Yes, It's A Mass Effect 3 Post, Part 2

More spoilers while I talk about this to myself more than anyone.

WHAT DIDN'T WORK

Completely and absolutely everything else. The more I look at it, the ending is riddled with a lack of testing, editing, and peer review.

Let's start with the big picture and point out that, for the purposes of this game, the purpose of ME3 was to assemble the Crucible, because it would do something. The fact that it wasn't a weapon, or a big switch with a sign on it saying "REAPERS", was just fine and I will defend the idea of there being a plot twist. But the plot twist was a deus ex machinae. Literally - the plot was to assemble a computer, and inside of the computer they found a God who can fix everything.

But, on the whole, I could accept this, were it continued in the traditional Mass Effect way. But instead everything is tossed aside. The Catalyst says that the cycle has to continue, but since Shepard is here, that means there must be a change, whatever it is. And Shepard just takes this.

I could see acceptance of this from certain Shepards, but I had played straight Paragon through the whole game. My Shep didn't believe in inevitability or impossibility. There's always a way, and he would find it. But no, instead, he sits there and listens, accepts that the computer will never understand, and picks one of his three options. The fact that we are not even given a choice is the greatest slap in the face of all.

And I understand the futility of it all thematically, but when you start to implement game mechanics around grinding, it begins to feel like a chore, and we wish to be rewarded for our efforts. The fact that it is a yes or no option (Did you get 100% completion? If yes, secret ending. If no, you get nothing.) makes the entire effort of trying to save humanity feel like a waste of time. And not in the cool way, where you realize it was all for naught. It's the irritating sense that, after three games of your choice and work mattering, somewhere a game developer is about to pop out from behind a wall with Ashton Kutcher and yell, "You got punked!"

The reward doesn't even need to be that substantial - just different levels of how screwed the planet is after the fight. If you assembled enough manpower, Earth is saved! If not, organic life is extinct, but hey at least you got those Reapers, right?

But then we get to the part that completely befuddles me, where it cuts to the Normandy in hyperspace (?) where it crash-lands on a jungle planet (??) along with Garrus and Ashley and sometimes EDI (???) and makes some kind of finalized wrap-up, with them starting a new life on the planet (?????).

I mean, primarily, I thought the Normandy and Joker were in on the final fight? How did he get out when we spent so much effort getting *in*. And you can't say that the Reapers died because of your actions, because it all happens at once and there's no way he would be able to Relay jump before the Relay sent the self-destruct signal!

And secondly, what jungle planet, and how did they crash? Where is this jungle planet? I thought most of the universe was explored due to the Mass Relays - wouldn't we know where it is? Wouldn't everyone? And how did the beam destroy all technology in the Red ending, but Joker landed the ship on planet?

And how did my team get onto the Normandy, anyway? The last effort I had Ash and Garrus with me, charging the beam, and everyone but me and Anderson were liquefied by Harbinger's beam. How did they not only survive, but get onto the Normandy before it took off? They don't even have Cortez's shuttle! It makes absolutely no sense!

Even if it DID make sense, did anyone think about what it means? Turians and Quarians can't eat our food. If tech is destroyed, they can't get any more of it anywhere, let alone on Earth or the jungle planet because they can't get home. Hundreds of aliens are stranded on foreign planets, looking at decades of interstellar travel if they survive the initial waves of starvation and panic? It isn't a happy ending that Garrus didn't die on Earth - it's more horrifying that he starved to death on a foreign planet away from his loved ones after his best friend or lover died.

The ending, in short, is completely unsatisfying. While the themes and nature of the story is there, it misses everything else. Narrative consistency. Player agency. Character consistency. Closure in outstanding questions. Shepard bold-facedly absorbs everything told to him, makes a choice that makes the last eight hours meaningless, a god in a box does it all for him, and then we see nothing else of the world we left behind or how our choice affected them. ME3 asks that we allow it to close with it asking more questions than it answers, instead of leaving it ambiguous.

And I say, "Fuck that."

