#which doesnt lend itself to fandom over here

[huntsman-ash]

On V8 As A Whole

The thing that frustrates me most about this season is the way that RT has spent it and the last one basically tearing down the only kingdom I, personally, think was cool.

When they first introduced Atlas way back in the early days of the fandom I thought they were amazing; the first time we see AKs, they’re kicking ass in the Breach in Vale, and the force looks intimidating. Even the troopers looked pretty good. The idea of a kingdom fully advanced, technologically complex, and military backed interested the military tech nerd in me. I had glorious visions of it and they fueled my writing.

Then V3 kicked that out from under me, but I moved on. Said “sure, they got blindsided/stoppered by Ozpin the War Hating COWARD.” I figured most of their force was at home still and if someone ever came knocking it would look like an episode of Gundam.

Then came Volume 6 with Cordovin...who I wrote off as being sent to this tiny base as far from Atlas as possible because she was old and shit, and the Colossus being an ancient prototype they couldnt find another use for and didnt want to lend Argus anything real. I figured their real tech was better.

Cue 7 and 8, where RT seemingly peeled off every single hope I had of the kingdom being anything like what it was in my head. I know fan expectations are something you need to avoid in your work. Thats a deep truth no matter what fandom your in or what your doing in it.

And I failed that. But at the same time it feels like RT went out of their way to completely IGNORE every chance they had to give Atlas more than a passing semblance of...anything really interesting.

They could have debut some new tech (besides the Manta). Shown that Atlas was evolving, adapting to what had happened in Vale. Rolling out new things. Reacting as a group of humans WOULD to an event like that.

Instead, they kept literally every single piece of equipment the same. Down to the models in some cases Im pretty sure. Which as a tech fan makes me grind my teeth. Say whatever reasons you will, it still doesnt make sense.

They floated its line between it being military but not, and its not because they lack the knowledge for it like some have said, cause I KNOW they could have made it far more detailed and deep if they wanted too (they wrote the Vanguard for GenLock fantastically, one of the best things about that show is their depiction of military personnel). They made Atlas a military for those who dont know anything ABOUT the military.

So I shoved off headcanons and changed things, adjusted, made things work to please my own personal whims.

And even through all of this...I still liked the kingdom. It was my favorite, no matter what, because it was the closest I could get to something that wasn’t fairy-tale riddled, time-locked, or just outright outdated. Ironically enough a beacon of hope for Remnant, that they could someday pull themselves free of the muck of feudal farming land and grow into something more.

...

And then RT literally had Atlas crash into Mantle, destroying them both, and then get it buried under a fucking LAKE.

I know that’s the plot and what was going to happen but this feels to me like they went to the little house I made for myself in this fandom and kicked it right the fuck over. 

Gives me the feeling of “yeah no, trying to do anything fancy in this world will get you shafted, dont even bother. BACK TO YOUR TURNIPS SERF.”

And possibly a jibe at America itself as well, considering how they described the situation and had Atlas act overall. Couple friends of mine noticed VERY strange similarities to the Mantle election and our own here in the United States, and many were wondering if thats a coincidence. And of course the way Atlas was structured, and how the people there acted...all of it feels like a jibe.

Well now its all gone so take that as you will. I mean RT are Texans. Maybe some of them support the succession idea.

I’m still gonna watch. I’m in this for the long haul, no way Im stopping.

But lets just say that the one thing I had going for me in this show has been removed. So Im not gonna care ofr the characters.

At this point, Im watching for one thing; Cinders hopefully brutal, hilariously on-point death, preferably at the hands of Ruby, by accident, and Salems preferably horrendous failure.

Based RT...make her get the relics and have the Gods come back only to kick her back down and tell her to keep going? Have her quest for death be POINTLESS. Somehow.

[abosideblog]

OKAY SO- im in the process of getting back into the pjo fandom so i figured i would make a lil headcanons post for some of the characters because why not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(quick disclaimer: ive only read the original PJO series and the HoO books- i havent read the magnus chase or the ToA books yet, and its been a while since i last read all the books i have in their entirety so all the characters will be based on how they are in the PJO + HoO books and there may be some inaccuracies here n there)

Annabeth- definitely an alpha. a leader-type too. being the daughter of athena, she’s very wise + rational, and excellent at making plans which imo are very good traits to have if youre the head alpha of a pack or are mated to the leader of a pack. shes also very mature for her age- which, admittedly is mostly due to circumstance rather than her naturally being like that- but i feel like as a child of athena, maturity would come more naturally to her to some extent

Percy- either a beta or an omega. hes not very submissive and hes an excellent fighter + leader which would make you *think* hes an alpha but hes just got those omega vibes yknow?? idk how to explain it properly sorry 😭

Grover- i figured since hes a satyr and not a human the whole a/b/o thing wouldnt really apply to him?? but if it did he’d be a beta!! betas serve as a good balance/midpoint between alphas and omegas, so if i end up headcanoning percy as an omega (which im very inclined to do) grover would serve as a good balance between percy + annabeth like he did in the books :-)

