#apparently they’ve been in 'development hell' for a while...

[lulu2992]

As someone who’s played the entire BioShock series, “Oh?!”

[nevadancitizen]

-> CH. 1: A SILENT DOG & STILL WATERS

synopsis: the soviet union has been producing robots for a long time based on a miracle compound: polymer. but that was invented in 1941. the current year is 2038, and, due to rising tensions in the arctic, americans aren't as kind to soviets as they once were. it's too bad you're a russki, and it's really too bad that you work in cybersecurity. and honestly, with the case fowler has put you on, you're at risk of losing your job. it doesn't help that you're stuck with lieutenant hank anderson and some new android apparently called connor.

word count: 2.6k

ships: Connor/Reader, Hank Anderson & Reader

notes: based on an au i literally had a dream about. it's basically d:bh with elements of atomic heart :P this ch. is half exposition and half hank being an alcoholic lolololol

HEAD OF FALSE SECURITY MASTERLIST

The Soviet Union had always been very good at spying on and stealing American technology. They did so with the atomic bomb, the B-29 superfortress, and the space shuttle – with no lack of effort on America’s side of trying to keep them secret. 

But one thing set the USSR above the rest: polymer. A miracle compound that formed the backbone for every technological evolution that came after. It mimics a human neuron, including its ability to interpret input signals. With tinkering from top Soviet scientists (and a whole lot of luck), a gigantic neural network was established, the maximum computing power of which was orders of magnitude higher than the power of a conventional network.

With polymer, the Soviets reigned supreme as the only real international superpower. The other countries could play at being powerful, but the USSR was top dog – and she wasn’t keen on letting the others forget.

But that was in the past. And the past is boring. That was in 1941, and something you learn about in history class. Polymer is now regularly sold and traded and built upon and shared. After the Cold War ended, it was expanded outwards and is no longer a precious commodity. It was even needed to build a modern technology – androids. Ones that could pass the Turing test, unlike the TER-A1 Tereshkova (which was a human-looking robot, sure, but one that had an unsettling, unmoving mask for a face). 

And androids are simply better than Soviet bots. They’re versatile and able to be mass-produced without specialization development. They’re not big and clunky like the chimpanzee-esque MA-9 Belyash and can still accomplish the same installation, plumbing, and welding work. They can do the same agricultural work an ARU-31/6 Rotorobot can do without the risk of accidentally endangering humans while in use.

Again, they’re simply better. In the current year of 2038, American androids just trump similar Soviet tech in every way.

But that doesn’t mean that the Soviets aren’t still trying. They’ve invaded the Arctic with intent to claim the land, heavy with NA-T256 Natasha bots and the claim that the “heavy-duty ground-based loader bots can squeeze up to five liters of blood from a human body in under twenty seconds,” as a deterrent to American forces.

And this action has made your workplace a hell away from home.

Even though you immigrated from Chelomey, Russia to Detroit, Michigan in 2027, before all this business went down, people still eyed you warily – like you secretly enjoyed living under communism and the ever-watching eye of the Kremlin. Like you were just itching to get your grubby little paws on American secrets so you could report them to Comrade Molotov and a beautiful girl back home called Katya. Yeah, right.

These small, under-the-breath and glance-of-the-eye accusations weren’t helped by your current occupation: as a screen jockey for the Head of Cybersecurity of the Detroit Police. They acted like you hadn’t worked just as hard as everyone else for your position – for your polymer glove and the privileges that came with it.

Polymer gloves have come a long way from their prototype in 1955. They’re a single fingerless glove – one glove, as a person doesn’t need two – with an adjustable wrist strap. In the middle of the palm is a small silver star that can retract to expose prehensile, tentacle-like wires that can interface with terminals and other technology. 

But it doesn’t stop there – with a single gesture (holding your hand out and making an “L” shape) the glove can scan the surroundings of the user. Paired with an artificial polymer retina, the user can have information about the environment that they otherwise wouldn’t have. 

And, of course, you’re outfitted with the top versions of both – on the precinct’s credit card, obviously. 

But, again, you’re just a screen jockey. One of the best, but still just a worker bee that reports to a higher-up. There’s little to no interaction with the other departments, as cybersecurity is mostly isolated without any related crimes. Maybe cyberterrorism, but cases of that are few and far between. 

And you thought that’s all you’d ever be until you heard Fowler’s bellowing voice call your last name.

When you pop your head up from behind your terminal, you see him standing halfway through the glass door to his office. You swallow and trot over, a nervous idea tickling the back of your mind. Is he mad? Did you do something wrong? Shit… did you accidentally leak something?

You push open Fowler’s door and slowly shut it behind you. He’s sitting behind his desk, stark against the blue-grey backdrop of the wall behind him. His constantly furrowed brow and permanent frown lighten a little when he sees you.

You fold your hands behind your back politely. “Yes, sir?”

Fowler gestures to the seat in front of his desk. “Go ahead and take a seat.”

Oh, fuck. Oh, shit. You definitely did something wrong.

You walk over and sit in the chair. It screeches with a horrible sound.

You lean back in the chair and cross your arms. “What is this about, sir?”

Fowler leans back in his chair and drags a hand down his face. Immediately, the worst things pop into your head. You fight the urge to worry your bottom lip. 

“You have experience with androids, yes?” Fowler asks, but it doesn’t sound like a question – rather, a statement.

“Yes, sir.” You nod.

“And you have experience with Lieutenant Hank Anderson?” 

Your eyebrows furrow a little, but you still nod. “Yes, sir.”

Fowler turns to his terminal. “How do you feel about him?”

You bite your bottom lip as you think, then let it slip from your teeth. “I don’t know what you want me to say. He’s my friend. He is still a valuable member of the force, even if he has presented a few problems in the past couple of years.”

Fowler laughs. “A few?”

“Ah…” You smile, but it’s a bit forced. “More than a few. A lot. More problems than solutions, if I’m being honest.”

“That’s just how it goes sometimes.” He shrugs and sighs. “Do you know about the new case he’s been assigned?”

“Yes, sir,” you say. “He won’t shut up about it.”

He hums and leans forward, resting his chin on folded hands. “Always one for discretion, that one.”

You duck your head, instead looking down at your lap. “Yeah. But I think he can do better – be the cop he was before.”

“An optimistic Soviet.” Fowler laughs lowly. “That’s a new one.”

You just clench your jaw and meet his eyes. “What is this about? If you’ve called me in just to poke fun at me and gossip about Hank, I’d like to go back to my desk. Uh, sir.”

“No, no.” He holds a hand up. “Tell me what you’ve heard about Hank’s case.”

You think for a second. “Deviant androids murdering their owners. It sounds like it would’ve been labeled self-defense if it was a human-on-human crime, but…” you shrug. “I’m not in Homicide. I’m in Cybersecurity.”

“Well, you’re getting some experience.” Fowler pulls a cord from his terminal, one you recognize as a port compatible with a polymer glove. “You’re on the case.”

“I’m on the case?!” You repeat in disbelief. “Sir, I – I don’t –”

He holds up a hand for the second time. “I don’t want to hear it. You’re the best screen jockey with the most field experience I can spare.”

He gestures with the cord still in his hand. “Now, c’mon. Jack in and download the files.”

You swallow your objections and outstretch your gloved left hand. The thin metal of the star retracts, and the prehensile wires extend towards the port, waving like blades of grass. The ends of all six find their homes in the port, still wiggling like black tapeworms. 

Documents appear in the corner of your eye, one after another, like pop-up ads. You blink hard to dismiss them, then disconnect.

Fowler feeds the cord back into his terminal, then leans back in his chair. 

He looks over at you. “What’s that one saying you Soviets say? Something about champagne.”

You look up at him, then down to your glove. The star retracts, then goes back to its original position, like it was winking at you. “He who doesn’t take risks won’t drink champagne.”

“Well, I hope you have a taste for harder liquor,” Fowler says. “Hank’s at having a drink somewhere nearby. Go find him.”

And Lord, did you know right where to find Hank. 

On the door to Jimmy’s Bar is a firm warning, reading: NO ANDROIDS ALLOWED – OWNERS WILL BE PROSECUTED. You just hope that they don’t extend the same kindness to russkis. 

When you open the door, everyone in the bar turns to look at you. You nod and, once they see who you are, turn back to their conversations or nursing their drinks. 

You spot Hank at the bar with what looks like a Tennessee whiskey. You sidle up onto the barstool next to him, easing into the creaky seat. As you drape your rain-speckled coat on the back of the chair, you glance at the clock on the wall. It reads just before twenty past eleven.

“Bartender?” You call. Your thick accent immediately catches his attention, and so does the money you slide onto the bartop. “Vodka, please.”

The bartender, presumably Jimmy, picks up a bottle of Stolichnaya from the shelving behind him. “This good?”

You nod. “More than good.”

He pours vodka into a tumbler glass, then pushes it across the bar. You accept it readily, and the tiny sip you take gives your throat a nice burn on the way down.

“A Soviet and vodka,” Hank mumbles against the lip of his glass. “Like a moth to a flame.”

“It’s what my mother served with dinner,” you say. “I’m just glad Jimmy’s got enough sense not to keep us from his bar.”

Hank chuckles and raises his glass to that.

“Fowler’s gone beyond the pale.” You sip at your drink. “Have you heard?”

“Yup.” He sighs, setting his drink on the bartop harder than necessary. “Don’t know why a kid like you has business with an old timer like me.”

“Oh, believe me,” you say, your voice heavy with sarcasm. “It’s nice to visit, but it’s better to be home. I don’t know what he’s thinking. A Cybersecurity worker partnering up with someone in Homicide? Next, we’ll have androids doing our thinking and philosophy instead of our laundry and dishes.”

Hank snorts into his drink. “Hell, with all these runaways? They might as well be.”

“I mean, I can see his line of thinking.” You swirl the vodka in your glass, watching the way it catches and reflects the low light of the bar. “Cybersecurity, androids… makes sense, but me? A russki? With all that’s happening in the Arctic? If we don’t do well, my job is on the line.”

Hank sips his whiskey. “It really sounds like Fowler’s settin’ you up to fail.”

“Setting us both up to fail.” You correct and mirror him, sipping at your vodka. 

The sound of the door opening and the rain outside cuts into your conversation. Nothing you’d usually take a glance at, but what puts you off is the sudden silence of the bar. Bars shouldn’t be silent – especially not Jimmy’s.

You look over your left shoulder and see a nice looking man that’s just walked through the door. He looks a bit dorky, sure, and a bit like a lost puppy dog, but that could look nice on certain guys. And the asymmetrical tuft of loose hair that’s escaped his hair gel looks –

There’s a blue triangle just above where his left breast pocket would be. On the other side of his blazer reads RK800 in even, white text. He’s an android, not a man. He meets your gaze and you inhale sharply.

Your eyes return to your drink, and so does Hank’s. This isn’t what you want to deal with right now – or ever, actually. It’s Jimmy’s establishment, so it’s Jimmy’s problem.

But still, as soon as the android saw you, he started making a beeline for you. His footsteps are quick, measured, and even. 

“Excuse me,” he says, putting a hand on your shoulder. He addresses you by your title, and your gut clenches.

“No.” You try to wave him off. “No English. Sorry.”

“Officer, you passed each of your TestEaFL’s with flying colors,” he says, narrowing his eyes a little. “You can speak English perfectly fine.”

You cringe a little, but then a thought strikes you – how would this android have access to the scores of your Test of English as a Foreign Language? But before you can ask, he’s turned to Hank and started speaking.

“Oh, Lieutenant Anderson.” He moves so that he’s standing beside Hank. “Just the other person I was looking for.”

He glances between the two of you. “My name is Connor. I’m the android sent by CyberLife. Captain Fowler said that you were both having a drink nearby. I was lucky to find you at the fifth bar.”

You snort and your eyebrows shoot up. If you didn’t know better, you’d say that there was a hint of… something other than monotone indifference in his voice.

“What do you want?” Hank grinds out.

“You were assigned a case early this evening. A homicide, involving a CyberLife android.” Connor glances at you, like he’s reminding you that you were also assigned this case. “In accordance with procedure, the company has allocated a specialized model to assist investigators.”

“Well, I don’t need any assistance.” Hank jabs a thumb at you. “I’ve got all the unwanted assistance I need right here, and I don’t need any more. ‘Specially not from a plastic asshole like you. So just be a good lil’ robot and get the fuck outta here.”

“He’s right,” you chime. “And it doesn’t really look good to have androids investigating androids. What if you snap, too?”

“I will not.” Connor meets your eyes, and you can almost see the switch flick in that little android brain. Great, now it’s your turn to be grilled.

He circles so that he’s standing beside you and leans down a little, putting his hand on the bartop. You keep your eyes down, firmly on your drink. 

“I’m sorry, Officer, Lieutenant, but I must insist,” he says. “My instructions stipulate that I have to accompany both of you.”

“You know where you can stick your instructions?” Hank chimes in with a throaty laugh.

You glance over at Connor, who looks thoroughly confused. You smile and bring the glass to your lips. 

“No,” Connor says. “Where?”

Your throat seizes around the sip of vodka you were trying to take, causing you to cough it out as you try to suppress your laughter. You slam down the glass (effectively spilling most of it) and bring a hand to your chest, trying to ride it out as Hank pats your back.

“чёрт возьми!” You wheeze, your voice hoarse. Your chest burns. “Oh, fuck.”

You wipe your eyes as the burn dulls, still coughing slightly. Connor purses his lips before coming to a conclusion. 

“You know what?” He offers. “I’ll buy you both one for the road.”

“You better,” you say. “You made me spill mine.”

“Bartender!” Connor calls, and slips money onto the bartop. “The same again, please.”

“See that, Jim?” Hank says. “Wonders of technology. Make it a double.”

Jimmy pours a healthy amount of Jack Daniels into Hank’s glass, and starts to pour Stolichnaya into yours. You cut him halfway with a raised hand and a “Someone’s gotta drive us home safe.”

You knock back your drink, then let out a low whistle at the nice burn. Hank follows soon after and sighs heavily. 

He leans back and looks over at Connor. “Did you say homicide?”

[lazerv4]

Thoughts on Total Forgiveness

Just my raw thoughts not a review or anything

Total Forgiveness starts with Ally Beardsley and Grant O’Brian pitching the show they are about to embark on to Sam Reich their at the time President of Original Content at CollegeHumor (now CEO of Dropout). The pitch is simple, student debt is a cripplying problem and they came up with the accordion method, what if instead of many years of suffering under their loans they could instead make the suffering happen in 4 months and pay their debt as they gamble on challenges between the two of them for money which the show would award weekly. Sam hesitates but greenlights the show much to the delight of Grant and Ally who get right to work on the first challenges which end up being Grant has to interview a lawyer specializing on student debt while covered in leeches and Ally has to interview an ex partner about what went wrong while they eat the spiciest food Grant can find. Afterwards we see the actual challenges go through as Grant does his assigned interview while bleeding profusely and Ally has what can only be derived as a cringe nightmare of an experience with their ex eating thai so spicy they almost throw up, then when they are both done we see them together, they both look like they’ve been through hell and that is just the first episode.

Episode 2 begins a little bit meaner with Ally getting an Oompa Loompa makeover and getting their driver’s license renovated while Grant wears a dog shock collar for barking the entire day which leads to him spending the day mute, this is where we start to see the main dynamics of the show develop with Ally embracing the horribleness and Grant trying his best to have fun with it but struggling a bit.

Episode 3 is a kinder episode to Grant with him simply going camping which apparently he hates, meanwhile Ally is buried alive for an entire day in a sort of sensory deprivation coffin while they are still in the office.

Episode 4 meanwhile has Grant performing a cringe inducing stand up show purposely sabotaged to be terrible with the caveat that if a joke doesn't land he has to say “it’s all love” which just makes it so much worse, on the flipside Ally has to publish an excerpt from their teenage diary, a move which severely backfires on Grant as it seems like a growing experience for Ally that improved them as a person all things considered, no suffering all money.

At this point not a single point has been lost and both Ally and Grant are giving their all to the challenges and still enjoying themselves to some extent since the point of the show is to compress suffering they do struggle but nothing too bad has happened yet, this is where that begins to change.

Episode 5 is one of the hardest things I’ve had to sit through. Grant gets the challenge of being locked in his studio apartment with 8 family members for a weekend which while I’m sure it was a nightmare, it doesn’t translate to tv. All’s challenge this week was to sing the United States national anthem at a minor league baseball game and to make it way worse, they apparently don’t even know the lyrics so they completely fucked it up and even have a random laugh in the middle of it, it’s the sort of horrible second hand embarrassment that is legitimately hard to endure and I have seen some people say this and another upcoming Ally challenge are borderline unwatchable because it’s just too cringe, but if you can get through it the series has more for you.

