I’m neutral towards VanCraig. I think the concept of a kid who’s main schtick is bringing in various types of kids together and a kid who prefers animals over people is really fascinating. But it never feels truly acknowledged.
Also Cartoon Network videos promoting the ship over JpxManey and KelsxStacks feels like their forcing it which leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The fact that Wildernessa was on the CTFG poster spite having a limited presence only adds insult to injury. I can respect the creators not completely knowing what to do with er at first and then finally setting on something for her, the episode Breaking The Ice was pretty good but Puppy Love feels forced and unearned because Craig just likes her for NO APPARENT REASON other than she likes him. I can understand if he feels weird about this but he just flat out says he likes her back. Before someone says J.P and Maney didn’t have a massive build up as critic of my point I think that’s valid, but my counterpoint would be because that was done in the earlier stages of the show. We spent more time with them together than apart which makes up for the slightly rushed beginning of their relationship. A more reasonable comparison to this is Kelstacks, we spent episodes getting to see their dynamic unfold with hints of romance on both parties sprinkled in but not the main focus of said episode. And when we actually see it come to fruition, all the build up feels earned.
We had 2 seasons of Wildernessa being a bitch to Craig, after BTI it seemed like something special would develop but it feels bad because it only happened in 2 episodes. The finale of season 3 and Puppy Love. This unbalanced journey between them is the main reason why I’m not a fan of their relationship.
Unrelated note, theirs a clip of the worst ships consisting of CraigXEileen which seems really odd to me and almost feels like they put that in there just to make Craignessa seem good by comparison.
Hey it’s me, the guy who wrote about my opinion on Vancraig.
Here’s another hot take:
Helen was WASTED IN COTC.
The idea of a girl who only comes into the Creek in the morning while everyone is at school due to being homeschooled and has heightened allergies is damn fascinating. She can’t do things most kids can and hates it, her only companion is a guy who’s whole schtick is bonding with everyone and him getting to know this girl spite her DIFFERENT lifestyle would’ve been incredible to watch and a good representation of Home Schooled kids. But alas she only appeared in one episode with the nature of said episode prohibiting her to return in future stories. In theory she could actually have a similar dynamic with Craig being polar opposites in bot social standing and personality with the key difference being Helen is more shy than Craig.
The idea of a bunch of kids creating a whole town with jobs and homes is such an interesting idea. But it’s never utilised apart from Carter’s arc which is a bummer since I would’ve loved to see how some more kids act in Cardboard City and what it says about their interest and home life. Also we could’ve gotten more Cardboard robots.
Question why wasn’t Zoe or Mackenzie considered to join the Creek Council?
Cardboard city inspired me to make other crafts with cardboard I've been having so much fun.
About the last one, maybe the crew wanted to keep the council not too big, but honestly, now that I think about it I'm wondering why too.
Eliza's parents not being shown despite everyone else's (aside from the Stump Trio) having one or both parents (in Toman's case — extended family) appear feels very much like the crew couldn't care less about Eliza other than using her for unnecessary conflict because they ran out of ideas.
I can't help but agree tbh. I'm kinda bitter the crew put in the effort to include Bobby's parents when honestly, he's pretty useless to the show (and not very interesting) besides being the comic relief who thinks he's Craig's bestie. But exclude Eliza just for the sake of it, she's a lot more interesting to me. Eliza had a lot more potential to be more than just the pink mean girl who causes drama. They could've at least given us a family photo of them.
George x Secret Kid would've been a fine ship, had it been implied in the show. I've seen someone excusing it as Secret Kid being, well, secretive, but they could've at least shown some evidence of interest. It seems like they only made it a ship out of a whim just to give the episode a good reason why Secret Kid needed his diary back.
I used to think that Bottled Blueberries only came into existence to give George last minute depth outside of the Tea Timers and because the crew felt like adding another ship just for the sake of it. But that last sentence sounds more plausible.
I feel like they had a missed opportunity to have the Tea Timers be part of the Other Side during Xavier's reign. Like, as spies and stuff for Xavier's eventual takeover of the Creek.
Or at least have Eliza and George be a part of them, because then them having gloves on all the time would've had a practical purpose [to hide that little eye symbol that Xavier has everyone put on their hands] rather than it being there for aesthetics.
And I'm not saying the Capture the Flag episodes were BAD because of it — I just think it would've been more fun if the Tea Timers were added into the mix rather than them being literally forgotten in the actual Capture the Flag episodes, leading up to the war.
I was SO sad the Tea Timers weren't apart of the war cause it would've been nice to show a more brutal side to Jane and George.
But I actually really love this take now that you point it out holy shit.
idk if this is a hot take but I wholeheartedly despise the whole rubix cube arc. It's so stupid how they formatted it and plugged in random filler episodes. It felt so clunky and the finale was so unsatisfying, especially when the main setup/plot point was the elders separating, but that went NOWHERE so it makes the entirety of season 5 feel so unorganized and muddy idk. The finale itself failed to really tie everything together and conclude much when they found the last piece (kinda suck at explaining well cause it's been a while since I've watched the show, but yeah)
We do have 10 episodes left. Let's see if they can redeem themselves
So what happened with Lyblac in CotC that did her so dirty?
