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tbposting · 7 months

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it took a lot of asking but riot finally deigned to discuss the lore of their billion dollar video game franchise

youtube

i absolutely called it that riot was going to retcon the Brackern/Hextech connection out of existence, but i didn't call that they'd use Arcane as the excuse to do it with. i thought they'd just quietly retcon it away with the skarner update without offering much explanation.

they say they're going to give seraphine an update to fit the new status of hextech which made me laugh a bit because, like, y'all already retconned her lore to hell and back when it turned out you had severely failed to read the tone of her connection to the brackern and launched her with a story that essentially implies she uses slave labor to be a pop star. I remember fucking marc merrill throwing the writers under the bus on twitter about it like an absolute douchecanoe.

and then, instead of engaging with any of the ways in which seraphine's powers of empathy generation could be incredibly interesting when paired with the brackern narrative that casts them as essentially brutalized victims of colonization for Piltover profit, you just go "uuuuuh, no, wait, she can't hear the brackern actually ha ha ha whoopsie doopsie." like, literally just nerfing her powers, but doing nothing to alleviate the horrible implications. "oh yeah, no, she still uses the enslaved soul of a brutalized species to power her platform, but now she doesn't know she's doing that, which I think we can all agree means the problem is solved."

hopefully they actually give her a new story that engages with her abilities beyond just "she is good at being a pop star" - building on the LoR version of the character, I would hope - but I fear it's more likely they just do the minimum viable edit and just find-delete any reference to consciousness in hex-crystals.

as for skarner himself, well he's Ixtali now so they'll probably still square him up against piltover's colonizing incursions into Ixtal, but more in a "primordial protector of the natural world" kind of way than "lone avenger reclaiming his people's stolen bodies." which, y'know, okay, sure, why not, but I would very much like him to have a more compelling character motivation than "preserve the status quo because nature and balance or something."

my big fear is they'll use the update as an opportunity to make camille a good guy or more sympathetic. like, house ferros made its fortune by selling the souls of a sentient species as batteries, knowingly, and camille was a ideologically committed defender of that decision, and that made her an interesting villain. but they've been humanizing the living hell out of her and i am real worried they're just going to tip straight on over into "oh no the authoritarian enforcer for the bourgeois power structure is sympathetic actually, she's really nice once you get to know her, she's just misguided" and ffffffffff

just... please let camille be evil. let her be a villain, please for the love of god

#tb posting #league of legends #skarner #camille league of legends #seraphine #brackern #piltover #hextech #Youtube

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blond-jerk-tourney · 4 months

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Strawberry Bracket: Bracket Finals

Propaganda from submitters Under Cut

Nanami Kiryuu

She's the mean girl of the show, and a pretty interesting take on the "bitchy vain school rival of the protagonist" trope. She spends most of her early screentime being a bully and most of her later screentime being both the biggest loser imaginable and deeply sad/troubled (which still does not erase how much of an asshole she can be). She even laughs like your stereotypical mean rich girl. Nanami has so many problems and sucks so so bad. I adore her.

Shes a psychotic bully who seeks to ruin the lives and reputations of any girl who gets more of her brothers attention than she does. Reasons Nanami Kiryuu deserves to win: - she has made many attempts at physical and psychological terrorism against Anthy Himemiya (including a plotted wardrobe malfunction at a crowded social gathering) simply for drawing more of her brother's attention than her - tried to fill Anthy's bedroom with wild animals (a snail, a snake, and a live octopus) to make her out to be a freak only to find that her room was already full of wild animals - she bankrolled an elementary schoolers crush on her to turn him into her personal boyservant - briefly non-personed a member of her bully entourage for sharing an umbrella with her brother - received a luxury cowbell due to a shipping error and smugly wore it to school for weeks flaunting it like high coture - when her bully entourage rebelled against her due to her brothers manipulation she brought them back in line by just straight up beating the shit out of all of them - all in all just a petty, goonish motherfucker (she also does the ohohohohoho anime girl laugh)

she's blond: despite being Japanese her hair is yellow, unlike her brother's. yellow is even her image color. she's a jerk: introduced as a jealous and dishonest scheming bully, she is one of the more outwardly antagonistic characters in a cast where pretty much everyone is a Real Piece Of Work she's the best: the quintessential ohoho-laughing ojou, her fully-realized character arc makes people both laugh and cry even her sidekick is a blond jerk! how many blond jerks have their own blond jerk sidekick?

i don't know what you've heard but she's NOT the kind of girl who lays eggs!

The token mean rich girl of the franchise. Does the classic "ohohoho" laugh. Doesn't like either of our main characters. She never actually seems to get her way, and secretly has a lot of her own problems. also she lays eggs and turns into a cow

Absolutely THE quintessential anime mean girl. I mean literally her laughing is THE meme for the hohohoho anime laugh. Needs attention So Badly and straight up bullies anyone she deems a threat to that (so basically Everyone). I haven’t finished RGU but apparently she duels with the intent to kill and drowned a kitten once because it was taking up too much of her brother’s attention? Also she’s 13 which explains a lot

Char Aznable

He's extremely blonde and he's a total asshole. he has had a gay thing with 2 people and tried to kill both of them. he makes a new identity and its arguably more blonde and more of an asshole. look up Quattro Bajeena

Snooty little motherfucker supreme. "I have never betrayed anyone in my life" says man who spent his whole career lying to people. He's in love with his rival and he won't admit it. He's my silly rabbit. He is the "I came here to laugh at you" guy

Char is an environmental terrorist who dropped space colonies of people living in space onto earth so people would leave earth for the earth to heal from human damage. He's a prince that should have been assassinated seducing the new prince while undercover to kill the family that killed his family. Anyway vote for Char. He stole the name Char from some other guy from space Texas who he caused the death of

Excuse me that's not char aznable that's quattro bajeena, why would you ever confuse the two :/

#strawberry bracket #strawberry bracket finals #polls #tournament polls #nanami kiryuu #rgu #revolutionary girl utena #char aznable #quattro bajeena #mobile suit gundam #blond jerk tournament

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ofthenoseclan · 6 months

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tell me about kanako pls

WHY BUT OF COURSE (sorry this took so long ^^;)

kanako is one of my absolute favourites in the cast because shes the character that to me brought what i like in the franchise into focus in full form. while there were hints of political satire in touhou starting around the tail end of the ninth game and its following spinoff literature, it wasnt until i reached the tenth mainline title that i really fell in love with touhou, and the driving force of that change was yasaka kanako.

kanako is such a fun character to me because her very concept is so compelling, and its delivered in an extremely satisfying way. she is a god who treats religion like running a business, and is pragmatic to every end. this is both one of her greatest strengths and a source of literally all of her issues. everything about kanako is a vignette that illustrates how her capitalistic drive for innovation creates the troubles she faces in advancing further toward her goals, and her misunderstanding of spirituality as an economic problem to be solved for efficiency creates roadblocks for her lifestyle that she is entirely, confidently blind to.