Episode 6 is the phobia episode where Grant must face needles and Ally must face snakes, for Grant he just has to inject himself so B12 with the alleged most painful needle which he does albeit it leads to one of my favorite gags when he says “I’ll be fine in 5 minutes” after he pulls the needle out only for the show to cut to him having a full panic attack with an oxygen mask. Grant won his challenge and valiantly faced his fear but as for Ally, well things would go different for them. Ally’s challenge involved that some night, any night at all, Grant would come in with a live snake and Ally would have to sleep with it on their bed. While Ally had been a very ambitious and fun loving contestant, this broke something and they just completely refused to engage with the snake and complete the challenge leading to the first loss and the domino effect which would shape the series into what it became.

Episode 7 is where challenges start to get unreasonable, with almost 4000 dollars on the line this contest had to get difficult so both Ally and Grant came up with this, Grant wanted Ally to spend their whole week piss drunk which at first Ally enjoyed and it annoyed everyone else but quickly it started getting to them and by the end of the week you can see their health suffer because of it and the remnants of a broken person just trying to finish the last day to claim the win, while Grant broke Ally’s body their mind seems unbreakable. As for Grant, Ally came up with a really strange and complicated challenge, basically Grant had to get an erection with no stimulation while being timed which ended in a really bizarre contraption so this could be shown without well showing Grant’s genitals. This challenge has been often called unreasonable and impossible by many people and to an extent it is but Grant still accepted it and attempted it as hard as he could, an attempt that proved unsuccessful leading to his first loss of the show.

As of now Grant has earned $10750 while Ally has $13250, as the gap starts to widen so do the challenges as the series starts to lead to it’s climax.

Episode 8 is the real turning point of the series with Ally getting the other famously cringe and unwatchable challenge in having to become a herbalife shill to her new roommates and do unreasonable actions Grant assigns via an earpiece to try and make them quit but their will somehow remained strong which showed how much fun Ally was having with this whole show as the chaotic person they are, meanwhile Grant was having a rough time. Ally’s challenge to Grant was to sell all his earthly possessions at a flea market and try to earn a thousand dollars which a some points seems maybe doable but very quickly while Grant still doesn’t realize it, it’s very clear to the viewer and to the crew that Grant won’t be able to accomplish this. He leaves this challenge defeated and returns to his empty apartment with now nothing to his name except around $600, not only did he lose the challenge but he also lost everything he had, this is where we first start to see how this show has damaged Grant and Ally’s friendship and also emotionally damaged Grant who seems barely still holding it together by the end of the episode which leads you wonder, how can this escalate further?

Episode 9 got mean, Grant challenged Ally to get a neck tattoo with the name of their new girlfriend who they've been dating for 2 months while Ally challenged Grant to shit in public as performance art (again his genitals are covered but chest up everyone can see him). The challenges this week feel very mean spirited and with Ally now being up $24250 to Grant’s $10750 things are heating up and they are starting to feel more like bitter rivals than loving friends doing a dumb show together. Going with Ally first while Sam seems hesitant to approve this challenge Ally wants to do it and still seems have fun with it as a big dumb joke even if it’s their first tattoo it’s just a gag to them and they don’t mind the embarrassment with them even bringing said gf to the parlor so they can watch the tattoo be made. Meanwhile Grant struggles, even before the exhibition opens we can already see he is stressed and uncomfortable, he doesn’t seem like he wants to do it but the money is too life changing to not go through with it so he presses on, he is notified that when he is done he can pull a string that will drop confetti to signify he has completed the challenge and so he gets on the toilet in front of a lot of people. The atmosphere is not tense, it’s closer to something sad and depressing, something akin to the feeling of exploiting someone and when Grant pulls the string and the confetti falls, you can’t help but feel awful, a big thing through this episode has been Siobhan (another dropout cast member) giving some advice to Grant and Ally separately about how to mend what they are breaking and she stays as everyone leaves to speak with Ally as Grant angrily prepares to go home. As Ally approaches to tell Grant everyone was an extra, the mood is again tense, he just replies he is “done for the day” and that it was “funny” as he just walks away checking with the crew really quick to see if he can leave and then just exiting the building silently. This episode seemed to be the tipping point for Grant and what would have ended their friendship with Ally as even with this the gap just widened and made everything seem worse and worse while making each other more antagonistic towards the other that while Ally had been taking as dumb fun, they had now realized was hurting Grant and something had to be done if this friendship was gonna survive this show, let alone a 10th episode.

Episode 10 is just titled “Finale” with no allusion to the challenges like all the previous episodes so you go on not exactly knowing what to expect. It begins with other dropout cast members talking about the strain this show has had on Ally and Grant before going into the challenge pitching part of the show where Ally is alone with the production crew struggling to even come up with something until they says they have a pitch and the show cuts to Grant alone with the crew as well, they try to check on Grant to see if he is ok and he clarifies he doesn’t blame anyone and he is not the victim of the show but he is struggling. He is not sure what to pitch except something horrible and life changing so he is gonna go through Ally’s challenge first, cut to Jess and Katie (dropout cast members) in Santa Monica, they have a letter for Grant that Ally wrote the challenge is just to enjoy the day at the beach with his friends while wearing a dumb outfit and to decompress the show a bit to see if maybe he has it in him to forgive them. The show cuts to a montage of Grant having fun for his $10k prize just hanging in the pier and doing dumb stuff with Jess and Katie.The mood is so different, so fun and afterwards Grant talks a bit about what the show has done to their friendship and how he is regretful Ally couldn’t be there with them before announcing he now knows what his challenge is and shot fades. We start the scene in a bar called “State Social House” that same night as Grant and Ally meet in the empty bar and Grant reveals the challenge is to have 3 mezcals with him, while they begin drinking they also talk about their sentiments regarding what the money has done to their friendship, the reminique about what they've been through and what living with debt has done to them, how they hope to remain friends after this and even hopefully for the rest of their lives as they approach the third drink to which Ally comments about prompting Grant (a seasoned bartender) to want to smell and check it’s profile, this leads Ally to telling Grant to just drink it and take the $10k and to make the gap smaller to which Grant replies that he can’t accept that, at this point Ally has made their choice so they drop the mezcal on the floor on the most shocking moment on the entire show. What is next is just pure friendship and love for the people around you. Grant starts crying and they hug in the sweetest moment in the show, this is the moment that turned around the show according to Sam in a “episode 11” interview. The show then cuts to Grant paying one of his loans and he becomes able to finally be able to start paying his loans instead of just interest, Ally also talks about their loan consolidation as the show begins to wrap and we get the final scene with is a small dinner they set up and the talk about everything they learned about loans and how they are designed to make people’s life worse before the show ends with a toast to it’s history and a tally of the remaining debt before finally saying goodbye one last time.

Total Forgiveness did eventually get a reunion episode 11 sort of podcast thing but that is mainly talking behind the scenes about how of the rails the show went and how it was almost cancelled before the final episode essentially redeemed the whole thing from feeling like like a dystopian torture system as well as how Ally and Grant expected Jackass but got something much deeper, something about the effects of debt on people, something like most of dropout special. Total Forgiveness may not be for everyone, it can be a hard show to sit through, but for those able to go through with it the way it develops as an allegory for its own themes is fantastic and beautiful and in some ways the only example of prestige reality tv I can think of. It is truly one of a kind and a beautiful little show that can’t and shouldn’t be replicated, it should stand as a monolith and be cherished for all it accomplished in showing the struggles of debt. Ally and Grant did something incredible that would only be possible at a platform like dropout and with how the show turned out and how it stands along with other titans at dropout they should be proud.

[vernyhore]

ϟ for I bet on losing dogs

this exchange:

“You joke,” Frank said quietly, “but I don’t know what the hell you’re doing here half the time.”

Shen straightened up, still close. “Yeah, you do.”

Frank held his gaze. “Shouldn’t you be running away from this dumpster fire?”

Shen’s voice was quiet. “If I thought you were a fire, maybe. But you’re not.”

Made me squirm. It's as close to direct as they get for a while. It's also one of the exchanges that exemplifies why I like your Shen so much. Who responds to a self-deprecating dumpster fire quip by carrying the metaphor? WHO?? John Shen, apparently.

Also, because I'm insufferable and greedy (for gratuitous h/c), I'll throw in a ❖ for I always want you when I'm finally fine and touch and go

ϟ for I bet on losing dogs

Thank you so much <3 I’ve enjoyed writing each and every one of the interactions between these, too, but the one that made me squirm was this one:

“So you’re my therapist now?” Shen didn’t flinch. “God, no. I like myself too much for that.” Frank huffed, starting to jog in place again, trying to outpace the conversation. “Then stop psychoanalyzing me and let me finish the run.” “Not happening,” Shen repeated, calm but immovable. “We can do one more kilometer, if that's what you need. You want to go harder, do it when I’m not watching.” “One isn’t going to cut it,” he muttered. “It has to,” Shen said “It’s not enough,” he repeated. Shen stepped closer, his voice quieter now. “I know.”

I like writing moments of vulnerability, and this is one of the first where Frank not only lets himself be vulnerable in front of Shen but also allows himself to be reined in, for lack of a better word. There’s a quiet understanding here, a trust deep enough that Frank’s instinct isn’t to shove Shen away and keep spiraling, but to soften, just a little. And Shen, for his part, doesn’t shut him down or tell him to stop outright. It’s a compromise. It's a start.

❖ for I always want you when I'm finally fine and touch and go [combining the two]

A major theme of touch and go is Frank's disability. He needs the meds he’s now refusing to take after being accused of diversion. If I were to combine the timelines, I'd take it in a different direction - a natural middle point would be to follow I Bet… through the early stages of Frank’s addiction recovery and his developing relationship with Shen, and then hit a turning point: Frank gets shot. I’ve been toying with the idea of it happening outside PTMC entirely (a robbery gone wrong? Vindictive patient?) - different context, different hospital. Somewhere no one knows his history.

I can picture it: he’s brought in, in shock, barely conscious, trying to tell the ED staff not to give him opioids. But he can’t get the words out, and there’s no one there to advocate for him. When he doesn’t show up for his shift the next evening, Abbot calls Robby, and Robby’s first thought is that Frank had relapsed. Shen doesn’t buy it. For all Frank’s struggles, he’s never once missed a shift. He just wouldn’t. That’s not who he is. So Shen starts calling around, checking hospitals, and he’s the one who finally finds him.

When Frank wakes up, he’s furious. They’ve ruined it. Everything he worked for, all the careful control, the trust he was rebuilding - it’s gone in an instant. And now, he’s staring down the impossible: starting over. Again.

And he just can't.

What follows is a whole lot of angst and this gnawing sense of futility. Maybe the bullet has grazed his spine, causing some permanent damage that Frank has to learn how to navigate. Robby tries to step in, but Frank shuts him out - shuts everyone out. The only one who stands a chance of getting through to him is Shen. And it’s not easy. Not by a long shot. But he still shows up. He always does.

[mingos]

*crawls out of the ground like a mole, coughing up copious amounts of dirt*

so, hello.

    i try to keep things as vague & light as possible when referencing my homelife because, honestly, the last time i brought up anything tangentially related i was essentially told “you being upset is making other people upset and ruining the fun” so being anything other than ✨chaotic positivity gremlin wilder ✨ here makes me paranoid, hence why i’ll just disappear for weeks sometimes. 

but. 

i’ve clearly been gone for a bit, will probably be gone for a bit longer, and since i’ve been getting messages from folks wanting to check in on me i wanna give a more detailed update than usual. i feel guilty for not responding directly, but for reasons i can’t get detailed on other than “the idea of having a conversation with 99.9% of people right now is terrifying” (is this what being nonverbal is, chat?) with even the .1% being a super recent development, a queue post into the void is my solution.

i won’t get that detailed, but if light references to domestic abuse, addiction, or just family issues in general are hard subjects for you - nothing past this paragraph is too pertinent anyway, so don’t worry about having to stop. all you gotta know is that some Bad Stuff with family happened, but i’m safe & i’ll be back in maybe another week or something. 

anyways. i was living out of hotels for about 3 weeks. 

more like 16-17 days if you want to get technical because 4 of those days i had an actual scheduled hotel for my twin’s wedding at the end of august - but i’ve basically been bouncing around since august 21st. the night of the 20th, i had a horrific fight with my family member and, for the first time ever, i left. don’t know if would call it brave on my part - since we were leaving for a trip anyway, this is just the first time my suitcase was already packed.

right now, i’ve been at another relative’s house since the 11th. i tried to go back on the 1st because, even after years of this, i’m apparently way too easy to convince everything is going to be fine…  but by the 2nd i was out of there again. 

currently mulling over my next move here because, as much as the common sense answer is to stay away, anybody who’s unfortunate enough to deal with this knows how complicated it is. i’m scared for this person’s safety as much as i am for my own. no one else really checks on them, and i’ve already had to deal with several medical emergencies they’ve had like bad falls & breathing problems. i don’t like leaving them alone for long because the guilt at the thought of something bad happening to them and no one knowing for possibly days or weeks eats me up.

i logically know i’ll have to get past that eventually because i can’t let my life be dictated by this incredibly toxic cycle forever or i’ll never be happy, but now isn’t the time. they also have a dog who would similarly be put at risk if something happened to them, so it’s a lot for me to worry about.

but, having said all that, we’re currently in the apology stage or i guess the negotiation stage because, after the shit that happened this time, i’m making it perfectly clear i’m not stepping foot in that house until they do something. detox, treatment, rehab, disulfiram, soberlink, therapy – something. we’re kind of running out of things for them to try at this point, but at least they used to try. they haven’t really been doing that this past year and I’m the one suffering the most because of it.

so yeah, that’s where things are at the moment. i’m mentally not doing so hot - but I’ve got my dog, and being able to sleep in a bed i’m familiar with for a change and not a hotel (I spent so much money on hotels, guys i’m cooked) is nice relief while I wait out whatever the hell is happening. talking to them over the phone again pretty much drains any of the energy I’ve got back, but it sounds like they’re starting to "get it' so hopefully they’ll start to take this seriously again because I can really only take one more year of this (if even) until I just need to accept these things aren’t my responsibility and move on.

honestly, having a close-knit group of friends/support system for the first time in years has really reminded me of that and given me the confidence to take a lot of steps to live for myself for a change, and to think about prioritizing my own happiness for once, which wasn’t the place i was in at this time last year, or the year before that, or the year before that - so I just want to say thank you again to anyone whose ever helped talk me through something or really just been nice to me at all. this is why i always remember to be kind because it can genuinely do a lot for someone going through something, because i know it has for me.

anyway uhhhhh i hope you are all doing well, and with any luck i’ll be chilling on here by the start of october. can’t miss spooky month and this insufferable pink bird’s birthday, after all.

much love.

[stuffingprize]

Why ship Agon & Yoichi? It’s not just because they’re both devious geniuses who get each other somewhat—making them compatible enough that they don’t need explicit instruction from each other. It’s also that they have a long history filled with changing dynamics & drama. And because, by & large, Yoichi has a tremendous influence over Agon’s choices throughout the story. For a prideful & super talented villain like Agon, I think that’s highly meaningful!

~~Part 1~~

AGON KONGO’S EARLY DAYS - Aww man it sure is hard to be so talented

Agon is a boy with an ability that cannot be trained - his high speed reflexes. On top of that, he is quick to take up any physically & mentally arduous activity, has great looks, & is naturally strong as hell. And he achieves it all without much effort~ 

His early days were therefore filled with praise, admiration & envy from everyone around him, including his most significant relationship during this moment: his twin brother, Unsui. 

Too smart for his own good, Unsui resigns himself quite early on, taking the loss as “an average athlete” and tries only to improve Agon’s prospects rather than his own.

Unsui: Then all my effort will have paid off.

Agon: Shut up. That's my plan anyway.

For Agon Kongo during this time, he probably felt there wasn’t anyone he could call an equal.. 

~

YOICHI HIRUMA’S EARLY DAYS - I’m going to that fun place now

Yoichi Hiruma as a child feels bored and understimulated. Bright but devious by nature, he one day decides to shake up his humdrum by sneaking into an American Army base at age 10, where he spends his days honing his skills in provocation and intimidation while playing poker with men much older than him. 

It is quite apparent that lying and coercion were natural skills to him.

