#the entire thing was so underwhelming and poorly planned!!!!!

[gil-estel]

nothing pisses me off more than people praised for ~doing something amazing~ when the actual product is mediocre and the only reason they had to work so hard is because they failed to properly delegate.

[lou-syd]

So I read the first issue of Red Hood: The Hill and my expectations were admittedly low because of how poorly Jason is handled most of the time so I'm not disappointed like I've seen some people be (if you are, that's totally valid though, I def get it). I feel entirely neutral about it. I think it wasn't a strong start for an already very, very short run, and with it being a flashback its pacing worries me a bit.

I think it could be interesting going forward but I'm definitely getting the vibe that this is not going to be Jason-centric like a lot of people are. I do think it's too early to tell but it's definitely possible this will focus more on Dana and her crew which like I guess?? I like Dana and I don't mind some of the focus being on her at all. She's interesting and I like when Gotham-set stories actually feel like it's a real but weird place with real people living in it. I enjoy it when they show how much of a mess the city is and how the people living in it have to adapt to get by. Dana's dynamic with Jason has potential and that being the focal point of this whole thing could lead to a more compelling narrative overall. The idea of Jason being the one to try and guide a friend entering into this world could offer up a lot of good character beats for him that we haven't seen a lot of in a while. That being said, it feels like Red Hood is more of a vehicle for this story about The Hill so I'm not holding my breath for it. Retroactively changing his backstory around to fit this place into it also doesn't give me the best feeling either.

As for the rest of the 'new' characters, I don't really care for the little neighborhood watch crew outside of Dana. There's not much to go off and seeing Jason interact with them does nothing for me and just feels forced (but then again most of his relationships are forced in general). Having this many characters with such a short run is not going to allow for any of them to be fleshed out enough for them to feel like they matter in the grand scheme of things. By virtue of this being a flashback, the stakes already feel pretty low so having a cast of characters that aren't particularly compelling and whose relationships with Jason evolved off-panel doesn't help. They have cool designs though, I'll give them that.

I don't like that it took getting through almost halfway through the issue for Jason to show up and when he does it's underwhelming.

So far, it's shaping up to be a one-off story with low stakes. Which is fine. A short, contained story can be good if it's written well and there's something to take away from it. Otherwise, they're just slapping Red Hood on the title for readership's sake and calling it a day. Which like, nothing surprises me anymore but it's lame that this is what we get for Jason after the nightmare mess that was Gotham War and TMWSL.

Apparently, Zdarsky is planning on including Jason in his upcoming Batman arc according to some posts I saw so take that with a grain of salt but the thought of that happening makes me want to grind my teeth into a fine dust.

At this point, I feel like I'm just holding out for nothing with Jason. I don't like any direction they've taken with him outside of some interesting bits here and there so I hope this run picks up.

[alterkrystal]

Well well well..~ I didn't have much energy to put together my own list as I usually do, so this year I'm going to use inspiration from another person's prompt. You can check out the original/one I'm using in the link above, by on.going.crisis on Deviantart. I've gotta head out to do some planning, sketches, and other personal things since Fall Break is approaching. But until then, be good people. <3 (P.S!: Do not try to repeat anything I (poorly) draw this October season at home or just in real life in general. It is entirely fictional and nonsense, as I do not support any form of real life violence against anyone. I am fully aware of tragedies that have been happening in the world at the moment, so that is why I'm putting this quick disclaimer. It might also turn out underwhelming a bit as I am still studying human physiology/anatomy in order to get the right proportions. Thanks for understanding.)

[yeololol-t]

Rent a girlfriend (Park ChanyeolxFemaleMC)

Ik 3rd pov is not popular on tumblr but I wasn't originally planning to post this it was just a warm up but decided to post it anyway so enjoy the unedited chaos!

Description:

In which Heejin works as a gf for hiring while seeing Chanyeol at the same time...

Part 1/2

“Not only did she lie about her age and nationality, but she also kept using the dumbest nicknames on me? Do I look like a little pumpkin cupcake to you?! I don’t even want to know what the inspiration for that one was.” Sehun scoffs, “And I have to sit through the entire thing, pretending to enjoy it?!”

“You’ll get used to it.” She holds back a giggle for her angry friend’s sake. “Plus, you get paid for it so..”

“Yeah, well, you made everything sound a lot more fun and a lot easier.” The tall college student crosses his arms in distaste, weighed down by the underwhelming job he’d willingly applied to at the suggestion of his close friend, Heejin.

“It’s only your first day, Sehunnie. Some clients are fun; others are your worst nightmare, and if you think being given pet names is bad, you might as well quit now, cuz it only gets worse from here.” Heejin’s eyes remained glued to the screen.

Sehun huffs in frustration, “This is worse than prostitution.”

Heejin shrugs, “This is clean prostitution.”

He purses his lips in defeat. “What are you doing anyway?” He shifts closer to her desk, taking a peak at her computer.

“Doing my job, unlike you.”

“I just got back, for god’s sake!” He runs his hand through his dark hair.

“Yeah, well, you better get to replying to clients before duck face catches you slacking.” Heejin types away on her computer.

Sehun chuckles at the image of his boss with a duck beak, though it wasn’t that much of a reach with her poorly done lip fillers. “Yeah, yeah, I’ll get to it.”

She pauses to finally look at her younger friend. “Fighting, Pumpkin cupcake oppa!” She holds up a fist to match her exaggerated determined expression.

Sehun crumples a random piece of paper and throws it at her, but she could tell he was holding back a laugh.

“Ah! Finally!” After hours of semi-nonstop work, Heejin was more than ready to go home. She stretches in her seat and glances at her coworker and friend to check on his progress.

“Gimme one more minute then we can head back home together.” He says while yawning.

“Take your time…ish.” She leaves her seat and circles the empty office seats. Their coworkers were almost all gone, except for the ones in higher demand. Heejin had already predicted the popularity Sehun would gain; after all, he had the looks of an idol. She just wondered if he’d be able to hold back his sarcasm and sass for the dates, but he seems to be doing well.

“And done!” Sehun violently clicks a button on his keyboard before shooting out of his seat. “lessgoo!” He cheers.

They say their goodbyes to their coworkers and leave the building.

“So,” Sehun nudges her, his expression already telling her what his next sentence will be, “how’s it going with yeollie?”

Her face heats up at the reminder that Sehun had overheard her earlier phone call with her hopefully-soon-to-be-boyfriend. “Shut up.” She mumbles.

Sehun cackles loudly, earning a light shove from his much smaller friend.

“Okay, okay, I’ll stop…for now.” He raises his hands, signaling a temporary truce. “Really, though, how’s it going with him?”

Somehow, her heart flutters just at the thought of Chanyeol, and so she avoids Sehun’s gaze to avoid further teasing. He knew her well enough to be able to tell she was flustered by just looking at her, so she was thankful their walk to the station made it slightly more difficult for him to notice her face.

“Well, he’s just…a dream come true, to be honest.” She smiles to herself, feeling the warmth spread from her chest to the rest of her body.

Sehun makes a gagging noise, “Can’t believe you’re getting like this over a man.”

Another shove.

“As cliché as it sounds, this one is different.”

“Uh-huh.” Sehun remains unimpressed.

Heejin couldn’t blame him though; it wasn’t the first time he’d witnessed her fall head over heels for someone only to later discover how much of a dick they actually were. Yet she had faith in her Yeol.

“Does he know about, you know, your job and all?” Sehun gets serious.

That’s exactly what she didn’t wanna talk about.

“No…” Heejin replies honestly.

“You know you’ll have to tell him sooner or later, right?”

She hated that he was right.

“I know, and he’ll understand.” She poured all her hope in that second part.

“I don’t think anyone would be okay with their partner going on dates as a job.”

“Guess I’ll have to find a different job then.” She sighs, “But the pay here is just too good…”

“True.” He agrees, “Well, no use worrying about it now, I suppose. We’ll think about it when y’all make it official.”

Heejin smiles at the idea of Chanyeol asking her to be his girlfriend. God, she’s whipped.

After taking the subway, Sehun and Heejin were left in front of their usual dinner place- the convenience store.

“Are you hungry?” Heejin asks.

“You already know I am.”

“Let’s go then.” She cheerfully links arms with him and drags him to the store.

It was almost a tradition for them to go have ramen at the convenience store after work, at this point, and if they didn’t do that, they’d have dinner together at one of their apartments. And by ‘dinner’, they mean more ramen.

“Yeol?” Heejin yelps in surprise.

“Heejin?” Chanyeol laughs sheepishly. He was dressed in a suit, indicating he’d come here right after work, and was holding a bag full of all different kinds of snacks. “I wanted to surprise you, but I got overwhelmed with too much work, so I’m a little late.”

“Oh, no, you’re not. Heejin was about to buy some snacks and go home, so you’re right on time, actually.” Sehun lightly pushes Heejin towards her little crush as she calls him- though the man was anything but little.

“Oh?” Chanyeol’s face lights up, “Is that so?” he waits for Heejin’s confirmation.

She looks back and forth between Sehun and Chanyeol hesitantly.

Her friend nods encouragingly, so she brings her gaze back to Chanyeol, “Uh, yeah, it’s true.”

“Great! We can go home and eat what I got you then!” He beams.

Her hearts swells, “Of course!”

“Well, you two get going, I’ll buy some stuff and go home.” Sehun excuses himself and walks further back into the store. Heejin couldn’t tell if he actually needed to buy something or if he just wanted to leave her and her date alone, but either way, she grabs Chanyeol’s free hand and walks out the store.

Swinging their hands back and forth, they walk to Heejin’s building- which also happens to be the same building Sehun lives in. He’s her next door neighbor, and that’s essentially how their friendship came to be. Well, they did get off to a rough start, but that’s a story for another day.

“You spend a lot of time with that friend, Sehun’s his name, right?” Chanyeol breaks the silence, as if reading her thoughts about Sehun.

“Oh, yeah, I guess you could say so.” She wonders what brought that up.

“Ah, I’m jealous. Wish I could spend as much time with Heejin-ah.” He smiles down at her, his dimples peeking through.

Heejin squeezes his hand in hers and smiles shyly, keeping her eyes on the ground. “Me too…I wish I could spend more time with you.”

They finally arrive at her apartment’s door, and she starts fishing for her keys in her bag.

While he waits, Chanyeol begins planting soft kisses on her cheek.

“Yeol…someone’s gonna see…” Even though they were just cheek kisses, any form of pda seems to set Heejin’s cheeks ablaze.

“Guess you have to find the keys faster then.” He teases, his arms wrapping tighter around her waist.

She chuckles despite how hot her face felt. “You’re so mean.” She fake whines.

Before he could respond, however, she’d already found the keys. “Found em!” She grins at the taller man before turning to unlock the door.

Chanyeol follows her inside and shuts the door behind them.

She flicks on an unnecessary amount of lights as she walks into the kitchen, to which Chanyeol protests as per usual, “Your electricity bill is gonna be way more than you can pay.” He flicks off a few light switches.

“Are you calling me poor?”

“Huh?” Chanyeol stares at her, dumbfounded.

Heejin laughs at his expression. “I’m just kidding, Yeol. Here let me help.” She attempts to grab the bag he’s been carrying.

“Nope. I wanna spoil you.” He places the plastic bag on the counter before turning around and carrying Heejin to also place her on the counter. “You just get to watch me, baby, okay?” He presses a kiss to her lips.

“Whatever you say then.” She shrugs, accepting the princess treatment.

Chanyeol takes off his jacket and folds his shirt’s sleeves to reveal his forearm. Heejin tries not to drool.

He then grabs two packs of her favourite ramen and turns towards the stove, “Wait, where do you-”

“Here you go.” She hands him a large pan from a nearby cupboard.

“Thanks.” He chuckles.

“How was work?” Heejin calls out while Chanyeol works on their dinner, his back turned to her.

“Alright, nothing worth mentioning really. What about you?” He glances at her.

She remains silent, her conversation with Sehun popping up in her mind.

“Heejin-ah?”

“Oh, um, yeah, same, nothing worth mentioning.”except of course, you know, the job itself.

Heejin remains quiet after that, silently drowning in guilt.

Chanyeol is the perfect man, but she just has to be sure first before she drops her job for a man.

She tried to shake off the urge to just tell him right now, directing her focus on anything else- like how gorgeous Chanyeol looks as he grabs the two bowls and places them at the table. His arms were threatening to rip through his sleeves. God, this man is beautiful.

She hops off the counter and sits on the chair opposite to where Chanyeol was standing.

She immediately notices how cheesy and creamy he made the ramen- exactly how she likes. She moans in delight after taking the noodles into her mouth, “Chanyeol, these are so good!”

His ears turn a bright shade of pink, “Oh, it’s nothing, really. Glad you like them.”

The almost-a-couple-but-not-quite eat in silence for a few moments before Chanyeol interjects excitedly, “Oh! How could I forget? My friend invited both of us to go out with him and his new girlfriend; kind of like a double date I guess. So, are you free on Thursday night?”

Heejin smiles sadly, “Sorry, Yeollie, I have to work until late this Thursday…”

He pouts slightly, making it hard for Heejin not to go kiss him and tell him she’ll be there. “Oh, well, it’s okay, I suppose we can set up another double date.” He nods as if agreeing with his own suggestion.

After finishing their bowls, Chanyeol grabs the rest of the snacks and leads them to Heejin’s living room, “What do you wanna watch?”

Heejin shrugs.

“Helpful as usual.” He chuckles, earning a light punch to the arm.

Chanyeol sets up some romcom Heejin had never heard of but was happy to watch.

He sits on the couch and holds an arm out, waiting for her to settle in his arms, which she does.

At some point during the movie, Heejin falls asleep, and Chanyeol takes that as his sign to leave, but only after leaving a few- okay, more than a few- kisses all over her face.

~

“I have to go now or I’ll be late.” Heejin announces as she grabs her bag off her desk.