once again i have to stress, this does seem to work for her in some aspects! when she took over leadership of the suwa shrine, she did so by being calculating and planning ahead against anything suwako had up her arsenal, then sweetened the deal for both of them by offering a compromise (sharing residence as the local kami, with suwako acting as the native god and kanako being the face of the shrine who gets the worship). she made a judgment call by choosing to move the shrine from the outside world to gensoukyou when she realized that it was no longer feasible for her and her company to rely on worship from outside world humans. all of these things are demonstrably good business decisions made in the name of keeping her livelihood as a shinrei stable. however, after she moves into gensoukyou with her wife and daughter, she begins to get, well, greedy isnt the right word, but...

capitalism is a force that has to inherently grow, as that is what its entire existence encourages. so what happens when you introduce an individual whose skill is in her capitalistic business prowess into a society that has no knowledge of it? you get kanakos assumption that she needs to introduce it into their culture. she could always have more people worship her. so she tries outperforming her competing... shrines. what would make me a better god? what would prove im more fit to lead gensoukyous humans? these things start running through kanakos head very very quickly. and it isnt out of self-importance either (unlike certain other religious leaders in gensoukyou cough cough miko), she just sees it as the natural extension of running her shrine.

but of course, when you introduce capitalism into a culture, you Introduce Capitalism Into A Culture. in kanakos pursuit of refining her worshipers into customers, she makes it clear to others in her field that there is even a race for power at all. her insistence to assert her presence in gensoukyou through gaining human worshipers via the hakurei shrine alerts reimu to her as someone who is influencing the status quo in the first place. her arms race for nuclear fusion (of which she is the only participant) is directly responsible for the introduction of the myouren temple to gensoukyou, which in turn leads to the introduction of miko and her band of taoists. not to mention her many, many unnecessary entrepreneurial ideas she comes up with in the print works (although they seem much more respectable when shown side-by-side with the anarcho-capitalist schemes of the kappa). these things never would have threatened her position had she not attempted to expand her reach.

in one sense, this is a huge character flaw for her. however, the other side of this coin means that no matter the conflicts kanako brings about for herself, she always views it as inevitable; something that is bound to happen over time regardless, and just another stepping stone on her business ventures. this aspect of her is what i find most interesting—her complete inability to see the big picture in her endless strive for religious success is somehow her most reliable asset. its what makes kanako wonderful to me, and endlessly engaging even after almost two decades since her introduction.

#touhou #kanako yasaka #blub #hydrophone

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chaifootsteps · 5 months

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Httyd 2 anon here.

Let me talk about the light fury for a minute. I hate her. No, perhaps hate is a strong word, more like I don't care about her. What was the actual purpose of her? Toothless getting laid? I would like her more if she was a completely wild dragon that never saw humans in her life before and as a result she was too difficult to 'tame'. Unlike most of the other dragons that were attacking the village or were geld captive and have seen humans, I don't think she ever did (or I think it would be better if they wrote her like that idk). Remember how much time the first movie dedicated to show us Toothless warming up to Hiccup? Why is that absent with every other dragon? Again, I get it that most dragons were already familiar with humans because they were casually going to the village to steal the sheep but c'mon, that can't be the case with every dragon. I wanted to see more wild dragons in the franchise.

Maybe they could show us Toothless and Light fury spending more time together, bonding and her showing him dragon things and activities he forgot (or never knew about) because he was with the humans for so long. Maybe we could see how being domesticated contradicted their wild nature and Hiccup would see how much happier Toothless was while flying-playing with her and he decided to let him go in the end. Not because he wanted to but like, they would be flying and he would go too far away without realizing, would act too 'wild' or something. Also I don't think they should have left all dragons to the hidden world but that's another topic.

Now, about her design. Wth is that. Why didn't they play more with textures? I'm not saying they should have made her rough (they could) but maybe they could use some other smooth textures to make her less 'naked'. She looks half baked, like it's missing something. Maybe make her scales show more? Add something? I like the smoother idea, night-light parallels but the execution is lacking. Maybe not her design but make her act more 'more'. Use her body and movements more (not in a feminine way but in an animal way). Show more teeth (they could have done something cool and different with her mouth, like it starts off as that Toothless scene but her teeth were way sharper or something). Point is they could have made her better but they didn't.

I like the concept of her, mirroring Toothless but they didn't actually use it and while we could have gotten something really cool we got whatever she was in the canon.

If someone likes the second and third movies that's completely fine but I do think we deserved a little better.

My critisisms come from a place of love, I don't mean to bash the franchise (I still really like the first movie, the second is ok but the third is a little too stupid for me).

To summarize, the main issue with the light fury boils down to how the scriptwriters treated her. It's less about the design and more about how she didn't have an actual role to play and instead she was just a stereotype.

Sorry for the rant, have a great day/night.

Yeah, I think this about sums up the problems everyone has with the Light Fury. Everyone wanted to like her, we could have even forgiven her weird alien design if the story was great in every way, but the weird design plus the wasted potential and sexism plus the crumminess that was the third movie...

I hate that they cut out this beautiful scene where Toothless tries to burn the harness off her head, it causes her scales to heat up, and he literally sees himself in her.

#Anonymous #httyd #light fury #actual blog post #image reply

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felassan · 11 months

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A few more snippets of interest and insight from Mark Darrah, from an older Mark Darrah on Games YouTube video where he was livestreaming playing Dragon Age: Origins some months ago -

Chat said "I am fine with any and all cameos, but I am not holding my breath for Sera and Vivienne to have anything more than a passing mention." Mark said, "I don't think they'll worry, if they want to put Vivienne and Sera in DA:D they'll do it. I don't think either of them have any quantum endings do they? Oh that's true, Vivienne can be Divine."

"The Darkspawn Chronicles DLC is canon-ish but definitely yeah, the team reserves the right to ignore it and has."

"I don't know why they've steered away from the tree ents [sylvans]. They could come back. They're nobody's favorite, so they just kinda fall down the priority list. If there was a good reason for them they could easily come back. You could have made a sylvan off the Behemoth rig from DA:I, but that would be weird and not really match the sylvans from DA:O. I think the way you would do it actually would probably be to build something off the giant rig, but again it would be different, so you'd really wanna make a custom rig."

[source]

He also talked more generally about DA:O and the franchise and things in general. These bits are collected under a cut due to length -

"Is it just me or are the conversation trees in Awakening much longer than they are in DA:O?"

"Yeah, Oghren is pretty problematic"

"The junk mechanic in DAII in inventory was a nice quality of life feature. Well, it's not 'junk', it's more mark-to-sell"

"Games take a lot longer to make now because the number of assets and the fidelity of them is so much higher. In the late 90s you literally couldn't do that much, it had to fit on a CD or a few CDs. Now you've got blu-rays which have fifty times as much space"

"I think classes are a good thing in general just from a usability perspective, and also if you're gonna have a party-based game you need class roles otherwise you just end up with a big mushy miss. But obviously it can take things off the table that you might want to do." Chat commented "Do you think having a set type of role limits how they can evolve?" Mark replied, "It does limit them to some degree, that's sort've somewhat the problem. You could always violate those limitations if you want. You can make the hand-to-hand mage specialization"

"You can definitely see that DAII and Awakening are like, very close to each other on different sides of the line"

"It is weird that you suddenly have stamina potions in Awakening"

Chat said "I personally disliked that only rogues can open chests. It's alright from the RP perspective, but was limiting the gameplay imho." Mark replied, "It's annoying, I mean, that I don't, the out of combat stuff was even moreso in DA:I. But I think tying the out of combat stuff to the in-combat stuff puts you in a position of weird choices based upon how you want to play and I don't know that that's great. 'You basically have to bring one of everything' was the point, was the idea in DA:I, but I don't know that it was a good one"