This is also the place where he picks on the habit of carrying guns, speak in foul English, & learns all about American football. By the time Yoichi enters middle school, he’s gone through quite a transformation of looks:

Though at first, Yoichi does not consider himself suitable to playing the game himself, there is no denying he is immensely attracted to the strategic angle of it, spending hours drafting formations in his spare time.

For Yoichi Hiruma during this time, perhaps he only dreams of one day commanding a team with players of his own choosing..

~

AND THEN THEY MEET …wait, who, what, when, where, how??

So how did these two terrors meet? Unfortunately we’re not shown. It is unclear when or how they meet, but we know that it happens before Yoichi decides to play football in Middle School. 

Here’s a headcanon: The “book of threats” was likely an idea Yoichi developed long before, just never had a big enough reason to make one yet. Until he needed to. Until he found something he really wanted to pursue with a lot of obstacles in the way: American football (the man already had used cell phone collection boxes placed around..)

Thanks to a series of events in which Ryokan convinces him to play the game, Yoichi sets out to make his infamous book of threats. For that, he calls on an acquaintance for help! That acquaintance was none other than Agon.

↑This is seriously their earliest known on-screen interaction & we’re presented with this dynamic about them: Yoichi calls, Agon fetches. I know Yoichi isn’t one for pleasantries, but he doesn’t even introduce much context, he merely points to a place & commands Agon to go.

SO WHAT WE KNOW:

They meet somewhere during middle school.

They likely meet outside of school (no shared school)

Coincidentally Agon also goes through a transformation of looks.

Look, look.. I think it’s quite telling that out of ALL places Agon could’ve been during this very early interaction, he’s at a HAIR SALON. Like, he really really could’ve been doing anything else, or be literally anywhere else. But here we are:

The last one, he says… so they’ve already been at this!

Just IMAGINE! From the moment they meet, however or wherever that was, Agon & Yoichi clearly vibe well enough to exchange contact information & then… Agon forgoes his natural blond hair in exchange for dark dreads.

What could it be? He already wore sunglasses, is liked well & is superbly popular. But perhaps upon meeting this young man with pierced ears & bleached hair, Agon got the idea that he wanted a more intimidating look as well?

Why not? Afterall, he becomes Hiruma’s on-demand thug. The next panel shows it was Yoichi who changed his looks first:

Yoichi influences Agon: +10 points! (Agon gets dreads)

And so, for the next two to three years, Yoichi & Agon apparently spend HOURS running around doing this stuff:

Agon beats people for money, Yoichi gets the blackmail. 

Ahhh yes bonding through filming naked dudes, errr.. Blackmailing, I mean. Hah? Totally normal

Yoichi influences Agon: +10 points! (Agon spends his days as Yoichi’s thug)

If their acquaintanceship formed before Ryokan meddled into Yoichi’s life, then Yoichi has a longer history with Agon than with his friends from Maou. Outside of family relationships, theirs is one of the longest-standing relationships in the series. And with long histories come moments of drama. With Ryokan Kurita in the picture, things begin to go sour.

~

I was never your friend but I thought you were mine.. a.k.a. AGON’S JEALOUSY OF RYOKAN KURITA

One of the strongest proof for me that a proud man like Agon is in fact very desperately thirsty for Yoichi’s attention is the evidence showing that he views Ryokan as an obstacle. Ryokan.. whom he would openly say is miles beneath him in terms of talent, looks, brains.. You get the picture.

It’s not “I’m glad I kicked you & your loser friends.” Was perhaps Agon expecting or hoping Yoichi would choose to drop Ryokan & still apply for Shinryuji himself? Afterall, there wasn’t anything stopping Yoichi from doing so except friendship.

These are instances where Agon isn’t insulting Yoichi. His beef is with the people Yoichi chooses to associate himself with, most prominently Ryokan & later Sena (more on Sena in part 2!!)

But why the antagonism toward Ryokan specifically? Wasn’t Gen (Musashi) also around? If Agon Kongo were a genius of interpersonal relationships, he might've figured it out. Because the truth is no one in this story changed Yoichi more than Ryokan.

Ryokan is the reason Yoichi starts playing football & why we get to the Deimon Devil Bats & the story of underdog Eyeshield 21. And while we have evidence that Unsui also plays football in middle school, that doesn’t mean Agon had any interest in it. An interaction from Riko’s interview gives us a hint:

Which suggests that when Agon found Yoichi suddenly immersed in the sport, it was something that must’ve surprised him. Meanwhile Yoichi’s comment suggests Agon followed the same “stunt” afterwards.

In fact, for Agon, the decision happened here:

Was it a mere coincidence that Agon was at this particular scene? Maybe he & Yoichi had plans to meet up later but Agon happened to arrive earlier by chance. Or maybe Agon was here on purpose..

Genius Agon who is feared, admired, & envied by all.... who is good at any sport, who has the looks & talent to potentially get anyone he wants, being put aside by someone he kinda somewhat valued..

I mean, given the time they spent together, it’s reasonable to assume Agon enjoyed hanging out with Yoichi. So this scene where Yoichi is having fun with people who have nothing to do with him, Ryokan in a Shinryuji Uniform especially, must've affected his sense of security on a subconscious level. We aren’t shown any other source of antagonism for his messing up with Yoichi's plans. The thing is, deep down, Yoichi is the closest he could consider an equal. Not like he knew it at the time.

Also, while the panel above paints Agon in a clearly antagonistic light, the original magazine run of that panel was actually juicier:

Really, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to interpret this as anger, envy, maybe even betrayal.

Yoichi influences Agon: +20 points! (Agon enters Shinryuji High School. Agon joins a football team)

And so, Agon sets out to destroy what he saw that day so badly that he really decides to attend an all-boys buddhist high school despite being a giant womanizer. And when Yoichi confronts him to try to remedy his dick move, Agon decides to cut him off as well, effectively ruining whatever sort of friendship they had.

Alas, their version of a breakup... I've also talked about Yoichi's choice of outfit in this post, heheh!

ALL TO PLAY A SPORT HE DOESN'T EVEN LIKE!! Now that's some serious malevolent & jealous-driven commitment!

→Continue to Part 2→

Where I explore Agon's disinterest in Football when it doesn't involve Yoichi, his newfound beef with Sena, Deimon vs Shinryuji & beyond~

[evita-shelby]

National Anthem

Chapter 12

Cw: miscarriage, prophetic nightmares, death, mention of kinks, some sex, angst

To those who playes 2 truths 1 lie, so sorry lol

Taglist: @thegreatdragonfruta @zablife

Jack’s smoked through tomorrow’s cigarettes trying to make sense of it. Rosie dreamt of doctors performing a lobotomy that apparently killed her, Junior dreamt he’d be shot in the head as he rode in a parade.

Laurie used to have nightmares of dying in mud and rain until he died in a trench in France in 1914. His sister Katie had dreams of coughing and choking on her own blood. Their mother once said their father had cursed blood, and that was why he got killed when he was a boy.

The gangster remembered all those times his enemies cursed his name and now wonders if curses can be passed on to children. He should talk to his wife about this, she knew more about this bullshit anyways.

“Tell me what?” speak of the devil. Wearing her velvet robe and braving the cold just to see what’s bothering him. They should be in bed, his witch trying to keep warm cuddling with him and thinking about the bungalow in Florida and that hammock in the backyard.

“Junior dreamt he died.” He could lie, he’s done it before, but he’d also like to sleep in his own bed instead of the couch tonight. Besides Eva would kill him for not telling her about this new development.

“Well, he did get pretty sick, there were times I thought he wouldn’t survive it.” She admits joining him on the freezing porch. He’s banned from smoking indoors because his witch couldn’t stand the smell when she was pregnant and now the habit stuck.

“Not that, he says he saw himself as an adult waving at a crowd and being shot in the head.” Jack takes one last drag of his cigarette before handing it to his wife. Eva only smokes when shit’s too dire to take on without one or in the wonderful occasions where she came from uninterrupted sex. Too bad it’s the former.

“When I see death happen, it usually doesn’t. You didn’t die that day in your office, the neighbor’s kid didn’t get hit by a car and I have yet to die.” This was more of a reminder than an actual explanation for this. Apparently, she can only predict a real death if it’s coming for people she doesn’t like or knows well.

“You can teach him and Joey how to shoot when they’re old enough if it eases your mind.” But it isn’t a real guarantee that this applied to the kids. She admitted she was scared about losing him that day, held him tightly that night and those after as if he might die.

Fucking hell, he never thought he’d have to deal with this shit when he decided Eva was gonna be his wife that day.

“Do you regret it?” she asks fearing he might. Evie’s mind reading has become so normal to him he’s no longer surprised his witch catches on to his thoughts like that. Makes it easier to unburden himself with her, doesn’t even have to voice it half the time.

“I never have and never will, sweetheart.” Jack is a man with few regrets, he never does anything unless he wants to and when he doesn’t, he sticks with it to the bitter end. Choosing her would never be one of them.

By May Junior’s nightmares are almost forgotten. Everything goes so well it is scaring her.

They have a house in New York now, a lovely mansion too big for them with servants catering to their every whim and armed men loyal to them. Jack’s success had merited such a move and after Junior’s nightmare, he was loath to leave them behind now.

Luca Changretta was gearing for a war overseas while Jack laid out the framework for their takeover from right under his nose. Even his Family were considering killing him to prevent the White Hand from taking their place.

They were making strides in society, all the must have invites, rubbing elbows with the right people and teaching people not to fuck with them. They’ve just returned from Calvin Coolidge’s inauguration after rubbing it in their competitor’s face.

John D. Hertz had been the unlikely bastard to learn that last year. He wanted protection from the Checker Taxis and his other enemies and would’ve gotten it if his words about her hadn’t pissed off Jack. Something that had caused an attack on the company stocks with the help of their connections.

Now it was the turn of the men who owned the rights to a western movie Eva foresaw making it big.

It had started with a movie house that refused to let Eva into their establishment on their first few dates as man and wife, then the entire chain out of spite and now Jack was aiming for Hollywood after securing New England and most of the East Coast.

She hasn’t rewarded him for this achievement yet, and because nothing else has managed to get her to shake off the unsettling images, Eva decides to wake him early on his day off. He won’t mind, loves it when she makes use of his morning wood for their mutual pleasure.

Would erase the nightmare from her mind along with her refusal to have another baby so soon after Kitty. He loves breeding her, loves seeing her fat and needy and loves its when her tits are full of milk.

He's a dirty bastard, anything and everything will find its way into the blessed times they can have fantastic uninterrupted sex. The new house lets them do that more often. Sometimes they’ll lock themselves in that room far away from the family wing made just for their sexual escapades and go at it like unhinged demons.

“Nightmares again?” As expected, Jack is very amenable to a good fuck before breakfast. Their three older children were at school and Kitty was sleeping like an angel, gave her the perfect opportunity to forget what haunted her dreams.

“I want to forget them.” She admits it in between kisses knowing he won’t say no. “Help me forget them, Jack.”

“As you wish, sweetheart.”

It is to no one’s surprise that Eva finds herself pregnant by Father’s Day. She is not happy about it, there is a terribly bad feeling about this pregnancy. Eva blames it on her vanity and loss of figure, not wanting to burden him with what she saw in her reading that day.

She won’t tell him the cards say they won’t be born.

Not all pregnancies agree with her.

Though not as bad as Rosie’s, this one is one of the bad ones. The doctor hasn’t put her on bedrest ---even if he did, she’d ignore it--- but you could tell something wasn’t right by the way she carried herself.

There’s something she’s not telling him, something his witch believes he can’t tell from looking at her. Been married for six years on the dot, Jack wagers he knows her better than anyone now.

“What’s wrong, Evie?” he asks, cornering her in her powder room as she got ready for their anniversary dinner tonight.

“Fucking department store didn’t have my color again.” She grumbles after applying lipstick a shade brighter than she likes. Evie likes to make herself up like a vamp, with dark burgundy lips and darker eyes to sell the whole mystical beauty look she has.

“Eva.” He warns against her lying and gets to the point. “I know there’s something you’re not telling me. Something about the girls we’re having.”

“Nothing’s wrong, just pregnancy fucking me up. Now hurry up, we’ll be late for the reservations.” Half true.

She’s weepy and tired all the time. Her sex drive going from wanting to kick him off the bed if he breathes in her direction to seeking him out in his office as if he hadn’t fucked her before he left. Still got five months to go, a lot could happen between here and January.

The nursery is half decorated, she’d put off ordering a crib for the twins and acted as if she were tempting fate this time around.

“I tell you everything, Eva, why won’t you do the same?” he asks her as they head downstairs, she turns to give him a look for guilt tripping her about it and in the next second she missteps and falls the rest of the way down.

Jack’s too beside himself to leave her side. The fall hadn’t been too severe, no bones were broken, no lasting head injury nor internal bleeding. The babies hadn’t made it as she fell on her stomach enough times to kill the poor things.

She hadn’t been told yet, the doctors had suggested he be the one to break the news to her after seeing Eva’s medical history. Jack has no idea how he’s going to confirm that her heavy bleeding is because they lost their unborn daughters.

Two tiny little things that barely looked human inside the doctor’s receptacle. Rosie had dolls that small, he thinks as he looks away from the babies they hadn’t even considered names for yet.

“I didn’t see them in the cards, they were never going to be born.” His wife finally tells him what she was hiding for four months. Just because the cards said nine babies didn’t mean all of them would live, she explains, and he listened to what she had resigned herself to as they mourn their dead babies.

His triumph over the Black Hand on January 1926 finds him smoking in the veranda after Eva tells him she wants to try again because the cards say they’ll have a baby boy next year.

[spinningbuster98]

 Castlevania (NES) Part 1

Good Eeeeeeveniiiiiing...

Anyone who knows the story of this game raise your hand!

If you answer “It’s Simon Belmont VS Dracula” you only get half a cookie

If you answer “It’s a big homage to classic horror” you also only get half a cookie!

Yeah sure this game’s story is fundementally basic as was usual for games at the time and the early days of the series were indeed big on homaging classic Hammer Horror flicks

But I honestly find both descriptions to not do the game justice

Nowadays you often get people who say that “8-bit games have no story”, and while often these kinds of folks say this because they’ve never actually played said games other times these kinds of assertions actually come from long time fans, sometimes by people who even grew up with these kinds of games since they came out!

And I think the main reason, outside of the fact that these games often didn’t really have any on-screen narrative, is that manuals back then failed to properly convey tha game’s lore and story...or rather the overseas manuals

If you think that Classic Castlevania games have very little to no story and were little more than an excuse for the developers to cram in a bunch of old horror monsters then you’re only half right and you get to sit in the same corner as the same people who say that Classic Sonic games had no story

But I can’t fully blame people: the International manual for this game really tells you nothing about what’s going on here, mostly just making a bunch of horror-themed puns

Now the original Japanese Manual on the other hand... talk about night and day!

Not only is it way more stylized it also:

1) Gives you some general context as to how Dracula resurrected and how it’s a recurring event while also establishing that Dracula gets regularily resurrected by evil people who wish for destruction

2) Establishes Simon as the last heir to a family of vampire hunters who have been battling the count for a long time, even mentioning a certain Christopher: who is that? Apparently Simon’s ancestor who put Dracula in his grave last time. Did they have to mention this? No it wasn’t necessary but it helps sell the idea that this is a war that’s been going on for some time and that Simon has some big shoes to fill. Not to mention that we will see Christopher in a future travesty game

3) It even mentions how the Belmonts’ whip isn’t just any ordinary whip nor is it just some generic “Magic Whip”, it has “mysterious powers”. Hmmm intriguing...I wonder what its origins are...?

This is all stuff that future games will not only reference but also build upon: how many games feature Belmonts talking about how its their destiny to defeat Dracula? How many games will focus on the Whip’s otherworldly abilities? Dracula’s line from SOTN about how “he was called here by humans who wished to pay him tribute”? The one that’s been memed to Hell? That idea was already present all the way back to the very first game!

I’m not saying that the developers already had a clear vision of how the series would turn out as a whole, hell no! But evidently they did have A narrative vision, as limited in scope as it was given the limitations they were dealing with, so I think that boiling this down to simply “Haha 8 bit sprites on the screen!” or “It was just a love latter to old Hammer Movies, nothing more. Unlike those future games that added a needless story ugh!” (though future games will definitely have plenty of narrative hiccups make no mistake I have my share of issues) is pretty disrespectful

[justplainmels]

When do you think Jack/Sam fell in love? Before they admitted feelings in season 4. What season and or episode do you think? 🥰

When did Jack and Sam fall in love?