“Have fun and don’t get murdered!” Sehun calls out from his desk.

“I’ll try.”

“If you don’t make it, can I have your PS?”

Heejin eyes him but doesn’t respond.

She rushes out the building, her heels clicking loudly.

“Kim Heejin?” A voice calls out, interrupting her march to the station.

The source of the voice looked familiar, “Uh, is this Lee Hyunwoo?”

“Yes, I had extra time, so I figured I could come pick you up to make things easier for you.” He smiles.

“Oh.” Her eyebrows furrow, “That’s kind of you.” She forces her face to display appreciation.

The drive to the restaurant wasn’t anything outside the usual, just some small talk to fill the silence.

“My friend will be joining us today; I hope you don’t mind.” Hyunwoo says once they reach their table.

It wasn’t strange at all; a lot of clients brought her to friend hang outs and the like, so Heejin smiles, “It’s okay.”

“So, until my friend shows up, would you like to take a look at the menu?” He slides the menu towards Heejin, as if she didn’t really have the option to decline, not that she wanted to but still.

Heejin scans the menu; she’d wanted to go on a diet, so she considered just settling for a salad, but when you’re at a fancy restaurant and someone else is paying, it’s extremely tempting to go all out. Plus, this wasn’t gonna last forever anyway; in fact, she probably needs to quit as soon as possible. So for now, maybe she needs to take advantage of this man.

Absorbed in her thoughts, Heejin doesn’t notice the man approaching their table.

“Chanyeol!” Hyunwoo greets.

Heejin freezes. No. No, it’s fine. It’s just a stranger with the same name. It can’t be.

She slowly lifts her head to look at said stranger. Her eyes meet Chanyeol’s. Her Chanyeol.

“Heejin?”

[scorbleeo]

Book Chat: Boundless

Unearthly (Book 3) by Cynthia Hand

Source: Google Images

The past few years held more surprises than part-angel Clara Gardner ever could have anticipated. Now, with the fallen angel who attacked her watching her every move and the threat of Black Wings looming, Clara knows she must finally fulfill her destiny—a destiny that includes Christian Prescott by her side. But in order to complete her purpose, Clara must first find a way to give up the thing she wants most...a future with the boy she loves, Tucker Avery.

ISBN: 9780062103468 (2013) | Source: Goodreads

Disappointing

I do believe I wasted my time with the Unearthly trilogy. It's not badly written, nor was the plot entirely mundane. I did like some (individual) aspects in this series, and this book. Unfortunately, put everything together and it felt like a waste of time. Which baffles me because it really wasn't a bad finale to the series and according to the ratings and reviews I briefly saw on Goodreads, Boundless was rather well received. It was just a case of expectations due to the buildup that ultimately led to a disappointingly underwhelming ending.

From the very beginning, I was always a Clara-Christian supporter. It always felt like Hand was trying to push Tucker onto me and I do not see the love. When I mentioned earlier Hand is not a bad writer, I truly mean it. She did amazing writing the tension and chemistry between Clara and Christian. Which is why, I do not understand how could she screw up on the chemistry between Clara and Tucker. Nothing in all three books, one novella and one extra chapter could convince me Clara loved Tucker more than Christian. Probably why I was further disappointed by this last book.

So, I do not know if this book was written before or after The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare. If you've read that trilogy, you would know the almost "poly" relationship Clare created. Now, as I finished Boundless, I thought Hand was trying to do a Tessa-Will-Jem situation here with Clara-Tucker-Christian. Sadly, it just wasn't it. Like I said, Clara and Tucker's chemistry was extremely lacklustre.

Onto the other half that utterly disappointed me. The final act or final battle. I would have liked for Asael to be introduced earlier, you know, give me something more. And this really annoyed me, have Asael be a criminal mastermind, talk about him being this big bad, and have him defeated in a blink of an eye. What?

Unearthly's story is not bad, it was just very poorly planned out.

Rating: ★★☆☆☆ (2.5/5)

More on the Unearthly series here: Unearthly (#1) | Hallowed (#2)

[jimin-bangtan]

After Jimin's Promotions - My Thoughts

(Note: My thoughts were written down April 9, 2023.)

Post promotional thoughts

So once Jimin's FACE album was released on March 24, 2023, a surprising chain of events occurred in regard to who supported Jimin and who did not.  Based on past events, the company not fully supporting JM was not surprising. They always, in my opinion, seem to treat him with less action and assistance than they do some of the others. The surprise was how poorly they supported (and possibly sabotaged) his efforts. More surprises came from within the BTS group itself.

The company

JM only had 4 unique songs on the whole album (minus the hidden song). He did 2 videos & later told us that he had wanted to make it a visual album with videos for all songs. The company told him that was "unreasonable & impossible" yet after his album became a huge success - mostly because of the fans' organization and hard work, the company’s stock went up 15 points & other KPop companies also profited. Imagine if they had helped him more.  He broke records all over the world and is the first Korean soloist to hit #1 on Billboard’s Hot 100. Both songs with videos were #1 in over 100 countries and in all major music markets.  They both also debuted on the Hot 100 chart. He was #2 on both of Billboard’s Global charts (w/ & w/o U.S.).  He won awards at all the major music shows so far, & has the highest number of albums sold in 24 hours for an Asian artist, etc. etc. etc.  The company didn’t even seem to put out celebratory posts or do the articles they seem to do for others when they’ve achieved less.  Their support for him is extremely underwhelming in spite of his huge efforts, popularity, & success.  His newness for doing an entire album project, his lack of direction & training (again), & his perfectionism may have delayed JMs album as well, which may have caused his promotional period to be extremely short compared to others (only about 2 weeks) & it may have caused some of the overlap I am bothered by. I am at least willing to consider this based on timeframes Jimin has mentioned.  In any case, the lack of support, as I've said, was not surprising but even more sad was the apparent sabotage the company appears to have intentionally inflicted on JM as well. More and more is coming to light and maybe in another post I will speak on that. If it is a business plan, it appears to be at JMs expense, and it is disappointing to discover and witness.

BTS

Another surprising lack of support came from his “soulmate” V.  V has not said a public word to Jimin about his album or achievements, which is not usual for him in my view. Even if he did it privately, I think it is bad optics for a public-facing career.  Others have noticed and are commenting on it too.  JM has set a high bar for those who follow, and since V lagged and did not put out his album, which is said to have been done a long while ago (Festa 2022), he now has the high bar to reach. His fault, not Jimin’s.  Lately, Vs actions have been giving me pause in regard to other things as well. Whatever the reason, Vs apparent neglect of manners and support do not look good on him. To be fair, I don’t know the actual circumstances and there is a possibility that V could have justification for his actions.  

JHope has come through with good support in spite of him continually stepping on JMs promotion and album period with the continual release of social media and collaboration projects.  Jin, who is in the military, even showed up.  Jin also commented online about Jimin’s BB#1 achievement in his own playful way, asking JM, "the chart topper", where his copy of the album was. JM told us that RM, who also stepped on JMs promotional time with a release, congratulated him privately by phone and publicly on social media, telling him he was proud of him.  Suga hosted JM on Suchwita to help with promotions and referred to Jimin’s achievements in different conversations.

The one who surprised me the most in a positive way has been JK.  I have previously been underwhelmed with his public support & this time he went beyond my expectations of him. JK did very helpful & specific gestures during his Lives to support JM.* He also congratulated JM on social media for his 1st award & he popped in on several of JMs quick Lives during the promotional period. JK showed up at JMs practice to watch and encourage him.  He dedicated an entire Live to watch JMs SMF, Pt2 video and dance practice, LC dance practice, JMs Suchwita interview with Suga,  as well as a BTS compilation video focused on JM. JK said nice & supportive things about JM, his work, and his voice. JK also attended the dinner that they all supposedly showed up for after JMs music show performance.  I mean wow. (Suga mentioned that V had been at the dinner but wasn’t in the posted picture because he & JM had left already.  Something makes me wonder about Vs attendance with my comments in the above paragraph.)

Anyway, JKs support really helped soothe some of my resentment about how poorly the company promoted JM. I am not sure if he was inspired to do it because he realized the lack of effort the company was giving or because he was excited for JMs new venture and the desire for his hard work to be received well or whether he was excited that he would be able to spend more time soon with a less busy JM now that the project was being released or all three reasons combined. Either way, with JMs album release came an awakened and excited JK too. It makes me smile that JM, as the hyung, went down this unfamiliar and difficult road first. And JK, now witnessing the extraordinary outcome of JMs hard work and the success he was achieving, likely felt encouraged and more informed about his own project that needed to get up and running. He likely learned a lot while watching or at least hearing JM tell him about the challenges, events, and achievements while going through the process.

Conclusion

Overall, in spite of the minimal promotional time and contributions, Jimin's album has been extremely successful - and continues to be. Jimin again shows that his hard work and determination can overcome the many challenges and disappointments he FACES. Although I hope his future efforts will come with fewer obstacles and greater support, Jimin has shown that, in spite of it all, he can still succeed, make an impact, and make his fans proud.

*My thoughts about Letter (hidden song) and more JK contributions to come

[askaceattorney]

Dear Asexual-Deesasters,

Mod Edgeworth: 

If you want to know the answer to that question, go to this link.

Dear Skibot99,

Co-Mod: I’m fairly certain it was The Mod, but I don’t know for sure.  He actually had another one before it, made from an old Ace Attorney musical animation.  I haven’t been able to locate that video, unfortunately, but here’s the old banner:

Ah...  Those were good days.  Good days.

Dear Dawsongfg,

Co-Mod: It’s fine.  Besides, it won’t be too long before those letters are accepted, so maybe we’ll hold onto them until that time.

Dear skibot99 again,

Mod Edgeworth: The Lost Turnabout hands down. All logic is thrown out the window the moment Phoenix had amnesia. It’s clear the Judge knew something was wrong with Phoenix, so why didn’t he call for a recess or check on Phoenix? Not to mention Wellington was annoying. He’s probably the only character I would be hesitant to play as when answering letters, if only because he was so unbearable.

As for Turnabout Ablaze, I do agree that it is a drag to get through in the end, though the entire game of AAI was boring, aside from the game mechanics. As a case by itself, I wouldn’t put it as my least favorite, if only because I did get some funny parts out of it.  It also contributed to the overall story, whereas The Lost Turnabout could just be taken out and it wouldn’t effect the overarching plot.

Co-Mod: I’d probably have to go with Turnabout Big Top.  I honestly couldn’t figure out the part where you have to present Max’s poster without consulting a walkthrough.  Why couldn’t we just present Max himself?  Besides that, the ending was largely underwhelming -- the murder weapon was hidden under Acro’s blanket the entire time, but instead of seeing a screenshot of it there, we just have to imagine it.  Maybe it was a filler case, but that was no excuse for it to end so poorly.  Not to mention one of the witnesses was a literal puppet.

It’s hard truth, Trilo.  Live with it.

Dear skibot99 and Anonymous,

Mod Edgeworth: I… think I heard from her when the localization of DGS was announced? I know Mod Kristoph and Mod Maya introduced themselves when I came into the group. There’s a third person, but I only heard from her once. As for what’s going on with her… I don’t know.

As for the flooding the inbox, it’s fine. I won’t promise a letter or two won’t be deleted, but we may make an exception and I’d hardly consider 4-5 different letters flooding the inbox. However, I do highly suggest lowering your letter sending to no more than three a day to prevent deletion of your letters. The only time I’d say your letters are flooding the inbox is when you’re sending 10-20 of them, especially of the same letter, and we have to scroll down for a while to get to the next letter. We will only choose three out of that pile and delete the rest.

And yes, we do have a few that send us 10-20 of the same letter to multiple characters in the span of five minutes. Geez.

Co-Mod: Mod Paups has had to remain absent for personal reasons, and sadly, has recently communicated to me that she wishes to leave the blog entirely.  Thanks for all you’ve contributed to this blog, Mod Paups, and best of luck in whatever you do next!

(Referenced Letter)

Dear mungeondaster,

Mod Edgeworth: Since I answered this one, I shall answer your letter.

(^ Why do I always use this sprite? ^) Actually, the localization never specified if Manfred Von Karma was born in Germany or not. In fact, we never knew the German part until Justice For All when Franziska Von Karma was stated to have flown all the way from Germany. It never specifies any reason for this and fans were quick to jump to the conclusion that it means the Von Karma family were German, which… isn’t entirely true? Manfred Von Karma never said he lived in Germany and, for all we know, Franziska could’ve lived in Germany to study law or something.

Now, the OG does give us more specific detail on this, being why I answered this the way I did. In the OG, both Von Karma’s were born Japanese, but lived in America or at least have an estate there. It specified that they were originally born in Japan, which would be translated to LA, California in the localization. While using the OG canon isn’t normal here, I will use it, if the localization doesn’t specify things. In this case, it never specified if the Von Karma’s were born in Germany or if Manfred Von Karma lived in America. Since he had to wait out the Statue of Limitations for DL-6, we can assume he lived in LA for 15 years or more. That means he’s American.

I am still getting the hang of writing letters, but I try to stick to canon as much as possible. If you believe we’ve made an error in our letters, feel free to let us know, but also show proof, if we go against canon. We’ll be sure the letter is sent to the right mod or else fix it.

Dear  Bluedragoncody,

Mod Edgeworth: I... don’t know how to feel about that.

Also, I accidentally deleted your previous letter before this one when trying to post it on here. I’m so sorry about that. If you could remember it, would you send it again?

Co-Mod: I’ll just respond to this with an old classic:

Dear Aceattorneyismyjam,

Mod Edgeworth: I-I’m not a pro! I accidentally deleted an important mod question from bluedragoncody, because of my inexperience. Oof! Again, so sorry!