To me, the game is over after Anderson dies. From that point on, Shepard barely hears Hackett hailing him on the radio distantly before he closes his eyes and dies, his mission complete. What does the Crucible do? What happens? Is Earth saved? I dunno, maybe. Let's let forums discuss it, much like the indoctrination theory going on right now.

Yes, It's A Mass Effect 3 Post, Part 1

Okay so this has been going on for a while and I think I'm at the point of where I can talk about Mass Effect 3. This will be Part 1, spoilers, etc.

WHAT WORKED

The crushing inevitability of losing, of course.

Mass Effect 3 is unique in that it completely hit full reverse to the tone of the rest of the games. The first two were triumphant and all about combating the threat of the Reapers one way or another. Each time, you were victorious. Mass Effect 3 is not about victory. The Reapers are here, in full force, and they have gone to each planet and are spending their incredible power crushing them. Shepard is now tasked with unifying a force to stop them, using the blueprints for a really big thing - maybe it's a gun - he found that will, hopefully, somehow help.

Every race needs to be convinced they should drop the defense of their planets and help on the Crucible, but none of them are eager and ready. Nobody knows what it does, or how it will help, even if it does anything. And all the while, as you run these errands, death racks up constantly. Legion sacrifices himself to give the geth sentience. Mordin is killed when he cures the Krogan genophage. For me, Miranda died, because I didn't warn her about Kai Leng.

And the dying all ties it closely into what happens - you don't win. You just can't. All of the effort is just a desperate last struggle before you die. The Reapers are stopped, but billions of people have died, many of them your friends. The one who's been with you the whole time, Anderson, lies bleeding next to you in his final moments, bleakly joking before falling silent.

And, of course, the Catalyst isn't a weapon. It's just the hivemind, with a computer older than God in it that controls everything. No matter what choice you make when it offers them, it is a bad one. People will die. Those that have died sacrificed themselves practically in vain. The Mass Relays are no more, meaning entire colonies are separated from their homeworld, such as Garrus and Tali. It's not even bittersweet - it's just bitter. It sucks.

And that's the end of Shepard's story (or at least it should be - I hate the idea that they're secretly alive). They die, and that's all, folks.

And the Crucible/Catalyst twist works. You spent the entire game not knowing what you were even building, only hoping it would help. The Prothean even doesn't know what it really does, and it was assumed that they built it. The Citadel has already been previously established to have an ancient and mysterious purpose to allow the Reapers in, and it was built with the Relays. They are all connected, somehow. And the Catalyst is how - it built them.

Throughout all of Mass Effect, but especially ME3, the presence of cycles is a constant theme. The Geth and the Quarians. The Krogan and the Salarians. Whatever happens, the races are both in a rush to change things in hopes to stop the inevitable, and the inevitable is said to happen anyways. The Catalyst says that a new cycle must happen, because it is an impossibly old computer program with a broken subroutine.

The times when death has shown up in the past has been extremely safe and controllable. Sure, you could screw up at ME2's suicide mission, but it was always possible to keep everyone alive. ME1's choice was outright A or B - which one were you going to have sex with, essentially? The rules were clear cut, and it set up the expectation that it would continue.

And that's how ME3 dashes your hopes away. People will die. And you can't stop it.

Mass Effect 3 is about loss, death, inevitability, and the extinction of life. It's about someone with the fate of everything resting on their shoulders, and how it finally wears them down as they try to keep the galaxy safe against a threat that constantly reminds them that they are one man. It's not a happy game. And it can't be.

Adventure Time Review Post Thing

DISCLAIMER – I am not responsible for spoilers you read towards the end of this.

Serialized cartoons are one of those things that, in context of society, never really has secured an especially good foothold, except by the rose-tinted glasses of nostalgia that everyone in the Goddamned universe has. While I have fond memories of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Transformers, they weren't especially story-driven cartoons, and usually ended in wacky hijinks with a non-ending that did little besides maintain the status quo. Shredder and Megatron ended half of their episodes pointing off with a cry of, “Decepticons, retreat!” as if to whisk away before anybody died permanently.