Just kidding. Well mostly. There was obviously immediate attraction on both sides starting from that first meeting in the briefing room. That attraction turned into a crush which turned into some feelings which developed over time into love. However, I think both were in love long before they realized it. I also think this happens at different times for each of them.

Short answer:

Sam fell first. It was a gradual thing (see my "watching Sam fall in love one head duck and smile at a time" gif sets) so it's hard to pick an exact episode. Definitely by Out of Mind/Into the Fire but she didn’t realized it/admitted it to herself until A Hundred Days.

Jack fell harder and faster but refused to realize it because he thought Sam was unobtainable and deserved better. I'd say he started having feelings more than a crush around Jolinar and finally realized he loved her sometime after POV (maybe around Netu).

Ok now the longer (much longer) answer below the cut!

Jack was a goner even if he didn’t know it from the moment Sam challenged him to an arm wrestle. He developed a crush pretty quickly and definitely had thoughts about things…

Cue the adorable flirting and looks. Jack likes to make Sam smile and their unspoken communication is a love language in and of itself. There are too many instances to point out but you can check out my gif sets for some examples.

I’d say his crush starts to develop into actual feelings probably around the time of Jolinar. He stops calling her “Sam” after Serpent’s Song to try and create some sort of emotional distance. We all know how that didn’t work and “Carter” became just as much a term of endearment, but it at least provided the illusion of a purely professional relationship.

He’s content with the small stolen moments because he thinks she’s unobtainable and frankly deserves better. She’s a young, brilliant, gorgeous badass while he’s just...Jack.

I think this changes after POV. Yes, he still thinks she’s way out of his league, but this is the second alternate reality they’ve encountered where they’ve ended up together and not just together but engaged/married. Those other Jacks apparently did something right that convinced their Sams to say yes and they couldn’t have been too much different than him, could they? He allows himself to dwell in the possibility, but he still questions if this Sam—his Sam—could feel the same way.

They go to hell and back to save Dad and then comes A Hundred Days. I hate that it’s never addressed on screen, but I like to believe that somewhere between Shades of Grey and Crystal Skull, Jack gets the full picture of the lengths Sam went to when he was stranded. How could he not admit to himself that he loves this woman who literally defied the laws of physics to save him. And maybe, just maybe, she feels the same way—which brings us to Nemesis and the first invitation to go fishing.

Ok let’s take a step back a moment and get caught up with Sam.

She also develops a crush early on as she learns that there’s more to Jack under the rough exterior. You know that she’s read his file and no doubt she had some preconceptions evident by the way she came guns a blazing during the first briefing. However, the more she's around him, the more she realizes that he is as gentle with what/who he cares about as he is dangerous to those who dare threaten what he cares about. He loves and protects with the same fierceness.

Also c’mon how can you not fall in love with a man who’s as good with kids and dogs as Jack.

I do think Sam fell first but he’s still her CO and it’s not like she can do anything about it, so she avoids facing it. I can’t pinpoint down a specific episode because I think it was definitely a gradual thing which made it easier to bury. But in my opinion, she’s definitely in love by Out of Mind/Into the Fire. (Even if she wasn’t defying orders, she goes straight to find him even though as far as she knows he’s a Goa’uld!) She wouldn’t admit it to herself at this point and maybe didn’t even realize it. Regardless, there’s no running away from it in A Hundred Days.

She’s understandably hurt at the end of that episode and then of course comes Shades of Grey. Sam’s face when Jack tells her that he hasn’t been acting like himself since he met her…and then later he elects to go back to the planet she just spent every waking moment for 3+ months trying to bring him home from…🥺. Even though she knows he was playing a role, I can only imagine that a part of her is left to wonder how much of it might be true.

Ok that brings us back to Nemesis. By this point, both have realized that they love the other person. Jack thinks Sam might feel the same way. They’ve mostly patched things up post-Shades of Grey (enough to work together at least), but Sam still has some doubts.

Now imagine Jack trying to work up the nerve to ask her to come to his cabin with him. He stops to check on Daniel in the infirmary first and throws out the idea—maybe she’ll go if Daniel goes. When it’s obvious Daniel better listen to the Doc, he heads out. Entering the elevator, his finger hovers over the buttons until finally he pushes “19” and finds himself shielding his eyes from the sparks as he enters her lab.

Invitation is offered. However, she doesn’t catch on. Gah why am I so bad at this? he thinks.

She hesitates. He quickly brushes it off trying to save face. Maybe he read too much into it. Must. Escape. Now.

Jack is actually really kind of bummed. If you look closely when he’s leaving her lab, he has this little quirk with his mouth thinking “well that didn’t go as planned.” Sam was genuinely surprised. She kicks herself for hesitating and making him think she’s completely opposed to the idea so she runs after him.

You can feel the emotions in their looks in the hallway. He makes one final attempt. She really wants to say yes but just can’t seem to take the final step. Then he gets beamed away, they save the world, and now fast forward to Small Victories.

Ok…now SOMETHING happened on P4X-234. How much exactly idk but something happened on that planet and there’s a very noticeable shift. Just look at how comfortable and flirty they are compared to the scene in Nemesis.

No hesitancy from Sam. No disappointment from Jack. No feelings of potential regret or uncertainty. Just flirty looks and smiles.

At the very least, they’ve acknowledged that they like each other more than they’re supposed to. They’ve just saved the world for like the third time, but who’s counting—Teal’c that’s who—and now have to wait out a return home. Eventually, Jack realizes that it may not be Minnesota, but he kind of got his vacation with Sam where there are no doohickeys or end of the world crises to distract her. It’s just them and their oh-so-knowing observant Jaffa friend who occasionally makes himself scarce.

It’s nice and peaceful on the planet where they can just enjoy each other’s company away from the reminders of the war they’re fighting. They’re surprised that it comes easy and natural. At some point they have a conversation of sorts about how one day when the world doesn’t need saving from bugs and snakes, that maybe life could look a lot like this. They go home with the hope and promise of some day in their hearts and for now that is enough.

Then Anise arrives with those damn armbands and we have the point of no return. They're faced with fact that some day may never come. I know D&C is where we get as close to a verbal love confession from Jack, but if you ask me—which you sort of did—they had already confessed their love to each other on opposite sides of that force field. For two people whose non-verbal communication means everything, those looks say everything.

How Sam ever decided to listen to her concussed self that this man doesn’t have feelings for her is beyond me but that’s a rant for another day.

This turned out a lot longer than I intended, but I just love talking about these two. Thanks for the ask! 😊

[buckyownsmylife]

plagiarism and bullying

I am not sure how much readers of this community know about what’s been happening, but I know pretty much anyone who writes has been going through hell the last couple of months because of authors who have grown too big for their own heads - and have effectively managed to poison the entire community with their behavior, which is precisely what I feared.

And I am sick of it.

I am sick of what can only be described as psychological and emotional harrassment, done privately so people feel isolated and scared to post anything.

I am sick of people thinking they own tropes, alternate universes, clichés, pairings, characters, even GENERAL PLOT POINTS that no one can possibly possess and take ownership of.

I am sick of these same people being the ones who can’t see an idea being thrown in front of them before attaching themselves to it until the original author is forced to pull back on something they’ve been working on because this other person who they considered a friend posted it before (oh yeah. I know all about those of you who are calling out people as plagiarists while stealing WIPs from your friends).

So let me give it to you straight - and this is coming from someone who is actually a victim of plagiarism myself.

Every time one of you points a finger at someone else and shames them privately or even attacks them publicly for writing a story that has the same generic set-up (Steve finds your fanfiction, Bucky loses himself to the Winter Soldier, reader needs to be rescued by one of the supersoldiers) you’re doing all of the people in this community a disfavor, by 1. making everyone scared of publishing anything, because the entitlement for the littlelest things seems vindicated now and 2. you’re taking away from actual instances of plagiarism and authors who are having their entire works stolen.

Think of it this way: can I feel entitled to the concept of sex pollen? only one bed? in vino veritas? why can I feel entitled to this concept that I apparently came up with but that can be rewritten in a thousand different ways?

If someone else can take that generic summary and run with it in a way that’s their own, YOU WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO TRADEMARK IT. It ISN’T an instance of intellectual property and it most definitely isn’t plagiarism.

You all have common sense. Use it. It’s one thing to copy an entire premise of a series, keep the same AU and character and change the lines of dialogue. It’s an entire different thing to create your own stepfather Bucky series, or mobster Steve series, or Alpha all of Chris’ characters (here, have one of “my own” ideas), with your own premise, your own ideas for each chapter and the other details of their relationship with the reader.

Or are you telling me from now on, there can be no more alpha!Bucky’s heat taking over him suddenly, Steve and Reader have to share a bed on a mission, stories with reader, charles and lee as a pairing or any other unusual one? Is that what we really want? To be the only suppliers of a certain trope, pairing or au? Can you see how your ego is affecting the entire fanfiction community hee on tumblr? Why authors are giving up on providing their fictional universes to welcome us into after a lousy day?

If your work inspired someone else’s, there’s a simple way to resolve it: reach out to the writer, confirm it was actually inspired by yours and ask them to give you credit. Credit is the actual solution for works that have been inspired by other works, but not bullying, not threats, not forcing someone to delete their own versions of a story we’re all actually sharing because bottom-line? We are all stealing Marvel’s characters and placing them on Shakespeare’s plot lines and the only thing we can do about it is add our porn and our own personal interpretations, imagination and developments.

And that means, of course: writers, if your story was inspired by someone else’s, please give them the proper credit. As I’m sure you’re aware, we are very quick to identify when something is similar to our creations, and it’s a fucking awful feeling. It’s what created this whole witch hunt over plagiarism in the first place, but while in 8/10 cases it isn’t actually plagiarism, it fucking sucks and it could have been easily prevented when it was just a matter of recognizing you aren’t the seventh wonder of the universe and actually got the inspiration to write that story from someone else.

In the same way, DON’T STEAL PEOPLE’S IDEAS WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT THEM. And no, THAT’S NOT PLAGIARISM either, it’s just common decency. They might even be okay with you writing the same idea, but it’s always nice to let them know and give them credit. Especially if it’s someone you consider a friend, but even more so if it’s something you saw as a snippet of a WIP on your timeline (as a general rule, I wouldn’t work on anything I thought intriguing only after I saw someone else was writing it).

And finally, still keeping that other point in mind: you don’t have the right to stop someone from working on something similar to what you’re writing. Can you imagine how many people are writing, at this exact moment, stories with the same premise? Of course, once it’s out, there’s a high chance the projects will be completely different, since each writer made it their own. I am willing to bet most of them didn’t copy from one another, they just happened to be interested in the same things - which is often the case here, prevented you aren’t an asshole that does what I described in the last paragraph.

I don’t know about you guys, but I am excited to read more stories about magical boading schools and I definitely hope J.K. Rowling won’t stop me from getting that.

Similarly, I beg you. You want to write your mafia!andy series? Please, do. The world needs your story. Just make sure it truly is your story that you’re telling.

tl;dr: plagiarism is a real issue, but never an excuse to bully people and traumatize them from writing. Writers, learn the difference between plagiarism and inspiration. If you do think it’s actual plagiarism you’re working with, please follow the following steps:

Before accusing anyone from plagiarism:

1. Actually talk to them without threatening or manipulating them so you can understand what happened and let them know how you feel. 80% of the times they’ll apologize and give you credit for it. 

2. Unless you’re the reincarnation of William Shakespeare (and so being, you have the rights to all of the tropes and plot twists created in modern literature. go you!) - and prevented the “plagiarism” isn’t so obviously truly plagiarism, that it can be proven with two screenshots placed side by side - talk to someone unbiased who will tell you if what you think was stolen was actually stolen. There’s a good chance you’re being delusional and thinking the entire world is aware of your stories and looking forward to take advantage of your hard work on them.

A good rule of thumb? Don’t do to others what you don’t wish would be done to you, and make sure to apply that rule to the way you approach the situation and treat the person you were so quick to consider a villain. I’ve yet to see (in this community, since I got here) a situation where the writer accused of plagiarism when confronted has been anything other than kind and remorseful, ready to remedy the situation once it’s been brought to their attention.

If you’re so certain of being right, there’s literally no reason to be aggressive to someone who’s not treating you rudely.

[astaroth1357]

The Brothers Have Been Multiplied!!!

Lucifer

Look. In his day-to-day life, Lucifer has always had to struggle with being one of, if not the only, capable person in the room. His brothers don't always try to help him and even if they do their help may just make things worse…

So this should be a dream come true right? Not only does he have competent help, they'll all also himself! Who better to trust his more difficult tasks to, right? Right??

Well… wrong. Unfortunately for as much as Lucifer is, there is one thing Lucifer and his clones just aren't… Good minions.

Complain as he might about his brothers, they know who's in charge. As it turns out five Lucifers in a room can only screw in a lightbulb after they agree on who's giving the orders and being the "original" means nothing at all!

Poor MC gets saddled with mediating the most confusing squabbles in their life between Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer, Lucifer, and OG Lucifer (the name dubbed to him by Levi)

So aside from this being a trainwreck for anyone not named Diavolo (who's thrilled to have so many Lucifers to talk to!), it's also a headache for himself too!

The next week is spent with Lucifer literally arguing with himself over who's doing what while the brothers all cower in their rooms to keep from incurring their wrath… Five angry Lucifers is a sentence for certain death, somebody hide Mammon…

Mammon

Lucifer's worst nightmare has been realized… Not only does he live in a world with one Mammon, now there's five! Five!!! Five Mammons!! The world isn't ready for this, no one is!

Of course, a pack of Mammons absolutely get into as much trouble as you think they would. The moment he realized there was more of him, the secondborn was already scheming up what kind of ploys he could pull off with five of himself...

Barbatos is upping the Castle security as we speak...

To his credit, you can't say that the Mammon-squad doesn't have hustle either. It may be either a blessing or a curse to go to five different stores and see a Mammon working there all at the same time, depending on your preference.

(Unfortunately for the brother and anyone with pickpocket-able wallets, it's mostly a curse).

Honestly, the biggest downside for poor MC is that they're all. so. clingy!!

If the MC wants even a minute to themselves, they'll be swatting away Mammon's like a swarm of mosquitos! Better learn an invisibility spell quick, or else their greedy companions will never, ever leave…

Leviathan 

Holy cow, it's a gamer's dream come true!! Screw underwhelming AI and goodbye unreliable party members, he has all the team he needs right here!! They should go national or even pro!!!

Ah yes, Levi was truly elated for like, a couple days over this development. Why shouldn't he be? Having a whole herd of himself was a blast!

They're all great at gaming, they like the same things, they dislike the same stuff, and (most importantly) he's not any better or worse than any one of them! There’s nothing to get jealous over, right?

Well slap a big fat wrong on that because there's one thing to always get jealous over and their name is MC!

MC could come home from class one day to find five Levi's all wanting them to do five different things and NO THEY'RE NOT SHARING-

Unfortunately for Levi, the poor guy is so prone to jealousy that he can't even cope with it when he's jealous of himself…

It is at least a little entertaining to watch a pile of otakus fight themselves, it's kind of like watching a deadly game of high-stakes LARP-ing. Just less imaginary spells and more giant sea monsters popping out of nowhere… Someone grab some sponges…

Satan

Which is more likely to rule the world, one Solomon or five Satans...?

Having five Satans around is kind of terrifying… Just one can scheme up a storm and cause a lot of damage so add on four others and you got a recipe for a bad time… 

If you're Lucifer, anyway.

In truth, the band of Satans are all about as independent as their original counterpart, so they don't often do things together as a group.

This can create a lot of deja vu scenarios where the MC will swear they've already passed by a Satan in the hallway… like three times.

Unfortunately they also get the urge for affection around the same time, so the MC may go a whole day without seeing them then suddenly get surrounded by needy and bickering Satans at all sides...

When the pack does work together, however, they're a well-oiled machine. Capable, logical, practical: basically everything the Lucfier-squad wish they could be without all the pesky pride in the way!

… until someone ticks them off and they become their own angry mob, but hey, still better than a pack of Mammons.

Asmodeus 

… We all know an orgy is happening right? Like, it may not be the first thing he thinks of, but it's on the list. He'd never pass up the chance to selfcest when possible. Never.

That being said, the Asmos actually get sick of each other surprisingly quickly… Only a few days in and they'll be squabbling like crazy!

