Last person to post wins

[Fraxinus]

i mean, i guess? but i dont think it really addressed the bullying issue very much.

again i think the shadow club was basically what team star tried to be but it didnt know how to do that. basically the premise of the book was a group of kids who lived in the shadow of other kids' achievements kind of joined forces to sabotage those people, and before they knew it, what started as minor pranks turned into malicious acts.

its easy to forget why you started doing something if your ambitions just become centered on the fact youre doing the thing now, and not your reasons i guess? but even then most bullied kids arent gonna forget that they were bullied; why they stand against it. like at least they had the bosses get reminded of their reasons? but how could they have forgotten?
but the shadow club actually had them realize this on their own because it was others within the group who were doing terrible things to their rivals and they had the self awareness to be like "wait, this isnt what this club was for"

bullying isnt as clearcut as bullies vs targets where you can simply make a role reversal by starting a clique either. its a caste system; person a bullies person b, person b bullies person c to get over person a bullying them, etc. person b and person c will never bully person a, though. i dont think team star's devolution is particularly relatable; i was at the bottom of this ladder in elementary school and always got in trouble for standing up for myself. if a group of kids stood up for me, you know what would have happened though? the bully would have got in trouble; not them. its a majority rules thing. the teacher would say "hmm, multiple people are having issues with this person's behavior" and **** would just ****ing end. bullies usually stop when they dont have an audience to entertain too; if wveryone thinks they're being a prick, they're suddenly the outcast and they stop.
something something ik im overthinking this but no this isnt how this works, so i realllyyyyy question the relatability unless bullying has become less psychological in the past 15 years

why they gotta even cut class doesnt make sense cuz the class lets you do this treasure hunt anyway so you can literally avoid campus where you might be getting bullied and stuff

it just feels... unfortunate.


and yeh arven was neat.

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

the part that's relatable is the real bullies never get in trouble but the moment you stand up for yourself you get sent to the principal or whatever

and to be fair the entire staff got fired or w/e for failing to deal with team star properly, something like this could realistically happen just because of all the horrible upper management decisions happening a year ago that clavell has been trying to fix or whatever

 

[The Dashing Darknut]

The one thing that bugged me about team star even though I really like the team and their whole team way of style and stuff, the thing I wished they could’ve elaborated on is well… show them actually getting bullied and show more stuff of why this bullying is so awful, we get little bits of info (Atticus for the way he speaks and dresses probably made others seem him as strange or weird, Eri was bullied by Carmen for being popular until Carmen was bullied and they both became victims, Giacomo for how he was as a student council, etc) but like, that’s it.

Which is a shame because I found the concept of them basically becoming the bullies and doing the thing they opposed (making the bullies leave school because they scared them off) genuinely intriguing and interesting, but we never really get to know much about what the bullying was or why they got bullied. And why are they still having their bases up and trying to gain new members when the school is now free of bullying, which the leaders even admit? Are they just recruiting new members so more people will just leave school because even they still have resentment for the school?


But I still really liked them, because yeah it’s a cheesy and over the top storyline but I found it a really enjoyable and sweet storyline, and the stuff about the previous director completely trying to cover up the incident of the incident between Team Star and the bullies and Clavell fees like he failed as an educator and feels terrible that such bullying and incidents happened at the school he now is in charge of, hit pretty hard for me. And I find the group really charming and enjoyable, and fighting the giant Reverooms was awesome, and it’s something that just interested me and made me feel bad in general for the whole situation and how there was miscommunication on all sides.

 

[Fraxinus]

i can agree with them not getting in trouble, usually. but in my experience, its because my reaction was more dramatic than what they did to me. and not reacting is such a powerful weapon cuz it makes them look like such an asshole that people WILL take notice.
i know they wouldnt be able to make a team out of ignoring bullies but the game doesnt ever really give closure on the bullying issue as far as i'm aware? just that they returned to school, right? that they forgot what they were fighting for/became the thing they swore to destroy™ so... how are they dealing with it now? does it say or am i a potato
but for relatability and a good message they should have something on how to actually conquer being bullied rather than conquering how team star got led astray

but yeah ig im cool with blaming the incompetent faculty for it cuz lol what a mess

 

[The Dashing Darknut]

the part that's relatable is the real bullies never get in trouble but the moment you stand up for yourself you get sent to the principal or whatever

and to be fair the entire staff got fired or w/e for failing to deal with team star properly, something like this could realistically happen just because of all the horrible upper management decisions happening a year ago that clavell has been trying to fix or whatever

I’m honestly conflicted on how I feel about it for them getting expelled, because as someone who has been bullied, I really did sympathize with the group… but they also decided to bring giant reverooms which are basically giant sentient monster cars to get revenge and scare off the bullies, and the bullies ended up leaving the school, which is… kinda messed up. I can’t blame Penny, if I started a group like that and it escalated to that I’d want the entire group to apologize and disband. They don’t deserved to be expelled but a suspension or someone mentioning that should’ve said something, as awful as school bullies can be and are, doing something to the lengths like that isn’t okay. However it was a kinda **** thing of the previous director to completely cover up the incident and hide that information form Clavell up until when the player beats the fairy Team Star base

But then again they’re still like, high school/middle schoolers, so that stuff gets to your head, but idk, the fact that Clavell was mad about violating the dress code and them leaving school but didn’t mention them basically doing what the bullies did or having them apologize for that seems a bit dumb to me.

