#dispatch critique

And I’m not saying you can’t still like Invisigal. I’m just saying I don’t comprehend why anyone would, and I truly have no interest in hearing any arguments in defense of her.

Whenever Flambae is an asshole to Robert, it's portrayed as him being just that: An asshole. The game never tries to justify it when he goes too far. There's no guilt-tripping Robert/the player whenever they push back. With Visi, fighting back against her in any way immediately gives you a penalty by making it less likely to get her good ending. Because it supposedly shows that you don't believe in her. Her insults and her physically assaulting Robert are played entirely for laughs. It's just to add to her being a quirky Bad Girl that the player is supposed to find funny for her out of pocket comments and desirable because of her dangerous edge.

Flambae's actions almost always have immediate consequences. When he picks a fight with Robert/Mecha Man in the Crypto Night, he's ridiculed, then loses either a tooth or his eyebrows when he tries to escalate things to a physical brawl. When he bullies Water Boy and brushes off Robert rightfully calling him out for his shitty behavior, he gets clocked in the face with trash and is denied payback by Blazer showing up at just the right moment. If Robert tells the Z-Team he's Mecha Man and Flambae tries to attack him, he's blocked by Golem, then has his flames put out in a humiliating manner by either Malevola or Water Boy. There's no such thing for Visi. Any consequences she suffers are revoked almost right after she suffers them. Sometimes the game actively pressures you into saving her from the consequences of her own actions because you wouldn't want her to become a villain again, would you? Flambae is treated like an adult and suffering the logical ramifications whenever he fucks up. Visi is treated like a teenager who doesn't know any better, even though she's just as much of an adult as the rest of the Z-Team.

I've seen so many people say they dislike Invisigal because she sexually assaulted Robert in that locker scene, which is what happened, but I feel like that misses the crucial part of how what she did was not and never was intended to be that. It supposed to romantic, the crescendo of her ongoing character arc, a show of how Courtney is still conflicted, jaded, and bad at emotions but still wants to show she cares about Robert and therefore redemption despite being kicked off. She wanted her love to be known but not judged, and honestly it's quite impactful to see Courtney taking the cautious first steps of being vulnerable.

But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this scene actually is romantic and that the writers succeeded in conveying this. The big red flag that goes off when you see this is unignorable and it weakens, if not destroys, the original reading of the scene. but still the take away from this scene was obviously not supposed to be 'Invisigal is predator' and her coming off as that is an consequence of a writing team who plays extremely fast and lose with sexual assault and doesn't give it the respect it deserves.

Same thing with Malevola, I've seen some many say 'I like her and she's pretty cool, but she sexually assaulted Robert in that one scene so idk,' ignoring the fact that scene is so obviously not intended as that and the flaw here is not the character but the author who is puppeting them to act out their sexual harassment comedy. Obligatory characters are not real and autonomous and it's just as important to understand doylistically why that act as they do as watsonian as to not end up misnterpreting the authors purpose and therefore the story.

(also mandatory disclaimer, you can still dislike these characters even if you know these scene aren't supposed to be characterization moments. Unintended flaws are still flaws and still will rightfully impact your understanding of a character. Truly if your icked out by these characters it's the fault of the writers for forgetting that their characters' actions characterize them and you probably shouldn't make characters you're supposed to like grope their coworkers)

Ultimately, It's frustrating that these conversations have never went past heated rants directed at pixels instead of truly digging deep on why this happened. Nobody really wants to have an earnest conversation about (male) sexual assault, and it's depictions in media. We just all hate invisigal. That's the only point here and it is so frustratingly surface level and stupid.

Oof okay.

In case this isn't clear, DISPATCH SPOILERS under cut.

Especially when Dispatch has just come out, the hate I saw on them is abhorrent.

Let's start with Blonde Blazer. She's your boss and one of your love interests, the other being Invisigal. A lot of people pick Visi and good on you if you do. You have your reasons for picking her, right? My problem is that a lot of people assume BB to be a secret villain which is weird because you have the option to romance an ex-villain who still needs to work out her problems.

They argue that BB leads you on (I have no comment on that but I never viewed it that way) plus, both her and Robert are drunk. You get the option to kiss her but she pulls away, apologizing for his mistake. Another argument is her breaking up with Phenomaman and I could understand what they're getting out but there are comics that came along with the deluxe. In her comic, it explains the reason why she broke up with him. It's because Phenomaman didn't see her as Mandy and only wanted Blonde Blazer. She wants to retire one day while he wants to keep fighting as a hero; two different ideals clashing.

Other than that, she's a good friend to Robert. She gave him his job, helped and saved him on multiple occasions. Even if you choose to put a pin in your relationship or you want to go on another date, she tells you to have a good shift. She walks away with a smile, she doesn't mind one bit! She's mature and kids with a heart of gold but we got people theorizing that Shroud is her father. I hope not because the way he is obsessed with her creeps me out. He respects her as an actual, true superhero but I just don't like the way he talks about her. And some of them say they'll still pick Visi even if she's a villain? Bro?

Moving on to the only Black members of the Z-Team, Prism and Coupe. I'm convinced we got Klan niggas in the fandom because you're hypocritical for hating on Prism. Saying she's aggressive but Visi PUNCHES YOU AND SOMETIMES OTHERS. AND SHE'S YOUR LOVE INTEREST?! This entire team are ex-villains, of course they're still going to be violent.

As of Coupe? It's just putting her against Sonar. I like both of them but when I learned Sonar was voiced by the big Moist himself? I knew Coupe was cooked. Fought tooth and nail to find YouTubers that keep her around. And SOME Sonar fans act weird if you keep Coupe around. "Where's Sonar?" "Why didn't you keep Sonar?" You got your reasons for keeping Sonar, people have theirs for keeping Coupe. With the interrogation scene in EP 7, they say Coupe acts out of character but it's very much in character! If you keep her around, you get to see she's a dork behind that exterior. A beautiful, murderous dork.

Unrelated but seeing Phenomaman made me realize we're getting the Invincible mfs. This is coming from an Invincible mf myself. I'm so glad he turned out to be a depressed Starfire.