"Awakening is a really plot-heavy expansion, with an insane amount of side quest material"

"The problem in DAII isn't that, it's not asset reuse, it's actually level reuse. That's I think what pushes it over the edge. And calling them different levels. Also that cave is too identifiable, it's got very specific bits of architecture"

"The problem with the DA:O darkspawn is that they don't really fit together, especially the ogre, they kinda look like a totally different evolutionary path. DAII is definitely trying to get them into a consistent art style"

Chat said "Should DA have beast peoples like cat people, dog people, lizard people? Qunari is bull people right?" Mark replied, "Qunari are more like dragon people. No, I don't think DA has cat people and dog people. There's snake people referenced in lore. Yeah, it is implied that qunari are descended from dragons. Yeah, they have horns, that's their main thing for why they look like dragons, is they have horns like DA dragons"

"I'll probably watch Dragon Age: Absolution"

"The problem with the Fade in DA:O I thin is you can end up easily in this weird inception level of quests because you're doing Redcliffe, which leads you to the Mage Tower, which leads you to the Fade, so you're like so detached from your goal that it really undercuts it. It's not supposed to be filler but it definitely feels like it. You finish it and then you had to finish it again. It's weird pacing"

Chat asked "Is there a reason why we never went to Gwaren in DA:O?" Mark replied "We had enough areas to visit in DA:O already. And you don't really have a reason to go there. Loghain isn't there, and there's nothing that can help you there"

"I'm pretty sure that, one of the reasons this exists [recruiting Velanna in the Wending Wood segmet] is because sylvans weren't used very much, it's a good thing to use the creature model for in your expansion pack"

"Varric is carrying a lot more weight in DA:I than in DAII"

"Stun-locking the player character is not good game design typically. Crowd control used by the player character is fine, but when it's used on the PC, you know, standing around is not very fun"

[source]

(pls note that in places there is a bit of paraphrasing of the info, the best source is always the primary source with full quotes in their original context)

#dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #dragon age: absolution

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kuzco-lover · 1 year

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Actual Critiques of my Favorite Game, Life is Strange 2.

Life is Strange 2 (2018) is factually an amazing well developed game. Personally, I adore the game on every level. That, however, does not mean there aren't flaws, because there's BIG problems with this game and I want to shed light on 2 issues for those wondering why many people dislike parts of the game. Here is my (unasked for) criticism of Life is Strange 2. There will be spoilers so please tread lightly.

Number 1: Growing up with Esteban, and Karen's grandparents.

I believe that it was pretty unnecessary to make Sean and Daniel, the first important POC characters in the franchise, mixed with white and barely show their heritage. While it wasn't a big problem that they were mixed with white because mixed kids deserve all the representation in world (me being one, I would know), the problem is that the dev's should have shown more of how Sean and Daniel grew up with their father, Esteban, and shown the cultural dynamic from then in flashbacks or something. Instead, Esteban is just killed off and we never get to see how they celebrated culture. This could have been a great moment for Hispanic fans who grew up in a household where they celebrated Hispanic family dynamics and culture, to relate to the characters on a bigger level. This also would've contributed to the engagement of the game, which was so bad for many reasons, some being on this list. (I am African American, so please let me know actual Mexican opinions on this subject)

Number 2: The Horrible, No Good, Very Bad, Love Interests

A big part of LiS games is the selection of a straight relationship, or a queer relationship. Every main character is bisexual for the players enjoyment of the game. LiS2 is the first game in the series where the mc is a male. This made the queer fans very happy because of the MLM representation. Here's the problem, the male love interest was absolutely horrid. Apparently, this is an unpopular opinion and it really shouldn't be. Finn McNamara is a shitty love interest for so many reasons. First, lets talk ages of the characters. Sean Diaz, born August of 2000. The game starts in 2016 and takes place in October, near/on Halloween. This means Sean is freshly 16 when the incident occurs. Finn and Cassidy are described as teens in an article in the game, but are very obviously adults and their age range is from 18-21. Considering they can get beers, ouid, tattoos, etc. It makes sense for them to be 18+. Sean meets Finn and Cassidy in the winter of 2017, making Sean still a 16 year old. Sean escapes and starts hanging with them in the winter up until the summer of 2017. Sean is 16 throughout the whole time. Finn and Cassidy should not be romantically interested in a minor. Some people think 16 and 18 isn't a bad age gap, but Finn and Cassidy are also on a whole different maturity level, they have been through homelessness and so much tragedy themselves that they are nowhere near the maturity level of Sean. Let's take age out of the equation in case Finn and Cass are in fact under 18, Finn is still a bad person. Trauma makes people do crazy things, but that is just an explanation and not an excuse. Finn screws Sean and Daniel over. Finn gets Sean and Daniel caught and separated because he wants money. Finn manipulates Daniel and exploits his power to steal from Finns boss, who literally has a body guard. Finn knew his boss is very dangerous, probably armed, and that Daniel is still learning his power and is not in full control of it yet. Because of this heist, that Sean can either agree to do, or refuse, Sean and Daniel get busted and separated. Finn and Sean have no romantic chemistry at all. In the game, they share one small kiss, and are flirtatious almost in a friend way, the relationship is very forced. Cassidy, on the other hand, has sex with underage Sean. Cassidy's age is not determined as well, but assumed 18-21 as well, and the sex was just completely unnecessary. The only sex scene in all of the games is in the one game where the MC is underage, which is honestly so weird. There shouldn't have been love interests in this game. A person I've talked to brought up a great point. There would be no time for a love interest if Sean is always on the run from the law. I'm sure police would track down that his family lives in the part of Mexico that Sean fled to. Anyways, I'm very passionate about this specific topic, let me know your opinions :).

Thanks or listening to my LiS 2 rant. No matter what, I will adore this game, and I am very hopeful for a LiS game where we have black love interests and a Black MC (without making anything stereotypical PLEASE). Let me know your critiques of the LiS games, or if I said anything wrong please correct me but be civil and nice. (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡

#life is strange #lis #lis2 #sean diaz #daniel diaz #life is strange 2 #dontnod #square enix #criticism

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formulatrash · 1 year

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Hi Hazel, what do you think is wrong with McLaren? There's so much stuff from Daniel fans and Lando fans and I just want to know if my boy Oscar is gonna live peacefully.

let me never claim to be able to diagnose what is wrong with an F1 team. that needs more than a medical degree. but sure let's do the equivalent of a 'what mental illness do you have' uquiz.

what's going on is: they said their car was a bit sucktastic and it is. the hydraulic issue they had on Lando's car was obviously terminal from the second it happened, they were just trying to keep running for the data in race conditions, even if by that point he wasn't really racing anyone. the electronics failure on Oscar's car was just shit. but then again, both Red Bulls stopped on the final lap of Bahrain last season and we know how that played out for the rest of the year so let's not get too bleak too quickly.

