#critcal

[kitsu-katsu]

I just finished watching arcane season 2 and just... WHAT HAPPENED???

Dude

Where did the themes go???

I spent the last 3 chapters just going "hey, remember when this was about a struggle against oppression and class divides and discrimination?" It all just... Vanished and like 3 new forms of magic took its place

What happened with Mel? What was her plot even ABOUT theme-wise this season?? What was that ending with Ambessa????

What was that mess with Caitlin's character? She was ping-ponging between going fascist and actually she's just Caitlin same as ever and is immediately forgiven

Everyone forgives each other too quick

The avenger's level threat at the end to force Piltover and Zaun together without really resolving the political and social tensions that drove this whole thing was... A choice. A bad one if you ask me

Viktor held true to his character of "I'm using hex-tech to help people and especially help those who need it in the undercity" with an off-putting undertone for a WHILE and was good, up until Jayce basically killed him and then he's all for erasing humanity?? Just like that? "I just spent days putting all my energy into saving the beast-man, and asked Singed to leave, but actually, now that the commune was destroyed in one blow by Jayce, to hell with humanity, let's go doctor! To make the hive mind!"

It felt... Wrong

Jayce's character was also handled... Confusingly

And the time loop of Viktor making Jayce magic-obsessed so that they can work together and then he can almost die and become one with the hex-core and save humanity and Jayce becomes doomed so he can change the trajectory of his life again so that Jayce comes back to almost kill him to kickstart the sharp descend and only talk once almost everyone's dead to... Undoom himself?????? Teach himself a lesson that going down the path he himself set up though Jayce was wrong??? It makes zero fucking sense

The whole break up and make up of Cait and Vi is so rushed in every angle. Vi barely found out about Cait having another girlfriend. They split paths and Vi was immediately emo mode. Then they forgave each other immediately

Same with Vi and Jinx, their whole thing was rushed as hell too

How did Zaun even reach that perfect peace in the alternate universe? They're making the case that without hextech, the discrimination would've just... Dissipated and even Silco would've turned over a new leaf and just... How so? The political and social issues between the Lanes and Piltover was much older and much bigger than hextech. Maybe if they'd CONTINUED EXPLORING THAT PLOTLINE it could make some modicum of sense

Everyone flipped like a pancake from one second to the next

And the fact that almost everyone with a suicidal ideation just... Sacrificed themselves by the end is... Also a choice.

[appleflavoredkitkats]

Hey ame, so about the tftsmp question, you probably know that I personally quite like it, but I understand the confusion on the hype. I regard it kinda like the "talking dead" talk show that would play after the "walking dead" tv show, where it's not meant to be serious and it gives folks a break away from the narrative, and karl clearly wants to use Tales as a way to give CCs a way to play around with their rp & improv skills. That being said, that open field concept tends to create a lot of chaos and you end up with sometimes near-unwatchable eps like The Beach Episode and The Haunted Mansion where it's just a bunch of people messing around for a little over an hour rather than any story being told, but the audience is mainly there to see people interact anyway so 🤷‍♂️

In terms of seeing cool builds and interesting mc skins, it's a very fun and exciting series. In terms of actual story and plot, even with karl's time travel spin to it? Well, it feels like a unique way for karl to basically just never do things on the smp like everyone else, haha, but it gives him a chance to write his own plot without really having it affect anyone else's already-established plot.

Like I said, it's got more of a talk show vs the actual show vibe, because it feels like karl is mainly just trying to have fun with everyone without having to step on anyone's toes! It's not bad, but it's more of a risk-free venture, it keeps the audience involved in a fun storyline, he spends a lot of time and effort on it, and it gives a lot of people a little extra moment in the spotlight, too!

It's definitely overhyped for what it is, but I think the intention is that it's fun in the way a talk show is, not some kind of high-budget entertainment production, but because it's just people hanging out and doing something silly together!

ORB YES I AGREE WITH THIS!

I do think it’s not meant to be taken as seriously as the main plot, and Karl is definitely so good at the technical aspects of TFTSMP like its builds and its character design. I don’t want to be TOO harsh on TFTSMP because I know it’s not meant to be as high-end as it can be, I just think it has troubles with pacing and commitment to roleplaying. And if it’s meant to be about “TALES” from the SMP, I do expect much more compelling/comedic stories, because it doesn’t have to be like, a breathtaking story. The Wild West was just incredibly funny shit ngl, nothing tied to the main plot at all, but it was just CONSISTENTLY FUNNY! It built up plot really well, and it was just so so fucking funny, but that energy can’t really be seen in other episodes like the Pit which kind of had the same goal of “no relevance to the main plot, plain story, funny characters, fun times”. Some episodes execute this chill, funny episodes thing kind of well, but some are just off.