Granted, I am good with digital art and writing essays, but I’m still trying to get the hang of being a mod here. Believe me, I do get corrected on several mistakes I do here. I can’t really call myself a pro just yet. I’ve only just started becoming a mod here last month lol

Dear Dahlia,

Mod Edgeworth: I thank you for your support of this blog and my essay. Manfred Von Karma is also my favorite villain and someone I do feel is underestimated as a one dimensional villain. I think people hate him so much, because of how he ruined Miles Edgeworth’s life without looking at the bigger picture. They focus on the bad things with their black colored glasses without dissecting Manfred Von Karma’s character as a whole. 

One thing I love about this blog, even before becoming a mod, is that no one here ever portrayed Manfred Von Karma as the one dimensional villain. He can be snappy at times, but as proven in many of our previous letters, he’s also portrayed as being calm when threatened, polite at times and absolutely loves his wife and children. Yes, he’s a terrible person, but that’s what makes him so interesting. He’s a bad, evil person that does good things from time to time. It doesn’t justify any of his horrible deeds, murder included, but it does make him human.

Co-Mod: I’m...going to assume you’re a different Dahlia.  (I’m grabbing a Magatama of Parting just in case, though.  I’m sure you can understand.)

Anyway, thanks for being such a loyal follower!  This blog’s been through a lot of changes since it began, and since I joined it back in 2017, so I’m glad it’s still a good source of enjoyment for you.  I’ve seen all sorts of cringe by now, by the way (some of which I wrote myself), so don’t worry about it.

I’m also glad that the characters still sound like themselves and not like us.  The hilarious personalities and quirks given to them by Capcom’s writers, as well as the humanity in so many of them, make them easy to relate to, and thus fairly easy to mimic.  I may have said something like this before, but I see myself in a lot of them -- in Athena’s fear of inadequacy, in Apollo’s desire for justice in a world where it’s hard to find, in Sebastian’s confusion about where to go next after his world falls apart, and possibly even in the von Karmas’ desire for perfection.  I of course identify with their positive feelings as well -- Phoenix’s smugness when he gets things right, Athena’s joy after pulling off a victory in court, Adrian’s pride after her self-confidence is restored, etc. -- but there’s something about the struggles they face that make them easier to relate to, on top of being that much more awesome in the end.

Unfortunately, I can’t promise anything about this blog continuing on in perpetuity.  For one thing, I don’t plan on being around forever (I’m fairly certain the other Mods don’t, either), and for that matter, there’s also no telling how long Tumblr will be around.  All I can promise is that I’ll give my best while I’m here, and that the love from you and everyone else who shares it here is sure to be what keeps us going.  Thank you for your contribution!

Dear TurqouiseJavelin,

Mod Edgeworth: Hm... not bad ideas. Though, we mods choose our own mod names under the condition that it doesn’t match anyone else’s mod name.

Co-Mod: What Mod Edgeworth said.  Choosing the name “Mod Athena” may or may not increase your chances of being hired, though.  *wink, wink*

Dear Anonymous, 

Mod Edgeworth: Actually, Gregory was stated in the Autopsy to have died by a gunshot. However, you do bring up something interesting. If Gregory Edgeworth realized he was dead and last remembered Robert Hammond strangling him, he wouldn’t think “I died by the shot of a gun.” Since the Detectives weren’t aware that victim had died unconscious, they’d assume the victim would recall being shot and killed. This makes me wonder if Gregory Edgeworth was channeled, but never brought to court to be cross-examined.

There are still holes, but I do like your aspect on DL-6.

Co-Mod: Dang...  No matter how many times you come back to this game, there’s always something new to think about.  I honestly hadn’t considered those details about Yanni Yogi’s trial.  Your explanation makes the most sense to me, but there’s one other possibility regarding Gregory’s testimony -- he may have chosen to lie about who murdered him in order to protect his son from a murder charge.  That’s all open to interpretation, of course, so your guess is as good as ours.

It’s a good thing we’re not actual defense attorneys, huh?

-The Mods

[popculturebuffet]

Shadow Into Light (Lena Retrospective): Magica’s Shadow War

Hello all you happy people! And welcome back to Shadow Into Light, my look at the life and times of Lena Sabrewing. We’re in the end stretch, just two more installments after this: one covering what may be my favorite episode, and the other covering Lena’s season 3 appearances, as unlike Seasons 1 and 2 she shows up outside her own episodes fairly often and most of those apperances touch on how far she’s come or her life in some way shape or form, so I really can’t skip over them. 

But before we can get to the end of Lena’s arc, we have to once again go back where she came from. Previously I covered the one and only apperance of Minima DeSpell, a character Lena took some inspiration from. But Lena is a combination of Minima and another Ducktales 87 character but this time one from the show itself, in the same episode we meet Magica no less. Given how much frank loved the original, it’s not a huge shock one of the most vital and intresting new characters from the reboot was partially taken from an episode he probably watched 80 dozen times. So how does the original shadow stack up with her rebooted counterpart? Is the episode any good? And should I watch invincible. The answers to this question are under the cut!

To answer your question on invincible.. Yeah you should. It’s gorgeously animated, has a MASSIVELY talented and diverse cast, and perfectly adapts the original source: Adding in great new stuff and shuffling things around to work better for the pacing of a tv show. And after loosing The Tick to Amazon’s greasy clutches, not to mention Danger and Eggs and Alpha House before that with no formal cancelation so they coudln’t move elsewhere, i’m not taking any chances despite the odds being far more in invincibles favor. Check it out, just mind that it has a shocking amount of gore, if you like superheroes.  Or even if you don’t, it’s pretty much guaranteed to have someone you like doing a voice. 

Enough shilling for an unrelated show though, let’s get to this one. We open with our introduction to the De Spells. Magica is hovering over a caludron with a diabolical new plan to steal Scrooge’s #1 dime. Why? 

Or at least I didn’t. I knew why she wanted the dime itself mind you: The Dime has picked up some powerful emotoinal energy from being around Scrooge all his life as he built his fortune, made his way square and fought Teddy Roosevelt. All that good stuff. So naturally if used in a spell, that spell is going to be massively powerful. I just didn’t know what the spell was.. and now I do.. i’mmm underwhelmed. She wants it to gain the midas touch, i.e. the ablility to turn things she touches into gain, using the dime as a power source for an amulet. 

 Magica, via her potions and spells has the powers to do just about ANYTHING. And her goal is.. make some things into gold. She has a giant volcano laier, whatever resources she needs to go after Scrooge, and in this series at least can buy a haunted house on a whim. She HAS money.. why would she need this. And second... the midas touch is a bad thing. You cant’ USE or enjoy anything because it turns to gold> That was the whole fucking point of the myth. If it removes the weakness than fine.. but again it seems like a lot of effort for something with a short range and heavy possible drawbacks. I tfits her personalty to a point but even then she has better spells. I’m going more with it simply allowing her to supercharge.. is it more simplisti? yes. Does it make more sense than “Give myself a power that can easily be turned back on me by just making me touch myself “ yes, yes it is. 

Meanwhile the boys dick around playing Candid Camera with a new camera Gyro gave them that is no more advanced than your average instant camera. You’d expect this new invention to come in handy against Shadow Magica. And you’d be right. You’d expect the boys to at least suggest hte idea before the climax. You’d be wrong. This big is just.. irrtating. It’s just the boys being dicks to everyone by taking embarssing photos and really adds nothing to the episode of any remote subtsnace.

Conversley Magica continues to be the highlight, as her check in with airport security gets her through as she has no fruit. Ah the days before they throughly scanned us and most tsa jokes were about shoving hands up someone’s ass. Seriously.. why. .why is that a common joke. I’ve never had it done but unless you fully consent to it it’s not fun to get your hand up there but it was an oddly common gag for a long time.I.. really don’t get it. 

She arrives in america and buys a haunted house, to the realtor’s shock but eh it’s a sale. The black mold just makes it more sinister. Magica sicks Shadow Magica on the bin, with an elaborate plan but giving the Shadow one hour to do it because otherwise it will disapate.. given it dosen’t it’s likely more Magica trying to keep her double in line, having ran into trouble earlier with shadow her trying to steal the wallet of what I can only assume to be gus goose. So he was on vacation tha’ts where he was.. from what I don’t know he dosen’t actually do work and the house of mouse hadn’t been established yet. Maybe Gramma Duck just gives him vacation days. 

So the shadow ALMOST gets away with the dime.. but accidnetly knocks over a pedestal and warns Scrooge and the Boys, who manage to chase her off. Scrooge having only one magical nemisis in his Rogues gallery, that we know of, knows who did this and prepares for an attack.  Magica.. berates her doppleganger and while she considers a spell to power her up, decides against it since what would stop the Shadow from betraying her. The shadow agrees.. and locks Magica and Poe in a closet and makes the potion herself, taking on a creepy new form and planning to raise an ARMY of shadows. 

And here... is where the split between Lena and The Shadow is very deefinite. While Frank and Matt kept the shadow and Magica really not getting along and only working together out of necisity on both ends.. the shadow here REALLY is just magica. Just as evil and ambitious, and just as sneaky. The only diffrence between the two is the shadow’s logical weaknesses of being a shadow, i.e. light weakens her and she can only hide in darkness or other shadows, and how they were born. Shadow magica is every bit as evil and devious as the main one. I do get why she stuck in Frank’s brain though: the idea is simple but ingenious, someone’s shadow gaining sentience, and the cool tricks you get with that as she ducks and darts between shadows. It’s really good stuff and frank expertly expanded it with lena, making her basically humanoid duck other than where she came from, but still using the neat tricks with the shadow itself for Magica’s imprisoned form and later the shadow army. It’s a good example of taking a really good idea.. and making it even better, by having said shadow being deal with not being considered a person by the person who spawned her and really ramping up the idea of a shadow army, which Shadow Magica eventually summons, from about ten guys to an entire cities worth. The shadows also you know come from people instead of just thin air but semantics. Point is it’s a very good concept and done really well esepcially for the 87 cartoon, and while Frank’s take was unique and very well done, it dosen’t make the original any less good. 

And it’s shown off with a cool sequence of the shadow infiltrating the manor and nearly getting to the dime with Scrooge having rigged the place to all hell with lights as a percaution. It nearly wins but louie uses a shadow puppet to scare it off. While Scrooge ponders this latest attack Poe shows up, and offers Magica’s help.. but Scrooge rightly dosen’t want it, as he can’t trust her and only agrees when the boys bring up the power bill from keeping the lights on. 

Now getting Magica on board is not an idea: The shadow’s a threat to both of them and they need each other. The next part though.. is a bit stupid and drags the episode down a bit. Magica asks for the dime to beat the thing. Now Scrooge wisely is hesitant to do so.. but everyone else treats it like his usual greedy antics. Thing is.. it’s not. We don’t, at least in this adaptation, know what Magica wants with the thing or the full extent of what she can do with it or if she even actually needs it. While getting her help is one thing, giving her the DIME well...] ]’ii98[[

Why would you give someone you KNOW wants to use the dime to conquer the world or whatever the thing she wants? It’d be like handing Thanos the Infnity Gauntlet to take out Galactus. Yes, your handling a big problem.. but your burning the world to do it. It’s just so frustratlingly dumb. There’s a good idea in there, Scrooge being forced to lend Magica the dime, but it’s buried under Mt. Contrivance! 

So Scrooge reluctantly goes along with operation:seemed like a good idea at the time, and cleverly puts the dime in an empty stadium. Unfortuantley the lights malfunction and Shadow Magica summons MORE Shadows, and now has an army. Launchpad ends up being helpful, also he’s in this episode for some reason, by pointing out shadows need light.. and thus another logical weakness as killing the rest of the lights renders them weak and allows our heroes to lure them to the vault where Magica waits> Magica is able to weaken it with the spell.. but even with that the Shadow SITLL is too powerful.. 

Enter the cameras, which take out Shadow Magica, saving the day. We get a lesson about trusting Gyro’s gadgets for.. some reason and Scrooge stops Magica from fleeing with the dime with a shadow puppet. Smiles and cheese sandwitches all around

Final Thoughts on Magica’s Shadow War: This episode is not half bad. While the Dime Thing is mindblowingly moronic, and the camera thing is REALLY poorly set up, I have not had a more apt use for that Scott Pilgrim Panel yet, the sheer concept and June Foray’s sheer force of personality as both magica’s makes it work. It’s a fun, engaging adventure and a solid chonk of classic ducktales. As for how it relates to Lena it does so decently. But with this our side trips are at an end. Only two episodes left! And then onward to the lilo and stitch crossover arc! Yes really. Kev wanted a buffer before getting to the Season 2 arcs and I loved tha tshow as a kid so why the fuck not. 

Next Time on Shadow Into Light: Lena gets welcomed to prime time bitch as Magica pulls a freddy and stalks her through her dreams. Sadly she did indeed forgot about the power glove. Can the rest of the kids break away from dreams of high school musicals, becoming a garfild, giant legs and libraries long enough to save Lena? Will we have a very queer in the best way possible musical number about Lena and Webby’s anniversary? Will I talk about Huelet? In order, yes, yes, and probably. But join me anyways won’t you. 

If you liked this reviews, subscribe for more. If you have a ducktales episode from seasons 1 and 2 of the reboot or the whole of the 87 series, drop me a line through my ask box, my dm’s or my discord, technicolormuk#6550. Reviews or only 5 bucks an episode for tv. Other prices on the blog. Or if you can’t spare that much, join my patreon. Even a buck or two a month helps reach my stretch goals and the more of those I hit the more disney content you get a month. The current one is only 5 bucks away. I’m 15 and if I hit 20 that guarantees a darkwing duck review every month AND reviews of the super ducktales mini series. But if you can’t that’s cool and I get it times are hard, it’s why I have to shill so hard. But until the next rainbow, it’s been a pleasure. 

[jarchmarto]

Some Thoughts™️ I’ve been kicking around in my head for a while... (sorry if it’s not coherent)

I’ve been on Tumblr for a while now. I’ve seen the rise and fall of many fandoms. Been a part of those rises and falls, even. And, from what I’ve seen, it’s always the same - some piece of content gets wildly popular for a few years, people (whether they consume that content or not) get annoyed, and then that content becomes - drumroll please - cringy!