I know Daniel fans are in a lot of pain rn but the McLaren being bad this year doesn't mean it was just as bad last year. and if it did, then that'd make Lando some sort of supernatural presence, in F1 terms which I'm pretty sure is not what Daniel fans want to hear. but there is a connection between the two and not just that the MCL60 is an evolution of the MCL36.

the reality is: the struggle McLaren are having with themselves now is connected to what happened with Daniel, though. when Daniel was struggling at McL they just didn't have the capacity to work out how to help him.

the way the car has gone this year, with development having headed in the wrong direction, also suggests they couldn't work out why Lando was doing well. he was scoring points, so it would've come under less scrutiny in terms of not being a problem per se but also clearly McLaren took too long to work out the direction they could make a better car in. which is why they've arrived at the start of the season with something they're unhappy with and some reliability gremlins.

McLaren still don't have a wind tunnel, which is insane (they literally take stuff to Cologne, Germany to test it in the wind tunnel) and a huge limitation on development. all the stuff they could take advantage of in terms of extra wind tunnel time is mitigated by the fact they have to fill in 3000 billion EU forms in order to go test parts (cheers, Brexit - remind me again why on earth McL did an advert for the Tories) but when a team like Mercedes is struggling to make the right choices with their car, you know how big the problem is.

if Daniel had been closer to Lando on track then they would have had more usable data. but if they'd been able to get Daniel closer to Lando on track then they wouldn't have so obviously had a problem with interpreting and correlating their car. it's all symptoms of the same thing, which is that McLaren's recovery wasn't ever going to be a permanent upward trajectory.

what's positive for the team is that they now seem able to acknowledge that, that Andrea Stella as a leader has the right technical background to be good at directing the team during this time and that it might be good for the whole team to have a lower-stakes year.

Lando's contracted until shortly after the heat death of the universe and Oscar's a rookie who they've probably at least got a second year option on. neither of them has anywhere better to be in the near future and they're young enough they can wait out a season to actually fix some of McL's problems. it's better to think of this like the 2019 season, with Lando and Carlos in a position to help the team reset, than as a continuation of 2020 and 2021.

or they'll turn up with the new upgrades in a couple of races time and blast the whole field out the water. it's F1, sometimes you just don't know. but if I had to try and explain it using the analytic equivalent of what Taylor Swift lyric I think the team most vibes with ("it's me, I'm the problem") and its favourite white guy from a film franchise (Tony Stark) then that's how it'd come out.

#f1 asks

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lokigodofaces · 1 year

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Okay, I'm going to talk about Rocket's prosthetic obsession thanks to the new comments from James Gunn. I have yet to see the Holiday Special (tonight hopefully!), but I think I have enough context to know what is happening.

I have always found Rocket's obsession funny in a way, but over the years with the way Gunn has spoken on the subject, it seems that him and I find it funny for two different reasons.

I now believe that the intended meaning behind the joke was "haha racoon is stealing prosthetics, now amputee doesn't have their prosthetic, haha." A very ableist type of humor. And I'm kind of surprised I didn't see it earlier. I don't know, it just never crossed my mind, and as y'all could probably guess that Guardians of the Galaxy isn't a part of the MCU I spend a ton of time thinking about. The prosthetics thing is something I forget about until I rewatch them again. But now after putting literally any thought into this, yeah, I'm pretty sure this was the goal. Which is unfortunate because I've always interpreted it in another way which is funnier and actually has to do with Rocket as a character.

Rocket's prosthetic obsession has always been funny to me in a "this guy has issues" sort of way. But isn't that the basis behind a lot of the humor in the Guardians movies? Rocket stole anulax batteries for the heck of it, Drax thinks he's invisible if he stands still or eats nuts slowly, Yondu joked about eating Peter when he was a kid, baby Groot apparently chewed someone's toe off, Peter tried to explain sex while smiling like a 12 year old to the head of an extremely elitist and eugenicist planet, Mantis is convinced Kevin Bacon is an Avenger, Nebula got a whole ship to try to kill Gamora and proceeded to crash it instantly, and Gamora picked up the guns from said ship two seconds later and shot at Nebula with that. Random examples. I could go on and on. These people have problems. And it's because of trauma. All of them have wildly different backgrounds, but all of them went through something traumatic. And trauma doesn't just produce soft spoken people who apologize if you run into them. Traumatized people can be all sorts of problematic.

I think one of the beauties behind the Guardians franchise is that all of them are a little unhinged, unfriendly, defensive, etc. But they all get along after a while. And it is hard. Some people criticized the second volume, saying that they just completely re-did the character development from the first. No. The Guardians are a wacky found family and family doesn't always get along, especially if the found family is as wild as the Guardians. They fight and struggle to get along but they all truly love each other. I think it's beautiful.

An obsession with prosthetics is unhinged and frankly unacceptable in real life circumstances. Really, I think most of us would not get along with the Guardians if we met them. If it weren't for comedy being its main genre, I think we'd get lots of discourse about all of the Guardians being terrible people versus meow meows, but a lot of the despicableness of their actions goes over people's heads because of the comedy. But, darn it, Rocket's obsession fits in so well with the craziness of these movies. And it helps that those jokes were delivered well!

The very first one was the leg in the first movie. It's one of the things Rocket lists when he is telling the others how they'll escape the prison. When I was watching it, I assumed he needed a certain mechanical part that can be found in prosthetics because his plan was very technological. You have the action scenes of them fighting the guards, then it cuts to a scene of Peter sitting down with the amputee, asking how much he wants for the prosthetic. The contrast adds to the humor. Then Peter gives Rocket the prosthetic and Rocket laughs, explaining how he finds it hilarious to steal people's prosthetics. And Peter is reacting like the audience, shouting at Rocket because this guy has problems! Because the joke should be that they're all ridiculous, not that some guy doesn't have a prosthetic now!

It's disappointing to find that so many people are being ableist with this when this works with Rocket's character (okay, he's the one that's easiest for me to list random ridiculous things. He has some wild issues). And, yes, this means that Rocket is ableist. Like I said, if it weren't for the genre there'd be lots of discourse on these people. My thoughts are that he's definitely improved as a person (now he's giving his stolen prosthetics to people that need them, like Thor), fiction isn't reality, trauma doesn't excuse being a jerk but I can see how he's the way he is, if you have problems with this don't be a jerk. Whatever. I don't care enough. But it seems like people, Gunn included, are leaning away from my interpretation and towards just plain ableism.

Anyway, my explanation for how Nebula got Bucky's arm is that she showed up at Sam's house (Bucky is celebrating Christmas with the Wilsons) and asked Bucky if there was a [insert animal that is not a racoon] that asked about his prosthetic during any of the fights against Thanos. He said yes, she said he wanted to give him a fake Christmas gift because of this ridiculous obsession. Bucky said he was in, and they made a paper mache arm or something like that, don't tell Rocket.

#rocket racoon #peter quill #nebula #gamora #mantis #drax #yondu udonta #groot #guardians of the galaxy (2014)#guardians of the galaxy vol 2 (2017)#guardians of the galaxy holiday special (2022)#james gunn critical #bucky barnes

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myimaginarywonderland · 4 months

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I love to read. I love stories.

I love books, games, movies, shows, anything that builds a genuine world, gives living characters, adds normal interactions etc.

So it always seemed obvious to me that as someone like that I would end up in fandoms and stuff like BookTok.