Why you might ask? Well not for any particular character flaw or anything - it actually boils down to the clothes… and makeup… and face… and attitude... and-

Basically, how in Diavolo's Hell is he supposed to stand out as the world's most singularly beautiful creature if there are FOUR OTHERS that keep stealing his style?? It's a nightmare!!

It didn't take long for the Asmos to start trying to find their own, completely distinct identities like Goth Asmo, Sporty Asmo, Hipster Asmo, etc… All claiming to be WAY better than the original, of course.

As entertaining as it may be to see a bunch of Asmos go through an identity crisis, he wants them GONE and he wants them gone NOW!! He's blowing up Solomon's phone every hour of the day until it gets fixed so better sit tight for a while…

Beelzebub 

You know, this is actually one of those, "Worst Case Scenarios" that Lucifer and Dia drew up shortly after they had their Fall: what does one do with five Beels exactly...?

You can't possibly feed them all, at least not all at once… and letting any one get too hungry is asking for trouble.

Do you let them run through the city streets and chomp up its citizens like a game of Pacman? Scatter them to other realms and hope that they don't do a ton of damage? Pit them against each other in "There-Can-Only-Be-One"-style gladiatorial combat?? 

Well… there isn't really a good solution. Food is still a finite resource but the Beels TRY to be understanding and TRY not to push their luck at mealtime...

It has varying degrees of success, but hey, it's sweet that they're even trying...

Aside from the ever-present threat of being eaten out of House and realm, everybody kind of likes having so many Beels around. They're easy-going and helpful, which generally makes life easier for everyone and like… it's Beel. Who doesn't like hanging out with Beel?

The Beels even get along with each other so they regularly go to the gym and games together. Though it’s not super sportsmanly to switch out Beels between quarters in fangol, it's not technically against any rules either so the past few games have gone very well! (It's he'll, who even reads the rulebook anyway?)

Belphegor 

It actually took a little while to notice that there were even two Belphies, let alone five…

MC would walk into a room and see a Belphie sleeping on the couch. Perfectly normal.

Then, they'd go into another a few minutes later to see Belphie napping a chair… A little off, but still okay.

Well sure, but in the next room he's also apparently on the floor too and….

Wait a minute.

Turns out five Belphies is either a breeze to deal with or absolute hell and there's no in between.

If they're all asleep, things are fine. Just artfully pile them on top of each other like dead bodies in a stealth game and move on.

If they're awake, then there's just way too much Belphie! And they play off each other in just the worse ways… The Anti-Lucifer League has never been so active, much to his brother's dismay...

This can be mitigated slightly by pawning a few off on Beel (who is more than happy to mind his duplicated twin) but that solution doesn't work forever… 

Moreover, the MC can't sleep anywhere without them all gravitating towards them so even the shortest nap results in waking up under a dogpile of cow-men… It's a wonder they don't suffocate...

[edgy-ella]

PlayStation, Xbox, and especially PC gamers have complained for years that Nintendo consoles don’t push for state of the art specs, most notably with their graphics. Remember when that one Mortal Kombat game was ported to Switch and people wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it?

Let’s be real for a second, though. Johnny Cage might look better giving the bird on the PS5 than on the Switch, but does that really matter when the actual gameplay looks like this?

Most of the time, you’ll find that the folks that complain about Nintendo games having subpar graphics are the same ones that cry the loudest for Nintendo to port their games to other consoles and/or PC. That’s because even though these games may not have the same graphical fidelity that a more powerful machine can render, they’re still good games.

Nintendo games are built with Nintendo consoles in mind, the same as PlayStation and Xbox games are built with their consoles in mind. But while Nintendo almost always emphasizes new ways to play and interact with games on their systems, Xbox and especially PlayStation focus more on performance and visuals. There’s a reason that every PlayStation is a numbered upgrade, while almost all of Nintendo’s consoles have unique names. The only one of their 3D home consoles that’s a direct “sequel” to its predecessor is the Wii U, a system that bombed badly.

Sony’s focus on more powerful graphics for the PS5 in particular has really come to bite them in the ass because they’ve hit a sort of tech ceiling. PlayStation games are built with the PlayStation in mind, so they want to show off the most of what their system can do. That means pushing for the best graphics possible. The problem is that modeling, rendering, and animating for a game on that scale is really expensive and, more importantly, takes a lot of time. Most developers simply don’t have the resources or desire to work on a game like that, and Sony has been hostile towards devs that want to publish smaller scale games on their systems. What about the developers that do want to make the plunge, though? What happens when those games when they fail?

Concord is a textbook example of this. It looks pretty, but everyone instantly wrote it off as a poor man’s Overwatch clone. Or perhaps more fittingly, a rich man’s Overwatch clone, because the game cost $60 on release in a genre full of free to plays. Oops.

If you think Concord bombing isn’t the end of the world for Sony, you’d be dead wrong. Apparently the game was internally referred to as the “future of PlayStation” (I get the vibe they wanted it to be what Halo was for Xbox) and cost $400 million to make. That’s insane. For context, Final Fantasy VII Remake reportedly cost $200 million to make, half of Concord’s budget. So did Inside Out 2 and Deadpool & Wolverine, the two highest grossing summer blockbusters of the year. The highest estimate I can find on the budget of Breath of the Wild, a game similarly plagued by delays and development hell, is $120 million.

So it’s kind of embarrassing that Concord couldn’t even sell half a million copies before Sony pulled the plug on the game’s servers.

Games are not movies. They’re interactive media. You can doll them up and make them as pretty and lifelike as you want them to, but if the controls suck or the combat is tedious or it’s just plain boring to play, that’s the part of it that’s gonna stick with you.

The great irony with Sony really emphasizing for stronger and stronger graphics is that despite all the sweaty nerds bitching and moaning about the Switch having the specs of a glorified iPad, when you look at Nintendo games made with Nintendo systems in mind, I don’t think anyone would dare say that any of them are ugly.

Literally the only exception I can think of is Pokémon, and that’s because poor Game Freak is consistently put under a time crunch to meet merch demands.

I also find it really ironic that PC gamers are often the ones to push for the best graphics possible, because in my opinion, graphics on PC games should matter the least.

The thing about computers is that unlike consoles, nothing’s universal. They’re all going to have different processors and graphics cards. I have a gaming PC, but it’s an old hand-me-down laptop from a friend with a broken keyboard and no battery. I have to plug in a USB keyboard just to log into the thing. It’s heavy and it’s awkward to set up. It’s also the first true gaming PC I’ve ever owned—before I got this one, I simply couldn’t play more graphically powerful PC games because I didn’t have anything to play them on. A friend of mine tried to get me to play Valorant on my shitty Lenovo when the game first came out, and the poor thing just about spontaneously combusted.

Conversely, a few months ago my friends convinced me to get Lethal Company, and imma be real with you, it’s an ugly game. It’s hard to do it justice with these screenshots I stole from the internet, but the pixel quality is just generally kinda shit, which ends up making everything else look worse.

But the thing is that I don’t really care if the game looks like ass because it actually runs well on my casual laptop. I don’t have to go and set up my Gamer Laptop™ to play it. I can’t emphasize how important that is for a PC game, especially one with such a high emphasis on multiplayer. Since it’s not graphically demanding on the system, it means that more people will be able to play and enjoy it regardless of their computer’s power.

If the indie boom of the 2010s is a lesson of anything, it should be that graphics should focus more on stylization rather than realism. Games like Undertale and Shovel Knight helped revive pixel art right when it was on the verge of going extinct. Other games like Limbo lived entirely through being stylish and distinct while not being graphically intense. Personally, I think Minecraft is another game that’s really ugly (which does hamper my enjoyment of the game as a whole), but it’s got a defined style to it, and for a lot of people it’s super charming. It also directly ties into how the game plays. And clearly it’s doing something right, since it’s the bestselling game of all time.

You wanna know another game I initially thought was ugly as sin when I first saw it that’ll probably surprise you if you follow me? Five Nights at Freddy’s. My first exposure to the game, before knowing literally anything else about it, was seeing deviantART badges of jumpscare frames and the Celebrate! poster from the office. And I’m not kidding when I say my first impression was “What is this? Some old PC edutainment game from the 90s? Furries will eat up anything.” Then I played the game at a friend’s house and suddenly it all clicked. I think the “edutainment” vibe I got from the graphics helps add to FNAF 1’s tone; not only is this a haunted Chuck E. Cheese in universe, but it also feels like a Chuck E. Cheese tie in game. It’s easy to picture a game with the same art style and models where you help Freddy make a pizza by solving math problems or something. So the fact that it’s not that makes it more unsettling without needing to push for realistic gore.

Graphics are important in a sense that they should effectively convey what’s going on ingame at any given time, but a game doesn’t need good graphics to be a good game. In the last decade or so, we’ve seen the opposite to be the case. That’s not to say a game can’t be pretty, but if you’re going to judge a game based on how the characters look in cutscenes as opposed to how the game, y’know, plays, you should probably get your priorities in check Concordingly.

[xb-squaredx]

The Bittersweet Taste of Bayonetta 3

PlatinumGames is among my favorite developers out there. Rising from the ashes of Capcom’s Clover studio, they are on my short list of developers that make amazing games that really resonate with me. Their games are quirky, often mechanically deep and a bit unwieldy. They’ve managed to carve out a cult following over the years, and by far their most infamous series has been the stylish action of Bayonetta. In 2017 Bayonetta 3 was announced but as the years passed with no news, many grew nervous. Platinum’s output since then has been quite inconsistent, and earlier this year they released Babylon’s Fall, a game that didn’t crash and burn so much as spontaneously combust before it ever got off the ground. There’s this cautious air around Bayonetta 3’s release; it isn’t enough to just be a good game in its own right, but many feel that Platinum’s future rides on it succeeding. In the weeks before the game released, the game became the catalyst for a discussion on properly compensating voice talent. Bayonetta’s original voice, Hellena Taylor, called for a boycott, claiming she wasn’t offered a fair wage, though later information would imply she was omitting information to make her case look better. Regardless, the air around Bayonetta 3 wasn’t all that positive and I’m sorry to say that, after having gone through the game, I find it didn’t come out the other side smelling like roses. Bayonetta 3 is a very interesting game to talk about, for a variety of reasons both quite positive…and unfortunately very negative. One of my most anticipated games of this year, it has given me some mixed feelings and leaves a bittersweet taste in my mouth.

ENTER THE BAYO VERSE

After two games where Bayonetta has taken on the legions of heaven and hell and taken on a few gods, there’s really only so much the series can do to raise the stakes. The game opens with the introduction of our main threat: Singularity. A being so strong it threatens not just the universe, but the entire multiverse. As Singularity consumes one unlucky world, a young woman named Viola just barely escapes, traveling to another universe and enlisting the help of Bayonetta to stop Singularity and save all of reality before there’s nothing left. There’s definitely a more dire tone to a lot of the game, as we can see firsthand the destruction of Singularity’s forces, with Bayonetta and company being pushed to the limit to save the day. Of course, there’s still plenty of fun, campy moments throughout, like impromptu dance offs, a demonic concert (complete with glow sticks!) and more than a fair share of tasteful nudity and the sensual style that has made the series infamous. The opening prologue level certainly hits a lot of the same beats from past entries; Bayonetta’s living it up in town, something goes wrong, Enzo is made a fool, and she beats up some basic enemies while taking her clothes off and eventually showing off some fantastic new guns. Viola serves as a pretty interesting foil to Bayonetta at the start as well; despite putting on a cool front, she’s clumsy and goofy, frequently at odds with Bayonetta as she struts about with all of the confidence of a seasoned Umbran Witch. With the titular witch taking on a bit of a mentor role, it’s a decent starting point for another adventure. The promise of interacting with different variations of our heroine as they jump from world to world also just seems rife with possibilities. That said, this strong start can’t quite hide the game’s frequent rough edges in the presentation.

As the Switch gets on in years, the lacking quality of its hardware only becomes more apparent, with even Nintendo’s own first party offerings often having to make sacrifices to run on what is ostensibily an outdated smartphone. The Bayonetta series has never really been a graphical showcase, though there’s aspects of 3 that definitely feel more than a bit dated, even going back to the original game’s release during the seventh console generation. NPC character models look and animate quite stiffly and environments are often extremely empty and lacking in high-quality textures. Sadly the game’s performance follows suit, being a bit of a downgrade from even the previous entry on the Wii U. The game targets 60 FPS but often is somewhere closer to the 40s or 50s, with occasional dips below that in more hectic moments. Now, I’ll be the first to admit I’m not the most sensitive to this stuff and it never really impacted my gameplay, at least to a degree I was consciously aware of it, but it is a shame the game can’t give more consistent results.

(source: Eurogamer )

I do find the game is smooth enough most of the time, and it’s clear Platinum brought their A-game when it came to the overall presentation despite all of this. Cutscenes are still directed with that manic energy that makes Platinum’s titles such a joy to experience. Bayonetta herself, and most of her enemies, are animated extremely well, with tons of personality oozing out of many attacks and even idle animations. The menus are a bit sleeker than past entries and generally things are as seamless and smooth as could be when getting into and out of combat encounters. There’s a lot less of the stop-motion cutscenes in this game as well, which helps the overall story feel a bit more high budget and consistent. Music is also pretty consistently great. From the eerie, ethereal music often accompanying Singularity’s minions, to the peppy battle themes accompanying Bayonetta and Viola’s various scraps, there’s a lot to like. One of the real highlights would be “Fertile Rondo,” an operatic jam that doubles as a huge reference to The Fifth Element.  

Voice acting also remains generally strong throughout, with returning actors like Yuri Lowenthal, Grey DeLisle, and Dave Fennoy feeling right at home with Luka, Jeanne and Rodin respectively. I have to really credit the amount of charm Anna Brisbin gives to Viola, and overall the character made a good impression on me. Of course, this also means I have to touch on the controversy with Bayonetta’s voice change. Taylor’s take on the character was great, and regardless of who replaced her, it was always going to be a bit awkward, but Jennifer Hale is a pretty good get in that case. A veteran in voice over, Hale’s credits are numerous and should honestly speak for themselves, and I would say she nails this take on Bayonetta, to the point it almost feels like she’s always played the character. There are points she sounds almost uncannily like Taylor, though admittedly it isn’t always consistent. But overall, she embodies the sass and style associated with the character and makes the transition about as flawless as could be hoped for overall.

I have…more things to say regarding the overall story, but we can save that for later. Instead, there is still an underlying action game under all this, so I’d better get to talking about that.

SIZE ISN’T EVERYTHING (BUT IT HELPS)

There’s been a fair bit of escalation throughout the Bayonetta series from game to game. The first title mostly focused on Bayonetta herself beating up hordes of angels, with only occasionally summoning limbs of demons for her Wicked Weave finishing strikes, and often a fun QTE at the end of major encounters to finish off bosses that teased more of the demon. Then in the sequel, Infernal Climax took center stage, where for a brief time ALL of Bayonetta’s attacks summoned demons, and at one point you were even directly controlling the demon Madama Butterfly for part of a boss encounter. But the threat in Bayonetta 3 is so great that summoning the whole demon is both frequent and required to even hope to win. In a bit of a twist on things, the main villainous faction are man-made homunculi, and since they aren’t angelic in nature Bayonetta’s summons have no real desire to help out in battle. Thus, she invokes the Demon Slave ritual to take direct control over them, allowing players to control the demons in real-time. There’s definitely some stipulations though; Demon Slave constantly drains Bayonetta’s magic meter and once emptied you’ll have to wait for it to fill to a certain amount to summon them again. Demons can also eventually turn on Bayonetta and go on a rampage if attacked enough, and perhaps worst of all, Bayonetta is stationary while players are in control of demons, meaning players need to learn the proper time and place to invoke it. Players can equip up to three demons at a time and freely switch between them in combat, in many ways allowing demons to serve as additional weapons to Bayo’s arsenal. Admittedly, some of the demons are a bit unwieldy and require practice to use efficiently, and some are a bit situational, but all of them bring something unique to the table and further expands Bayonetta’s combat options.

One facet I really enjoyed about the game is the Demon Masquerade system. Depending on the weapon equipped, at points Bayonetta can take on a form similar to the demon said weapon is based on, which can drastically change her mobility. With her default guns, Colour My World, she takes on Madama Butterfly’s visage and gains the ability to slowly hover through the air on her wings, while with Gomorrah’s weapon, the massive G-Pillar, she takes on a more feral stance and hops about, with a fast air dash to help her cross gaps quickly. Players also use skill trees for each weapon to unlock more moves in her arsenal that also have her transform to perform them, like powerful crowd-clearing attacks, or the near-universal gap-closer moves that have her home in on the nearest enemy. Demons also have a similar skill tree to enhance their own movesets, and by filling out both you gain one final upgrade that fleshes out each moveset. It’s a bit different from being able to buy moves in Rodin’s shop, but it works well enough as incentive to keep fighting and trying out different weapons.