And I really hope that doesn’t happen with TMA.

I’m already seeing signs of it starting - small ones, but they’re there nonetheless. The joke about “everyone became a TMA blog overnight.” The fact that TMA is trending every time a new episode comes out. People making jokes about “I’m not in the TMA fandom, but I hope they’re doing alright.”

I’ve seen this before - SuperWhoLock, Homestuck, Undertale, Steven Universe - and I’ll see it again. And sure, there are valid reasons that people don’t like content. If you’re scrolling through your dash and all you see are posts from something you have not consumed or have no desire to, it can be annoying! Sometimes content is problematic and people are too swept up in the hype/too ignorant to recognize that! Sometimes the people who like the content are just so awful/annoying/whatever that the content becomes tarnished because of its fanbase.

But please, if this does happen with TMA, don’t be so quick to “cancel” it or whatever. Remember why you love it so much - the characters, the relationships, the story, the writing. It’s probably inspired you to make art! Or to write fanfic! Or to theorize about what’s gonna happen next! Or maybe you want to create the next most amazing audio drama!

Personally, I love TMA so much because as a writer myself, I am so thrilled to hear such a well-crafted story being presented to us. THIS ENTIRE GODDAMN SHOW WAS PLANNED OUT BEFORE JONNY WROTE IT. That shit takes COMMITMENT! It takes TIME! And it’s SO CREATIVE AND FRESH in a sea of underwhelming content! (Particularly the bad rep the horror genre has, from its treatment of women, POC, and LGBT+ characters to even just those shitty horror movies you watch only to make fun of). I never thought I would like horror, and now it’s one of my favorite genres to write in, all because of TMA.

And I also know that, even though Jonny and Alex have been warning us that this show will not have a happy ending, some people are clinging onto that hope. Trust me, I want to, too. But no matter how it ends up, some people are going to be upset, and that could very well contribute to TMA becoming “cringe.” They might say it’s “Bury Your Gays” if any of the LGBT+ characters end up dying (or something similar to death... again, personally, I think death is too... simple of an ending, for lack of a better word). Depending on what kinds of trauma the characters go through, some people might say that the way the story ends up erases that trauma. I’m sure there are other potential arguments that could come up, but those are the ones I’m thinking of off the top of my head because I know those are common things that people look out for because unfortunately, they are all too common. But, like I said earlier, Jonny has had this all planned out. He’s an EXCELLENT storyteller, and I’m sure he knows enough about the fanbase to know what would be satisfying for us. I know that not everyone will be happy with how it turns out, but look at what we have so far. We have PLENTY of canon LGBT+ characters, so even if some of them end up dying, that’s not Bury Your Gays. We’ve seen how different kinds of trauma have been handled, both for better AND for worse, and the times characters have handled their traumas poorly have been written that way intentionally to show that’s not how trauma should be handled. We have had consistent characterization and development of all of the core characters from the time they’ve been introduced, so no matter what ends up happening, I have faith that it won’t be for shock value - it’ll be the completion of those characters’ arcs and what they’ve been hurtling toward since the very first episode.

TL;DR, as we approach the end of TMA (the end of wildly popular pieces of content usually being when they start to be “assigned cringe by tumblr”), PLEASE remember why you love this show and how it’s helped you emotionally and artistically. It’s genuinely one of the most well-crafted pieces of media out there today, and I would be devestated if people start to hate on it as it draws to a close.

Also, this isn’t a call for people to debate with me. I’ve tried to be as uncontroversial as I could, but I know tumblr. I know if this post is seen by a lot of people, someone’s gonna get pissed over it. I’m not making this post to spark some controversy. If you want to reblog, please do, but if you don’t have anything beneficial to add, I will not interact.

[scientistowengottlieb-newtkelly]

Thoughts and feelings about Pacific Rim 2?

you sure you wanna open up that particular can of worms?

movie review time! be warned i'm not in a good mood as i am shaking in pain, however this review would have been scathing regardless. and none of this is to say pacific rim is perfect, it's not, but... aye, i have no words for the world of difference there. oh wait! i do:

so. first and foremost, i hate it. as both a movie and a sequel. did i find it entertaining? yes, mildly, so i suppose it did its job, however the only thing that keeps me watching it is because, simply, it's part of the pacific rim franchise whether we like it or not. therefore, i squeeze as much salvageable content from it as i can, such as how one might analyze the precursors, how we are to view hermann and newt as characters pre-, during, and post-uprising, what we are to expect from drifting (though this one i take with a grain of salt, there is a whole other rant preserved for the joke of an attempt to develop that shit within the movie)

one of my biggest issues with pacific rim is really simple: it plays out like DeKnight did not watch the first fucking movie or was scrolling through twitter while doing it and decided he'd make a cash grab since the first one was relatively popular. "haha the kaiju were going for mount fuji the whole time!!" bitch no they weren't!!! why the fuck did they end up anywhere near sydney, australia, then!!! why did they turn tail on places like manila and san fran instead of heading straight for japan!!! WHY DID THE ONE THAT WAS IN JAPAN NOT SUCCEED, THERE'S NO WAY WITH THOSE MARK 1 JAEGERS THEY'D HAVE BEEN ABLE TO REASONABLY FIGURE OUT THEIR PLAN AND WHERE THEY WERE GOING IN TIME TO STOP THEM!!! newt literally lays out what they are doing in the first movie and they completely ignored that!!! not to mention, if the destruction from elements found in mount fuji would have been enough to terraform the earth, WHY DIDN'T THEY JUST FUCKING DO THAT WHEN THEY WERE SUPPOSEDLY ON EARTH AGES AGO??? THERE WERE VOLCANOES WITH THOSE SAME ELEMENTS BEFORE RIGHT NOW, VOLCANOES ARE NOT A RELATIVELY NEW THING EARTH CREATED SUDDENLY AND I WOULD IMAGINE NEITHER ARE THOSE ELEMENTS!!! IT MAKES NO SENSE!!! and.... okay the fucking drones. how did those bitches make breaches??? we know the breach is some result of precursor/kaiju technology, apparently they know the breach's atomic structure as hermann said in the first movie, but how tf some kaiju organs and tech from earth only is ALL it takes to open a breach... illudes and confuses me... why were no more breaches made by the precursors once they realized how long and how many resources it was taking to kill the humans off??? if it's??? shit they could do with simple earth materials + their own biology??? they could have ended things much faster??? shit just doesn't add up, idk, that was Vague and Annoyed Me

and the jaegers.... were....... strange? the fight scenes were so underwhelming, i could count on one hand the number of maneuvers—NOT SCENES, MANEUVERS—i thought were badass and moved well. their fighting was confusing and paced really weird and some of the moves they pulled... don't... work like that... like some of those scenes were just hand-to-hand combat but in big robot form and they didn't sit right with me at all.

and the characters......... oh my word, the characters. look: i love jake pentecost with all of my heart and soul and john boyega's beautiful acting just barely saves the movie from its poor writing. i do love him as a character. but can someone explain to me why in the world they thought it was a good idea to make the only black guy a black market thief/runner, deep-record criminal with daddy and authority issues, and who they dare try to play off as some kind of lazy??? they made him every stereotype they could and said "yeah let's go with that". i'm- aaaaaaaaaaaaaa and what was with the child soldiers??? ROBOCOPS?????? mako....... character assassination at its worst........ my baby......... but the movie was paced so GOD DAMN POORLY I GOT BORED AND LITERALLY MISSED HER DYING THE FIRST TIME I WATCHED IT. and i couldn't tell you the names of half of those poor damn kids, i really couldn't. and can i also say they killed off one of the only two darker skinned kids?? like y'all???? the other darker skinned kids (one of the children i can't remember the names of because it was uttered ONCE in the entire movie or some shit) didn't even GET characterization. my whole heart goes out to her and those other underdeveloped fucks. speaking of...... i am ashamed about jules. from the movie that brought us the mako mori test, they threw in a girl simply for the sake of some shitty, awkward, and unexplained love triangle between jake and White Angst without much else to put to her name. she deserved better. amara was... a decent shot, but very hit or miss because of the writing. i, personally, am very neutral about her leaning towards liking her, but i know people who swing love and who swing hate. liwen was like,,,, they tried really hard to make her unlikable at the beginning because "oh no, she must be the villain! GOTTEM plot twist!!!" and then suddenly she's no longer. threatening everyone except newt. idk i feel like they leaned to heavily one way and i got whiplash when she's actually another but there was nothing to... portray that. at all. i do like her character, and that says a lot because they got me to sympathize with a capitalist without actually regretting it later, but there could/should have been More there. she was powerful, though, in multiple different aspects, and we saw that from her CONSISTENTLY and i 😳🥵👀💕 mako mori test pass for her

now, let's talk about hermann (and by extention, newton, however he'll be getting a section all his own the rat bastard). that man is one of the single instances of decent cross-movie characterization i saw in the whole god damn film. the idea that he takes on newton's roles, that he is more outspoken for himself, that he is just slightly more unhinged after his drift with newton: THAT is on point. he's himself, you can see it, you still know that he's hermann with ever step, but there's something that has shifted in him in those 10 years and it's good without being too much. the "i still get nightmares" scene, the way he presents himself, that scene gives me chills because god bless burn gorman and his acting ability. every face and intonation of his voice is just wonderful and i think his performance was great for what he was given. king shit.

the biggest disappointment of my life came in the form of a kaiju vest wearing bitch at work. at his corporate job. as a boss. for a tech company that undermines all of his and, frankly, hermann's work over their lifetimes. 10 years older and exaggerated to the teeth. newton "move you fascist" geiszler. let me preface this by stating for all to see that i do not hate the idea of newton being the villain. story wise it was a bold move and there was something possible there. BUT THE IMPLICATION THAT ONE OF THE MOST OBVIOUSLY NEURODIVERGENT CHARACTERS IN THE WHOLE FUCKING FRANCHISE, ESPECIALLY GIVEN THAT HE HAS BEEN CHARACTERIZED AS HAVING A "BORDERLINE MANIC PERSONALITY" AKA HAVING ONE OF THE MOST DEMONIZED MENTAL ILLNESSES OUT THERE, ENDS UP ACTING AS THE GOD DAMN VILLAIN OF THE STORY IS A HOT GARBAGE TAKE WHEN YOU FACTOR IN THINGS LIKE POOR WRITING NOT MAKING IT CLEAR WHETHER OR NOT NEWTON IS EVEN IN CONTROL OF HIS OWN FACULTIES AND THE VAGUENESS OF "WILL HE BE 'REDEEMED' OR NOT" BEING UP IN THE AIR LIKELY NEVER TO BE CANONICALLY FUCKING ANSWERED BECAUSE BECKHAM AND DEKNIGHT SHAT OUT A MOVIE THAT BOMBED IN THE BOX OFFICE. we aren't even gonna TALK about the fact that this bitch got AWAY with it despite not even acting in a remotely stable way comparable to himself in the first movie in the 10 years he supposedly dropped off the map from all of his friends because, clearly, hermann hadn't seen him or he wouldn't be so excited with a picture of the two of them on his desk, nor would he have to tell newton about his idea for rocket thrusters with kaiju blood fuel because he would have simply written to him about it. for some strange reason people see his ass show up decked out in a suit he wouldn't even wear for Stacker Fucking Pentecost and a behavior of "Haha Gotta Listen To The Boss" and think "ah, yes, well, time changes a person. THIS BITCH HAS APPARENTLY BEEN LIKE THIS THE WHOLE TIME, YOU THINK HE GOT A JOB WITH LIWEN LOOKING AND ACTING LIKE HE DID BEFORE AND THERE WAS A SHIFT OVER TIME? NO, HE HAD TO HAVE CHANGED IN A SPLIT DECISION AND LIED ABOUT HIMSELF THROUGH HIS TEETH AND NO ONE CONTACTED HIM, OR WAS WORRIED ABOUT HIM, OR DECIDEDLY THOUGHT "YOU KNOW, HE MAY BE EMBOLDENED THAT HE SAVED THE WORLD, BUT I THINK SOMETHING LIKE THAT WOULD HAVE THE EXACT OPPOSITE EFFECT ON HIM AND HE WOULD DO HIS BEST TO AMPLIFY HIS CURRENT STANDING TRAITS. LISTENING TO AND KISSING THE BOOT OF AUTHORITY FIGURES? DIVORCING HIMSELF FROM HIS WORK WITH KAIJU XENOBIOLOGY THAT EVEN HERMANN PICKED UP? TO BECOME THE THING HE HATES? AND FOR WHAT? MONEY? FAME? BITCH WHO ARE YOU?" unreasonable. ridiculous attempt to do this just for a plot twist that was underwhelming at best. i've decided to stick to the fan theory that he was not in control 99% of the time but literally that movie causes such a hellfire path to appear in my wake as i think about it because i know people who don't take it like that and think newt wants what's happening because "haha horny kaiju man" and i wish to scream at the top of my lungs because this is exactly WHY you CANNOT spare ANY EXPENSE to the GOOD, PROPER, INTRICATE directing and writing of a character who is neurodivergent and also ONE OF THE CENTERS OF NOT JUST THE MOVIE YOU'RE WRITING, BUT THE FUCKING MOVIE AFTER THAT. i could go on but i sincerely don't fucking want to, despite how long i've been waiting for someone to willingly hear me out on all of this. all i'll say is if by some miracle they are greenlit for a third film and deknight's working on it and i see ANY sign of a bury your gays end for newt, i'm going to commit the first hate crime against a cishet white male.

to end, the only valid kaiju in that movie was the mega-kaiju, i don't remember the appearance or the names of the three that got through the breaches but the mega-kaiju could kill me and i'd die happy 🥰 beautiful design, that scale comparison when it came face to face with newt? amazing, chills, *chef's kiss* there are exactly two things i liked about uprising and that bitch is one of them.

sorry if this isn't what you wanted, but as i said i am in a bit of a bad mood and have been curled up in bed trying not to think that i'm dying and i've repressed all of this for a couple months now and very few people have actually heard PORTIONS of my frustration so. here it is.