And I truly have to talk negatively about things because it hurts to sometimes admit flaws but as a storylover the last years of movies, TV Shows, books etc. have really started to feel so lack luster.

I could write essays about how storytelling, worldbuilding has become one of the lowest priorities when many projects nowadays start but I think there is also something to be said about the Fast Fashionisation of media because I am a victim of it just as I am a victim of brand buying sometimes.

The Fast Fashionisation of media is not only truly damaging stories in a lot of ways but I think people ignore how much off an effect all forms off media have on anyone, no matter their age but especially children.

Because I am someone of the "I learned languages through media" person and I feel like so much off the lose of knowledge, reduction of literacy, lose of interested in science etc. can be tracked directly back to the way media (most industries) have become a Fast Fashion brand and are essentially also using names.

What do I mean by this? We are getting movie after movie from big studies that seem like they have less and less effort put into them, baiting us by being part of x-franchise or in y-universe with z-big actor. Why do I hate this? Because a lot of movie feel like they aren't a story that is told but rather that one of these 3 bait factors was used to build a story around it. The story in itself is never a main focus of the movie, the worldbuilding is lacking because it is just expected that if it's x or y you will already know that "world" and if it's actor-bait, they just hope you are too busy ogling an actor (this isn't meant to shame because we all do sometimes!) to realise the complete lack of genuine story that is most movies.

When it comes to shows there is literally the Formula. Be a remake, a spinoff to some character, connect to some event of x-movie in y-universe, fit into the current in-categorie. Be based on some other past form of media, another season of some old show and that's it. I know people talk a lot about the homophobia because so many queer shows get cancelled but you will notice with these shows is that they don't fit into the "typical" TV Show formula and are actually trying something new so they will already be expected to be received worse and then if they don't at least met those expectations it's immediately over.

Booktok and smut/fanfiction has truly ruined the industry because 90% of books that will be promoted will just be promoted for sex scenes and romance when there is no substance in the entire story. You will have people throwing out this title and that and yet all the books are basically carbon copies with just slightly different featured main characters.

I think Games are the best of media genre right now because the scale of the others has not been reached yet. But I can already say, there is a noticeable bait with big franchise and remakes that will essentially be a carbon copy of the game before with genuinely no new features. I was so disappointed in Pokémon when I got my Switch because I adored Sword but hated the stupid Diamond remake. (Personal I know.) But I also think the gaming community is by far the biggest one influenced by fans which is why there is still many great stories out there. I think the main problem here is also that there isn't the promotion there used to be? Sure big Games from large companies will get ads but in my opinion many games used to rely on Let's Plays for attention especially from "bigger" creators. Since many creators have aged though and shifted their interests + are not uploading as frequently as before, there is less exposure to smaller games that are storybased and not mainstream.

I just think people don't understand the full effect this genuine fast fashion media will have on the population but especially the development of children and I could talk about this all day but yeah, I am going to cut myself off here to stop rambling.

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northwest-cryptid · 5 months

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well I'm not telling you you have to finish the game with the base IDs, just that it's ok to continue forward with them and to not despair if you don't have any of the fancy IDs, I don't really plan giving money to PM or following any "meta". IDs from a season or event aren't lost forever, they are still available to be directly purchased after a season has passed if they are related to the story and if they are not story related they are just always in the dispenser

I mean no insult but.

And because I actually do care about explaining that point, let me try to make this abundantly clear.

Gacha games are literally designed to sell you new characters; we often break things up into two camps those being "Pay to Win" or "Free to Play" if a game is truly "Free to Play" then it shouldn't have any "Pay to Win" elements, those being things like giving the paying players an edge over free players. However this ignores the third and honestly most common and less extreme camp that fits in the middle, and it's really interesting to me because it is THE model that gacha games are built on.

This would be the Pay To Play Comfortably/Pay to Play As Intended.

The difficulty of the game, and all it's features is "balanced" around the paying customer, the individual who has all the IDs and can swap out their teams as necessary.

Just because you're some uber mega amazing gamer who can do it without any of those things does not mean it's a comfortable or acceptable way to play the game especially not when you consider that...

All those IDs have lore associated with them, furthering the world building and character backgrounds that we as the players are literally playing the game for. This means that not only do we permanently miss out on potential lore and world building, but we're also playing the game at a much harder difficulty than those who have these options to swap around their party as necessary for whatever comes their way.

Look I need people to understand that it's not a personal attack on you, it's not a personal attack on Proj Moon or anything; it's a statement about the state of the game and the franchise as a whole.

What happens going forward, if we get another mainline game that has parts of it's story specifically based on the events of Limbus Company? Well either the "optional" extra IDs become pointless and basically cut from the canon and the people who bothered to purchase those gacha pulls, research and read through all the lore; and at the end of the day support the game and the company effectively get shafted by the very company they supported. Or the rest of us have no idea what the hell is going on with the world anymore.

I genuinely feel bad for people who can't ready WonderLab anymore because it was taken down, that's a good bit of world building and while I don't think they'll do it now, after everything that happened; I really did think we were going to get to see those characters come back in Limbus Company all things considered.

People really do act like I'm some stubborn asshole for taking the stance I do, but you need to see what I'm saying not as some diehard fan of ProjMoon but as someone who actually cares about the future of these games and who can see what the potential problems going forward will be given what they've done here.

At least, I request you do so if you're going to come into my inbox and tell me why I'm essentially wrong and why I should just play the game at a disadvantage "because it's doable"

also what's the point of playing a game if I can't play it through to the end? I wouldn't tell someone to play a story driven narrative focused game "up until it gets too hard and then just drop it I guess" or something, that's just not how it works my friend.

The statement "well I'm not telling you you have to finish the game with the base IDs" feels like it's not been thought through very well, and I don't mean that in any way to be harsh to you; I mean like reread that and really ask yourself, if all I have are the base IDs, and you're telling me I don't have to finish the game with them, but I can't afford to pay for gacha, and I might get garbage pulls like I did the first time; resulting in basically having to finish the game with the base IDs... this either feels like faulty logic or a cop out; neither of which are a great argument to make.

What I've been saying and still to this day, continue to say on the matter; is that Limbus Company didn't need to be a mobile gacha game. At the end of the day they pitched it as essentially an interactive fundraiser where they could fund future projects while giving us more lore about the world and just keep updating it.

That sounds great sure, but I didn't recall them mentioning that because that lore is going to be gated behind gacha those who can't afford to unlock all the lore will need to look for information externally from the game.

I don't recall them stating at all that the projects we're supposedly funding weren't going to be necessarily made public or updated outwardly. We have no idea what they're working on outside of Limbus Company, so for all I know they've raised more than enough money and just want more.

I say these things because I care arguably too much about Proj Moon, because I want to see it succeed in a meaningful way and not just from a numerical monetary standpoint. I want to see the games and projects they had in mind, I want to be able to take a trip to Korea and eat at their cafe and I want these things to have the same care and meaning behind them we saw in Lob Corp, that we saw in Library of Ruina.

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sirenofthegreenbanks · 3 months

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3, 16 and 20 for loving fandom asks! 😊

3. a character that fandom has helped u appreciate

wen kexing from the novels!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! also zzs from the novels and zzs from the show and wkx from the show but this isnt!!! about them!!!