On that note, Bayonetta 3 has some of the best weapon variety in the entire series, if not THE best. While this game does away with the ability to set weapons on both your hands and feet, thereby reducing the amount of interesting weapon combinations and synergies, this change allowed them to go all-in on some out-there weapons that wouldn’t have worked otherwise. One of my favorites is Abracadabra, a combination of a top hat and cane that allows Bayonetta to moonlight as a magician, allowing her to summon various projectiles out of her hat at random, as well as utilize powerful electric blasts. Or there’s Tartarus, a slow but powerful weapon consisting of thick, stone doors that can plow through enemy attacks, but when opened can summon a variety of weapons, including some powerful gatling guns that rip through targets. I could go on, because there are TONS of weapons in this game with their own quirks and uses, all with their own demon that has their OWN intricacies. Many demons are often large beasts, like the dinosaur-esque Gomorrah, or Baal, a giant toad, but there’s more than a few unique demons like Wartrain Gouon which…is a train. And when you summon it, you have to draw the train tracks and hit attack buttons along the route before the train barrels on through and slams past all in its wake. The sheer options available is amazing, to the point that it’s a tad disappointing you can only have two weapon sets at any time. That said, while weapon variety is great, enemy variety leaves a bit to be desired.

Most of the homunculi enemies suffer from one of two major issues: they have samey designs that keep them from standing out and feeling distinct, or they’re giant enemies that are basically designed purely for demons to rip through their inflated health pools. If you’re someone who ends up hating using demons in combat and would rather ignore it, then have fun chipping away at these damage sponges! Of all of them, the Virga enemy might be the least fun to fight in the game. Basically a giant Wiggler enemy from the Super Mario series, it never stops moving or attacking and often has no reactions to any attacks done to it, making it difficult to get through the fight unscathed. That’s on top of the camera frequently clipping into it and making it almost impossible to see. Really, the camera might be the greatest enemy in the game. Not only does this game employ a “soft-lock” and force Bayonetta to attack whichever enemy has triggered it, but the “hard lock-on” often forces the camera to make strange, sweeping movements, and it isn’t long before that lock-on is broken and you’re forced to do lock-on again. On top of that, enemies break the series tradition of mostly not attacking when off-screen, and won’t hesitate to take potshots at you with little warning. With the combat areas in general much larger to accommodate the demons and large enemies, this can also mean it’s quite easy to lose track of some smaller enemies and be forced to whirl the camera around frantically to find them. After the previous two games had such a tight camera by comparison, this is a bit of a downgrade unfortunately.

Generally, when Bayonetta’s core combat is allowed to shine and it all clicks, it works amazingly well, but sadly there’s even more things inserted into the game in the name of variety that often bogs the entire experience down a bit.

NEW KID ON THE BLOCK

While Bayonetta’s flashy combat is the star of the show for the most part, at various points in the story players will engage with different gameplay styles and different playable characters. This is really nothing new with most games from Platinum, as they love to sneak in schmup sections and setpieces to change things up, though I find that in the case with THIS game…they don’t often land and come across as annoying padding.  There’s multiple instances throughout the game where Bayonetta will ride atop a demon, or players just get to command it directly, which are far more sluggish and unresponsive than in normal gameplay, Demon Slave or otherwise. A good example would be a timed platforming section as you ride atop the flaming spider Phantasmaraneae that is noticeably slower and less agile than when it is used in Demon Slave combos, OR the much faster, responsive Demon Masquerade version of it, complete with an awkward camera that’s often far too close. But then we go bigger with more climactic battles culminating in Bayonetta invoking the Deadly Sin ritual, offering up her own heart to empower demons and allowing them to go even further beyond their original powers. I wouldn’t say these sections are all-together bad, but the variety frequently goes against what I came here for in the first place. I want to play Bayonetta 3 for high-octane action, not weird rail shooters or slow kaiju fighting games and DEFINITELY not rhythm games, but you’re forced to play these if you want to advance through the game. This series is a more arcade-like action title that really tries to get you to replay levels and get better scores, and these sequences are kind of a drag to do again. Had they been their own self-contained chapter, I wouldn’t mind as much, but they’re often at the end of already long chapters and really bring down replays. That said, this game now saves your highest score for each separate Verse of a chapter, and you can pick specific “checkpoints” in a chapter to minimize replays, so it doesn’t sting as much as it could.

That said, it doesn’t stop there. Throughout the game you can play as both Jeanne and newcomer Viola, but sadly there’s a lot to be desired there. In Jeanne’s case, you play through short 2D side-scrolling segments with a focus on stealth as she seeks out a scientist to assist in defeating Singularity. So you have a series that prides itself on cool, kick-ass characters and suddenly force them to hide in vents and do stealth kills to the cannon fodder grunts? Feels more than a bit out of place. Again, these aren’t really BAD…but they’re not that fun and take away from the very first time Jeanne has been playable during the main story, as she’s usually relegated to being an unlockable moveset clone of Bayonetta after you beat the game.

Viola though is where my real disappointments lie. We’ve had different playable characters before, but they’re either near identical to Bayoentta in gameplay (Jeanne and Rosa), or restricted to a separate mode (Rodin and Balder), so Viola being an out-and-out NEW character that’s playable during the main story SHOULD be really interesting but she instead feels half-baked. Armed with a katana, some throwing darts in lieu of a gun, and the demon Cheshire as a familiar, Viola on paper seems like a fun enough alternative to Bayonetta. She’s got some fun, flashy sword combos, and in an interesting twist, when she summons Cheshire to help, she’s free to continue moving around and attacking because Cheshire isn’t under direct player control. It gives her a completely different bareknuckle moveset and feels satisfying on its own. But unfortunately, it becomes clear this game was not designed with her in mind. The bigger enemies are clearly made for the Demon Slave summons to tear through, but Cheshire just doesn’t cut it. He’s often slow and at times actively lofts about and smokes on his pipe rather than attack, leaving Viola to fend for herself. Some friend. Adding to this, Viola’s moveset is decently fleshed out…but it’s still just ONE weapon compared to the plethora of other weapons Bayonetta can mess with. She lacks variety and feels really stale after a bit. With so many weapons in this game, surely they could have spared at least ONE for Viola. But the worst aspect has to be how she activates Witch Time, a core mechanic in these games. Bayonetta dodges attacks to activate it, slowing down time and letting her go to town on the defenseless enemies as a result. Viola meanwhile must parry incoming attacks by blocking, which brings to mind Metal Gear Rising Revengeance, another Platinum title. A couple problems here though: most enemies don’t seem balanced for the parry at all. They either do huge, sweeping attacks that either miss Viola completely, or have ridiculously tight timings to even land the parry in the first place. It’s WAY less forgiving than Bayonetta’s dodge and one optional challenge mission involving you only being able to damage enemies while in Witch Time nearly had me tearing my hair out. Playing as Viola frequently feels like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. Maybe that’s the reason she’s only playable in three of the game’s chapters, falling behind even Jeanne’s side-scrolling missions in frequency. She feels like a last-minute inclusion, despite playing such a big part in the story.

IN CONCLUSION (kind of)

With all I’ve said up until now, I have qualms with some aspects of the core gameplay but I largely had a blast. When the game just lets you focus on fighting, the game is fun and dynamic, with TONS of satisfying tools to learn and master. The game’s larger levels allowed for more downtime as I searched out optional missions or collectibles, and I largely appreciated the change in scope. Some levels left a bit to be desired, feeling more like large boxes than real places, but there are times when the game really shines. The levels taking place in an alternate Egypt are what I wish the entire rest of the game was like. Huge, sprawling locations with tons of secrets tucked away, what felt like small dungeons with some quick puzzles and interesting combat encounters, and probably the best of the Deadly Sin gameplay change ups. I largely enjoyed Bayonetta 3 as an action game, with spectacle that few other series can match. Despite some rough edges in performance and visuals, and some annoying setpieces, it is clear Platinum gave it their all to make a game that attempted to surpass the high expectations of fans. The music goes HARD at times, the story has some real standout moments that I loved, and in a lot of respects this might be the most fun game in the series when you factor it all in. This feels like not just an evolution of the Bayonetta series, but Platinum continuing to tweak and iterate on ideas found in their other titles. The DNA of many of their games exist within this one, serving as a bombastic, content-rich entry that in many ways was well worth the near five-year wait from the initial reveal.

With all that said however, the game’s ending left me extremely conflicted on the entire product, and I want to go into that, but also I’d rather not spoil it for people that might want to go into it themselves. I’ve put my concluding thoughts here ahead of a spoiler-filled section on this ending for that reason. So, overall despite some rough edges, Bayonetta 3 is a high-quality title that stands up with some of Platinum’s greatest….as long as you just completely ignore a terrible ending that feels like they’re trying to torch the franchise and run away.

THE ENDING: MESSY, RUSHED AND UNEXPLAINED

PlatiumGames isn’t really known for their storytelling; they make really fun, goofy action games, and barely anyone really talks about those games’ narrative. So, for anyone that hears Bayonetta 3’s story is bad, it makes sense to think “Well, who cares about story in a Platinum game anyway?” In general, a lot of video games place gameplay over story, so is it really that big of a deal if Bayonetta 3’s story falls flat as long as the gameplay is good? For a lot of people, I’m sure that is enough and I can understand them brushing off complaints. But that isn’t enough for me. Just because this is an action game, I don’t think the story should be half-baked. Plenty of action games, not just from Platinum, manage to strike a better balance, and despite the shortcomings of the previous games in the series, I like the world and characters Platinum have created here. Which is why the ending stung as hard as it did, as it feels almost vindictive towards all that came before, and if that wasn’t the intention, they really botched the execution.

Bayonetta 3 has a lot of great ideas for a fun story, or even a great one. But the problem is that Platinum tried to shove too much into one game, and as a result almost every plot point and bit of narrative potential is wasted. Multiple important details that make the story comprehensible are locked away in character bios that most players aren’t likely to dig through and read. Certain elements of the endgame feel unearned, and the game’s tone changes so often the whiplash is constant and jarring. So, let’s delve into those points one at a time.

I’ll start with the tone. Most of Platinum’s work are over-the-top and not really meant to be taken too seriously. They employ humor throughout the vast majority of their work, they aren’t afraid to blatantly homage things they think are cool and to me they’re at their best when they just have fun with their premise and setting. Bayonetta 3 has a lot of these moments for sure, but they attempt to blend it together with a darker, more dramatic turn and it just does not work at all. The prologue chapter has the entirety of New York flooded, as Singularity begins his assault. The death count alone in this chapter easily eclipses the other two games. Even Enzo, the plucky comic relief, is reduced to tears as his family has seemingly been killed. So when Bayonetta and Rodin are just quipping back and forth it really feels misplaced. Did this game want to be serious, or just as irreverent as past titles? They needed to pick a lane and stick with it. Honestly, I don’t think being more serious fits either Platinum or the Bayonetta series, and if they did want to try to branch out, I think they overcompensated.

(Bayonetta without a confident smirk on her face is just...wrong!)

Bayonetta, much like her predecessor Dante from the Devil May Cry series, is a power fantasy. She’s sexy, she’s powerful, she’s always in control. The draw of these games is seeing her mop the floor with celestial beings without breaking a sweat. So when this game tries to up the ante and establish higher stakes, they really struggle with doing so in a way that feels organic. The game opens with one universe’s Bayonetta being killed by Singularity, which works as a demonstration of the threat he poses. The problem is that this keeps happening throughout the game; every single alternate Bayonetta we encounter gets about five minutes of screentime before being unceremoniously killed in a cutscene where they become uncharacteristically incompetent. No one in this game ever looks behind them. So there’s drama here and the stakes are higher than they’ve ever been, but that comes at the cost of Bayonetta as a character looking less powerful and capable. This dark tone and constant death toll also just kind of spoils all of the fun a multiverse tale like this could have had.

When promotional materials made it clear this was a multiverse story, I was looking forward to all of these various character interactions…so imagine my surprise when there’s not much done with that premise at all. For all of the infinite possibilities that come with bringing a multiverse into your story, all Platinum could seemingly think up was “What if Bayonetta lived in another country?” There’s flashes of interesting elements that never get fleshed out on-screen at all. The Tokyo Bayonetta is a delinquent while the Egyptian Bayonetta is a princess with Jeanne as both her bodyguard and her superior in combat. I did enjoy the Paris Bayonetta sections though. Working with her mother Rosa, they’re a pair of thieves with that world’s Enzo chasing after them as a cop, like Lupin III’s Zenigata. But I wanted MORE of that! The Chinese Bayonetta is a war general who apparently lost her eye in an interesting story…the game has no interest in telling us that story though! They had an opportunity to really shake things up; what if we had a world where Enzo was the one with the magic powers, or one where Bayonetta was a Lumen Sage instead of an Umbran Witch? I also find it odd that while we do get to see some alternate Jeannes and Enzos, we only get one alternate Luka and zero alternate Violas, when having more could have made some interesting contrasts. I could forgive a curbed roster if they did much with them, but the bulk of the game just has us hopping from universe to universe, taking every alternate Bayonetta’s demons and weapons for our own and promptly forgetting about them. The Egyptian Bayonetta has a character arc concerning her lacking confidence and overreliance on Jeanne squeezed into two chapters of the game when that could have been fleshed out over the course of the game instead. With our “prime” Bayonetta serving as a mentor to Viola, it could have been interesting to see multiple Bayonettas attempt to give Viola advice, to showcase how different these alternative selves were, but alas, there was just no time apparently.

Further adding to the missed potential, there is the entire concept of fairies introduced into the series with this game. Now, if they wanted to introduce a new faction I have no real objections. Bayonetta’s already fought angels and demons, and spends the entire game fighting these strange man-made homunculi, so beating up some fae folk isn’t really that big of a stretch…except the game barely touches on them at all. After two games without them being mentioned, suddenly Luka is revealed to be part fairy, and this influence is then retconned to be the reason he became a journalist. Despite the fact that the first game made it clear he was obsessed with “the truth” because he watched his father being torn apart by angels he couldn’t even see so uh…that doesn’t really fit. If this is meant to merely tease them being fleshed out more in a sequel, this really wasn’t the place to do it.

I can’t talk about Luka without touching on the controversial romance subplot with him and Bayonetta. Now, this is controversial for a number of reasons. For one, while Bayonetta did flirt with Luka a fair bit in the first game, they barely interacted at all in the second game or this game for that matter. The chemistry just wasn’t really given time to develop. That’s not even getting into the backlash from the series’ gay fans. Over the years a lot of queer folk have kind of “claimed” Bayonetta as a series, mostly from the game’s constant campy tone, combined with a lot of romantic subtext with Bayonetta and Jeanne. But the backlash goes beyond just a ship they liked not being made canon, but moreso this strange subtext applied to Bayonetta and Luka’s relationship in this game that many feel is at best “bi erasure” and at worst downright homophobic or heteronormative. At various points, Singularity calls Bayonetta “Arch-Eve” and Luka “Arch-Adam” so there’s this idea that they’re like…a universal constant and are destined to be together? This coupled with Jeanne not really getting to do much in this game is viewed as a slap in the face by some fans. I don’t really believe Platinum was intentionally going against their gay fans here, and I do think some fans took their own headcanons a bit too far. I’ve heard some even try to claim that there just was no way straight people could get anything out of the series and uh…yeah I don’t really see that point at all. For my own two cents, I just think this romance was really rushed and should have been fleshed out more throughout the series. Or just have Bayonetta, Jeanne and Luka in one big happy threesome, I don’t know.

All of these rushed plot points and dashed potential end up getting twisted up into a very long, grueling final boss fight where…things just kind of happen suddenly, without any explanation before or after. All of the killed Bayonettas (and Jeannes) are revived…and then disappear again, the game being unclear on if they’re still gone for good or were saved. Two more Bayonettas, each clad in the first and second game’s designs respectively, appear to help out in the final battle, but they also vanish without a trace randomly. Then the final blow is dealt to Singularity and a vortex opens up in the sky at the EXACT moment Bayonetta loses control of her demonic summon. This is all a contrived situation purely to force Luka to save an unconscious Viola as she’s pulled into said vortex, thereby allowing Gomorrah to kill Bayonetta definitively. Luka cradles Bayonetta’s soul as they are both dragged into hell, all while Viola cries out for her mother and father and pounds the ground in frustration. Cue credits. Oh, except for the part where Viola suddenly fights…Dark Eve. A character that isn’t explained in-game at all and is only fleshed out in the character bios that update after the game is beaten. By somehow fighting off this uh…dark amalgamation of all of the other dead Bayonettas…somehow this means Viola has proven she has what it takes to take on the mantle of Bayonetta. We get another stinger where we see she is taking on jobs from Rodin, with the game seemingly setting up that any future Bayonetta games will have her in the starring role. Cue dance party ending!