[wildlyminiaturesandwich]

The Sims 4 Island Living - Early Access CAS Review

Huge thank you to the EA Game Changer Program for providing me with the opportunity to play Island Living early!

I’ve been hemming and hawing all day about whether or not to post this because obviously everyone has access to the game now but I figured I put a lot of work into it, so why not! I know it’s like way late but I had a lot going on during the very short time frame we were given for early access (less than 24 hours) and these reviews won’t be too in depth because I still haven’t really had a chance to explore the new pack fully, but here’s what I have anyway 😊

It’s all under the cut because I apparently had more to say that I first thought lol Seriously, next time a new pack comes out I might just stream. It’d be a lot less hassle for everyone involved and I could just waffle to my heart’s content!

See a preview of all the new CAS items here

From what I’ve seen so far of this pack, the Sims Team put so much time and effort into making everything look amazing, especially the CAS items, which might have meant less time went into making sure everything actually worked properly, but I’ll get into what that means for CAS items in a bit. For now, let’s just start from the top!

🌴 The Hairs

I think my absolute favourite thing about this pack by far has to be the hairs. It’s obvious the team have been working super hard since Seasons to give us better quality hair types and styles, and with all the new hairs in Island Living I think it’s pretty clear that they’re absolutely nailing it so far. They still have a long ways to go when it comes to inclusivity, but I think they’re on the right track and I can’t wait to see what they have in store for the future!

I mean all you have to do is look back at Base Game hairs to see how far they’ve come. Back then they had yet to figure out how to make not only simple wavy hair and textured up-dos look good, but more importantly they really struggled with natural hairs (I think we all know I’m referring to the infamous cauliflower hair fiasco).

But look at a few of these GORGEOUS Island Living hairs! I honestly would have paid full price for this expansion, even if I hated everything else in the pack, just to get my hands on those hairs!

I only have a couple minor issues with the hairs. The first being the curly side ponytail that was featured on the female sim in all the trailers. It looks amazing but it clips through literally everything the sim wears. I know there’s probably nothing they could have done about it though and it’s a beautiful hair, so I’m glad they included it.

The second issue I have is that yet again, there is a hair who’s texture overlaps an area it shouldn’t. We seem to get one of them in every single pack these days and this time it’s the big curly bun. The texture overlaps the back right section of the top and bottom teeth:

🌴 The Clothes

The clothes looks amazing as well, in general, but I do have a few issues with the clothes. Not major issues, just generally things could have been done a little differently I guess.

First of all, let’s get the obvious out of the way. Once again teen-elder males, children, and toddlers got very little in this pack. This has become a trend with all new packs now and honestly, it’s never really worried me before because I have pretty much always played female sims, but now that I plan on playing Island Living with Luca I’ve realised just how annoying anyone who plays exclusively male sims must find it! I’m also just realising now as I type this that none of the clothes would suit elder sims either which is kind of sad.

I wish I could say I was exaggerating when I tell you I spent the better part of five hours in CAS trying to give Luca an Island Living make over the other day, but I can’t. I legitimately spent almost five hours in there. The new CAS items for males fall into roughly three categories; traditional islander, cheesy Hawaiian tourist, and swimwear. With an added smaller category of what I like to call “Was I in a shipwreck or did I drop my clothes in wood chipper?”; a handful of clothes that are all torn and ripped for some reason. So, though all the new clothes do look really nice, none of them really suit the style that I wanted Luca to have, and because there is such a limited amount of adult male CAS items in general, it took me forever to find stuff I liked on him and I’m still not entirely sure I like most of what he’s wearing, but I just couldn’t spend any more time in CAS lol

I was also quite disappointed that there were only two hairs for children and none at all for toddlers. Toddlers only got eight things in this pack. Adult females got 67! And as far as I’ve seen toddlers can’t really use any of the new gameplay items either. So pretty much all they can do with this pack is play in the sand and splash in the shallows. What we need is just a whole pack full of stuff for every age and gender EXCEPT young adult females.

This is also one of the areas I think suffered from too much focus being on making them look pretty instead of making sure they actually work properly. If you look at the image below you can see by the top three that some of the clothes have very visible seams and quite bad clipping, especially with muscular/heavier sims.

As for the three images on the bottom... Listen, I love the concept of the bikini bottom with the transparent wrap, and the one piece with the tied top but the textures on all three of these pieces are just... not great. It looks like whoever made the green swimsuit and the pink shorts went absolutely bonkers with the normal maps and highlighting; they look like they’re made of rubber.

The swimsuit is also supposed to be tied at the top but the knot is just a flat texture, there’s no dimension to it at all. The same goes for the bikini bottom and wrap, it’s not only a very low quality looking texture but the bikini bottom is just painted straight onto the outside of the wrap, which bothers me probably more than it should lol I think most people probably wouldn’t even notice or be bothered by these things but this is supposed to be my honest opinion of the pack and I honestly feel like a few of the CAS pieces (like the three above) don’t fit with the rest of the art style of the game.

Side note that has nothing to do with Island Living: I also wanted to add that I’m not happy at all that the pride content we got with the patch did not include a Simlish version of the “It Gets Better” tee. Like MANY other people, I don’t like having English in my game, so I won’t be using that particular swatch I guess.

Overall, I really do like the Island Living clothes a lot. I just feel like I probably won’t use many of them outside of Sulani, and also that more effort could and probably should have been put into making sure they didn’t just look good but also that they worked properly on sims of all sizes and didn’t clip or have holes in them, and that they all fit in with the art style of the game.

🌴 The Mermaids

If I’m being completely honest, I’ve never really cared much about having mermaids in my game. I played with them for a few weeks when The Sims 3 Island Paradise came out and then didn’t touch them again. I haven’t had much of a chance to play with them in Island Living yet, but I can already tell you that I do like them more than TS3 mermaids. However, I’m probably going to stop playing with them in TS4 after a short time as well just because they don’t really have a lot of replay value for me.

They look amazing though! It’s clear a lot of effort was put into making their animations look very natural and organic while they’re in the water. The added animations like their tales hanging over the edge of the tub when they have a bath and the funny little dolphin squeak thing they do randomly were really fun to see happen in game and made me giggle, and I really like the addition of them having a hydration bar instead of hygiene. I’m very happy that they can swim in pools as well! Ooooh and that mermaid kiss 😏

I do wish some things about them were different though. For starters, I wish there was more customisation options for them. Four tales and two “scaled” tops for females, only one top for males that doesn’t have scales on it, and with the exception of different colour options, none of them can be customised any further than they are already are. I really wanted options to add little fin pieces and spikes off the sides of the tales or some barnacles for the elderly mermaids. Maybe some tail scars and missing pieces, and definitely some more facial features like gills, fin-shaped ears, even more scars. You know, basically just anything other than typical Disney style mermaid appearances. I think I might have been far more interested in them if I could have made a mysterious, dangerous-looking siren.

But mostly I just wish they had been made more... I guess MORE of an occult life state? As they are now they’re very similar to the way aliens were made and I’ve always thought EA did aliens hella dirty with the way they were kind of just added as an afterthought in Get to Work and make no real contribution to gameplay. The only occult state that I feel hasn’t been done poorly was vampires and I was REALLY hoping mermaids would be more like that. Instead mermaids have powers that don’t really do a lot, a hydration bar that doesn’t kill them if it drops too low, they can drown human sims but not other mermaids, and when a human sim eats mermadic kelp and becomes a mermaid... nothing happens. They just have a tail when they next go into water; it’s very underwhelming.

I wanted them to be able to earn points to spend on leveling up their powers like vampires but with maybe an added bonus of... something like reputation. So depending on how they use their powers and what traits they have, they could earn a reputation as either a good, wholesome mermaid who just wants to live among the humans and be happy. Or, they could turn to the dark side and become an evil, scheming siren who spends their time plotting how to torture any poor humans unlucky enough to be lured in by their songs.

But that’s obviously not how they ended up being made, and I’m probably just gonna end up playing with them for just long enough to see everything they have to offer and then moving on to more interesting things. I knew that would probably be the case going in to this knew pack though,  so I don’t really consider that a deal breaker when it comes to the pack as a whole.

🌴 The Verdict

Overall I really like the CAS items in this pack. I have some issues with them, but as I said, none of those issues were deal breakers. In fact, every single piece of clothing could have been broken in some way and mermaids could have been absolutely awful to play with, but as long as those hairs were exactly as they are; I’d buy the pack just for them 😍

All thoughts and opinions expressed in this review are my own. I am not paid by EA to “hype” their games; I am given the opportunity to review their games early in exchange for an honest review.

[hellzyeahthewebwieldingavenger]

Spider-Man: Carnage in New York Thoughts

I’d actually recommend checking this out!

 I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect out of this novel. Carnage is such a simplistic character that a whole novel about him as the main antagonist was something I wasn’t sure could work. And yet for the most part it did.

 Because this a story most people aren’t going to have easy access to I’m copying in the plot synopsis as provided by the marvel.wiki:

  Dr. Eric Catrall flees carrying a briefcase containing a vial of "trigger" serum - a chemical compound that induces violent insanity in anyone exposed to even trace amounts. Pursued by a pair of FBI agents, he's cornered in an alley but is rescued by Spider-Man - who had been on his way home from attempting to spy on a local mobster.

Spider-Man returns home to his wife, Mary Jane, and tells her about his altercation with the feds. Their conversation is interrupted by the arrival of Aunt May, who tells Peter that she is three months behind on her payments for her house and that unless she makes the payment the following day it will be repossessed. Despite himself and MJ not being financially well-off themselves, Peter promises to help May any way he can, and agrees to accompany her to the bank.

At the supervillain prison known as the Vault, rookie Guardsman Craig Lynch taunts Cletus Kasady. The serial killer responds by unleashing his symbiote and transforming into Carnage, terrifying Lynch.

Going to the Daily Bugle Building to investigate Catrall the following day, Peter listens to J. Jonah Jameson and Robbie Robertson discuss the Bugle financing the "Feed 'Em All" event - an initiative to feed the homeless - about to take place in Central Park. On his way out, Ben Urich informs him that Cletus Kasady is being brought back to New York, where an experiment is going to be performed to separate him from his symbiote and kill it.

At a diner, Eric Catrall orders breakfast and overhears the news regarding Carnage, realizing the experiment could potentially render the trigger serum inert. He is cornered by the two FBI agents, but the owner of the diner confronts them with a shotgun and lets Eric flee.

As the Guardsmen fortify a derelict highschool in Brooklyn in order to prepare for the experiment, Spider-Man travels to the school in case Carnage manages to break free, feeling responsible for the monster's very existence due to having brought the Venom symbiote to Earth. As the experiment begins, Eric Catrall infiltrates the building by pretending to be one of the employees and then tosses the briefcase containing the trigger serum into the blast. This shorts out Carnage's containment unit and Spider-Man intervenes and fights Carnage before the Guardsmen open fire with their flamethrowers and sonic cannons. When the smoke clears, Carnage has escaped, and Eric Catrall is gone.

Catrall is eventually found by the police, having been intimidated by Carnage into revealing what the trigger serum is capable of. On the verge of a nervous breakdown, Catrall tells Spider-Man that he'd accidentally invented the trigger serum while working at the Lifestream Technologies tech firm, but after realizing the CIA intended to weaponize it he destroyed his notes and stole the only sample. Tearfully apologizes to Spider-Man, Catrall begs him to stop Carnage. Panicking about Carnage having escaped and being in possession of the trigger serum, Peter almost forgets his promise to help Aunt May, forcing Mary Jane to step in and cover for him. On the day of the Feed 'Em All, Carnage attacks a penthouse party just outside Central Park and slaughters several of the guests, declaring his intent to poison the food being served with the trigger serum. The gory aftermath is caught on one of the cameras filming the event. Seeing Carnage has Catrall's briefcase, Peter sets out to stop him.

Seeing the news coverage, Dr. Catrall - on the verge of a breakdown - attempts to escape police custody to stop Carnage and is fatally shot, dying peacefully as he decides to leave everything to Spider-Man. Spider-Man arrives in time to save one of the party guests from being thrown to his death, mocking Carnage about how poorly thought-out his plan is, since no-one would be stupid enough to eat food he'd openly tampered with. Carnage decides to massacre the assembled people the old fashioned way, attacking Spider-Man; but is defeated when Spider-Man electrocutes him, forcing the symbiote to recede into Cletus' body.

After Cletus is arrested and returned to the Vault, MJ commiserates with Peter over Dr. Catrall's death and Aunt May reveals she traded her wedding ring to pay off her debts. To prevent the trigger serum from falling into the wrong hands again, Spider-Man travels to Four Freedoms Plaza and turns it over to Mister Fantastic, who promises to find a way to safely dispose of it.

  I want to first of all talk about a few of the things that don’t work about this story as there aren’t that many.

The least of these is that Spider-Man’s defeat of Carnage was somewhat underwhelming. In part this is due electrocutions at best slowing Carnage down a bit and nothing more, a fact seen in ASM #363, the culmination of his debut arc.

However more significantly its the fact that, whilst far from a dues ex machina, in a novel surely the resolution to the central conflict should come from an element pre-established earlier in the novel. Sure, access to high dosages of electricity is perfectly plausible in New York city, but it seems something more satisfying as the resolution of a comic book storyline (particularly a done-in-one) as opposed to an entire novel.

A more significant critique pertains to Mary Jane.

MJ in this novel is at an odd crossroads with the writing.

It’s not so much WHAT she does or even how the story utilizes her but rather the presentation of her in the role.

I’ve no problem with MJ and Peter being in love, talking lovingly to one another, having sex or MJ worrying about him.