16. a tiny detail in canon that u want more people to appreciate

we talked about this before but i really like how rise of phoenixes handles the crossdressing trope. quippe quest mentions this in their videos at some point i think; feng zhiwei is allowed to actually look like a man when she dresses up as a man, and the additional layer her crossdressing shenanigans add to the exploration of her arc that ends in her being completely stripped from all she has at the beginning (agency, autonomy, freedom, value) is all the more gutpunching. i look at her being all unrestrained (as a person) when she dresses up, moving around freely and doing what she wants (as per her nature), and then i look at who she is forced to become once the emperor finds out about it and it gets public. its honestly horrible, like a horror movie (feng zhiwei fmv horror edit?). so the maturity and nuance with which they approach and utilize it is smth i wish would be talked about more, if only because its so dear to me personally and i think everyone should talk about it all the time

,,,, ,,, actually this probably doesnt really count as a tiny detail //w// , ,, i thought of it because theyre so casual with it in canon!!! though feng zhiwei‘s ~real gender~TM is a plot point, the show doesnt really make a fuss around the crossdressing in itself (compared to how other stories usually handle it). so i thought of it as tiny and a detail even though its not really tiny, and its more the attention to detail that i would like for everyone to appreciate forever.

HERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE ANSWER: zhiwei‘s long ass hair that she takes down at the end of the forst day at the academy when sits in the window just before going to bed . everyone is talking about ning yi‘s hair but!!!! what about hers!!!!! its literally right there!!!! its such a beautiful scene, she looks so good. and i think its the only time she ever takes down her hair where we see it right? right? it doesnt happen at all at any other point :) surely :). so beautiful when u can take down your hair of your own volution in a world where taking your hair down signifies vulnerability and can unmask you as a woman! :) :):):) great scene where zhiwei is in full control of her fate and pursues her happiness and taking her hair down in the privacy of her room, with only gu nanyi to see, is such a big show of trust (in him) and faith (in her future) :) im fine why do u ask

20. your very first fandom

oh this is a mean pick!!!!!! me having like a hole in my head etc!!!!! but one of my earliest beloveds media that i could count as me entering a fandom of any kind is the donald duck franchise. dont really have a better name for it. i could call it the Mickey Mouse Franchise but that would be A Lie. mickey mouse has nothing to do with it at all! i had fan magazines and would dress up as phantomias and would spent time reading comics with my friends and brother and i would annoy literal strangers into lending me their comics if i so much as sniffed out that they had a collection at home. i also drew and wrote fanart and fanfic, though i never finished anything, my aspirations were too high for my fragile constitution also known as patience and stamina TvT. smth thats STILL a problem tbh. i cant write short stuff yet keeping it up for so long is Hard. anywhomst. i remember looking at the pictures before i learned to read and making up the story in my head so this being my first fandom might not be that far off!!!!!!

beloveds fandom asks game

#rise of phoenixes has wrecked me TvT #i watched it three times in full in direct succession after finishing it the first time #which is super unusually for me #i rewatch at the most after multiple months of not years #cryptid!!!! im making u personally responsible for dragging me back into it!!!#how dare u like it so much after i recced it to u!!!!! the world is not a nice place TvT #inbox #the mututal tag #loving fandom asks #cryptid #ask game #the rise of phoenixes #tian ya ke my beloved

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actuallyitsstar · 3 months

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aaaaaaa so tumblr is not a functional website and it ate my next two drafted asks so prepare to get tagged in textposts but @brambleberrycottage sent Lord of The Rings (which will be v interesting bc im quite new to this franchise so pls dont crucify me i know nothing im baby lol) for the fandom ask game:

✨ send me a fandom and i'll answer with the following!

blorbo (favorite character, character I think about the most)

↣ VERY IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE but i think i have no choice but to go with aragorn. idk i dont know enough yet about all the lore of the universe to unpack this but. idk. something about that specific Flavor of generational trauma and the concept of corrupted legacy/rejecting his bloodline and coming back to it and learning to accept it and himself and what that means for middle earth in the grand scheme of things and h ow he has to 'forgive' himself/his kind to help everyone else. idk idk. It Compels Me. ive only seen the movies 3 times and i have not yet read the books so im sorry if im saying anything stupid aldjfkfhf 😭

scrunkly (my “baby”, character that gives me cuteness aggression, character that is So Shaped)

↣ SAM!!! SAMWISE GAMGEE !!! SAMWISE THE BRAVE! he is so so friend shaped i just love him so much so many of his scenes make me ugly cry. he was my big toss up for blorbo in this ranking. but i want to squish him. you know ???????

scrimblo bimblo (underrated/underappreciated fave)

↣ NO idea who is underrated in this fandom but i have a Soft Spot for boromir. hes that type. the type we've discovered i always love. the traumatized man with emotional problems who is overconfident. akdjfkfjfkgfj and i KNOW he obviously has his faults but he redeems himself and he reminds us of his true character and he does right by those halflings in the end by god 😭😭 still sad abt it

glup shitto (obscure fave, character that can appear in the background for 0.2 seconds and I won’t shut up about it for a week)

↣ again not that obscure probably idk enough of the more background ppl yet and idk who is popular but i have a soft spot for king theoden. his speech on the hill about burying his son always rly gets to me and he seems very noble and level-headed and fair, if not a little bit prideful at times. so interested in the concept of legacy and the way he talks about it and then how aragorn talks about it too and i always wonder if there is meant to be contrast/reference between them.

poor little meow meow (“problematic”/unpopular/controversial/otherwise pathetic fave)

↣ LISTEN..... DO NOT COME FOR ME BUT ITS KIND OF SORT OF SMEAGOL......hear me out. if faramir hadnt caused frodo and same to betray him i think he might still have been good and might still have been free of the ring at last. and idk if that lines up w the lore at all i may be talking out of my ass. im just saying i feel so so terrible about that twist happening to him bc he seemed so happy and free before the ring and then its just IMMEDIATE awfulness and crimes forever. he must be suffering. he died suffering. for the stupid ring. id like to think in another universe he gets something better.

horse plinko (character I would torment for fun, for whatever reason)

↣ im sorry this is literally frodo i think 😭 canonically and also fandom-wise. frodo ily i am sorry this burden ruined your life it PHYSICALLY pains me, literally, yet i cannot stop reading about it and thinking abt your struggles.

eeby deeby (character I would send to superhell)

↣ OBVIOUSLY SAURON OR SARUMAN.....NEXT QUESTION

#star unasks #as i said ive seen these movies a limited number of times and am not very aware of the lore #so i have no idea if ive said anything insane or not #if so please forgive me these are very casual thoughts lol #lotr #thank u so much for the ask and im sorry this webbed site ate it !!!!#brambleberrycottage #star.txt

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relativelynormalgameshow · 4 months

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METROID DREAD (2019)

Platform: Nintendo Switch Status: 100% finished Rating: 9/10 Recommend?: HECK YEAH!

My history with Metroid Dread was somehow… Complicated. I found out there is a demo for the game as soon as I got the switch in the summer of 2022. Naturally, I finally could get a taste of the Metroid franchise, so I downloaded it, tried it out… and found out this isn’t a game for me unfortunately…

But then, in the fall of 2023, OUT OF NOWHERE Metroid Dread crept into my mind, without any previous trigger, and I was like “Damn… I would love to play that game… I should try the demo out…” and I kept telling this to myself for like two weeks until I sat down, downloaded it again and fell in love with the game instantly.