Where do I begin here? The game’s inability to confirm anything really muddies the waters here and makes the ending come across as more somber than I think was intended. New York seems fine in this stinger, and Enzo’s family is seemingly alive and well…but what of the other worlds? If they’re all back to normal…why isn’t Viola with her real mother and father? On that note, why did the game wait until the exact last second to confirm something most fans guessed before the game even came out? I feel that dragging out Viola’s parentage until the very end of the game did nothing for the story, especially seeing how little Viola really factored into the story at all. Then there’s the ending with her as the new protagonist. The game sets this up as an optimistic passing of the torch but…I just don’t think it’s earned at all. Throughout the entire game Viola is showcased as being a bit of a joke. She never gets to actually defeat anything of real significance, and even in the final battle with Singularity she’s batted away and becomes a liability at the end. Sure, she defeats Dark Eve, but the sudden appearance of this random character the game barely tried setting up undoes any amount of triumph the moment should give the audience. I like Viola, but she isn’t ready to headline this series.

In the time since the game’s release, series creator Hideki Kamiya has commented on the backlash, stating that Platinum hadn’t been as clear with some things as they should have been, and that Bayonetta 4 would address these concerns and criticisms. Of course, there’s the question of if PlatinumGames as a studio will even exist long enough for another game to come out, but assuming that it does happen, I suppose there is a chance they could smooth this all out. Maybe we see that Bayonetta and Luka are living it up in hell, and all of the other universes are fine and dandy. Maybe Jeanne is still around and can help out Viola as she comes into her own. That’s a lot of maybes though, and there’s no guarantee THAT game wouldn’t just drop the ball in its ending too.

A lot of the issues I levy at this game could also apply to the other two games. All three games feature villains with no actual substance to them, with no motives for why they do what they do; they exist to be a big boss fight to cap off an action game. All three games don’t really explain everything as well as they could, with the first two having time-travel nonsense wrapped up in the narrative. I wouldn’t call the stories for the first two games good, and going into this game I didn’t really have high hopes on a good narrative, but I assumed there would at least be a fun one. I think that’s the biggest problem here; the fun is gone. Bayonetta 3 tries to raise the stakes but in the process, it lost a lot of what made the first two games so compelling for people. Yet they try to carry on like everything is fine, with a dance party ending filled to the brim with characters that are, as far as this narrative tells us, dead, and we’re left with a character we barely know headlining the series as everything else fans have come to love about the franchise is long gone. It feels like Platinum saw the ending to Devil May Cry 5 and thought “Hey we can do that too!” except they completely misunderstood why that game’s ending worked as well as it does.

Not to go into it too much, but Devil May Cry as a sister series to Bayonetta has already done the passing of the torch thing, with Dante eventually letting the younger Nero take over. What I think Platinum missed here is that it took Capcom TWO games to fully allow Nero to graduate to the main protagonist role, and even then, I feel like the massive gap between the two games is what allowed fans who previously disliked Nero to eventually cool down and come to accept him. Adding to all this, Nero was at least playable for half of Devil May Cry 4 and roughly half of Devil May Cry 5, whereas Viola gets barely three levels to herself in Bayonetta 3. Even though both Bayonetta 3 and Devil May Cry 5 end with the previous protagonists in Hell, Dante doesn’t seem all that bothered by it and the narrative allows enough wiggle room to bring him back with little trouble. In Bayonetta’s case, her end seems far more permanent. Despite some similarities, the contexts differ dramatically.

I think I’ve gone on long enough here. I really want to stress I didn’t expect to come out of this game feeling as down about it as I did. I heard people not liking the ending, and assumed they were just jaded Bayo/Jeanne shippers…but I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s frustrating, as in some respects I feel like Platinum can and HAS done better. For as silly as it was, The Wonderful 101 had real heart to it, and I think to this day that is the best story Hideki Kamiya has ever written. While Bayonetta 2 didn’t have the best narrative, I think it was an improvement over the first, and humanized Bayonetta a fair bit. My criticisms stem from my desire to see Platinum succeed. I am without a doubt in their corner and want to be excited for their games, and in recent years it’s been hard to be a fan. Astral Chain was pretty interesting, if a bit wonky at points (and also didn’t have the best story), but from 2020 onwards Platinum felt like a shell of their former selves. Using a Kickstarter to port a barely-touched “remaster” of The Wonderful 101, releasing self-published titles like World of Demons on the Apple Arcade and nowhere else, or the ridiculously overpriced schmup that is Sol Cresta. 2022 opened with the disastrous launch of Babylon’s Fall, and now this game, despite delivering on the action, had to stumble so hard at the very end. When they first started their company, co-founder of PlatinumGames, Tatsuya Minami stated that they chose to be named after platinum because “platinum never loses its luster,” and that was their motto for making games. But as 2022 draws to a close, their shine has dulled, and I’m having a hard time coming to terms with that.

Ultimately, that’s just my take on things. I value story a lot, as you can probably tell, so a bad ending for me matters a whole lot more than a lot of Platinum’s audience I’m sure. As I’ve mentioned before, Bayonetta 3 is still a high-quality title when it comes to stylish action, with plenty of fun setpieces, tons of weapons and tools to master, and a presentation that is constrained only by its hardware. I wouldn’t for a second label Bayonetta 3 as a bad game. It’s great, in fact, and one I would recommend to others…I just wish I didn’t have to attach an asterisk to the end of that recommendation. Despite it all, I’m glad this game finally came to fruition and I desperately hope Platinum can regain some of their luster in the years to come.

Until next time.

-B

[marypsue]

for the WIP ask meme, trust that i'm exercising great control in picking only three. i would be so honoured to hear about: 1) circus luna draft 2 2) groundhog day but it's halloween and every time bob newby dies it get faster 3) relativity falls but it’s stranger things. :-) <3

Hello friend! It took me entirely too long to answer this because in between you sending it and me answering it, holiday happened. Whoops. 

1) circus luna draft 2

This is an original fiction project that’s near and dear to my heart, that’s been trapped in the writer equivalent of development hell for over a decade now. It’s almost entirely unrecognisable now from what it started out as, save for the very basics: it’s a Kids On Bikes story where the primary antagonist is an evil, supernatural circus. 

The current elevator pitch for Circus Luna is ‘Stephen King’s IT meets Karyn Kusama and Diablo Cody’s Jennifer’s Body’. The main cast of characters, over the years, has morphed into a group of five friends, who face the circus once as teenagers and then have to face it again as adults, when they’ve all come to doubt what it was they experienced when they were young. I’ve talked a little more about the premise and the characters here and here. There’s also an inspiration tag on my blog, here.

I won’t share a sample, because I’m hoping to publish this professionally someday in the (far distant) future and apparently that can become a Problem if parts that end up in the final draft have already been posted somewhere. But I can promise that it includes: 

growing up queer in a small rural town in the early aughts!

the seductive appeal and selective memory of nostalgia!

emo hair!

the power of cultural narratives to impact our personal lives!

star-crossed, tragic romance!

Halloween vibes!

the painful, difficult, but ultimately rewarding experience of growing up, and how to mourn the things that are naturally and inevitably lost along the way! 

Goffs Vs. Prepz!

the corrosive nature of fear!

having crushes on all your friends!

trains!

BUGSSSSSSSSSS

and, perhaps most importantly: 

the Power of Friendship (and My Chemical Romance)!

2) groundhog day but it's halloween and every time bob newby dies it get faster

This is Exactly What It Says On The Tin! It’s a oneshot in three chapters set during season 2 of Stranger Things, wherein Bob Newby gets trapped in a time loop and somehow has to solve the overarching mystery of s2 using only the information everybody has up to the point where he dies, if he wants to save the people he loves and also himself. And also, he and Joyce and Hopper are all going to get to kiss. 

I don’t know how much of an audience there is out there for Bob Newby-POV adult-monster-hunting-trio fic out there, but hey, I’ve written weirder shit. 

Because I can, here’s a sample:

...

Jim throws the breaker and then hovers while Bob taps through the series of commands and prompts to unlock each of the doors in turn, pacing and scanning the hulking shapes of the boiler and whatever other equipment is stored down here, with the machine gun held at the ready and a scowl on his face. Finally, Bob has to abandon his task to say something. “Would you please pick a spot and stand there? You’re making me nervous.”

“You’re not already nervous?” Jim cracks, with something Bob thinks is trying to become a smile. But he does stop pacing. “Jesus. Forgot. This must all be old hat for you by now.”

“Yeah. But you never really get used to it,” Bob says, turning back to the glowing black screen. Beside him, Jim gives a little huff that might almost be a laugh.

“Got that right.”

They’re both quiet, for a few minutes after that, the only sound in the room the rattle of Bob’s fingers over the keys.

“That’s the exit doors back online,” he says, coming to the end of the string of commands. “Joyce and the kids should start heading out.”

Jim nods. But he doesn’t immediately pass the information along. “You really don’t think we’re gonna get out of here alive. Do you.”

Bob looks at the computer screen to avoid having to look at Jim’s face. “Well, hope springs eternal.” He lets out a long breath, and decides he can afford to offer Jim a little of that hope. “I’ve never had you here with me before. And I’m sure you’re a much better shot than I am.”

Jim’s quiet, for a long moment. When he does speak, it’s into the walkie-talkie. “Newby says to start moving out. Exit doors are online.”

Bob takes that as his cue, and for a few minutes more, the only thing he thinks about is the screen and the keyboard in front of him, turning on sprinklers and setting off alarms to draw the monsters away from Joyce and the kids, based on the directions the doc relays via walkie-talkie. It’s like some kind of video game, trying to control the movement of a bunch of distant characters through a maze full of enemies without getting them killed. Just with impossibly real stakes.

Bob can’t keep the thought from forming in his head, though. “Why are you here? We both want to get Joyce and the kids out of here safe, I’m sure they could use your marksmanship more than I can.”

Jim shrugs, shoulders tight, the smallest possible gesture. “Told you. I know Nancy Wheeler can handle herself. And if you got eaten on the way down here, we’d all be fucked.”

They’re pretty well fucked anyway. And Bob doesn’t get much time alone with Jim like this, not late enough in a loop that he’s earned a little trust. Maybe it’s that. Maybe it’s knowing that, if and when they do loop, Jim won’t remember anything about this conversation. Or maybe it’s just a combination of masochism and morbid curiosity that makes Bob say it. “You’re in love with Joyce, aren’t you.”

Jim whirls to face him, wide-eyed, startled, like he’s just been goosed. He doesn’t say anything, at first, just stares.

When he finally does speak, it sounds strangled. “I’m not enough of a prick to let you get killed just so I’d have a shot at your girl, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Obviously you’re not, or you wouldn’t be here,” Bob points out. “I’m just – trying to figure it out. What I got myself into. What’s going on between you two.”

Jim cracks a humourless grin, at that. “Some puzzles I guess even the Brain can’t solve.”

He turns his back to Bob again, watching the door. Bob thinks the conversation’s over until Jim says, quietly, “You’re good for her. She deserves something, somebody like you in her life. Stable. Sane. Normal.”

“Not so much of any of those anymore, apparently,” Bob half-jokes, half to himself.

Jim goes on like he hasn’t heard. Maybe he hasn’t. “Joyce hasn’t had a lot of good things come her way. I don’t wanna fuck this one up for her.”

“She might want you to,” Bob offers.

Jim looks a little stunned. He doesn’t say anything else.

He doesn’t have time to, either. The strange screeching, rattling cries of the monsters rise from the stairwell, echoing eerily through the metal of the vents and pipes overhead. It sounds like a lot of them. And they’re coming down fast.

Jim doesn’t take his eyes or the machine gun off of the open doorway to the little room they’re in as he barks, “Give me good news, Newby!”

“All the doors are open,” Bob says, turning to look in his direction. “Think you can buy me one more minute to open the front gate for them, too?”

Jim’s face isn’t visible, his back still turned to Bob, but his voice is grim. “I can try.”

3) relativity falls but it’s stranger things

Yet another WIP that’s near and dear to my heart and taking forever to finish! This seems to be a theme. 

This one was inspired by (as you may be able to tell from the file name) the Gravity Falls Relativity Falls AU, where people swapped the ages of the Stan twins and the Mystery Twins, and also various side characters and antagonists. This fic is a Stranger Things season 1 AU where the teens are in the roles of the adults, the adults are in the roles of the kids, and the kids are in the roles of the teens. Nancy’s the Chief of Police with a broken family and a broken heart, Mike’s the loner who gets thrown together with a classmate by the disappearance of a kid, and Karen is the plucky twelve-year-old determined to find her missing friend. 

I’m stuck in the Dreaded Middle at the moment, because shaking up the roles shook up the plot, and I didn’t plan ahead for how to resolve it quite enough. There’s a reason outlining has become my best friend. 

There are a number of samples in my sample tag, but also, since you asked so nicely: 

...

The girl’s eyebrows crumple together and she makes a soft, wordless little noise as Mike and Will lower her carefully down, spread out along the length of the couch. Like it hurts. She’s already bled through the blue strips of bandage that used to be Mike’s t-shirt. Not for the first time, Mike wonders what the hell he thinks he’s doing.

“I’ll – I’ll check on the water,” he says, dropping the girl’s heavy black Doc Marten boots on the arm of the couch. He doesn’t wait for Will to answer, just makes his escape across the room to the kitchen sink. His ears are burning, and he has no idea why.

The taps at the sink refuse to turn, at first. When they finally do, it’s with an ominous creak, and then a slow and rising rumble that makes the faucet shake before it abruptly spits out a clot of slime and rust. The water that comes burbling out after it is brown and freezing cold.

“I forgot,” Mike says, as he rejoins Will by the couch. “This place is on a well. The tapwater might not be any better than the rainwater. Actually, it might be worse. But there were some clean dishtowels in the drawer,” he finishes, offering up the stack, along with the cereal bowl he’d filled with brownish water. “And I think there are still some towels in boxes in the bathroom, so we could dry her off -”

Will, Mike notices, has a smile like a sunbeam. Somehow it makes Mike even more embarrassed of his babbling. “That’s great. Do you think your mom or her uncle would’ve kept any antiseptic and bandages around?”

Mike spends the next – he doesn’t know how long, starting up the cabin’s generator to get the lights on, lighting the cast-iron stove in the corner, running and fetching and washing and applying pressure under Will’s quiet but certain direction. He’s a little amazed by this side of Will. Mike mostly only knows the Will Byers he sees at school or when he has to pick Karen up or drop her off at Joyce’s. The Will Byers with his nose always in a sketchbook or a novel, who lets the bullies push him around with an air of silent exasperation, who rarely if ever talks back or raises his hand in class. Seeing him this confident, this focused, is new. He really seems like he’s in his element.

Mike wonders briefly how Will learned so much about medicine and first aid, and then feels stupid. Of course. He knows Will works, has worked at just about every odd job around town since he was old enough to start. He knows Will was a lifeguard last summer. And – it’s just Will and his dad and his sister, and Will’s dad works odd hours, with the paper, and long ones, at the general store. Will probably cooks, too. And does laundry, and all the other stuff Mike’s dad has somebody come in to take care of.

That thought makes Mike feel incredibly – something. Maybe guilty, though he’s not sure why. He’s got bigger things to worry about right now, though, so he shoves it to the back of his mind.

The girl frowns, and whines, and at one point throws an arm out and smacks Mike hard across the chest, but she doesn’t wake up. Mike presses the inside of one wrist against her damp, pale forehead, under her close-shorn fringe of hair, and starts. “She’s burning up!”

Will glances up from the wound in her side. “Fever’s a bad sign. Can you get a couple of cloths and run them under cold water? One for her forehead, one for the back of her neck.”

Mike comes back with three cloths, and another cereal bowl full of icy wellwater. There’s just something fundamentally – grubby about the girl, now that he’s up close and personal, like she’s been camping for weeks without a proper bath. Mike tells himself it’s important to get her cleaned up to keep her wound from getting infected. But mostly, there’s just not a lot else he can do, other than putting his finger where Will tells him to to hold bandages in place while Will ties them off.

