#valen is also hot but ALSO CRIMINALLY BORING!!!!!!

[thirtyskeletons]

typically i try to be contrary and not go for the character everyone bandwagons over right off the bat. however i unfortunately had no other option than to become obsessed with march fieldsofmistria because he’s the only character that has a personality that isn’t just Generically Nice

[fae-fucker]

Zenith: Chapter 13-14

Chapter 13

We’re in yet another flashback/past timeline, 4 years ago from present time and in Dex’s point of view. 

He’s 17, which means he’s 21 in the present, so jot that down. 

Anywhoo, he’s just recently become a Guardian and he’s on his first bounty hunt on some planed called Uulveca, where we all know he found Andi. Apparently, completed bounties mean that he gets to add another star constellation tattoo to his body, which is apparently a status symbol among Guardians ...

That’s inconvenient. What if somebody doesn’t want tattoos? And why constellations (aside from them being appropriately cheesy and deep for Shinsay)? What decides which constellation goes where? Or do you just get to pick randomly? What’s stopping someone from just adding a bunch at random? Will they forcefully remove them? What if they don’t want constellations but something else?

Dex is here to prove himself and catch some dirty dirty criminals. He’s hunting some ... creature, that’s been suspected of doing shady business, but runs into Andi instead as she tries to steal his money.

They have what I can only describe as the most cliché-filled and boring first meeting, complete with rolling around in the mud all sexily while exchanging threatening quips. Whatever you can imagine them saying is probably close enough, so I won’t even show you any of it.

Well, have this, I spose:

Her wrists were wrapped in thick cloth and tied with leather strips. Dark stains, possibly blood, stained the material.

She was too old to be a street rat, and too filthy to be working for a pleasure palace. The palace owners on Uulveca liked to keep their workers clean and enticing.

Dark stains stained the material, huh?

And why do they call it “pleasure palace?” What’s wrong with “brothel?” Too R-rated for you there, Shinsay? I get wanting to come up with your own terms for things but you’re reinventing the wheel here.

Andi reveals that she knows about the guy Dex is hunting, but in return for the information she wants a week’s worth of meals and half of Dex’s money. 

He agrees and says that he’ll kill her if he finds out she’s been lying.

“That’s the funny thing.” She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m already dead.”

In case you didn’t believe me when I said that this while exchange is just a billion clichés slapped together.

Chapter 14

We’re in Androma’s POV, back in the present, and it’s been a day since last time. Andi is annoyed with Dex, and tbh I can’t blame her. He’s apparently been following her around just to annoy her, and this is what he says after checking out Andi’s ... electronic calendar? Which is full of super hot models? 

Fuck, I was going to post the quote here but now I’m just confused by that entire concept.

“So this is what you like, Androma?” he’d asked, waggling his dark brows suggestively. “I guess I understand why you left me.”

WAGGLING HIS DARK BROWS SUGGESTIVELY

You mean like this?

Remember, he’s supposed to be sexy.

Dex wanted to talk at some point, but Andi’s HEART JUST CAN’T HANDLE IT. 

She did try to murder him, but I guess she still loves him and just can’t admit it to herself. 

Andi is planning their approach, I guess, by looking over the planets in the Olen System, where Xen Ptera is.

The Junkyard was the perfect place for the Marauder to disappear.

Well, you’re not wrong.

Gilly was preoccupied with eating a chunk of bread from dinner. If she had the chance, Andi thought, Gilly would eat all our food stores. Andi often wondered if her stomach was a bottomless pit. The thirteen-year-old was growing fast and had an appetite to match her growth spurt.

Thanks for that info, Shinsay. It’s absolutely vital to my understanding of Gilly as a character and the impact of this personality trait on the overall plot.

The ship’s system, Memory, beeped overhead.

WE KNOW WHAT ITS NAME IS. JUST SAY ‘MEMORY’ AND WE’LL GET IT.

It’s like Shinsay believes that the reader is so fucking braindead that they have to remind them where they are every five pages. Then again, you’d have to be to enjoy this book.

[The general had] already rejected several plans, which seemed to defeat the purpose of hiring Andi and her crew to do a job that he lacked the experience to carry out himself.

Andi you dumb bitch.

1. He doesn’t lack experience, he’s a general. You dipshits were chosen to do this not because you were “experienced” (which you very evidently are not), but because you were pirates and supposedly “impartial.”

2. Again, he’s a general. I’m pretty sure he’s rejecting your plans because they’re idiotic, because you’re a bunch of kids playing with guns who don’t know shit about anything, not because he’s just too inexperienced to know better.

3. Though I am going to blame Cortas here, also. The only reason he picked Andi was because she supposedly doesn’t have any affiliation with neither his side nor the side of his enemy. Which means there’s a billion other, more experienced mercenaries out there who could’ve done the same job had he just given them the proper instructions.

4. And why didn’t Cortas give them instructions? Why are they making up plans now instead of right away? None of this makes any damn sense.

5. If he hates Andi so much, and if she killed his daughter, why the fuck is he trusting her to save his son? If he thinks that Andi is an asshole and he was the one who had sentenced her to death, why does he think that she won’t just grab Valen herself and demand a ransom? Or does he think Dex will keep her in check? Is that really a gamble he’d want to make with his son’s life on the table?

6. Why didn’t he just send a few of his own men disguised as a pirate ship? There won’t be any difference once Valen is safe anyway, Xen Ptera will figure out they got into their territory once Valen is back to his father’s side.

Anywho, Dex fucks off and Andi asks why Lira hasn’t been able to keep him occupied like she’d promised to. 

“Dextro is a man with many talents, the most obnoxious of which is that he knows this ship inside and out.”

That’s a talent now, huh? 

I guess Shinsay follow the footsteps of their kween SJM, which means that any basic thing a man does is actually amazing and should be respected as such.

They joke about locking Alfie and Dex away in the “waste bay.”

This was how it should be, just her and the girls making plans to strike it big. Without a self-righteous, Krev-worshipping man on board.

Yeah. Girl power. 

I’m cackling.

This book is peak white feminism.

The Marauder was currently hidden within the large husk of a fallen warship. If anyone happened to come through this area, their ship would easily be mistaken as a piece of the larger one. That had been Lira’s bright idea, and the exterior damage the Marauder had recently sustained was helpful camouflage.

And I guess the fact that y’all are visible through its walls don’t make no difference?

Or is it opaque now that it’s convenient?

And why does this imply that they could only be found visually? How small is this Junkyard that they think people will be able to see them from space. We already know they have scanning and tracking technology, so whether or not they’re visible shouldn’t even matter.

Anywhoo, they go over their vague-ass plan and it’s really boring. Lira isn’t pleased that she won’t get to join Andi and Dex on the actual rescue mission, and Andi is forced to admit that she and Dex work great together.

Because of course.

Andi says that all they need now is a map of the prison, because I guess the prison moon isn’t guarded and has literally zero security measures, since they don’t even mention getting past any of that crap.

Maybe that’s a later stage of the plan, we’ll see.

“I know I’m not the most experienced at this stuff,” Gilly said from across the table as she polished her golden gun, “but it all seems a little too easy. How do you know we can even trust this so-called informant Dex has?”

Gilly? Saying good shit, for once? Unbelievable.

Also WE KNOW HER GUN IS GOLDEN.

They establish that they can’t trust any bitch and luckily, Andi has a backup plan! 

What is the backup plan? 

I have no clue. The chapter ends. 

Thrilling!