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has its own charms, but aside from the season premiers, never ascends to much more beyond simply being cute and fun. Not that it's a bad thing – that's what it's comfortable with, and I like it as it is. There's been a chain of successful cartoons that can carry excellent story, most notably in absolutely Goddamn anything Bruce Timm comes up with, or my personal favorite, Beast Wars, but they frequently lack the ability to be as funny or charming as the former. Up until Adventure Time, I didn't think it was possible to combine the two into a single cartoon. I have been proven wrong.

Season 1 felt like any other ordinary cartoon, at least at first. I've seen plenty of cartoons that were equally as wacky, though lacked in the imagination department, and if nothing else the constant introducing of bizarre elements was what kept me going, such as the Knife Storm (where it rains downward-pointing knives). But after about twenty episodes I was starting to note that, as goofy as this show could be, the established world rules from previous episodes carried on without so much as a hiccup.

In one episode, Jake the Dog and his girlfriend Lady Rainicorn are spending a romantic evening, and while he plays the violin his girlfriend turns all sort of buildings and objects random colors (non AT fans - just go with it, this sort of thing is normalized after a while). It started off as a one off joke, but when Jake has to meet Lady's parents and he acts like a rainicorn to impress them, they suggest playing traditional rainicorn games, which turn out to be changing the color of things nearby.

It's only one example, too. Lady Rainicorn only speaks Korean through the first season, but the in later episodes not only does Jake write letters to the rainicorns in Korean, but once he even cooks Korean food and said, "My girlfriend taught me how to make this."

The resulting fusion of a gag-driven, zany show with a world built with such well-established continuity, while simultaneously making all appearances of just making shit up on the spot and rolling with it, is something that I have honestly never seen before. The only thing that strikes me as anything close is MS Paint Adventure's ludicrously huge webcomic/adventure game...thing, Homestuck. But even that feels like an ill-fitted comparison, since Homestuck doesn't occasionally end with a non-sequitur fart, and the idea that he's really planning it is a dubious one at best.

The sight gags cement this even more soundly. Frequently, one-off gags are tossed out, such as skeletons tucked into the corner of Princess Bubblegum's study. They appear and are gone before you even have a chance to react, and always cement the kind of absurd goofiness. That's not even to mention half of the jokes that I cannot believe they get away with. “This'll be easy as...hm. Dunno what it'll be like, but it'll be easy!” “Yeah, as easy as childbirth!”

I think the main thing that attracts me so much to Adventure Time is surprising amount of wordless storytelling. I've spoken at length on this subject before, most notably at the triumph of Deus Ex: Human Revolution's, so it comes as no surprise. From the intro to simple scenery art to entire episodes, it makes it clear – Adventure Time is post-apocalypse. Ruined 20^th century objects litter the scenery everywhere, and even Jake makes mention of it in one episode when they sit to watch a movie. “These are all from before the Mushroom War!”

The most standout episode is when Finn leads a pack of mutants to their homeland in a deep sewer, and he ends up in a desolate city block, with shops and houses in aged disrepair. It's both eerie and beautiful. The Fallout games have all been really good about this kind of scenery construction, and yet Adventure Time has not officially stated post-apocalypse to be the case once. Nor do they plan to.

Were this all, it would already be a noteworthy cartoon in building a world full of candy people, witches, farts, an Ice King villain, and a post-apocalyptic world, all while keeping a focus on swashbuckling adventure and comedy. But it feels like, about halfway through making Season 2, the writers were all sitting around a table, and all at once just threw up their hands and said, "Out of jokes! Time to work on story and characters," and gave a great heaving sigh, “I guess.”

Season 2 hit a sudden and incredible shift of providing miles and miles of fascinating characterization, fleshing out their motivations, vices, and aspirations. Finn has always been referred to as "Finn the Human," but we never saw any humans in the show; this was tapped in one episode where he believes he found more people like him, and tries to integrate them into the world so he wouldn't be the only one. Jake, despite his laziness and absentmindedness, caves easily to peer pressure and can be easily swayed to push himself, as discovered when he pushes his stretch powers to his limit and nearly dies for it.