It’s hard to put into words but...well actually the words are exactly the problem. The prose used to describe MJ, her and Peter’s feelings for one another, her dialogue for me at least went a step too far into overidealization. It went into ‘isn’t it awesome Spider-Man has this sexy, loyal wife whom he has regular sex with’. I mean the last few lines of the novel pretty much leave you off with the fact that Peter got laid. And I use that term particularly. It’s not ‘Peter AND MJ had sex’. It’s ‘Peter got his way’, which sounds inadvertently sinister out of context, but what I mean is that the story places the emphasis upon Peter’s gratification over the fact that he gets to have sex with MJ, rather than being more equitable I guess. I don’t even mean the story was OBLIGED to have such a final line give balance to both characters, just like...more balance maybe.

I dunno, maybe this is just a me problem as I wasn’t fond of the presentation of the romance stuff in the Darkest Hours either.

I guess what I’m after is for them to reign in prose wherein poetic praise it heaped upon MJ, either in her looks or in her personality, in the context of how that makes her such a wonderful wife. Maybe communicate those sentiments but be more subtle and restrained about it. Again, maybe that’s just a me thing and I’m using comic book Spider-Man as too much of a framework for reference.

This isn’t to say Peter Parker’s Perfect Wife is ALL MJ amounts to in this novel. They do give her flaws in regards to feeling bummed about being out of work and have her ultimately resolve the B-plot. She does this by pawning her wedding ring in order to save Aunt May’s house. On the one hand, this does rather play into MJ as the perfect idealized wife, but on the other hand she’d have gone out of her way to help Aunt May regardless.

Speaking of that B-plot, I’ve got some mixed feelings regarding it. In an ongoing kinda sorta soap opera like Spider-Man having subplots ticking along is just fine, and they do not HAVE to reconnect to the main plot necessarily. But I feel in a self-contained novel subplots should either play into the resolution of the main plot or vice versa, or at the very least a character shift should result from one or the other that then plays into the main plot/subplot.

Here though, whilst homelessness is a plot element of the story and Aunt May is literally going to lose her home, it’s presence in the novel serves to at worst pad it out, and at best feels kind of....mandatory.

Like in a Spider-Man novel set in this time period, you’d expect MJ and/or Aunt May to show up and for there to be normal life drama for Peter to deal with alongside his Spidey life, drama that is probably negatively impacted by being Spider-Man.

And if this was like an annual, a one shot, or even a 2-3 part arc of ASM, that’d be fine. Here though in a novel...ehhhhhh...The kindest interpretation is that it exists to give MJ something to do but really the story could’ve been tweaked to give her something else to do (say have May work at the shindig for the homeless people*) or you could’ve omitted MJ and May entirely and supplanted their scenes with more development for Carnage, Peter or Doctor Catrall.

It’s not BAD per se, but it is a weakness. Compare and contrast to the Darkest Hours novel wherein the subplot regarding MJ learning to drive wound up being integral to the defeat of the villains.

Now I do not want to give the impression this novel is bad. It isn’t on balance.

In the grand scheme of things it’s a fun, not too long, Spidey adventure.

I’ll not talk too much regarding the audio nature of this production beyond saying that the narrator of choice was a huge improvement over the narrator of the Darkest Hours and particularly shone in the role of Carnage.

Speaking of Carnage, I spoke up top about how it’d be tricky to make him support a whole novel to himself, even one of this size.

But the story knew what they were dealing with, likely because Carnage’s co-creator David Michelinie provided an outline for the story and thus knew with Carnage less in more.

Indeed there are a grand total of just 4 scenes featuring Carnage at all in the whole novel. His introductory scene, the scene where he escapes, the scene where he ambushes the cocktail party and the final showdown.

It’s nicely succinct. One scene to set him up. One scene to let him out. One scene of him doing what he loves and one scene where he is stopped.

By making the Doctor Catrall storyline in-essence the main story for the first half of the story and then having Carnage basically hijack it thereafter, it allows the novel to organically have a full three act story without overusing Carnage. Catrall’s trigger serum is also a thematically appropriate plot device in a Carnage storyline as it in essence is a shortcut to achieving the world of violent chaos he longs for.

Not only is Carnage used well in the plot but he’s also well characterized. Perhaps due to the narrator’s vocal performance, Carnage genuinely feels scary in this novel, no more so than in his opening scene. Whilst obviously written long before this storyline, it’s reminiscent to me of his presentation in Absolute Carnage, where he is a pure horror monster through and through.

I don’t really have much else to say about this novel.

It’s not got as much meat to it (in any sense) as Darkest Hours did, but that doesn’t make it a bad read.

If you like Carnage and want a nice simple story of him being bad and Spidey stopping him, pick this up.

*I know when this novel was published Aunt May had yet to be associated with FEAST, but the reason everyone loved that direction for her was because it made the utmost sense. Having May work at the shindig would’ve better tied the plotlines together, amped up the personal stakes and spoken to who May as a person is. This is an elderly woman who’s willing to help the homeless even as she herself is at risk of losing her own home.

[slumberinglabyrinth]

kinda want to look at the feh pass thing in a bit more depth because when i see a dead horse i just cant control myself

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The main plus to resplendent heroes is that if you already have the base version (ie. sol katti lyn), you are given the resplendent version. They worded it poorly in the video and it’s just that if you have a pre-existing copy of the unit that gets a costume, and buy the pass, your copy gets the costume and you don’t get your free three year old 5*. It’s really just an alternate costume that’s (apparently) only usable with that specific version of that character and a flat increase to their base stats which serves to address how book 1 units have been left in the dust (by design, but w/e). There is no actual ‘downside’ to this part aside from potential issues with ardent sacrifice being used to meet hp thresholds (and like. Maybe henry/subaki/selena), but despite this heavily impacting the character I’ve used the most, I feel like that’s something that can be excused as there’s no good way to identify which units want their max hp to be at a specific value. This is also a problem with merges/flowers/tt stat bonuses but i’m getting sidetracked

They’re buffing two characters a month, which is less than the number of refines we get (which is already a point of contention I have but w/e), but this is counterbalanced by the costume, which they have to get somebody external to do and each costume (which is a minimum of 3 separate poses, plus actually designing the costume) would under any reasonable assumption require more work to be done (read: costs more money to do) than a single refine (which requires significantly fewer art assets and for most refines, mixing and matching pre-existing conditions and effects).

it’s not like there isn’t precedence for something like this costing money; granb/lue has costumes that you need to spend real money to get (though they’re entirely cosmetic, and there are also costumes that are rewards for events but it remains to be seen if heroes will do that), but I still have a few issues with it

Rebalancing changes, and especially ones that are as simple as a flat +2/+2/+2/+2/+2 buff and not a some sort of rework of the unit’s design (like redistributing stat points or something more in-depth than a simple refine), flat out shouldn’t ever cost money because it’s a tacit acknowledgment that the original product you made was either 1) made obsolescent though your actions later on in the development of the service that you’re providing or 2) was already dead in the water when it shipped (in Lyn’s case it was the second one, since book 1 was super lopsided towards a handful of units, her weapon was already underwhelming, and her refine did not do nearly enough to help her). This is the big one since dragonflowers were “hey we didn’t know what we were doing during book 1, but instead of like actually doing something about it we want you to do a pvp mode that punishes you for not logging in every single day so that’s how it’ll be “””””fixed”””””” and this is just the continuation of intsys trying to fix problems with the service they’re providing but not going all the way. Fire Emblem Heroes is one the the few gacha games I’ve made myself familiar with that just straight up does not do normal goddamn balance adjustments and it’s negligent and starting to approach predatory now that they’re asking you to pay them to fix stuff that you might have even already paid money to obtain

“we plan to allow people to buy ones from previous months, but they will have to buy them” yeah okay it’s a subscription service and you don’t want people to skip out and just get a bunch of free stuff later. I feel there are better ways to handle this (rerun a single random one from 6+ months prior? each month) but it’s not unfair per-se so whatever. not saying what they’ll be bought with raises red flags but again. whatever. Problem: Because the og versions are going to become resplendent, and you will have to buy the resplendent versions if you don’t get them during the original distribution period (again, w/e), that caries the heavy connotation that you just. won’t be able to pull Vanilla Lyn or whoever else gets a costume and that the only way to get them is to spend money because after Special Lyn comes out, Vanilla Lyn doesn’t exist anymore. see the second sentence after the cut, but this now comes with the super cool added bonus of the pass being worth less if you already own the characters who get a costume

There’s no indication that you’ll know who will be distributed during a pass’s duration at the time that you buy one. Again, not something against them yet but it would be predatory and still raises red flag at the moment

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The quests give you resources, and resources that aren’t easy to come by, which is ...not bad. and again, not without precedent (gbf has stuff that you buy that gives rares mats but they comes with way better main rewards so :shrug:). but!

The quests are nonspecific and not creative in the slightest. “Kill 30 enemies”. “Win X arena battles”. there’s no challenge associated with it beyond staving off the tedium involved

There’s no actual new content associated with it (unlike resplendent heroes, which give new art)

5 orbs a single pull. two pulls a month. great.

35 divine dew. 70 a month. refines cost 200. great

why do i have to pay money to do menial and generic tasks that I’d probably do anyway and get small rewards. if I’m going to be doing these things anyway because they’re all goals shared with other quests, why not just give them to me upfront?

overall not a cardinal offense but the quest part would be mediocre if it was just in the game on its own and making you pay money for the right to fill a checklist? yeah that’s bad

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People have been asking for more summoner support slots for a while, so they’re adding them! *garageband “yay” sfx*

despite being something that was requested, it’s underwheming. +5/+2/+2/+2/+2 and like. whatever sentiment you want the support to carry.

Kinda vile to lock a requested (BUT SUPER SMALL) feature behind a paywall? idk lol

Not exactly a bad idea to have this one a “give money to get things” thing but uhhhhhh definitely isn’t helped by not really having stronger rewards to carry it.

also they didn’t explain if it’ll go away if you stop subscribing. the “goes away part” i feel is. I don’t like it but it’s fine to do but not explaining things? bad

Don’t have a lot of strong feelings about this one

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Re-act/Not-A-Turnwheel is a good feature. Heroes doesn’t need something as strong as a turnwheel (and it’s not getting that), but being able to redo a turn (even if it’s only once per attempt) in a game where basically every bit of the high-level (nonpvp) content requires a lot of trial-and-error? very good. Also good is the ability to turnwheel if you get a game over, which you can’t do in echoes and also I think not in 3h either. Generally a better game mechanic than the ‘autorevive with charged specials’ pendants.

That being said, as much as I’d love to have it without paying for it, I feel like I can pretty easily justify it being a premium feature. It’s not ‘unfair’/’cheap’/whatever to expect you to know how to play the game that you’re playing, and it strikes a good balance between being a good source of convenience without being something that’s too strong (or not strong enough).

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Auto-start is a good function too. I haven’t touched the training tower since they added the special training maps because it’s a pain to have to select map after map after map to do the quests for them. Tempest Trials? yeah autobattle’s nice but having to wait for loadtimes between menus . game flow in Heroes all around sucks and it takes forever to actually get to the action; making that process quicker is an objective improvement

this exists in a bunch of other gacha games and you don’t have to pay . d/x2 had it back in the beta and I mentioned that it would be nice to see it in Heroes at the time, and apparently Dr/agalia has it? either way: precedent for this and features like it being free

gr/anblue doesn’t have an auto-redo thing but on the quest results screen you so. a lot of gacha games have something like this

this is kinda an overarching problem both with feh specifically and mobile games as a whole like honestly you shouldn’t have to go through as many menus as the game makes you in order to do things. it’s shit ui design everything’s gotta be inside something else and the only gameplay thing you can get to quickly is aether raids and the training tower aaaaaaAAAAA

like really this is a much larger issue than this specific thing being denied to people unwilling to subscribe especially when there are ways to have a ‘free’ version of this type of function and a ‘premium‘ version of this type of function

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anywho

The overall problems with nearly everything that they’re offering is that it’s either 1) stuff that shouldn’t be (exclusively) behind a paywall no matter how small because it’s too vital to improving serious issues with Heroes, or 2) stuff that shouldn’t be behind a paywall because it’s just not worth paying money for; the only real exception is the costumes and only the costume part of resplendent heroes. I think part of the reason why this feh channel got such a negative reaction was because the only major change to the base game is what they’re doing with the Mjölnir's Strike pages (which does attempt to address a major problem with heroes, but that’s not what this post is about) and then they turn around and ask for $10 a month for some incredibly basic qol/convenience features (and a costume and some resources) that don’t really come close to the recurring payment that they’re asking for.

Some ways to address that while keeping the idea of each reward and the service as a whole in the same general ballpark as before:

The costume stays on during war council

Costumes stay on the pass, everyone gets a unit’s buffs as they come out. I’m personally willing to forego the “if you have the unit already, you get the costume even without the pass” part because 1) costumes are cosmetic and 2) it will create a nice bonus for people who buy the pass, but I think that a better bonus would be that everyone gets the costume as currently planned, but you can use them on any (non-duo) version of that character if you have them (and if you have the pass, you don’t need the ‘base’ version of the character to get the costume). You can still pull for the character in question on banners that’d otherwise have them anyway (maybe even run a banner with them when each costume first comes out? and maybe give people who get them during that period the costume?), though future acquisitions of them on other banners obviously won’t net you a free costume

Is the costume sharing thing something that I’ve lifted straight from granblue? yes.

Am I without shame? also yes.

This would probably require extra rigging for the sprites so it won’t be a ‘snap your fingers and it’s done’ kind of change but it’s something that’s 1) possible 2) goes the extra mile and adds actual value to getting the pass. I also think, that instead of “spend even more to get stuff you missed”, there should either be a rerun of a random old costume every so often for people who missed it the first time or some Special Currency allotment that you get (for free, though maybe as part of a quest) as someone who bought the pass that can be used to buy old costumes (ideally with older ones being cheaper than newer ones).

