#thank for the ask! man I haven't thought about good ol' foobaw spaceprobes in ages

[some-flyleaves]

17776 and Pokemon SM?

fandom comparison

satellites and beasts and space, oh my!

better protagonist: 17776, on account of actually Having a protagonist! (I thiiiink I remember reading somewhere that Lillie is the real protagonist/main character of SM since even with you being the Designated Player Character you’re arguably more of a supporting pal to her journey than vice versa? unfortunately I forget where I read that though >:T)

better villain: Pokemon SM, on account of actually Having a villain. I guess? is humanity its own enemy in 17776? is it the football that smashes the eternal lightbulb?? hubris???? who knows, not me, but Lusamine’s a fantastic antagonist in her own right.

better plot: if by “plot” we mean “a traditional storytelling standard,” SM for the same ol’ It Actually Exists reasoning. arguably 17776 could be shoehorned into a three-act mold, albeit with very low stakes and an unclear antagonist, but I still didn’t have much of a clue where the story was going much less what the story was until… actually, no, I still probably couldn’t describe it in a nutshell other than “satellites discuss philosophical questions with the finesse of any given homestuck page and watch Americans in the far future play sportsball.”

that said, 17776 is pretty dang coherent and attention-grabbing. and as an inherently self-contained story it does a nice job of tying up loose ends, even if said loose ends are a string of common questions that are answered with the grace of a sledgehammer near the very end - much as I would love to read the trio’s commentary for ages, it feels complete. I can’t say the same for SM and its ultra beast sequelbait wormhole shenanigans.

better cinematography technical handling or however you wanna retitle this: a video game with a perpetual 8)-faced protagonist and occasional 3d cutscenes vs text and scattered pictures/gifs in a void with some videos, hmm. I’m gonna have to pick 17776 on this because for a pioneer of the experimental webcomic format it fits the story damn well. unless people give up on all those dang calendars, it does a fantastic job with storytelling considering it’s more or less words in a void, both format-wise and literally in context.

but since I have the chance to soapbox about pokemon a bit which is an opportunity I will always take without question: damn, those cutscenes did not do it justice. scenes like Lusamine’s “death” really, really, really needed something that wasn’t essentially a block with a flat hand texture slapped on to carry the scene’s weight. you know all those memes about the protag being all 8D no matter what happens? or that one moment in XY where Lysandre’s crying over “Pokemon…” and your rival has a bland >:O/D:

more fun: you know what? you know fucking what you’d think pokemon would win here being a video game and all, but I think I’d actually have to pick 17776 overall. Pokemon SM is… pokemon, main series game, you grind you beat people you cry forever about the abysmal postgame grinding. it was definitely a step up from previous games in terms of jazzing up the gym challenge formula and other tweaks, but I’ve honestly barely touched it since beating the postgame.

17776, meanwhile, has some great reread potential (I say, implying I have actually reread it, which I haven’t,,) being self-contained and all, and much like Homestuck there’s scarcely a dull moment. a few ????? moments if you’re not familiar with football jargon, but overall a great time.

…I mean, you could argue it’s not fair to fault SM for its post-postgame which is gonna be uneventful by default, but 17776 still has the advantage of a novel format. :V

more thought-provoking: 17776 by a long shot! philosophy and an intriguing new take on an immortal future for humanity that doesn’t involve Evil Robots™, what more could ya want. Pokemon SM plays with some neat themes that I appreciate and as always there’s tons of room for headcanon, but ultimately in terms of Thought Provocation, what you put into a pokemon game is what you get. 17776 presents both worldbuilding conundrums that it answers as it goes along and general hypotheticals that people could stew over for thousands of lifetimes. Pokemon SM says “oh shit we’re stepping up our subtext character development game this time! and for all that stuff you were hoping we’d follow up on, don’t forget to buy the canon AU follow-up games!”

…I’m not bitter about the ultra games, no sarcasm. SM is definitely not as big of a “YOU TRIED BUT YOU FAILED.jpeg” as, say, XY. I’m not mad. but I’m still disappointed. >:V

more relaxing: Pokemon SM, mostly because again my idea of relaxation usually involves video games. (I don’t tend to reread/rewatch/etc. media in general, come to think of it. huh.) beating people up in a mall and throwing beans on the beach is good mindless fun, at least until you’ve done all your daily shit and then you play tetris for five hours instead.

more consuming: pokemon wins again, but this might be because 17776 had an update schedule whereas once you buy a pokemon game you got it all. unless I get stuck at some mandatory checkpoint, when I pick up a game I ain’t putting it down til I’m done. 17776 didn’t eat up my entire week, if only because there wasn’t enough content to actually do that when I was reading, although it does get points for being one of few stories with staggered updates I’ve actually stayed more or less up-to-date with.

favorite: okay but what if there were satellites in ULTRA space and they made snarky commentary at the passing creatures, reflecting casually on how each and every beast would eventually be deemed a pokemon upon entry into That One ‘Verse (or, uh, series of universes?) as if humans, pokemon, and non-sentient plants are the only living things on the entire planet that those humans know about/would ever consider the existence of