The curious relationship between Princess Bubblegum and Finn is often left at a one-way crush, but it's given surprising depth when she's turned into a thirteen year old and she really likes Finn. It's not just that their young, adorable romance is well written* – it's that too – but instead it comes off as bittersweet and tragic for the plucky kid when she has to become eighteen again. In a vain hope, he asks if she wants to do stuff together, and she laughs good naturedly, calling him a “silly boy,” leaving him on the balcony by himself. It's the entire subplot of 'we can never be together', but in all of ten minutes.

I think the most mind-blowing part of it is when the Ice King, a longstanding comedic relief/villain hybrid along the lines of Black Mage from 8bit Theater, is given a backstory. For three whole seasons he has been the weird, mad king of the frozen north, with a bizarre obsession with his penguins, being friends with Finn and Jake, kidnapping princesses, and possessing a magic crown that gives him his powers. Half of the time he's not even nefarious – he just shows up and tries to spend some fun time with the duo.

And then Finn and Jake discover a tape he kept from before the Mushroom War – he was an antique collector who came under the possession of a magic crown that gave him horrifying visions, driving his wife away, twisting his mind, and making him immortal. The bare parts of his sanity he kept were warped, explaining his fixation on princesses (a nickname for his wife) and his sociopathic behavior.

A evil and wacky comic relief character is given a backstory tragic enough to make you feel sorrow for him. And the next joke is made all the more both hilarious and terrible, as the Ice King covers his face with his hands. “Oh no! Now you know my secret! I used to...wear glasses!”

In Saint's Row 2, there was one mission that stuck out to me, where a budding gangster named Carlos screws up, and for his mistake he gets chained to the back of a truck and dragged around, and you have to save him. But by the time you get there, it's too late, and you only have enough time to grip him by the hand, as if in apology, before you mercy kill him. The whole game was as wacky and goofy as it could possibly be, and this one moment stuck out so hard because of that.

Similarly, Adventure Time's one moment of immense tragedy and sorrow sticks out all the more powerfully when you have not just one but several episodes that end with someone farting before cutting to black. The Ice King, tragic victim of mind control and a power he could not understand**, had stopped in the middle of an episode to rock back and forth on his butt, grabbing his feet and muttering, “I'm a banana.”

This is why I'm becoming so obsessed with this show, now. I have never seen a cartoon operate on a level that Adventure Time does. What was initially a silly pilot about a boy and his talking/stretching dog saving a princess from an evil king of the Ice has moved onto a level I cannot fathom in a way I never predicted. It has depth of character while noodle arms wiggle in a fancy dance, world-consistency when they literally make up all-new monsters and creatures any time they need it, and sorrow and tragedy next to the wacky and wild.

I can do little but applaud Pendelton Ward for making this show as brilliant as it is.

* Comments suggesting that a romance with thirteen year olds is creepy will be shot

** This is the kind of thing that makes my brain want to work on new fiction so I can create villains a quarter as brilliant as this.

The Topic of Abortion in Christian Schools

Something that was on my mind lately.

One thing I don't know if people understand is that, when you go to a Christian school, the subject of abortion isn't really something that's up to debate. It's never discussed. You don't get to have conversations about the subject of abortion and why it's wrong. It just is. It's taken at face value. There's the obvious stuff like how all the science textbooks specifically go out of their way to refer to it as a 'baby' instead of a fetus, but one thing sticks out in my mind.

I had a brief stint in acting, the usual small-scale stuff like being in the school play of A Midsummer Night's Dream. But we spent much of our time practicing with other such affiliations like monologues. And one of the things that was given to us - and I mean like, of the potential ten, seven of them were done like this - monologues from the perspective of a fetus.

So, literally, we were given scripts of a child, scared of dying, who wants nothing more than to go to their parents and say, "Mom, dad, I love you," and have them reply back, "We love you too," but they won't get the chance to say it because they will be killed before they're even born. We are literally given scripts about a child scared of a car ride with their mom, and how they're afraid of needles, and hearing about how the doctors are talking about chopping him up, and then their mom does a brave thing and leaves, and a few months later they're born.