I’d personally want like. actual rebalancing effort to go into book 1 units instead of “hey here’s some stats across the board”, but since I also don’t want that to be anywhere near anything that prevents universal implementation I think it’s time to move on.

Re-Quest

My biggest problem with the whole “do missions get stuff” part of the pass is less that the stuff you get isn’t super impressive (I think they can keep it at what they’ve show us as long as the rest of pass sees more improvements; the amounts of things isn’t super huge but they’re an alright boost as long as it’s not the only thing of substance in the pass) and more that the missions are just. boring stuff that’s particularly egregious when compared to other quests in the past and even the anniversary quests that started this morning. there’s no creativity and there’s no challenge involved with it and they completely botched the only part of this pass that attempts to add actual gameplay.

this also is the only attempt on the pass where they tried to add additional ‘gameplay’ but uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh stuff “kill 30 enemies, doesn’t matter which” isn’t the kind of bonus gameplay that worth any amount of money. So the solution to this section is to add actual gameplay and while that’s easier said than done, let’s consider any combination of the below

exclusive missions tied to challenge maps, in the general vein of the quests for GHB reruns (ie. beat [map] exclusively with [movetype]) but potentially with more interesting/offbeat teambuilding restrictions (”use characters that are all from the same game”,

exclusive challenge maps with the rewards being granted for clearing them either as a Special Map like a GHB/BHB/LHB or as a couple exclusive Trial Maps each month

they just give you the rewards flat out and instead have the exclusive challenge maps rerun one-time event rewards you might have missed before (sacred seals, accessories, etc.; you’ll get feathers if you already have them like usual)

not specifically tied to what this was before and certainly needs to be included with something else to really be worth it but you could potentially add bonuses of some sort to any (non-ranked) game mode, raging from getting more crystals/badges from the training tower to getting a bonus chest that drops every time in Forging Bonds to getting 5 battles in Hall of Forms a day instead of just 3, and so on

It doesn’t have to be like this. The Summoner has two three hands

Okay so there’s a couple ways to do this, but I think that the core change should be that people who don’t have the pass shouldn’t be completely denied extra slots. Maybe they get one extra for free and if you have the pass you get a third one. Maybe they have to spend some resource to unlock their extra slot(s). I have no real strong preferences about this aside from, again, the belief that a feature that a lot of people asked for that doesn’t terribly upset game balance shouldn’t be added to the game but with any significant catch (ie. money or excessive amounts of time/effort). I think that this could also be a “you bought the pass once, so you get it forever” reward, but if they decide to change what you get (more slots, etc.) you’d miss out on whatever that ends up being.

The other thing they could do with the support system is make building the supports go significantly faster. “Oh, you gave us money this month? sure, we’ll let you reach s-rank from nothing in 8 battles instead of 48.” This would have different mileage with different people but getting it to happen faster would be a good bonus regardless

Another small thing could be to throw in an extra accessory or something along those lines that your supported heroes can equip (as long as you have the pass). A friendship bracelet, maybe? could be cute idk

Overall this would be one of the weaker parts of the pass, but it will 1) still be something that appeals to a decent amount of people and 2) is a step up from what they’re going to try to sell us.

Act Again - Current Code

I said this before but I think that the ability to ‘undo’ once a map is a pretty good feature and one I would describe as justifiably premium and they can totally just keep that part of the pass unchanged, but if they really really really want to make it available to people who don’t buy the pass the best way to make a ‘free’ version of it would be to keep the pass version unchanged and give non-pass players one use of the Re-Act feature a day. A once-a-day Cool Bonus is a relatively common mechanic among gacha games (see: fgo’s command spells, gbf’s ‘post to twitter’ stamina refill and arguably strike time, etc.) and it’s honestly surprising that they haven’t tried to do something in the spirit of that.

Full Auto

What Auto start currently allows you to do: repeat a given quest a specific number of times or until your stamina runs out. auto-battle also presumably stays on between maps like within TT runs, but we don’t know a whole lot about it so I can’t really say for sure

What Free Auto-Start should allow you to do:

repeat a given map until your stamina runs out (you can preemptively end it manually, like with auto-battle, but no longer set it to a specific number of times the quest has been done)

auto-battle carries over between maps while Auto-Start is enabled

also like. shut off/auto-dim the screen or do something to reduce power usage on your phone while auto-start is on (I’m pretty sure D/x2 does this?) I cannot stress how important something like this is

What Premium/Pass Auto-Start should allow you to do:

all that plus:

the option to auto-use stamina potions

set any number of additional end conditions such as “the quest has been repeated X number of times”, “a unit reached a specific level”, “a specific unit reached the sp values needed to learn [skills that you pick]”, “a specific mission was achieved”, and so on.

Have your phone vibrate or make an alert noise when auto-start turns off.

not specifically part of this feature, but potentially a stamina cost reduction for the first X maps you play each day(???)

like i really don’t think the idea of a premium subscription with actual decent stuff is particularly “bad” or whatever cool buzzword you want to use, I just think that the problem is that we’ve gone so long since the last QoL feature was added (I wanna say it was combat manuals?) and they add one and a half after a year that don’t really address problems with the current game and uh yeah they also want real world money for it which stings lmao

anyways thanks for reading make sure to likecommentsubscribe if you liked this post and want to see more posts like this post

[smokeybrand]

Irreconcilable Differences

I touched upon this in my Knightmare Scenario post but there is a shift in how we, as moviegoers, consume film. The Wuha has shown us all that it’s not necessary to actually patron movie theaters to get our flick fix, that streaming services are a viable option for studios to release tent pole movies instead of in the major multiplex franchises. This sh*t could be a death knell for the entire theater industry and they’re lashing out violently. All of this stems from the fact that Trolls: World Tour did f*cking gangbusters on streaming and Universal, the studio attached to this corporate abortion of a film, mad about fur times the profit they would if it was released in cinemas. See, theaters pay for the license to screen films. To recoup that loss, they most of the ticket price. Some more powerful studios like Disney, can force a higher percentage for a shorter time. Maybe forty percent over opening weekend, but that’s it. Everything after that is all theaters until the Wuha f*cked that sh*t all up.

After Universal made more profit than any movie they have ever released, in the shortest amount of time they’ve ever run a film in theaters, they immediately altered their release schedule. They wanted to do dual release; Streaming and theatrical. Theaters, obviously, AMC specifically, we like f*ck all of that. People would definitely forgo the theater experience, with all of the sh*tty food, cramped spaces, and assholes disguised as patrons, to sit on their couch, in their draws, watching with people they actually like. There’s no way the theaters come back from that and, in a deluded effort to strong arm an industry that just realized they don’t even need their partnership, tried to strong arm Universal by boycotting their films. Okay. This sh*t lasted less than a week and the theaters came groveling back. I imagine there were some negotiations behind closed doors because, to give up four times the profit just to prop of a dying industry, ain’t something any business would do out of the kindness of their heart.

I like the simul-release model a ton. Don't get me wrong, i love the cinema. I love going to the theater, sitting in that AC eating my forty dollar hot dog, and taking in that big ass screen I love that whole experience and, before the Wuha f*cked it all up, i had planned to spend the entire summer in thee. I live down the street from the newest theater built in my area so they have all of the dope sh*t. More to the point, there re some films that absolutely must be seen on a theatrical screen. I cannot express to you how it felt to see Infinity War with a crowd of people. To experience the same emotions as hundreds of strangers was profound. After that film ended, the theater was dead silent. I saw that movie five times, with five different audiences, and the same silence followed each viewing. It was intense and there’s no way you get that on your couch, even is you have a streaming group showing. The experience is completely different. You don’t feel Pete getting dusted the same way you would with a proper audience. That energy is lost in home and you need it to fully experience a true blockbuster like that, properly.

A total shift toward streaming would do a disservice to filmmakers like Christopher Nolan, Denis Denis Villeneuve, Ridley Scott or Michael Bay. I hate Bay with a passion but i did watch a little bit of 6Underground and was profoundly underwhelmed. Bayhem needs the theater screen for it’s gratuitous levels of explosive, sexist, nonsense. It doesn’t work on a sensibly sized television. You’d lose too much of Scott's intimate detail and sweeping vista shots he loves to sprinkle in his films. Dude has a penchant for the nature porn and it is duly appreciated. Denis Villeneuve’s rich shot composition and breathtaking cinematography would fall flat if you’re first experiencing them in your f*cking living room. I should know. I actually have a fifty-two inch, 4k, UHD television and Blade Runner 2049 pales in comparison on my TV, to how I experienced it in theaters. Speaking of experience, anything Nolan makes would immediately be sh*t. His films need to be experienced in a theater, ideally IMAX. That’s how he shoots his films. You need that size. you need that overwhelming immersion. TeneT on the small screen will never compare to it on the screen it was shot for. You will never see that film the way its supposed to, if theaters are done in totally.

It’s not like only theaters see the benefit of a dual-release system. There area lot of great films that fester or languish in their runs because of they’re consumed by the Disney juggernaut or some Fast flick takes all of the screens. It took Ex Machina weeks after releases to make it into theaters out here because it was so niche. I waited for three weeks after the VVitch dropped and had to plead with a good friend of mine to get her manager just to screen it. Hell, Hereditary, one of the greatest performances i have ever seen captured on film, got to my theaters a week late and had only one screen in the basement. Thee were, like, fifty seats in there. Imagine if that thing had the buzz it did and dropped straight to Netlfix. Suspiria had a limited theatrical run and made it’s way to Amazon within months where it has had a pretty lucrative run so far. Imagine the shine it would have received if it had released there immediately instead of getting that niche nod in the actual theater. I mean, i saw all of these films in the cinema because that’s my thing but i can see why and how a streaming release strategy would benefit their visibility far more positively.

I think, though, this is more than anything, the establishment has the problem with this situation than anything. There is a system in place and no one wants to f*ck it up. Some of the best films i have ever seen were produced, funded, and released to streaming services. Beast of No Nation would have never been successful in theaters but it found life on Netflix. A Marriage Story is another film that i think would have floundered in the cinema. It’s an excellent film that as great performances and a very human tale that was overlooked by the Oscars because streaming isn’t seen as a medium viable for their highfalutin blessing over at the Academy. That sh*t smacks of stuffy, archaic, elitism and it’s a f*cking shame. It cheapens the Oscars and continuously proves that those awards are little more than an ego stroke for a dying Hollywood system. This streaming sh*t is a direct accusation at the old garb.

Recently, a film called The Lovebirds dropped on Netflix. It was supposed to release in theaters sometime this month but, since the Wuha has everything so f*cked up, it was sent directly to streaming where it has garnered an amount of success. With an African-American woman and a South Asian male as romantic leads, this probably wouldn't have flown all that well if it had a theatrical release. Considering it uses the fact that they are both brown as the reason for why they would run from the cops after a very obvious misunderstanding, kind of lends itself to me thinking this bad boy would have tanked with broader audiences. This thing’s home release, where certain individuals who might have a not-so-favorably a public stance on us darkies but secretly hate-love our stinky draws, could watch it without anyone knowing definitely contributed to that flick’s success. A success that may have eluded the movie if it was released theatrically because cats can’t be seen supporting certain films.

Movies that are driven by people of color not produced by that bojanglin’ Tyler Perry, flick that weave a small scale, human tale of frailty, lost love, and true emotion, or telling a proper, respectful LBGTQ love story, can thrive on streaming. These smaller, more actor driven, movies can side-step all of the political noise that goes along with such visible release dates, avoid conflict with mega-blockbusters, and be readily accessible for anyone curious about their pedigree while making the most money they can. Hell, why even exclude the big-budget fair? Cult films that did okay or even poorly in theaters, like Alita: Battle Angel, can get that big-budget sequel, drop on streaming, and turn a profit with a fraction of the viewership without having to worry about directly competing with an MCU Berserker or some sh*t. I would love to see Alita in theaters for a second round but, if the only way i can revisit this world theatrically would be on the small screen, i am okay with that. Everyone should be okay with that.

I think the people paying for these movie ARE okay with that. No one i spoke to had any issue with streaming a day-one release. No one I asked had a problem with checking out a summer blockbuster on their TV. We just need theaters and studios to be okay with it. We need theaters to accept the fact that they’re going to have to adjust what they show and how they show it. Studios are going to have to be okay with maybe missing a prestige award for a few years until streaming films become normalized. I think everyone wins in a duel-release scenario. We get more content. Studios can get back to taking risks and letting creators, create. Theaters have more screens to show the moneymakers. I like the position of cinema going in the future. I like the options. This is progress. This is growth. Now let’s just hope the divorce from the theater system isn’t as bloody in the end, as it was in the beginning.