And how do I rank the game after I got it, sat down and obtained 100% completion on my save? Here’s my thoughts.

1) STORY

As stated before, this was my first Metroid game ever.

I have no idea what is going on in the series, so starting with the fourth main entry basically, might be a bit misleading, but I felt like I was catching on to everything the game was throwing at me storywise.

The initial premise is fairly simple.

Samus is called on an isolated planet called ZDR, where she needs to investigate a race of mimic creatures known as X. Naturally, things go south fairly quickly. We are captured by some boss creature, beaten to a pulp and stripped of all upgrades and we start our journey on ZDR as the most barebones version of Samus Aran.

The story unfolds slowly and very atmospherically I’d say, but the pacing is well spaced throughout the game. Everything builds up to the final reveal and like… I am sorry, I have to put a

BEWARE SPOILERS! LIKE… HUGE SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT!

notice here… But I was blown by it! If anyone would tell me something is able to put out a similar plot twist to the first Bioshock and succeed in it, in 2021, I wouldn’t believe it! My brother told me that similarly to DMC5, a lot of the plot of Dread was guessed by the community even before the game was released, but IDC. I was still blown by it.

END OF SPOILER SEGMENT.

- - -

2) GAMEPLAY

Before Dread I played only bits of Hollow Knight and Blasphemous in terms of other Metroidvanias.

Gameplay-wise, Metroid Dread is one of the most satisfying games I ever played. Samus controls amazingly well. As you unlock the different skills to traverse the map, even the boss fights become much more fun. Out-jumping Chozo Soldiers was a deliberate fun.

The movement through ZDR, through jumps, space-jumps, morph-balling and slides is amazing, it’s swift and very responsive.

Only gripe I have is with the shinespark puzzles.

That shit made me sweat bricks. I literally was going through a phase when I wanted to grab the whole switch and toss it out of the window.

WHO MADE THE INPUTS NECESSARY FOR SOME OF THEM???

As for combat, you basically have a shoot, a missile, and a bomb and they improve through upgrades throughout the game so they deal more damage, can have bursts, piercing powers etc.

Its fun that you always have something that keeps you in the “ooooh, something new and shiny :3” mindset.

- - -

3) LOCATIONS

As for locations, the map is divided into 8 mini-maps that you will be running between.

What will aid you on your travels are certain fast travel points, be it some train, elevator, or teleporters. You are unlocking shortcuts and reaching new parts of the maps like this all throughout the game. So the fact you reach a new minimap doesn’t mean you will get to explore its entirety in one go.

And that’s what makes it fresh the whole time. You don't spend so much time in one place that you would get bored by it.

And you also reach some very pretty scenic views later in the game.

But to be honest… The train locations were always my most favorite :3

- - -

4) BOSSES

Metroid Dread has around 30 bosses. That’s even counting E.M.M.I’s and the final boss. I think there was only one which I really had problems with, which was the Experiment no Z-57.

I have no idea how much time I spent on that bitch, but I was ripping out my hair during the process.

I couldn’t for the love of god learn its patterns. And it’s in a part of the game where the progress through him is mandatory. You basically HAVE TO get through this roadblock, or go F yourself.

Other than that? E.M.M.I’s will probably be one of my most favorite and most hated encounters in gaming, period.

Their indestructibility makes them deadly predators and a regular threat. It kind of reminded me of the Tyrants from the Resident Evil series.

But I felt much more dread from having to outrun these f*ckers.

The fact that if they catch you, you are done for makes them much more scary. And when you then have to obtain the Omega blaster to kill them finally, and still have to first blow off their shield with the gatling gun and only then kill them with a beam that needs to be charged while those huge robots slowly approach you?

I was sweating more than during any of the soulsborne bosses.

But they can also be annoying.

Many times when I couldn’t outrun them, or I was hiding on the ceiling with my camouflage on and they still catched me, I Exploded into angry mode.

The cherry on top then is the final boss, Raven Beak. My sorry ass was pretty much indented into the floor by him. I had to retreat and go level up a bit by obtaining more health and firepower as I reached his second phase out of rockets and was pretty much fucked at that point.

Once I obtained my 100% on the whole map, I came back and wiped the floor with him. And I had so much fun learning to outrun all his attacks and properly get my revenge on him.

Also, a small thing I was giggling at the whole time was that I was imagining how he beat me over few cycles, to his amusement and then Samus just didn’t return, and he put up some tracking device and was watching in fear how she collects every single upgrade there is for her, before finally reaching the bossroom with the attitude of a mother that comes to your room after you unwantedly slammed the door shut after your argument.

And she delivered equally devastating beating of Raven Beak’s ass :>

- - -

5) AUDIO

This unfortunately isn’t a field where I could talk about much in most of my reviews, period.

I very rarely notice sound design or soundtracks during my playthroughs. I can only say that the sound design of weapons and soldiers is amazing here.

It’s a Nintendo game so brace yourself for not a lot of Voice acting, and when there is some, it’s in a made up language.

The voice acting in the made up language sounds amazing tho. I didn’t mind it there.

As for soundtracks… Each track that is designated to a boss or a place perfectly captures the essence of the place. It either makes you chill out, or sweat bricks, depending on the place you are at and the time you are there at.

One track in particular stands out tho and Iove every second of it. And that’s the Theme of Samus Aran. It’s so damn epic. I can't help but love it. It gives you the feeling you WILL deal with someone who is undeniably badass. And TBH?

That delivers.

- - -

6) LEWD AND WAIFU POTENTIAL?

Which brings me to my next point. I can FINALLY properly SIMP over Samus in this part of the review, so brace yourselves.

*Deep breath*

WHY DID NO ONE EVER TELL ME, THAT SAMUS ARAN IS LIKE THE SINGLE ONE MOST BADASS PERSON IN VIDEOGAME HISTORY??? I mean it. I instantly fell in love with her through the very stoic but in-depth body language that they gave her. Every emotion of hers is so well portrayed, given that the most you see of her are her eyes. Most of the times during the cutscenes where she is about to finish some boss, she just silently walks around it, charging her cannon and I absolutely love every single second of it. I am pretty much the epitome of the Scared Cacadou meme!

(Just a side note I didn’t know where to put it. I absolutely love how they were able to portray her having fear in her eyes. The Fact this is a fairly stylised game, with restricted amount of animation in it, and they still were able to show this emotion so well, shows just how much care was put into this game)

If ANYONE would try to tell me that Doomslayer is her son, I’d FUCKIN BELIEVE THAT! He just one day was like “One day I will be as badass as mommy! :3” and he delivered. And when I brushed over this theme, yes...

Samus Aran is a mommy.

100%. Both in the “Step on me mommy” kinda way and the way where if Nintendo would make her tell you during the gameplay, that you played for too long and you should turn it off or it will have consequences, you WILL turn the game off and go to bed like a good boy... even if it would be just 2PM!

During one of the finish animations, I even compared her to the mother that asks you how was your day at school, and during you telling her that it was fairly calm, she just waits with the wooden spoon in her hand, because she already got the call from the school that you broke a door on the toilets, headshot your classmate with a wet sponge and during the class ignited the classroom plant, and she’s just waiting for you to stop talking so she can wreck your bratty ass.