 

[Fraxinus]

as far as reason go, penny was probably bullied cuz she deserved it. she is absolutely one of those people who lack the self awareness of being viscious with her words and then is like "WHY IS EVERYONE SO MEAN TO ME"
again see how she treated arven while simultaneously asking him not to do the same back to her

i deserved a lot of the bullying i got too, as far as how i treated other kids and i admit that

Which is a shame because I found the concept of them basically becoming the bullies and doing the thing they opposed (making the bullies leave school because they scared them off) genuinely intriguing and interesting

no offense but how is this intriguing

this concept has been done 9000 times before and often with more detail and motivation than what team star had

the revarooms were probably a (pg) metaphor for school shootings too now that i think about it?

 

[Fraxinus]

as someone who has been bullied, I really did sympathize with the group…

and why i dont sypathize with them is because i was bullied

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

main issue with the story is the characters... maybe they'll be fleshed out more in the DLC or something
right now they're pretty boring


oh no microsoft edge is getting on my case for not using periods now
help

 

[Fraxinus]

not many of the characters were very memorable to me yeah, but some have some good potential
i'd be curious about dlc tho they might just introduce new characters for it

also, firefox sometimes marks everything i type as misspelled sometimes. like it underlines my entire message for no reason

 

[Fraxinus]

i think biggest problem with the main characters is they kind of just felt... assigned. like i mean duh they are, but the way your character could have formed a friend circle could have been much more organic with the school setting and stuff

"you dont actually pick your friends; theyre just assigned to you by the plot" ~scarvi, probably

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

it's hard to justify your character somehow being involved in every single plot going on despite being basically nobody

 

[Mikey the Moblin]

but that's just video games sometimes

 

[Fraxinus]

its good to take note of in games cuz it gives me a lot to think about on how to do the thing. if this feels kind of sterile, how do i bring it to life? hmm

arven showed the most vulnerability so i'd say he was the one i felt a slight connection to, i guess? but man im imagining how much cooler that area zero bit would have been if i felt connected to the characters who were with me. oooh i love the thought of it

 

[The Dashing Darknut]

no offense but how is this intriguing

this concept has been done 9000 times before and often with more detail and motivation than what team star had

the revarooms were probably a (pg) metaphor for school shootings too now that i think about it?

Well I have seen similar concepts to it before, but I think for a main team in Pokémon and how Clavell feels guilt about the situation, how the previous and well, I just find myself wondering about the group and who they are from the small flashbacks we do get, and how much this team for Team Star mattered, eventually leading to harm. I think it also goes really well with the theme of the game: Finding your greatest treasure and how much finding someone important to you that matters is important, but the drive of what you dream of or treasure can lead to harm or denial. Which might be reaching but that’s what I thought

And the team just interested me from the start with their fun theme and how I found them entertaining, and I really liked their designs and their fights, so I took a gradual interest in them and was curious in the game about what they would do next because I really liked the vibes I got from them. My favorite team is still Team Skull easily, but Team Star was one of the better teams the Pokémon games have had. And as cheesy as the game shows it, the message and concept is something I like.

It’s probably because I haven’t read books like Shadow Club (but it does sound like something I’d like to check out), but even still, it’s just something that is intriguing me because it just is for me. It’s simplistic and tropey, but it works for me, which is a bit of a weird reason, but I can’t really explain otherwise why it did intrigue me

 

[Fraxinus]

did you mean: team skull? bruh guzma was such a great character, he is literally a better version of some of this stuff you're describing. idr if he was bullied but he grew up in an abusive household n ****

sorry, i just dont really believe in liking something solely for its archetype.

i tend to gravitate toward certain archetypes in stories, sure--we probably all do to an extent--but if its a bad take on an archetype i like, i aint gonna give it praise for being a worse version of something else. in extreme cases, i may actually despise it for being such a bad take. i wouldnt say team star as a whole is that far, but penny is easily toeing that line.


in other news i sold my soul momentarily to microsoft office because the google drive is being a little ***** about opening these powerpoints that are over 100mb and because it wont open them, it ownt let me download them as pdfs; only powerpoints... so i had to OPEN POWERPOINT and get assaulted by microsoft adware just to flippin publish them as pdfs so i can delete the powerpoints

i really miss office 2003