In retrospect, I've come to realize how underhanded it is. It really is completely dodging the concept of abortion not being wrong. It slips the idea of a fetus which cannot feel or think having conscious thoughts of worry, and fear of mortality and pain, and that it is a person, even though none of these things are true.

Just had that on my mind and realized it might be worth mentioning.

"MLP: Dog and Pony Show is sexist!"

If the Diamond Dogs episode is sexist because Rarity whines and cries (tricking the Diamond Dogs to let her go) to get gems (for her costume (For a customer)), then I suggest by that logic Rarity is a sexist stereotype of a woman cause her special talent is finding gems.

Clearing something up

Maverynthia was, up until a while back, a friend. She and I got along fine and she was even in support of Gamepad Dojo, called me on times when I slipped up in feminism, and even offered comment on some of the reviews in language that was crude ("Pussy" if I remember right).

Her and I had a large, drawn out argument based on the term 'Brony,' as an ironic nickname tagged to male My Little Pony fans, where she argued that it reinforced 'bro' culture even ironically and therefore was sexist. I disagreed, saying that it was not sexist in nature by its very definition but was instead an attached implication based on what 'dudebros' do and say rather than the culture itself.

The argument spiraled out until she was rolling out constant insults ("Mr. Privilege" among them, which I think should never be an insult) and demanding that I was oppressing her. I told her the complaints about "Bronies" was silly considering there was nothing fundamentally sexist about the name, and even if there was, rolling out insults and playing some kind of oppression game (in calling me privileged and therefore I was in no position to talk on issues of "bro" culture, despite that when I'm on her side I'm an ally and no longer is my privilege in question) was just pointless infighting.

At one point Mav even specifically told someone else that "Bronies" wanted more male ponies in the show which...isn't true, at all.

Cuppy/Tami asked us to stop, which I agreed to, but Mav refused. I was willing to ignore it and move on, but she instead blocked me and refused to talk anymore, even after other people agreed that there was nothing sexist about it. She still talks to these people.

After this happened, I didn't mind anymore, and I was willing to let it go. But then the Gamepad Dojo twitter account (which in this instance was not me) replied to something Mav said about My Little Pony. I don't know what it was about - my best guess are the Sapphire Shores/Sapphire stereotype (which makes no sense and is only connected via the black voice actress and the name) or the Diamond Dogs episode where Rarity cries and whines to manipulate her captors into letting her go and giving her gems (which I can kind of see, but personally A - Rarity was using the gems to make a dress, B - she's the only ladylike one of the entire mane cast of MLP, and C - the entire moral of the episode was that a ladylike character isn't weak, especially if she's smart and thinks quickly).

But somehow, it ended up with an argument, and then this.

I really can't stand for this. I wasn't originally going to make this post but this is absurd. We "deny our privilege like WTF", "telling me how I should be respectful otherwise you just shut down and not listen", "you can't see bro culture because you're over there embracing it", "get with the feminist program or get the fuck out thinking you're some kind of feminist ally", "all you tell me is "you're making a huge deal out of something silly" whenever I bring up the fact that something is bro-culture-ized", and "You guys need to STFU when women are talking".

So let me just clear some things up.

"deny our privilege like WTF" - Gamepad Dojo has an Anti-Bigotry policy that "We guys" implemented specifically to combat exclusion.

"telling me how I should be respectful otherwise you just shut down and not listen" - we have no reason to be respectful to a friend if they are not respectful to us, regardless of positions of privilege.

"you can't see bro culture because you're over there embracing it" - by disagreeing that an ironic nickname is sexist or that a character is a stereotype, we embrace bro-culture, again steamrolling everything we've ever done to be inclusive on our website and in the way we speak/talk.

"all you tell me is "you're making a huge deal out of something silly" whenever I bring up the fact that something is bro-culture-ized" - I said that once, yet it becomes "All you tell me". It is a nickname. It is for a children's cartoon aimed at girls. I think arguing about it is ridiculous, just like I think Sapphire Shores being a racist stereotype is silly, or Glenn Beck's caliphate conspiracy - it's stretched to the point of ridiculous. Again, something is not 'bro cultured' because of a name.

