TLOVM + AAI + Movies

[jaggedwolf]

Sad men hours??? Plus one (1) sad teenage girl who’s probably gonna end up more well-adjusted than all of’em.

The Legend Of Vox Machina

A fun watch, though unclear to me how much appeal it has for those unfamiliar with Critical Role. While I’ve never watched Campaign 1, I have approximate knowledge of many aspects, and of course the residual affection that comes from being a fan of C2.

Loved the Briarwoods arc and Percy throughout it. The terribly angsty backstory and the way the flashbacks are distributed across the episodes, the names on his gun and the overall style of his vengeance, his very stricken expressions and his occasional smiley faces. My favourite interactions of his were with Cassandra, I think, and how fraught it is from being the survivors (possibly only because they weren’t adults or the youngest kids) and from him leaving her behind. Literally the only other thing I would have wanted was more emphasis on how neither of them expected to ever rule, given the resolution to Whitestone this season.

Strangely enough, I think the Percy relationship I bought least was....Percy & Vox Machina? I understand the Doylist reasons for the structure of the pilot, but the ultimate effect is that I never really bought the speedy transition from “we are shitheads who are just stuck with each other ooooh we killed a dragon” to “we will follow you back to your vampire-and-witch-ruled hometown to help you with some vengeance”.

All the other Vox Machina relationships don’t have to bear that burden and so I found them more believable, from the obviously longstanding ones like Vex & Vax and Pike & Grog to relatively newer ones like Grog & Vax or Vex & Keyleth. TBH I found the writing at non-core-Briarwood moments weaker than I expected for Critical Role - trite dialogue, and a too-eager willingness in the early episodes to undercut pathos.

Much better than I expected, however, were the fight scenes. Vidding means I’ve watched the Ziggurat battle repeatedly and it’s a great example of the show keeping the action flowing from fight to fight within a given battle scene without getting confusing. The blood and gore in this style work too. In the episode where the zombies attack Vox Machina’s keep, there’s a scene where Keyleth’s eyes start bleeding and her body gets jerked across the wall by the zombie possessing her and it was so freaky. A+

Keyleth’s magic made intuitive sense without having to explain it imo but Scanlan and Pike suffered in this regard. No sense of Scanlan’s abilities means his big moment in Scanbo fell flat to me (why did you not just Scanlan’s hand earlier bro), and I didn’t think Pike’s separation from the gang was worth it. Show didn’t give me enough about Pike to care about her losing to connection to her god or about why she’d think it’s her fault or about her god basically saying “bro don't waste time feeling bad, I am a chill god”.

Other than Percy I think my favorites of Vox Machina were Keyleth and Vex. Keyleth is very cute and can turn into a giant cat. Vex is the biggest flight risk but somehow also gets stuck with the personnel management role where she’s gotta slap Percy and Keyleth into actually being useful grumble grumble. (Her one track mind about Vax works fine for the show, though it didn’t grab me)

Vex/Keyleth - until the final set of episodes I was thinking “I can see a possibility of liking it, but feel no great urge”, and then Keyleth?!!? Jumps in front of a deadly magical beam meant for Vex and Vex goes “why would you do that?” over her unconscious body?? Apparently that was all I needed, especially as a culmination of Vex spending the entire season being annoyed at Keyleth failing in battle and her brother being interested in her. Plus Keyleth’s little blush at the end when Vex says she’s strong enough to transport them home! Look, I’m spoiled on how the C1 canon romances go, but consider that it’s so much funnier to have Vax on the sidelines watching this happen, going “you didn’t even like her!” at Vex :D

Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth

Who needs magatamas or your dead boss’s ghost or lie-detecting size-changing bracelets...when you have the power of LOGIC! - Miles Edgeworth, probably

This nerd says “Eureka” when he figures shit out, your honor, I love him, this is more than worth two of my least favorite gags in the series (the whipping and poor Gumshoe’s salary).

Edgeworth

• Saying “that man” instead of ever saying Phoenix’s name is not any less gay, my dude. Go text your boyfriend and stop him from getting disbarred
• ....Or tell him about your wild weekend. Oh god, Edgeworth in a relationship is exactly the kind of guy who would have a weekend involving five murders and at no point think this is necessary information to relate to his partner, he’ll tell Wright when he sees him next (Phoenix finds out from Maya finding out from the news)
• While I loved Von Karma yelling at him and baby Franziska competing with him, I really wish Bratworth was brattier/worse. A victory that resulted in the conviction of an actual innocent party in 1-4 would’ve been really cool and tied into Edgeworth's internal debate on justice vs law in the final case

Kay

• New teen assistant! After exhausting the careers of spirit medium/forensic scientist/stage magician we are left with spins wheel thief!
• Look, I should know better than to ask questions about Little Thief but holy fuck Byrne Faraday did you sell your soul for that device
• Wish the game had been structured such that she and Edgeworth could have spent more case time together. She’s cool and all, but she probably ranks lowest on the teen assistant ranking

Shi-Long Lang

• Mildly endearing when it comes to thing about taking responsibility for his subordinates, very boring whenever we are talking about Zheng Fa or Lang-Zi sayings
• I play these games for fucked-up-families and fucked-up-workplaces okay, every plot that has involved international intrigue only makes me scratch my head, whether it’s Borginia or Zheng Fa or Cohdopia

Cases were fun overall, actually didn’t look anything up after the start of the second case, but I really wish the baddies of the final case had been revealed in the opposite order. Great baddies, though.

Now, on to that fan translation of the second investigations game...

Cyrano

I, uh, enjoyed it until the deaths? Fun musical shenanigans with Peter Dinklage making Very Sad Pining expressions, but man did I not know anything about how the original play ended. Kinda feel like they swapped how stupid Cyrano’s death is in the play with how stupid Christian’s is in this movie. It’s so dumb I had to stop myself from laughing out loud in the theatre. Fantastic fight scenes with Cyrano in the beginning though!

Turning Red

My favorite of the Disney/Pixar animated films I’ve seen since Coco, which is not a long list, but I thought it earned its emotional climax far better than Encanto or Raya did. (Possibly because the situation is less claustrophobic?) Also a mom vs daughter + family + daughter’s friends + boyband kaiju battle is absolutely not what I expected from this movie and it was frickin delightful.