[toasttz]

From the Tabletop X

Shit yeah! I'm totally alive! It's not that our games stopped or anything (though our D&D GM was ready to throw it all at the wall, he has decided to soldier on). Just that I've gotten wrapped up in other things. Like, uh, GM'ing! Yeah, remember, like, a year ago when I started this series and mentioned I really like Shadowrun? We kicked off a Shadowrun 5e game! So, today's special 10th-ennial extravaganza will be Shadowrun talk time, or me at the opposite side of the table. To begin, our players' runners: Troppo - an Australian who ventured to Seattle in search of work once a military injury (several lost fingers) had him on a medical discharge. His role in the party is infiltrator. Which gives him license to trivialize otherwise-challenging moments in my campaign by stealth-killing all the enemies I made for them. Later ends up dating a Johnson after a particular run. Still active as of this writing. Then there's Big Iron - our street sammy. An ex-cop who was put on indefinite administrative leave when she became known as Knight Errant's personal walking PR disaster - effectively the sixth world's version of the Demolition Man. However, as part of the conditions of this arrangement, she had to be on-call when KE needed her for anything. She became a runner to make ends meet and kind of became the Team Mom. And lastly is Clockwork. Clockwork is a decker who runs hot or cold - either hyper-compotent and hacking the planet, or getting thwarted by an OSHA-compliant stairwell (not joking about this) with no inbetweens. Rare flashes of brilliance illuminated the short and underwhelming career of a runner who, as of the most recent update, was sent to the hospital because his overweight girlfriend sat on his face. As the GM, I refuse to issue apologies or excuses. Mostly because, God damn man, you could've done SO MUCH BETTER! Oh yeah, I realize there is a canon runner named Clockwork. Well, we didn't know that going into it, so he got to fly under the radar on that. If he had actually hung in there, I planned on having the canon Clockwork troll him at some point. So, to start, we're all new and Sixth World is out of reach at the time (and debuting late at our local shops), so I decide to pitch the classic: a Stuffer Shack run. Seattle, 2080, early nostril-freezing early January. Big Iron goes into said Stuffer Shack, getting herself some snacks and condoms (in order not to look "lame"). The boy at the counter sleepily rings her up, just in time for Troppo - Spider-Manning his way up to a rooftop in order to eye a gang of elves acting shifty outside the store. This leads to the first glitch of the game - the elves glitch in their attempt to notice Spider-Troppo. Elf 3: Whoa! Look! That pigeon is fat! Elf 4: Who cares?! Focus! Troppo: Troppo sits in silence to watch these crazy elves, taking only minor offense at being called a fat pigeon. One of the elves goes around the side to start hacking the security (which isn't exactly top-notch), and the other three enter and declare themselves the "Daggerbacks" - an elven supremacy movement looking to expand the glorious empire of Tir Tangaire (and sucking at it). Big Iron attempted to take the high road and offered them a chance to reconsider this terrible decision, but they scoff at the offer and a shootout ensues. This goes poorly for the elves (and would've gone worse for them, had I properly read about how this system handles damage! Shadowrun is a ruthlessly kill-y system!) as Big Iron sends the three scattering, one diving for cover, one wounded who slumps into a wall, and the leader with a baseball-sized hole in his torso, blown backwards into the store's front door. He is then grabbed by a colossal, Troll hand, which firmly affixes to his head, causing him to drop his firearm in defeat. The owner of the hand is Oscar, a former coworker of Big Iron who "just so happened to be in the neighborhood" at the time and lent a hand in arresting them. Oh yeah, and Clockwork traced their network activity and arrived at the scene in the nick of too late. Troppo ultimately intimidated their decker into absolute surrender, lifting a coupon for "SUSHI RAINBOW - NOW WITH REAL FISH!" and his deck off him in the process, causing him to flee - claiming to never really care about the Tir - without deck but with soiled pants. The firefight inside dies down not long after. Cashier: You shot it, you bought it! Big Iron: Now's not the time! By sheer coincidence, the other elves had SUSHI RAINBOW coupons on them as well - my subtle shove towards a meet-up place. Big Iron and Troppo meet en route, having established they did work together in the past. Before long, we were all together, meeting at SUSHI RAINBOW, its owners being Japanese immigrants, Yoshi and Rinko Watanabe and their gyaru daughter, Honoka. Since we were playing with few players than normally constitutes a full runner team, I made a few NPCs to help fill any niches that needed addressing. Honoka was a technomancer and had skills like auto mechanic and gunsmith. And, due to an amusing typo (AKA: Clockwork's persistent illiteracy), a new team of runners was born: "Hey, guys! Someone's biting my runner handle!" complained Friend Octopus. "You really need to change it, dude," Observed Radical Larry. "You're one to talk," sighed Sexy Penguin. "All of you, shut up and focus. This bomb isn't gonna defuse itself and if it goes off, we'll lose the entire shipment of irridium discs!" scolds their leader, Disco Panda. Anyways, back in Seattle, we learn Yoshi and Rinko are retired runners who still have contacts throughout the city. Rinko agrees to bring the runners on on a regular basis, provided they assist with a little issue that's been plaguing them for a while: The Silver Knives. A gang of over-the-hill mostly-mages, who are going around and harassing people as of late in the area. I learned many of the foibles of GMs that day. On account the first leg of the run (a shoot-up down a narrow corridor/alleyway) was trivialized by Troppo Spider-Troppo'ing down on them and assassinating them. For reference, I use the dice that came in the Sixth World Beginner's Box - cuz they're super cool - and these geezers were glitching left and right. So, having made complete work of that, the runners got to the main event - a raid on their warehouse compound (where they would be paid for each of the gang necklaces of each head they popped) and were assigned an NPC shaman, Fallen Snow, an Amerindian Shaman who had a... very special master spirit. I used Shark from the core book as the basis and... well... Go to Youtube, and search for "Lumpy Touch Movie Sonic". Once again, as GM, I never make apologies. Except in one run. But that was only half my fault. Fucking stairs, man. Not even once. Well, I underestimated them again and, though the gangers had a numbers advantage, Troppo and Fallen Snow were stealth/assassin builds and Clockwork was given the rival in the form of the 1337 H@X0R, an elderly, experienced hacker who was learning computers before the previous Great Crash, well up to 2080. Fallen Snow then reveals her spirit as Wendigo (full name: Wendigo of the North), who proceeds to beat the hell out of and then subsequently eats the gangers as they go. Now, a small excerpt from our game: "Snow thrusts her arms out to the side as she glows dimly, as two disproportionately long, clawed hands extend up, then out, landing on the ground and pushes up a lumbering, terrifyingly large spirit. Its head is clad in a goat's skull, but its eyes still seem to bulge and protrude from the sockets, as if they are being squeezed. It has a massive set of jaws and ever-convulsing skin that paradoxically seems to hang limp off the spirit's frame. "HEY GUIYS!" the spirit announces itself in an echoing, unearthly voice, "I'm STARVIN' over here!" “Jesus fuck, Snow,” Troppo says under his breath, without taking his eyes off the sprawling enemies. "Wendigo. By our contract. Kill the Silver Knives. Oh, and don't swallow their necklaces. We need those," Snow demands. "Does that mean... WHAT I THINK IT MEANS?!" the spirit cackles. Snow sighs, rolls her eyes, and replies, "Yes. You may eat them. Don't belabor the point. We're in a hurry and outnumbered," “Jesus FUCK, Snow,” Troppo repeats, with greater emphasis this time. Clockwork gasps "Holy shit" Snow rests her eyes for a moment with a sigh. "When gangers killed my family... my magical 'spark' ignited. And I screamed for anything that would give me revenge. And I summoned a Spirit of Hunger," "OH BOY OH BOY, YOU GUYS! It's like a buffet line! Sure, the meat's tough and been under the heat lamp too long, but there's SO MUCH TO TRY!" Wendigo guffaws as his legs manifest and he rises to his full height. After Clockwork used his gun to off a guy in meatspace, Wendigo even pried, "Are you gonna eat that?!" with a sadistic laugh. Clockwork won (narrowly), just in time for the BOSS FIGHT to stomp in - a cybered-up ork with raw strength to spare. When he threw Wendigo across the warehouse, even Big Iron strongly considered the better part of valor. Boss: Well, well, well... I go out for one night on the town with the missus and I come back to find everyone in my branch has kicked their damn oxygen habit... Troppo: Well, to be fair, it's a bad habit to have. Everyone who has it eventually ends up dead. Boss: Too true. Too true. Especially in this day and age. So, you busted up my joint. Least I can do is tell you my call sign. Y'er, uh, runners, yeah? You got call signs, I wager. Mine, when I was a young man, was Wrecking Ball Big Iron: GET SOME, GRANDAD! (Proceeds to open fire wildly). Wrecking Ball: (Dodges, much to the team's horror). The old way it is, then. This was not a fight I had any intention of making easy on them. Hell, I was even going to give them the chance to use social combat to escape. But Big Iron cast the first stone and thus, the battle was underway. But with a bit of teamwork - and a review of how armor works in the game - they were able to beat him - and obtain a specially ranked insignia off his necklace with a color ranking - a green jewel. Rinko paid the team handsomely. The team then got the chance to go back to SUSHI RAINBOW and rest a while. Not long after, I assigned their next run - in what would come to be known as the COFFEE RUN. Join us there as we also DRAW DICKS ON MUSEUM WALLS! And meet a SUPERHERO TEAM! See you there!

[sage-nebula]

I wish Alola wasn't the region where Ash wins because the anime gave the Nebby story to him instead of Lillie, Lusamine wasn't allowed to be the nonredeemable villain she is, Ash didn't even make a full team for the league, and the league itself was handled poorly. The anime ruined Alola from the start.

I’m kind of in a couple different minds about it.

On the one hand, I don’t really have strong feelings about the Alola anime one way or another. I haven’t seen most of it (and have instead just paid attention to it from a distance through fandom osmosis) because I don’t think that slice of life works for me when applied to Pokémon. I want adventures and traveling, and while there was some traveling in the Alola anime, it was a bit too grounded to its home base for my tastes. In addition to which, I think having such a large cast of companions might have hurt some of them, in that from my understanding many of them took a long time to add more members to their teams, if they did at all. (Of course, that’s not to say having fewer companions always allows them growth, because Misty and Brock were sadly not allowed to have their own arcs in the original series. That’s probably my biggest gripe of the OS.) I also can’t say that the anime ruined Alola, in my opinion, because I also don’t have a very good opinion of the Alola games. Most of my complaints stem from the gameplay, sure, but I also take issue with how Lusamine and Gladion were both handled (in that Lusamine was given “redemption” and Gladion wasn’t allowed to participate in the climax of his own family’s story), among other smaller quibbles.

So on that note, any issue I take with Ash winning isn’t really centered with the fact that he’s winning in this series, in the sense that this isn’t a series I necessarily dislike (I’m more indifferent to it), and therefore I’m upset about it. If I have any reason to not want him to win this one, then that reason is either that I prefer Gladion as a character and would prefer him to win (true, sorry, Ash), or that I feel like the Alola League is the least important of the game Leagues, which, from a storytelling perspective, it . . . kind of is. I mean, going based on what we know from the games, this is a brand new League that Kukui just started up because he thought it would seem fun. In the games I took issue with this little subplot because the League system seems to be a system of government in most regions, which means Kukui would need to overthrow Alola’s religious oligarchy in order to institute this new system of government, which should have created a lot of problems but in reality created zero, which in turn made it seem as if he just set up a fun kiddie tournament that would hold no real importance with regards to the rest of the world even though dialogue from Kukui (which may have been USUM only, can’t recall) suggested that he wanted it to. The anime isn’t that serious, in that they never really touch on issues like politics or governance very much (although if they’d been faithful with the stories from Black/White they would have had to given N’s entire goal was to become Champion specifically so he could change the laws in Unova), but from my understanding Kukui’s motivation / what he does is more or less the same. He sets up the Alola League so everyone can have fun. And in that sense, everyone can participate, regardless of whether they’ve met certain qualifications or not. It’s a free-for-all. And while that made for a big League despite not introducing very many new characters to the plot, it also makes it seem much less . . . high risk? Because by and large Ash was competing against trainers who hadn’t exactly trained for this, at least not for the length of a saga, which is what normally happens. (And before anyone starts, sure, Alan decided to enter the League late, but he had been seriously training Lizardon for years, and for far more high-stakes reasons, so he still counts.) Whether you want to talk Indigo, Silver Conference, Ever Grande Conference, or Lumiose Conference, generally speaking all the trainers who entered had been aiming to enter for months. They’d gone through the work of collecting badges, devising strategies, and working hard to make it there. As a result, Ash could lose against any one of them at any time, because all of them were just as serious as he is. And I don’t mean to knock any of the Alola League participants, but let’s be real, Team Rocket spends 50% of their time selling malasadas and the other 50% doing crimes (or maybe it’s more like 70% - 30% at this point? I haven’t been watching consistently). Sophocles is focused on his inventions, Kiawe has his delivery service, Mallow is helping at her family’s restaurant, Lillie has just barely started as a trainer, and so on and so forth. I’m sure they all tried very hard, but they don’t have a dream of being a Pokémon Master like Ash does, so they haven’t been training as hard as he has for this very goal. (Of course, trainers like Gladion and Hau have, but they were not the norm for this tournament, I don’t think.)

On top of which, there’s the fact that since this is a brand new League, it’s also not one that holds any history or, again, large-scale significance in the rest of the world. Even the Orange League, despite being much smaller and not a game League, has been around for a long time. It was a serious League, not one just thrown together by a professor who wanted to let everyone have fun. Saying, “I’m the Kanto Champion!” has a lot more weight than, “I’m the Alola Champion!” because the latter is going to get a, “Alola has a League??” response from most people outside of Alola at this rate. It doesn’t mean it’s not important or cool at all, but it’s just a bit . . . underwhelming. I think that’s the best word to describe how I feel about it. Underwhelmed. It’s not an impressive League win to me, and if Ash were going to win any League to end his time on the show, I kind of wish he’d gone back and won Kanto’s so that he could be the Champion of his own region, and make up for the way he was ripped off way back when.

At the same time, though, I do love Ash as a character and always have, and in light of the fact that we may be experiencing a reboot, if Ash’s time on the show is to end (or if this Ash’s time on the show is to end, although I hope that they go with an entirely new character if they really are ending his time rather than using AU Ash), then I do want him to go out having finally achieved his dream, or at least a version of his dream. The worst thing I can think of is ending this anime after twenty-one years with Ash not having accomplished what he set out to do in the first place. (And yes, I know what Shuudo wanted to do, but his idea was terrible, absolutely terrible.) So in that sense, particularly if this is Ash’s final saga, I’m happy that he’s winning.

So I don’t know. I’m not exactly jumping for joy, but I’m also not exactly upset about it either. I’m mostly underwhelmed, mostly indifferent, mostly curious to see what it is they’re planning for this next leg of the anime. At the end of the day, though, my favorite boy already won his League, so I already got the results I’m most happy about.

The Champion of my heart, always. ♥