i'm sorry but regardless of all the changes made in the show i simply refuse to buy that even animated version of essek somehow never contemplated, thought about, or otherwise considered prior to committing treason that:
1. arranging the theft of his country's most prized religious artifact by its most bitter political rival might lead to a war
2. taking away the prized religious artifact, an artifact which is the only known way dynasty souls can be reincarnated, would lead to people permanently dying.
3. the people on the other side willing to steal the dynasty's most precious religious artifact to conduct magic experiments on it might not be the most morally upstanding people in the empire.
with the bonus that apparently the very first time these incredibly obvious consequences to his actions hit him, essek would immediately confess to a high ranking dynasty general without even attempting to come up with a cover story or any sort of plan to protect himself or his family from the consequences of his actions.
People who say Pendulum Summoning ruined Yu-Gi-Oh! and made it too complex are exaggerating, and there was no reason to quit during Pendulum era. A lot of decks (like Constellar) were already summoning several monsters to the field easily, and didn't even need to run Pendulums. Master Rule 3 didn't need nerfed, and Master Rule 4 killed it more than 3 ever did. MR4 REQUIRING links was SO atrocious that even Konami realized it was a shit decision and un-did it for Fusions, Synchros and Xyzs.
Links were cruel to players and didn't need to happen, Pendulum made large atk monsters more accessable for casual players and was fine.
I'm actually still not over that anti Donna Troy anon post tungle.hell for some reason recommended me. People having Donna as their favorite is proof that Wolfman & Perez's titans are "still coasting"??? Brother, if a comic run has so much staying power that it is still one of the most popular comic runs published for 40 years then that is not "coasting." That is proof that its one of the greatest comic runs of all time
Oasis is going to the New Makeup Designs and just what is even the point anymore.
The original designs were all it had going for it. Now it's a cut show with the horrible new makeup and the beautiful cats designs are officially gone forever and probably P&P and Growltiger and Napier and RUG and ALW have just done a bang up job to take all the joy out of this show for me.
I couldn't find the gif of teen Vi making her angry face, but this will suffice. Anyways I have some bones to pick with act 3.
Tier 1: "Oh, the misery!" - Major Problems
I'll be fuming about these decisions for the foreseeable future.
Jinx death/the implications of her being dead (I personally believe a lot of evidence points to her being alive, but for the sake of this post and intentions - we'll talk strictly about what's on screen). Stop killing off mentally ill characters like this, please. To say it's deserved because she's committed acts of violence is stupid. Every character, with the exception of Ekko, has committed acts of violence that had brutal, unfair, or unwanted outcomes - and Jinx is among the ones where her violence is more understandable.
Caitlyn never apologizing for what she did in act 1. Vi calls her out on it and I thought we'd get somewhere, but no. Everyone else just kind of glosses over that she gassed people in act 1 which definitely led to some deaths. No apology to Vi either for gun-butting her. You can argue that it happened off screen, but seeing that ON screen, especially when Vi & Jinx having to verbally voice theirs, is just shitty. What's the point of having her scene in the opening credits be so stressful and guilt-ridden if she's not allowed to express that guilt beyond a word and expression or two? It also cheapens the theme of forgiveness this season because they first step to receiving forgiveness is apologizing. Act 2 understood this better than Act 3, given that in Vander's letter to Silco, the first thing he does is apologize.
Do we need to go over the implications/optics of the wealthy, privileged girl who gets to act out not really facing any consequences for her actions and getting to redeem herself in defending her city, but Jinx, disenfranchised and poor, needs to be fatally punished? Here's a hint IT'S BAD.
The whole Zaun and Piltover plot being dropped in general. We see Sevika join the council in the end, but that's it? Was independence off the table now? WHAT CONVERSATIONS HAPPENED OFF SCREEN THAT LED TO THIS BEING THE SOLUTION? Is anything worth a damn actually going to come from this arrangement? Also Piltover getting all of them councilors while Zaun gets one representative? *deep sigh*
Corruption with the enforcers being dropped like a hot potato. I guess that just stopped being something people cared about despite it being thoroughly critiqued by the narrative from the beginning of season 1 until now.
WHAT HAPPENED TO THE FIRELIGHTS TREE???? No one talks about it anymore. Did it die while Ekko and Heimerdinger were in the alt-timeline, did it hold out, was it healed once the hexcore was destroyed????????????? WE NEED ANSWERS.
Tier 2: "Spare the sympathy" - Middle-of-the-Road
These problems aren't necessarily deal-breakers, but irked me none the less.
No one can no longer call Viktor "Zaunite Jesus" because that was clearly 15 year-old Vi lol. What do you mean in an alternate universe she dies during the heist in S1E1 and then all of a sudden there's peace between Zaun and Piltover??????? All I can think of, is that after seeing how this poor kid was killed while trying to provide that set off some sort of chain reaction where Piltover and Zaun agreed to make peace to stop this sort of thing. I could actually buy that, however, just, why????? Vi already blames herself for everything so why validate that?! Also, I'm not saying it's impossible for alt-timeline Jinx to turn out healthy and well-adjusted, but, she had to cradle her older sister's corpse in her hands...there's a fair chance she'd still become Jinx.
No one finding out that they were all within centimeters of each other during the day of the heist. Arcane loves to do full-circle moments and endings, but somehow in the midst of stuffing the season with everything they could, they somehow couldn't do this which was on a damn platter sitting for them.
Tier 3: "I'll never be a saint" - Minor Problems
Had only these problems existed in act 3, I would've considered it perfect.
Not seeing the conversation that led to Ekko convincing Jinx to join the battle. Kind of minor because we see him convincing her out of ending her life, and we can gather that conversation from episode 7, but still, I feel like, given how down we see Jinx, that's something that should've been shown.
Having Caitvi bone in a prison cell. I'm split 50/50 on this, because on one hand - that's a place rife with Vi's trauma. On the other, it's symbolic for other things (no, I'm not talking about the fact that it's where they first met) that I kind of give it a pass.
I already realized the iffyness of how I'm 31 but in the brainstorming stages of trying to convince my mom to be okay with me taking a multi-day trip by myself into the city (something my sister has done) but then my almost 40-year-old sister who is not disabled and has had multiple jobs asked me if I wanted to go on a trip with her because she wasn't sure mom would be comfortable with her going alone and like???? Can we please acknowledge that this is maybe a little bit fucked up?
(No, we can't, because she shut me down with attitude when I tried to point it out.)
How has my mom got the people living under the same roof as her convinced this isn't questionable? (For real, I swear my brother used to seem more aware of this but the longer he stayed moved back in the more he just accepted it and acted like it was normal????)
