now THAT would have been entertaining 

-Hades literally makes himself roll one more time as he’s pushed back. Like there’s no more momentum and you can see he should stop but he makes himself do another somersault and it’s so obvious lol

-I know it’s been said before but the lack of security in the museum is just lazy AF writing. They didn’t even try to make it realistic it’s way too easy to just waltz in and take anything. Apparently the wand is the only thing worthy of an alarm

-Also why is there not even glass around the scepter to even attempt to discourage people from taking it? Even when the museum is OPEN someone could yank it out and start spelling shit up.

-Ben’s phone rings and he hangs it up less than a second after he picked it up- it doesn’t even show him barely looking at it. How on earth did he have time to see a message about the stolen items- let alone the fact it was a phone call ring...not a text ping

- OK WAIT IF UMA IS ON THE LOOSE AND HE TALKED ABOUT BETTER SECURITY SERIOUSLY WHY ON EARTH IS THE MUSEUM SECURITY SO NON EXISTENT??? IN BOTH THE FIRST MOVIE AND THIS ONE THEIR LACK OF SECURITY IS SUCH A GLARINGLY OBVIOUS THING WHY IS IT NON EXISTENT IT MAKES NO SENSE

-Why are the former King and Queen of Auradon and the current reigning King turning to the not yet Queen for all the advice about evil like it’s her responsibility. They don’t even attempt to brainstorm the vast amount of other ideas. And why on earth can’t she just suggest uh...literal guards by the barrier when it opens for them? Like if they paid people on the isle to guard the barrier so other isle people didn’t try to get out it would help a ton. There are so many other solutions other than closing the barrier completely (and then getting rid of it completely??)

-Does anyone else notice that like...50% of Ben’s screen time is him staring in shock/disbelief at things with literally no other expression for entire scenes? Cause I noticed it the first time around

-My favourite outfit in this whole movie for Mal is this light purple dress she has on when talking about closing the barrier for the first time with Ben’s parents and Evie. She is SO GORGEOUS in it. I’m actually not a fan of the leather suit she wears for the rest of the movie cause I don’t feel it fits with her hairstyle- mainly once it starts to go blue

-I just realized Mal’s hair literally goes from pretty much just purple to lots of blue mixed in. I guess it’s cool cause it’s like she gets power from the ember but I honestly prefer her brighter purple hair. My favourite hairstyle was her bangs she looked like an actual goddess in the 2nd movie

-I think everyone was thinking Dude got into Jane’s cake (despite the very neatly cut corner)

-I honestly love Mal’s face when Audrey shows up with the crown and scepter and her whole new gettup like “What on earth is this chick doing”

-I reiterate “what on earth is this chick doing” as Audrey goes to...sniff? the scepter?

-I wAnT tO bE dAnGeRoUS

-Audrey through a cupcake on the ground. So evil

-Honestly I’m sorry but Audrey talking all angsty to the people at Jane’s party is really cringey. Her lines are just...hhhhhhhhh (you mindless little drones in particular just seems weird the way she says it)

-How on earth does Audrey not see Jane get in the lake...she’s literally right there in full view

-OK so not ALL magic doesn’t work on the Isle, according to Celia only evil magic doesn’t work- so yes Maleficent is still a lizard cause Mal’s spell wasn’t an evil one

-Even with her massive platform shoes Mal is so much shorter than Hades she is yelling at him but having to look way up she’s adorable

- Hades “LET’S DANCE” - proceeds to shake a tambourine, slap his butt with it and stick his tongue out. ok then

-Why did I never notice Mal shake the tambourine at him angrily and then throw it lmao

-WHERE IS THE WIND COMING FROM IN THIS SONG (I will touch back on random wind that shouldn’t be there later on too)

-Mal should say thank you for the ember...imo

-”If it gets wet it’s game over” thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat’s what she said

-Mal’s walking away from Haes up those stairs? That booty thicc (only thing I really like about that outfit) 

-Girl has a zipper down her butt. She can unzip her ass cheeks

-I’m glad the jewelry in this movie is no longer plastic like Ben’s ring and his burger king crown

-“You’ll what? Marry them?” OK I am not a big fan of the plot or Audrey’s temper tantrum but  if that isn’t the best fucking burn in this whole franchise then idk what is

-gUYS CELIA IS NOT THE ACTRESS SHE IS SUPPOSE TO BE IN AN ENTIRE MAIN SHOT??? WTF? HOW HAS NO ONE POINTED THIS OUT?? SHE’S A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PERSON WHEN THEY’RE WALKING OUT OF THE GATE TOWARDS THE BARRIER ON THE ISLE AND THEN THE NEXT SHOT IT’S BACK TO THE PROPER ACTRESS. BUT IT’S VERY OBVIOUS

-I AM GAY AS SHIT FOR UMA OK SHE IS ABSOLUTE PEAK AESTHETIC AND I WOULD LET HER CHOKE ME WITH HER BRAIDS 

-I deserve some compensation for my muscles...what does that even mean???