Piper- either an alpha or omega, i havent decided yet. im leaning more towards alpha since from what i remember of HoO she was pretty aggressive and rebellious, at least by aphrodite kid standards, and doesnt really care for her looks much, which is again measured by aphrodite kid standards. however the fact that pipers more tomboyish-ness is mostly in comparison to the non-tomboyish-ness of the other aphrodite kids leaves lots of room in my mind for her to be interpreted as a masculine/tomboy type omega buuut she also has that little hint of Alpha Vibe in a way i cant explain so i’ll have to reread the HoO books and see if i can try to explain myself better,,,

Jason- tbh i read him as a beta. hes a leader type like percy, but he has zero qualms in passing the helm onto someone older and/or more experienced and overall just better suited for a leadership position, which in my mind isnt really an alpha or omega trait?? like omegas tend to higly value agency + independence + basically being able to control your own situation is since (in meta, but also in universe) it isnt really something thats afforded to them, so many arent willing to step down so quickly. and while the want/need to have control/agency over youself and your situations isnt as prnounced in alphas, it is smth thats still there and even the most cooperative of alphas may still need some degree of convincing to hand the reigns over to someone else so being able to let go of a leadership position as easily as jason is able to (from what i remember) is a very beta trait imo

Leo- a very cheeky omega. tbh i think his personality type lends itself more to being an omega since i remember him being a lil jokester, a lil flirt yknow, like a charmer!! and i feel like those types of traits would be pretty common in omegas for various reasons. hes also super short (around 5’6”/170cm which tbh isnt all that short but you get what i mean) and its my personal headcanon that omegas- particularly male ones- fall mostly in the 5’5”-5’7” height range (with exceptions ofc)

[rogueshipagogo]

ppl have been asking me my opinions on space channel 5 vr... and i guess since i bought a vr headset off craigslist just so i could play it and speedrun it before work the day it came out... i should talk abt it now... i dont rly think i’ll be able to separate it into ‘good’ and ‘bad’ things i think i’m just going to do a rambly stream of consciousness bc i have a headache... but i DO have good things to say abt this game... so st.... sta stay t tune  d

right off the bat, the thing i appreciate most abt this game- i like that space channel 5 vr doesnt have cash grab vibes. i Do genuinely believe that they Wanted to make this game For the people who are still obsessed with it, and that they ultimately did what they set out to do when they intended to scale certain aspects of the series up conceptually to match the way the fandom perceives it nowadays. but like i’ve said before... i’m not going to Disagree with the very common conclusion that it Needed to be longer, or at Least more intricate plot-wise. one of my fun and fresh excuses for sc5vr being as short as it is is because you arent really supposed to be playing vr games for too long anyways, its really disorienting and kinda painful, but even that doesn’t account for why so much of the game that we got is a rehash of old settings, concepts, songs, and characters. [i dont even have a problem with reusing old songs, i just think the ones they chose ended up being misleading]

for example i think it makes sense that the first report is a remake of the first games first report on the surface, it’s meant to take you back to the way the first game felt and give you an idea of what it means that the games classic scenery can be rendered in actual high quality detail now [same with the recurrence of events like encountering the space pirates in the asteroid belt/the last battle against a villain being singing to it about what it’s done wrong], but i really thought, like, report 1 was going to end up being a simulated scenario for the benefit of lou and kee’s training... which i dont think ended up being the case??? i think they really did write ‘ok here you are in the first game’s setting again, fighting the old enemies again, because... :^) ok have fun playing report 2!’

and then whats report 2... you fight another old boss from the first game... but theres Still no clear villain or motivation for anything thats happening... and there wont be until like... basically the end of the game...

like, glitter is a really cute character, but its kind of underwhelming that shes just a random citizen who was kidnapped by an entity that we NEVER LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT... like part 1 was extremely notable for being about corporate greed and corruption, part 2 honestly wasnt that political in comparison but at least made you do a think wrt purge’s motivation and his methods, and this game just has a plot device that feels like it’ll do smth but then ends up not doing anything beyond what we already learned about it from the information on its character bio before the game was out. if it turns out that cell x is actually relevant again in a future entry in the franchise and they do have a more developed concept for what cell x Is in mind, i’ll do an entire backflip, but for now its just chalked up to being the result of More Space Hijinks that dont need to be explained

ESPECIALLY WITH ALL OF THE ALLUSIONS TO CELL X BEING AN ENTITY THAT FEEDS OFF OF DANCE ENERGY... it had me thinking that there would have to be some New Method of fighting it off that didn’t just lend it more power in the process, but nah apparently just tacking on the disclaimer ‘*this dance energy is not for glitter’ is enough to turn it from smth it can consume for power into big attacks you can use to kill it... like honestly it sounds like im asking for a lot from a game that has Never made too much sense, but considering that in part 2 they could add details like ‘oh didnt you know purge can open pocket dimensions? ulala is capable of manifesting tangible dance energy and the only other person who can do that is purge???’, its not like they havent come up with weird new shit for dance energy to do within the plot before. they just didnt do it in this game fsr