And Mike just thinks that, if it was him who was hurt and hiding out and unconscious at the mercy of a couple of strangers, he’d at least want somebody to clean the smudge of dirt off his chin. And the dried blood from the crevices around his nose. And maybe wipe off some of the black eyeshadow that the rain had melted down his cheeks.

The girl’s face is narrow and sharp, her cheekbones high, the bow of her lips sweet, her lashes dark against her cheeks. When her face screws up in pain, Mike gives one extra, unnecessary brush of the cloth over that cheek, as gently as he can. He doesn’t dare touch her with his bare hands, without the excuse and barrier of the cloth in between them. But he wants to do something to comfort her.

Without the makeup, without the scowl, she looks – so much younger. Almost delicate, despite the hair and the boots and the leather jacket and the tattoo. Almost vulnerable –

The girl’s eyes snap open, and fix on Mike’s.

Mike’s not sure what happens next. One second, he’s kneeling beside the girl, carefully washing grime off her face. The next, his back is smashing into the wall across the room. There’s an ominous rattle, and the mounted deer head high on the wall goes crashing to the floor between his feet. He raises a hand to his spinning, aching head, and tries to focus, to figure out what just happened.

The girl is wedged up against the far arm of the couch, knees tucked tight against her chest like she’s trying to make herself as small as possible. One arm’s flung out in front of her with the palm facing Will and her fingers all splayed, like she’s directing traffic. There’s a bead of blood inching down from her nose, but she doesn’t move to wipe it away. Her eyes are big and furious and scared and flicking back and forth between Mike and Will. If she was a cat, Mike thinks, her back would be up and her ears would be flat against her head.

Her voice is clear and sharp as she demands, “Where am I?”

Will’s got both hands in the air, like the girl had pulled a gun on him. The bowl of water Mike had brought him – which is a pinkish brown now, Mike notices, with a lurch in his stomach – is splashed all over the floor by Will’s knees, slowly soaking into his jeans, but he doesn’t so much as shift away from the slowly-spreading puddle.

“It’s okay,” Mike says, wincing as he starts to straighten up. He’s not sure why the look Will shoots him is so frightened, but then, he’s also not sure how he ended up on the other side of the room. Maybe the girl’s some kind of ninja assassin or something. She doesn’t look strong enough to throw Mike across the room, but – Mike knows maybe better than anybody how appearances can be deceiving.

The girl’s attention snaps to Mike as well, and she whips her arm around so that the palm is facing him instead of Will. Mike stops trying to get up, raising one hand instead in surrender. “It’s all right, okay? We’re not gonna hurt you. And we’re way out in the woods here, nobody’s gonna find you.” He glances down at the girl’s side, where fresh red is starting to seep through the bandages Will had so carefully wrapped. “You should probably lie back down, it looks like you’re opening that back up -”

“I’m leaving,” the girl says. Somehow, she makes it sound like a threat.

“Okay,” Mike says, as she unfolds herself from the couch and takes one uncertain step forward. “Nobody’s stopping you. You don’t have to, though. You’ve got a fever. And a bullet wound. You can stay here until you feel better, Will and I won’t tell -”

“I,” the girl repeats, wobbling and nearly crashing back down onto the couch, “am leaving.”

Will meets Mike’s eyes with a panicked look. Mike’s sure Will can see as clearly as he can that the girl isn’t going to make it more than two more steps before she falls over. But neither of them, Mike thinks, knows what to do about it.

“Who’s after you?” Mike asks. Maybe, if he can keep the girl talking –

She fixes him with a glare. And then flops back, heavily, onto the couch. She looks briefly surprised and indignant, like her own legs have betrayed her, and pushes herself back to her feet, even though she looks even wobblier than before.

“Mike,” Will says, low and urgent and frightened.

“What? You want to know too, right? If they’re the same people who took Joyce -”

“Mike,” Will repeats, with a warning flicker of his eyes in the girl’s direction.

Mike’s getting the feeling he’s missed something. “What?”

“It might be a bad idea to piss her off,” Will hisses at him, still with that pleading, scared look.

Mike pushes himself to his feet. “Yeah, well, murdering bank robber or not, I don’t think she’s in much shape to -”

He doesn’t get the rest of the sentence out. Because the girl glares, and waves a hand. And Mike’s back smashes into the wall again and stays there.

Mike kicks, and struggles, and gasps. But none of it does anything. It’s like there’s a gigantic, invisible hand pressed flat against his chest, squeezing the air out of him, pinning him in place. The girl’s glower turns to a slow, small smile, which is somehow just as ominous, her dark eyes never leaving his.

She lifts her hand a little higher. Mike can feel his windbreaker drag against the wall behind him as his feet leave the ground.

And then the girl’s eyes roll back and she collapses gracelessly backwards across the couch. The invisible hand holding Mike pinned abruptly vanishes, and he drops, hits his feet wrong, and winds up on the floor on his hands and knees, inches from putting an eye out on one of the deer head’s antlers.

For a frozen moment, nobody moves.

“Oh,” Mike says, finally, straightening up with care.

“Yeah,” Will agrees.

They both turn to look at the unconscious girl.

“Well,” Mike says, for lack of anything intelligent to say, “that might be why somebody’s after her.”

...

[ask me about a WIP!]

[westiec]

June 27: Nie Mingjue, ace king

asexual Nie Mingjue, queer Lan Xichen, what even is flirting, rated T

Read on ao3

Contrary to popular (Huaisang's) belief, Nie Mingjue can in fact tell when people are flirting with him.

It's just, well, easier to pretend he doesn't. Nie Mingjue's a big, buff guy, so when he's friendly and affable and cheerfully misinterprets any flirting, then women tend to assume he's gay, and men tend to assume he's straight, and neither is quite right, but either way, he's planted himself solidly in the bro zone once more without any awkward conversations or needing to turn anyone down directly.

Which is why he can't quite figure out Lan Xichen’s deal. He was fairly sure the man was flirting with him when they first met at the gym. (Lan Xichen’s traps and lats, Nie Mingjue will readily admit, are downright enviable. He doesn't need to be interested anyone that way to recognize that.)

Nie Mingjue had expected him to go the way of so many other gym flirtations after a few rounds of his patented cheerfully oblivious act, but Lan Xichen had instead just backed way off the obvious flirting while continuing to extend cheerful overtures, offer to spot his lifts (and then actually do it), and greet him with that same dazzling smile every time they're at the gym at the same time.

"You're sure he's not just flirting more subtly?" Huaisang asks, when Nie Mingjue comes home from the gym once more buzzing with the weird energy working out with Lan Xichen always leaves him. "Some guys like the challenge of pulling a 'straight dude,' you know."

Nie Mingjue shakes his head. He's run into those kind of guys occasionally, and they do get the awkward conversation—and the smile with all the teeth he learned from his one and only ex. (They're still friends. Meng Yao had been great, back when Nie Mingjue was coming to the realization that, no, actually, he wasn't interested in sex with men either.)

"He's not flirting at all anymore," he says. "And you know I can tell. He's just so... intensely friendly."

Huaisang laughs at that, not unkindly. "Well, Da-ge, he just might want to be friends, then. Real friends, not just gym buddies."

Huh. Nie Mingjue had always vaguely wondered how people made friends as adults. Maybe that's it after all.

So the next time they're both at the gym, after they've finished their workouts and chatted through their cooldown stretches and are grabbing their post-grind smoothies—and okay maybe they've developed something of a routine while Nie Mingjue wasn't looking—Nie Mingjue asks, "You hike, right?"

"Sometimes," Lan Xichen replies, like it's not a total non-sequitur to the conversation they've been having about protein supplements. "I haven't been in awhile, but I do enjoy it. You?"

"There's a day hike I've been wanting to do, if you're interested. Huaisang sometimes goes with me, but he declared this one, 'too few birds, too much elevation,' and I was thinking it'd be fun for us to hang out together somewhere besides the gym."

"Somewhere that doesn't smell like sweaty feet, you mean?" Lan Xichen laughs. "I'd like that a lot," he says with one of those wide, warm smiles.

They trade numbers and pick a day and text a great deal over the next couple weeks, and that's how Nie Mingjue finds himself here, taking a hydration break at a scenic overlook halfway back down a mountain with Lan Xichen. It's been honestly perfect. The hike was everything he'd hoped for—great views and a decent athletic challenge—and the company is excellent. He and Lan Xichen match pace easily, chatting about little brothers, cooking mishaps, and a surprise shared love of movie musicals during the less strenuous portions of the climb. He's more relaxed than he can remember being in a long time, right up until Lan Xichen says, "Mingjue, can I ask you something? No wrong answer."

Hell.

He nods for Lan Xichen to go ahead and hopes he's not about to ask what he thinks he's about to ask.

"Am I reading you wrong, or did you mean for this to be a date?" And there it is. "If you did, it's been a great one, it's only... I didn't think you went in for that sort of thing."

He—what?

"What?"

Lan Xichen grins playfully. "Mingjue, I don't know if you've noticed, but you get hit on at the gym, like, a lot." Nie Mingjue raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him, and he laughs. "Yeah, I figured. Anyway, you always turn them down—guys, ladies, whoever—but you've also never mentioned a significant other or anything like that, so I figured you just didn't date. But then it also sometimes feels like you're flirting with me? So, I just wanted to check in. I really enjoy hanging out with you, either way."

That's... okay, that's a lot. Nie Mingjue mentally reviews his interactions with Lan Xichen, today and over the last few months at the gym, and realizes he has been flirting with him. It's apparently easier to recognize in the other direction. "I'm sorry!" he blurts.

"It's not unwelcome," Lan Xichen says, still smiling.

"No, I mean—" Ugh, Awkward Conversation time. "I'm ace. Like, the 'not interested in any kind of sex, with anyone, ever' kind."

"Oh," says Lan Xichen, "cool. Thank you for sharing that with me, Mingjue."

Nie Mingjue shrugs and gestures back towards the path. Lan Xichen falls into step beside him. 'Cool, thanks,' is not the worst reaction he's gotten, Nie Mingjue supposes.

"So not flirting then," Lan Xichen says after awhile with a chuckle. "I can't always tell. Sorry for putting you on the spot."

"No, it's... I was flirting, I think," Nie Mingjue admits. Lan Xichen’s been so honest with him, and he wants to respond in kind. "But I'll cut it out."

Lan Xichen's ears flush red. "I mean, you don't have to," he says. "I like being gym buddies. I've liked texting with you lately. I've really, really liked today. If you wanted to do more of all that, with or without flirting, I'd like that too."

"You'd want to date me," Nie Mingjue clarifies, "even though I just told you I'm not ever gonna want to have sex with you?"

Lan Xichen's lips twitch into one of his sarcastic smiles. "Gosh, Mingjue, everything's not about sex, you know."

Nie Mingjue throws his head back and laughs. "Fine then," he says, "it's a date."

🖤🤍💜

Shoutout to @shadaras for suggesting hiking when I got stuck on a good schroedinger's date activity!

#PrideMonthSnippets Masterpost!

[hmmdelicioussoup]

So I just finished The Lost Book of the White and I really want to talk about Simon.

I’d tried reading this book sometime last year but didn’t really get into. Then after listening to the TMI audiobooks and TFSA I was motivated to try again since I knew it took place after Simon lost George. Second time round I absolutely loved it, Malec, baby Max, Magnus x Ragnor x Catarina friendship, all so good. But Sizzy! My god so so good. Getting to see them finally be together as a couple honestly made me so happy. But despite the happy moments, it’s also occurring during a time when Simon is grieving, and that grief is very fresh. TLBOTW takes place only 4 months after Angels Twice Descending.

So, throughout the whole book I was waiting for Simon to crack. From his first scene in the book it’s mentioned how different he seems.

Magnus says upon the TMI gang arriving at his apartment about Simon:

“…it was obvious [Simon] wasn’t doing well” pg 36

From the start I was strapping myself in for some pain. Even just a couple of pages later Magnus notes that Simon is acting ‘very unlike himself’ pg 39.

Simon has gone through a lot, they all have, but I think it’s different for Simon. Just on the basis that he kind of got dragged into the shadow world. He wasn’t raised in it like Jace, Alec, and Isabelle. It wasn’t his birthright to be a part of it like Clary. He’s had to fight stay beside Clary, to earn the respect of the Shadowhunters who even though they would eventually become his friends, didn’t think much, if anything of him, when they first met him. He had to really fight to show he was worthy of their respect. And he did. He fought beside them, lost beside them, sacrificed himself for them and all the while maintain his morals. I’m not saying he never changed, on the contrary, he developed significantly throughout the series and throughout it all always managed to be the optimistic one. Magnus says of him,

“Through all of it, Magnus had grown impressed with his morale, his willingness to persevere and keep a brave face even when the situation seemed worse than impossible” pg 40

Even knowing all Simon has been through, even Magnus who kind of seemed the least invested in Simon during TMI, expects him to have the same attitude he has always had. They’ve legit been to hell twice now and all seem pretty chill about it. They’re all making jokes, Magnus and Alec get it on basically every time they’re alone lol. I think they feel almost invulnerable. There’s very much this energy of well we’ve survived one hell dimension before, surely we can survive another. But they seem to be forgetting that they very nearly almost didn’t survive Edom. They only got out because of Simon. And I think Simon is painfully aware of this. He’s not one to brag about saving them but he understands maybe better than anyone the risk of having to make sacrifices.

Simon’s truly at his tipping point throughout TLBOTW. Despite all he went through in TMI, mainly with him losing half his memories and as a result losing important pieces of himself, he’s able to find himself again throughout TFSA or at the very least gain some idea of the type of Shadowhunter and person he wants to be. But then he loses George, once again he’s faced with unbearable loss. One as well that didn’t come from noble sacrifice or dying in battle protecting the people you love. George died drinking from the mortal cup and even though he was a good person, even though he was more than worthy, more worthy than Simon according to him, the cup didn’t want him.

“[George] was no different to me. No less worthy of Ascension. If anything, he was more worthy than me.” pg. 283

So when they all travel to Diyu and Simon is taken and tortured by Sammael, and Magnus has been stabbed by Svefnthorn and Isabelle gives herself up to demons, it’s all just reinforcing Simon’s worries about loss and how easy it is to lose what you love. Honestly I am so glad to have content where Simon is appreciated and allowed to show how much he cares and be more than just comic relief.

When they are in the Cathedral and Simons calm finally wavers I was so keen for it. And boi was I not disappointed. We get to really see how Simon is coping, how the loss that made him stronger is now what’s making him fall apart. Everyone else is so shocked and confused by his reaction:

“[Clary] looked wary…“This isn’t like you,”” pg. 282

“….“This isn’t even your first trip to a hell dimension,” Jace pointed out” pg. 282

It really shows how no one expected Simon of all people to be the one to break. It gives the others the chance to crumble a bit too. Isabelle who has always been very noble, always ready to fight, doesn’t know how to answer Simon when he asks how they all keep risking their and their loved ones lives. Before this book we never really got to see how they coped with the trauma they gained from TMI. We saw them in TDA but that was about four (I think?) years later, in the midst of someone else’s story and another fight. (As someone who very much prefers character over plot being able to read moments like this with some of my all time favourite characters really is my favourite thing. Like yes it’s sad as hell but oh isn’t it the best kind?)

Simon needs this moment. They all do. The desperation in Simon’s voice, everyone else’s inability to give him an answer. Because he has a point.

“How do you risk yourself and everyone you love, over and over again?” pg. 284

The Shadowhunter motto is just as much ‘we often die young’, as it is ‘facilus descensus averno’ and George’s death made this painfully clear to Simon. I think that Simon is definitely prepared to risk his own life, we’ve seen him do so many times before, but it’s the risk to the lives of the people he loves that he cannot deal with. The others kind of accept it, they definitely don’t love the idea of it but they know it’s a dangerous job. Both Jace and Alec literally say so.

It’s a moment that makes everyone grateful for their love.

- Clary tells Simon and Isabelle she loves them.

- Jace wraps his arms around her ‘drawing her close’.

- Alec reflects on the choice to love someone.

Writing this is really making me realise that maybe that’s what the whole story is about. Love. They’ve all found their epic loves, their families, they should all be happy. And they are, you don’t go through what they went through and not come out of it happy to still have the people you care about. But with the presence of love now it’s apparent, especially for Simon, that fear of losing it. And while it’s a hard thing to cope with, as Alec and Simon put it:

“That’s being a Shadowhunter,” said Alec.

Simon shook his head, “No, that’s being a person,”