Just a fair warning to anyone who's started reading this and is a big fan of CotC's writing: I am very critical of parts of the writing (specifically relating to the Bestower of Fame arc) in the post below, and have tagged this as such ("cotc critical") for blacklisting purposes. If you're a big fan of the writing that's fine, but you might want to skip this. CotC's just some silly gacha game after all, and there's no reason to make yourself read something negative about something you love.
I'll note that this is all most likely just be a "my personal taste" thing, but what makes Lyblac so compelling to me in the original game, despite how little screentime and writing she gets, is that she is more or less directly the source of everything that goes wrong in the game because of her mission to revive Galdera and end the world.
She's the one who gives Matthias and Simeon longevity because she knows the type of trouble they'll cause will directly benefit her goal and that she can also use them and their cohorts as she sees fit; she's the one who strings Lucia along with promises of forbidden knowledge, and in turn Lucia drags Yvon down with her--and the two of them could probably have done serious damage to the Atlasdam kingdom if Lyblac had commanded Lucia to do so in exchange for more forbidden knowledge; Lyblac's directly responsible for making sure the right people (mainly Werner, but probably others as well) had the right type of power to topple the entire kingdom of Hornburg just so she could get access to the Gate of Finis; and of course the entire thing with Graham where she nearly managed to open the Gate of Finis before the game even starts by using his grief to puppet him along. The only traveler she doesn't have an obvious direct connection to is Therion, since there's nothing to directly tie her to the death of Cordelia's father (whether directly or through the Obsidians) and theft of the dragonstones, although it's technically not impossible she got her hands on one or two stones long enough to weaken the seal on the Gate of Finis.
This is all to say that, despite her lack of screentime, the original game's writing makes it clear that she is a dangerous threat, and even Galdera's two boss themes are named after Lyblac's epithets rather than his own ("The One They Call Witch" and "Daughter of a Dark God"). It is made abundantly clear that she is the main antagonist, and that she is wickedly smart, very careful, calculating, and extremely resourceful.
In CotC she is...none of these things, to the detriment of not only her own characterization from the original game, but to Ceraphina's role as a major antagonist as well. Now, a lot of CotC's writing doesn't, to me at least, feel like it lines up well with the established canon of the original game, which is crazy since the lead writer is the same for both games...but also a lot of the writing just, isn't very strong in my opinion (i.e. the same plot twist gets used at least six times in the main story route), but that's neither here nor there. However, Besower of Fame is probably one of the weakest of the main story routes.
What really irked me about Bestower of Fame was just how much it doesn't make sense with any of the pre-established canon. Rinyuu being Graham's bastard daughter doesn't make any sense, this was the man who was so desperate to save his wife that he left on a years-long trip, and was so beset by grief of her death that he was easily manipulated into cracking the Gate of Finis open in the hopes of seeing her again--he simply would not have a child with another woman. Ceraphina attempting to ascend to godhood to fulfill her revenge is fine and all, and actually kind of refreshing since her arc doesn't pivot on her being a sexy woman, except if she stole the First Flame before the events of the original game, then nothing about Ophilia's arc in the original game makes any sense (Ophilia shouldn't have been able to get into the Cave of Origins easily, she would have been aware of the entire fiasco caused by Ceraphina's betrayal, the lingering scars of that would still be being dealt with, etc.); so the plot execution there is shaky and could have been written differently with just as much impact, and possibly more to Ceraphina's benefit if Lyblac simply hadn't been included in the story at all.
For Lyblac, nothing about her writing in CotC makes sense. The idea that Lyblac had somehow "suffered a fatal wound" (how? from whom? where? when? why?) and hid herself in Ceraphina to recover...only to be smacked down again by the Chosen One and Co. (But she still recovers in time for the events of the original game? somehow? Also if she was recovering inside Ceraphina, just when the hell did she entice Werner to take down Hornburg?) Like? Is that the same woman who quietly plotted the downfall of one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world, and deftly manipulated all the people around her like pawns, and was clearly smart enough to evade any detection right up until she led Kit to the Gate with false promises of finding his father (and even then she was only found out by the main travelers because they had been helping Kit all along, and she still managed to temporarily revive Galdera). Like, I dunno, it weakens Ceraphina's character arc by robbing Ceraphina of the agency to be the main antagonist of her own story, and it spits in the face of the original game's canon Lyblac, who was terrifyingly cunning and extremely calculating, by making her act really stupid.
The impression I get of the original game's canon Lyblac is not of a woman who would ever put herself in a position where she could get harmed even a little, never mind lethally harmed (and she's also literally part-god, a mortal should not be able to easily harm her never mind fatally harm her), and she certainly wouldn't hedge her bets hiding away in some mere mortal who she definitely was using as a puppet and probably thought of as little more than a useful insect. CotC Lyblac simply does not make any sense with the original Lyblac's characterization, and it's a shame because Lyblac's role is really interesting in the original game, and her influence is felt across every traveler's story to some extent.
But as I noted, a lot of CotC's writing doesn't really jive with the original game's lore. I do still enjoy a lot of aspects of the game, but it does suffer from "is a gacha game" in the writing department, and I've had to sort of think of it as some separate AU so I can more fully enjoy what bits of the CotC-original story are actually decent. I was just really disappointed with Bestower of Fame bc Ceraphina is easily one of the more interesting main antagonists, at least in concept if not in execution, and I feel like Lyblac's character--if she had to be included in CotC at all beyond fan service--should have been written with a lot more respect for the fact that she was the main threat of the original game.