She just radiates authority. To be fair, she radiates so much power and authority that you basically feel like you have to be worthy of seeing her nudes on the infamous R34…

That might, or might not be part of the reason why I 100% completed the game…

To gain mommy’s approval…

Might, or might not. Maybe it was just so much fun to play.

- - -

7) SUMMARY?

Metroid Dread is an absolutely masterful game that was a fresh surprise.

I enjoyed my time with the game, stormed through it in like 3-4 days and it probably is a game that will stay with me for the rest of days. It’s one of those that you just remember having fun with. Even though I wasn’t a fan of the white armor Samus has in this title in the first place, it kinda grew on me.

And if I would get a nickel every time a well known design got white elements embedded into itself and I didnt like it at first, but then it grew onto me, I would have two nickels.

Which Isn’t much, but it’s weird that it happened twice. The second time was with Insomniac’s Spider-Man.

So, would I recommend the game?

Yes. I give it 9/10.

The performance on Switch is phenomenal. The story was captivating and the gameplay here just shines. It has been a long time since I played a game that was just so much fun to chew through. If you are a proud owner of Nintendo Switch, this for sure is a gem that shouldn’t go under your radar…

#RelativelyNormalGameshow #AraksGamingCourt #video games #games #nintendo #metroid #metroid dread #samus aran #metroid samus #nintendo switch #game review #gamers of tumblr #personal opinion

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adamwatchesmovies · 5 months

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Heart of Stone (2023)

It isn’t so much that Heart of Stone is bad; it’s that it doesn’t do anything good enough to stand out. This is what I think of when someone says “Netflix Top Ten Original”. When it arrives, it feels like everyone’s watching it. A week later, everyone who saw it has already forgotten about it and moved on to the next action spy-thriller with several notable stars in important roles.

Rachel Stone (Gal Gadot) is part of an MI6 field team. What agents Parker (Jamie Dornan), Yang (Jing Lusi) and Bailey (Paul Ready) don’t know is she’s secretly a member of The Charter, an ultra-secret agency dedicated to peacekeeping that operates outside of any government. The Charter uses The Heart, a sophisticated artificial intelligence, to calculate its agents’ odds of success based on every possible factor in real time. The Heart allows the agents to succeed in the most precarious situations and The Charter to hack into any device. When a mysterious hacker named Keya (Alia Bhatt) makes a move against the Charter, Stone has to blow her cover - unaware this is exactly what her opponent was hoping she would do.

I’ll admit that while watching Heart of Stone, I was entertained in a “it’s moving and I want to see what’s coming next” sort of way. Looking back - particularly after writing that synopsis down - this is the store-brand version of your spy-thriller action film. I can remember a death-defying chase down the Italian Alps and the picture’s final confrontation but these scenes are nothing special; they could be in any movie like this. Stone herself is a protagonist we’ve seen a thousand times. Gal Gadot plays the part fine and she handles the stunts with no problem but her character makes no impact. Similarly, The Charter is dull, dull, dull as a secret organization. I can’t think of any movie that’s done exactly what they’re doing, but I swear I’ve seen it before, probably in another movie I forgot soon after it ended.

Heart of Stone sort of feels like the third entry in a franchise that's limping along. It's as if most of the cast are sick of their roles and asking for their characters to be killed off, revealed as traitors or retired, or are the new replacements introduced to help revitalize a fledgling series. Because Stone is at her most interesting when she has to pretend like she can’t handle fieldwork, the film is most engaging at the beginning, when she’s paired up with Bailey, Yang and Parker. About a third of the movie in, they get dropped. Their absence and the focus on Stone should get us all riled up emotionally but we’re just not invested in the characters enough to really care.

On the upside, there are plenty of twists and turns along the way, the stunt work is good, the action well shot and the special effects convincing. While Stone might not be memorable, you do like her. You also like Gal Gadot in the role enough to never feel bored despite the been-there-done-that story and premise. I want to be nice to this movie but too often, it does the obvious or makes a choice that will have you thinking “Couldn’t you have tried something else?” There’s a point towards the end when a villainous character receives a chance at redemption. The movie really wants us to believe they deserve it. Meanwhile, I’m just thinking “What, you didn’t realize the people you were working with were power-hungry madmen when you were setting up a casino where the high-rollers can bet on who will die first in the footage you’ve hacked from the U.S. military? Give me a break.”

Heart of Stone is Mission: Impossible at home. I mean… it is, LITERALLY since you don’t have to go to the theater to see it and it’s about a group of people, led by an action star doing all sorts of action things to save the day from a shadowing organization. It is also figuratively “Mission: Impossible at home”. (September 3, 2023)

#Heart of Stone #movies #films #movie reviews #film reviews #Tom harper #Greg Rucka #Allison Schroeder #Gal Gadot #Jamie Dornan #Alia Bhatt #Sophie Okonedo #Matthis Schweighofer #2023 movies #2023 films

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the-apprentice-lia · 5 months

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also!! i find that they did omit pretty key details in mockingjay pt2 that i’m quite unhappy about.

like. peeta’s leg? bro he needed help because his leg was gone. not because he was weak or whatever. katniss and joanna’s training? haymitch, once again, got 5sec combined screen time?? they cut out pretty much every scene where katniss has her depressive episodes, and where she and finnick need to be sedated?? like i just find that they underplayed the trauma for the drama a lot in the movie. i mean, they focused on the action (like the books do) which is fine, more accessible to a wider audience and all that. but these are kids. you have to remember that. they’re not badass killers, they’re not hard-hearted assassins, they’re just kids. and this is so at the forefront of the books because there’s a 50/50 balance, in my opinion, with action and repercussions. like, katniss loses prim? there’s the chapter where she decides just to die, where she doesn’t know where she is and has a panic attack in a random closet in snow’s mansion, where haymitch has to comfort her because she’s so deeply disoriented, where she’s completely in pieces. there was none of that in the movies. and let’s be real, it was a multimillion dollar franchise, so budget and screentime can’t have been a problem. literally had they just made it 3 instead of 2.5 hours they would have had more than enough time to rectify these mistakes. because these details are key to the book. you can’t tell the complete story without them. and honestly, it was a bit of a letdown. true, a lot of the film was fantastically accurate, but i really can’t let these things slide. to me it’s not nitpicking, but these are so important for the full story. :(

but this being said, i don’t think that the overall message of the books was distorted too much. it was still really really accurate in some points, with dialogue lifted verbatim from the book, and the timeline was also pretty excellent. the cinematography was fantastic as well— i think what really drove it home for me was the fact that the music, the lighting, even the framing, all emphasised the symbolic importance of the moment. like when coin was framed, a single shot through the heart, deep red blood staining the concrete. that made me feel stuff.

so, in total: a pretty great movie that i definitely enjoyed. it stayed true to the message of the books, and that’s good enough for me.

#the hunger games movie #the hunger games #the hunger games books #thg haymitch #thg mockingjay #thg series #thg #thg katniss #thg peeta #lia writes #but once again it is more accurate to say ‘lia types this out frantically at an ungodly hour because she can’t deal with emotions’#or at least not if she doesn’t write them down :’)#by the book #mockingjay #mockingjay pt2 #mockingjay part 2

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