[lonestarbabe]

Owen go to therapy challenge and realize that you need to not only address your own trauma but address the fact that you aren’t even being there for your own child right now (in season 2). His relationship with TK was so sweet in season 1 and now in s2 it’s just like Owen is so focused on being so obsessed with rekindling with Gwyn that he hasn’t stopped to think how all of this affects TK

Honestly! He is always supporting therapy for other people. He’s not over his trauma, and yeah, season 1 Owen wasn’t perfect, but there were a lot of good moments for him, especially ones with TK because he and TK had a fascinating relationship. Owen’s only character trait has become wanting Gwyn back this season ksfljdfkl. Noooooo just noooo.

[dragonclaw487]

More critical

[arobimarie]

WoW thoughts

It sucks.

The animation is cringe-worthy the transformations are boring.

Dreamix and Onyrix are like the exact same thing in all ways. They look the same. The songs sound the same. The transformations give me a headache.

What’s the point of a spin-off to only change the one detail of whether of not earth believes in magic.

The plot is so dumb and boring.

Like if you think about that dumb show they’re on. If it’s being filmed live won’t the viewers have to be watching it all day? Who’s gonna do that?

The fight scenes are boring. You know your show sucks if the FIGHTS are not engaging.

PLEASE go back to the old style... the old ways. OR I also would not mind a show that’s all 3d... 3d sirenix looked really nice.

People keep defending this saying it’s hard to come up with unique transformations every season for 6 different people. THAT’S BULLSHIT. LOOK AT PRECURE.

You can make outfits a similar theme by having small details match but not the larger stuff and they used to do this up to believix but it’s getting worse and worse probably because it’s cheaper to copy and paste the character forms six times.

The plots are so dumb. You can walk around the world looking for talent just as easily if they’re not on that show... What do they gain at all by being on the show? Resources? No. Leads, Information? No. Money? Maybe but they are MAGIC they don’t need money. If Stella can make an outfit out of thin air then you can’t tell me they aren’t financially independent.

They try to make this spin-off a more mature show with the girls being older and so having more sexy mature adult designs for the transformations but they don’t act like adults and this plot is 10x more mind-numbing than the original series...

They should do a next gen already because these characters have been so overused and altered and decimated that I really have no taste for them anymore... 

And I’m not going to complain about the episodes being repetitive because shows like Precure and Miraculous Ladybug do that but they’re not horrible like Winx... But I miss the old winx plots which actually advanced every episode. They’d work towards a goal or mission or deal with something in their personal lives and then there would be a reaction or consequences which would continue to a new goal. Like s3 they were trying to find ways to stop Valtor. Research. Test. Also learn their new powers. Do you remember when they didn’t just instantly know everything their new powers can do? OR WHEN A NEW TRANSFORMATION ACTUALLY GAVE THEM NEW ABILITIES?! Charmix gave a little more power, Enchantix gave them healing and miniaturization, Believeix gave them the cool wing powers of speed, teleportation, and seeilng the past AND let them touch people’s hearts and inspire them, Sophix put them in tune with nature, Lovix let them survive the extreme cold, Harmonix let them go underwater, Sirenix let them be proficient underwater and go in the Infinite Ocean, Bloomix gave them their powers back, Mythix let them go into the book, Butterflix put them in touch with nature specifically animals, Tynix let them go to miniworlds which was a cool idea but they kinda ruined it by making the miniworlds so stupidly cutesy and not serious at all. Like they didn’t have to investigate or figure shit out ever there was a cute chibi creature to greet them at every world.

I miss the girls being students because now that they’re graduated it’s like rai doesn’t know what to do with them. For a hot second they were professors with no qualifications then they keep just running off to save the world over and over and is that their job? What if the world doesn’t need saving. What happened to like ruling their home worlds or being the guardians of those worlds?

So yeah it sucks now. I’m done watching. 

If you read all the way through this thanks.

[sp-ud]

As an artist can I talk about this little thing I don't like about Tftsmp? That almost every character looks human. No offense to the person who makes the skins but all of them looking human is boring as hell (this is why I love Techno being a pig in every single one), Karl please give us mob-hybrid characters please, drawing all these generic brown/blonde haired humans gets boring with time

trueeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, other than technos characters the other non-human i can think of is ranbob who was only non-human because he’s related to ranboo. 

seriously like, the skins are good quality, but wheres the Spice???

[sp-ud]

karl claims that the pit tales will be "heavy lore" how much do you wanna bet that since its set same time period as mizu there will be a bunch of directly contradictory stuff

96.3% likely.

i never will trust the tftsmp that take place in the future to not have contradictory stuff.  

[sp-ud]

manberg!karl anon back again. :] it was during his stream on november 16th, yeah! he was in vc with schlatt for a while during that stream and we actually got some lore. obviously a lot of people wouldn't know about that because most people, unlike me, were watching the people who were actually previously involved in the story lol

oh my god, manberg!karl anon is still here? even though it took me like 7 days to answer you? you a real one, damn.

anyway thats really cool but also kinda sad? like thats really interesting lore, and gives some depth into his character. but its sad because no one knows about this and karl apparently decided to not build on it for... whatever reason.