like did anyone else think that cell x/glitter was going to be the result of tossing purge out into deep space and him encountering the sc5 universe’s equivalent of an eldritch alien creature, smth more bestial than morolians?? even if purge wasnt part of it, when you say ‘uh oh, this guy Eats this society’s only source of energy!!!’ i expect the stakes to get HIGH, and i want the ramifications of it to be kinda STARTLING, because blank wanted money and purge wanted to ritualistically end the world but something this near to an ecological disaster that would force an entire paradigm shift hasn’t occurred yet in the series?? its totally new!!! there’s a lot they could do with this but OH DONT WORRY ABOUT IT EVERYONE ulala knows how to make dance energy kill cell x instead of feed it she’s got this we’re good no need to investigate more into all that

i can’t explain why the game is like this. and i dont expect grounding to address it in any meaningful way either. i’m sure they’re Aware of these complaints by now- the game reviewing community has Not been kind to sc5vr specifically due to all of these shortcomings [i didnt even touch on the issues with motion sensing and how many of the games mechanics were removed in favor of smth presumably easier to program yet much less satisfying, like Secret Moves just being mini quicktime events and Turning Your Ratings Into Stars just being replaced with the standard Three Strikes You’re Out method of scoring], but the pr team still seems very enthusiastic abt the game and is still promising dlc and potentially even more games in the series after this one- heres hoping that they’ll at least take these grievances to heart and consider making the experience not only more accessible [aka it will... go back to being a rhythm game with controller input.... and not... an exclusive vr experience...], but also as immersive and detailed as the old games, with less reused plot beats. i can let some of it off the hook in this game simply because i’m aware that it began its life as a tech demo that was only supposed to be that initial first report from the first game But Happening All Around You!, but i Really dont think they could get away with doing this little to expand upon the groundwork set by the first two games again. not with the way people remember part 2 being such a vast upgrade from part 1... the bar had been set so high that this just felt like a huge backslide into something even sillier and harder to take seriously than part 1 before we had any idea what kind of staying power the franchise would have as a hallmark of sega’s quirky antics. like... this game is what i think space channel 5 looks like to people who don’t understand the appeal of the first two games. and that scares me

but i guess for the most part, aside from wishing they had done more to revitalize the setting and the lore of the sc5 universe itself, im kind of glad it didnt do a lot to change the existing storylines the characters have kinda forged for themselves- here i was stressing out that they would pull out some plot development that would utterly and drastically change the way we talked abt the series for the rest of time, but so little happened and so little was added to the bank of sc5 lore that we can kind of all just carry on as usual and keep having the same headcanons we always had.

BUT!!! there ARE a lot of cute little details here and there that make the experience feel wholesome and like i said not an utter cashgrab- like so many of the character profiles referencing previous games [all of the references to npcs in this game being relatives of the npcs of the last games made me lose it] and how often ulala changes her expressions up and looks right at you and talks to you. the new music they wrote for the game also all slaps and everyones redesigns [if they got a redesign... rip pudding] are stunning

one of the most important things they did in this game was give a nice sort of Update to every character.... for example explaining that ulala isn’t a rookie reporter any more like she was in the first 2 games, that she’s moved up to being in charge of training new channel 5 reporters, and that while pudding is still somewhat stuck on her rivalry with ulala her career isn’t stagnant either, she was just cast in a romcom series as the lead... which is really nice considering how in the past she was portrayed as somewhat of a loser with almost no remaining fans left from her idol years

and you knew i was going to bring up jaguar at some point HES ALL OVER THIS GAME AND IT LITERALLY MADE ME FEEL LIKE MY LIFE WAS WORTH POWERING THROUGH THESE LAST FEW YEARS AND ALSO LIKE IM A GENIUS FOR SPENDING SO LONG POSTING EVERY SINGLE DAY ‘NO REALLY, HE’S THE SECONDARY PROTAGONIST OF THE STORY, ITS ABOUT CHANNEL 5 AS A COMPANY AND THEIR IMPACT ON EVERYONE WHO HAS EVER ENCOUNTERED THEM AND THAT INCLUDES JAGUAR AS WELL AS ULALA HES INTEGRAL TO THE PLOT BC SHE WOULDNT BE ALIVE IF IT WEREN’T FOR HIM’ i feel like it’s really incredible how in this game he has genuinely nice energy and doesnt withhold praise from ulala just to be helpful in a mysterious way later and he like HAS FRIENDS now. like consider how he went from disgraced former ch5 employee who got mad every time he saw them, to kidnapped robot henchman kinda humbled by the fact that now the turns tabled and ulala had to rescue Him, and now 3 years later his bio is all about how he has a new tv show thats super popular and he has a new entourage of ladies who he considers his '’’’’’comrades’’’’’’’ within the station he founded??? AND AFTER 20 YEARS THEY WERE FINALLY ABLE TO GIVE HIS MODEL JUICY ASS CHEEKS??????????????? NO MORE PANCAKE BOOTY???? THE BOY HAD A GLOWUP AND NO I WONT STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

WHEN I SAY MEOW MATCH THE POSE MOTHERFUCKERS THIS BLONDE BASTARD GETS TO BE IN CHARGE OF THE HUNDRED STAGE BATTLE NOW TOO THIS IS THE YEAR OF THE SPACE PIRATES BAYBEE