"get with the feminist program or get the fuck out thinking you're some kind of feminist ally" - Last time I checked feminist allies were allowed to have opinions. I don't see how disagreeing is the line that must be drawn in the sand.

"You guys need to STFU when women are talking" - we do, frequently. I have spent many many incidents having to swallow my pride and admitting when I'm wrong. It's not easy and I do it. Again, the anti-bigotry policy puts everything we've ever written or made with a clear marker that says, 'please tell me if this offends you.' We listen. We work.

"YOU AREN'T. YOU ARE THE PROBLEM." - last time I checked I thought that people objectifying women, dismissing their opinions, gender roles, inequality, and the enablers were the problem. But okay, people who think MLP fans' nickname is funny is the problem.

This is not my privilege denying or condescension. This is Mav throwing these labels on us because we disagreed. Because I strongly disagreed "Bronies" isn't sexist, I am a privilege denying asshat who "always tells her to STFU" and refuses to listen to reason and tells her to shut up and deal with bros. Always is important - this is a one time thing that, to her, became ALL THE TIME. Because I feel that "Bronies" cannot possibly be important enough to be worth being insulted and demeaned over, I am the problem and I enforce bro culture.

I am not doing this to smear Mav's name - I am trying to make the points as obvious as possible that Mav is completely unreasonable. I was pulled into an argument I had no stake in based on an exchange that wasn't even really me and, once again, my best friend and I are labeled as "part of the problem" and "enemies" because we disagree. Mav takes the opportunity to dig up old graves, shake them around, and point out how unfair and mean and cruel we are despite several months of a perfectly fine friendship where we were allies.

But not anymore. Because we disagreed, we are now privilege denying. We are privilege denying and Mav is not, I am assuming, while she gets into a fight on the internet on her computer about a kid's show she gets to watch for free.

Mav, if you are reading this I will tell you this; grow up. I initially made this post to clear up the facts, but I'm feeling less generous now that I've gone over it a few times. Is the fact that I try to be feminist and work for it and listen about 99% of the issues that are brought up not enough? Is the fact that I even fight the fight just not okay? Must I align with your opinion on everything to qualify as feminist? Since when is your feminist interpretations the only ones? Does it not occur to you that the only person taking issue with me and Noncon and GPD is you? Must I be This Feminist to qualify? What does my privilege have to do with anything? Can I not interpret a fucking kid's show to be not sexist/racist/homophobic without having to revoke my Feminism card?

I don't expect an answer.

Why I Like Humanified My Little Pony Characters

I'm going to put up a disclaimer here because I'm just pinning down why it is I like MLP:FiM characters turned into humans. And the reason just occurred to me.

Visually, Friendship is Magic is a terrific cartoon, and I love the design, but there's not a whole lot to do in the way of fanart. Much of the main cast is just entirely based upon their coat color, and how their mane is styled and colored, such as Rainbow Dash's blue and rainbow, or Pinkie Pie's curly mane and pink. You can do some more stylized stuff, but for the most part it'll still be the same build with some artistic differences, such as stronger shading and higher detail on hair.

Humans, however, are extremely different, which is why fanart is such a draw. Rainbow Dash, for example, can be a pale-skinned punk rocker, a cheerful-if-pushy, thin teenager, a colored buzz-cut teen, as a giddy teenager in a blue jumpsuit, or even posing as Rosie the Riveter.

But it's not because I like taking away that it's about ponies (an inherently 'girly' thing), or trying to find some kind of roundabout way to be 'attracted' to these characters, it's because I like Rainbow Dash. Rainbow Dash could be a Goddamn frog for all I care. I love her for her character - the brash, sometimes insensitive, ferocious, wonderful ball of awesome she is. Humanized Dash is just another way for me to celebrate one of my favorite characters with all sorts of different artistic directions.

The fact that there's really hot, hot Dash/Rarity action is just a wonderful bonus.