-Are we suppose to know who Hannah is?

-”Says you and that’s suppose to mean someth’n to me?” Ok maybe I’m just a flaming bisexual for Uma but why was that line delivery so smooth

-Audrey is abusing Chad. She threw a glass bowl at him and is literally shoving him around and yelling at him while accusing him of knowing things and not telling her. And it’s played for laughs. Descendants you have a lot of good things that are socially woke but this ain’t it man. Chad may have been a douche but he doesn’t deserve abuse. (rhyme oof)

- Why is Dude advertising that he gives great cuddles? Who is that directed at? Why is that line in there? Alright then

-How is Uma the only one that noticed the massive scratches on the wall and the literal painting slashed in half

-Mkay we get it Audrey you’re evil thanks for the random laugh

-The knight in front of them literally clanged as it moved and it’s RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM how did nobody but Harry see it move. This entire movie is me asking why something happened because honestly so much of it just doesn’t make sense but I still love the movie lmao

-Out numbered 1 to 50? How did this girl graduate lol

-I still say What The Fuck Is Happening every time Mal makes the Knights dance. It’s just the most random, out of the blue thing to do

-Mal literally licks her lip and gives Evie the most sultry look as Evie dips down and is singing the end of Night Falls. I’m not a Mevie shipper but it’s the most bedroom eyes I’ve ever seen

-Evie is an absolute ray of sunshine and deserves all the things

-Harry is genuinely flattered at Evie’s compliment about his accent he starts to smile. Dude acts like a complete player and then gets happy when someone gives him a genuine compliment lol

-Jay and Gil are adorable

-Gil is just adorable on his own

-Doug is in way too comfortable of a position to not have already been on the ground sleeping/resting. Which begs the question of why he was just on the ground sleeping like that

-Doug’s long hair and ponytail and complete lack of style are some of my biggest pet peeves in this movie. He doesn’t just look out of place next to Evie, but next to literally everyone else. He looked pretty good in the last two, why such a drastic change that literally nobody asked for or wanted lol

-I seriously can’t take Evie and Doug seriously in this movie just because of his hair. It’s just so unattractive I’m sorry not sorry

- I do enjoy the sense of urgency and time that the movie has as Mal tries to keep moving. Uma and her being like “just kiss him already” is fun

-They could have shot Audrey looking at them through the scepter in a different way...the way it’s just the same close up shot every time she’s looking at it with her hair blowing in the non-existent wind just adds to how cheesy her whole performance is (not her fault, director and writers fault)

-Mal should have kissed Ben when they reunited. 0 reason not to. She was super worried about him and finally reunited with him and she also LOOKED like she wanted to kiss him. Girl was super into that beard. 

-Leave some room for Jesus lmao 

-I’m just bitter cause the only kiss we get this whole movie is from kinda far away and is short. We’ve also never seen them share a sweet kiss in private- they’re always on display....maybe it’s a kink lol

-Ben and Mal holding hands while trying to sneak around <3

-Sophia’s acting when Evie is upset is on point. This whole scene is one of the only really good ones where everyone is rightfully upset with Mal. 

-Mal has had to sing about her feelings in every movie lmao

-Why...does the dragon look like it has a low frame rate? It looks choppy

-Audrey just, once again, doesn’t look menacing. She’s just like...waving a stick around and making mean faces

-”I owe you an apology” says everyone but...no one actually says “I’m sorry” lol

- Ben is just “aw yiss speak human rights to me baby” at Mal during the engagement party

- Beast: “We can’t do that.” I AGREE

-Taking the barrier down with no screening for the villains is a bad bad bad bad idea but it’s a happy disney universe so everything is fine - ugh

-UNSAFE BRIDGE!!1!!1 I’m waiting for someone to fall off- just once, please

-Mal and Uma jumping up and down when they kmeetis the cutest fucking thing on earth

-Ben needs a different thing to dance in, his suit is so stiff

-Harry and Audrey? Hmmmm I’m not opposed but I’m also not feelin it

-Were those people just...waiting there with an already built dragon?

-Ben likes to hip thrust in every movie, no lie