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autopotion · 2 years

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It seems like a lot of folks are mixed on BitD's position & effect rules because it can lead to GMs and PCs haggling over dice rolls and it's "metagaming." Now I haven't actually played it, so I might feel differently once it's actually in practice, but IMO that kind of haggling already happens in other tabletop games, just less transparently and more passive aggressively. It's the "are you sure you want to do that?" question. If you're asking your players that, it means the PCs haven't understood the stakes, and you can't more concretely dissuade them from doing so because of the (ostensibly) secretive nature of being a GM. By contrast, in BitD, if a player wanted to do something really absurd and dangerous, I can just tell them "that's a desperate roll with limited/zero effect." The stakes & consequences are immediately clear, codified by the rules so everyone can understand. If the player didn't get it before, they do now, and if they really want to pursue that action anyway they pretty much know what to expect.

That kind of table clarity I find really interesting. Except for some fortune rolls and a few behind-the-scenes progress clocks, GMs share pretty much everything with the table, including mid-score progress clocks (such as "how long until the guards find you").

In other systems, that blatant exposure of the system's internal circuitry would either be frowned upon or outright against the rules. DND for example has a long-established culture of DM secrecy, mostly accidental because of how poorly the system handles communication between the DM and the PCs. It doesn't really teach DMs when they should part the curtain, so most err on the side of mystery (& also to feel an authoritative high; DND also does not have any mechanics that can dissuade draconian DMs from punishing their players for just, like, existing). You don't (or aren't supposed to) tell people the DCs you set for rolls, so they don't understand how steep some checks are unless they get a 21 and still fail. You also don't tell folks the AC of an enemy, so every turn we have to have the exchange "does that hit?" (Justin Alexander has actually recommended revealing AC after a few rounds of a fight so everyone's on the same page and combat progresses quickly, but your average DM definitely does not do this.) Some DMs (me.) even roll privately, because that gives them the option to fudge, and whether they consistently fudge against you or in your favor depends on how antagonistic they are. I like to give myself the option to fudge if my players are getting stressed and frustrated about the progression of a fight (since Rule of Fun supersedes DM Fiat), but I'm not about to pretend that's the best possible practice & that it doesn't lead to minor inconsistencies during fights.

Anyway. BitD streamlines communication and makes the stakes very clear. The GM has very few secrets going in & doesn't make a lot of rolls on their own (exceptions being a score complication, off screen faction characters/motivations, and bigger picture fortune rolls), but everything else is out in the open, so the players have a concrete sense of what they're up against at any given point. I don't think haggling doesn't happen ("what do you mean this would have zero effect, I can do xyz thing!") but in general I think haggling is, uh... system agnostic. Some PCs are always going to try to push back against anything they think is unfair, and some GMs are always going to play with a "GM vs. PCs" mindset.

But in addition to the stakes being clear, PCs can do so many things to circumvent bad rolls (or outcomes of rolls that are predicted to be bad).

They can try a different approach to see if they can get a better position & effect.

They can literally resist the roll. They can take stress instead and lower the bad effect of the roll by one tier.

I think that is such a cool mechanic. Harm in BitD is really bad. You don't have a harm meter like in some PbtA games (i.e. MotW), you just have tiers of damage (1-3, with 4 being lethal), and only a handful of injuries can exist on one tier at any given time. If you screw up so badly that you get hurt, you can get in serious trouble. Allowing players to lessen the blow of a bad roll by taking stress (which can lead to increasingly bad results over the long term if not properly managed) is ingenious. The "resist" mechanic gives players so much agency in a world filled with GMs who GM for the power trip.

So if you have a player who haggles in spite of all the pro-player rules embedded into the system, you have a player problem, not a system problem.

Really it seems like the issues with BitD arise only if your players aren't willing to buy into the fiction. The other biggest complaint I've seen about BitD is that PCs rarely ever truly "fail," and end up coming off as extreme badasses no matter how the GM tries to mitigate the power creep. I can definitely see that being the case. However:

Some players just want to be extreme badasses who do cool stuff.

Some players want to be extreme badasses who do cool stuff, but they want to accomplish this by facing intense stakes, and want the GM to set up all the stakes for them. (This is the standard player/GM relationship prevalent in stuff like DND.)

If you're #2, the BitD formula straight up does not work. It's not that kind of game. It's focused on player agency, which is two-pronged. It means that players have a lot of say in when things go right, but it also means players have to proactively seek out opportunities for things to go bad. The game rewards these behaviors, in fact! If you roll those desperate rolls, you mark xp. If your actions lean into your PC's vices, you mark xp. If you min-max, if you focus only on the best possible outcomes and don't try to roleplay, you will pretty much always win and therefore come away unsatisfied.

IMO the "haggling player" and the "player who is only focused on winning" are the same player. Removing the position & effect rules from BitD won't help that player's gripes because the rest of the system is not built for players who only want to win. You have to actively want to fail, because unlike DND, BitD won't impose unwanted failures on you. You have to want to tell a story where the stakes are high instead of having that story be told to you. It's collaborative storytelling; BitD opens with calling itself a fiction-first game.

I do think it is a bit crunchy compared to other fiction-first games, and it's not without its rough spots and inconsistencies, but when I see people on reddit complaining that BitD doesn't work because "I always win and it's boring..." Bro. You have the power to change that. BitD puts a lot of power directly into the players' hands. You have to dictate what kind of experience you want. I think the number of rules can make it seem like it's hard to roleplay, but most of the decision-making processes to get to those rolls should be roleplay-focused, or the whole thing falls apart.

Anyway I like position & effect rules (so far) because they make it much easier for me to imagine how difficult a "check" is (as opposed to DCs in DND, which don't have concrete built-in consistency). I might actually hate it once I get to playing it, who knows? But I feel like I already have a decent grasp of what intended play looks like, which is a good sign in my book.

(Not that there aren't weak points in BitD. I hate the setting of Dunwall--sorry, Duskwall ( /Doskvol/the Dusk). I will be Matsuno-ifying it.)

#i don't have a ttrpg tag boooo #ttrpg blogging #(ig)

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mostlysignssomeportents · 3 years

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Corruption

“Corruption” conjures images of bags of cash changing hands in deserted parking garages, but I’d like to propose a simple and concrete definition that goes beyond that: “Corruption” is when something bad happens because its harms are diffused and its gains are concentrated.

Here’s what I mean. West Virginia is known as coal country, but coal is actually a small, dwindling industry in WV; WV’s biggest industry is chemical processing, dominated by Dow — chem processing, like many industries, is heavily concentrated into a few global monopolies.

WV has a water crisis, with frequent “boil water” advisories. Its origins are in the chemical industry — specifically, in a regulatory proceeding where state regulators sought comment on whether to relax the EPA’s national guidelines on chemical runoff into drinking water.

Dow, acting through the manufacturers’ association it controls, argued the people of WV could absorb more poison than the national average because they were much fatter than the median American, and when they drank, it was mostly beer, not water.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/03/14/the-real-elitists-looking-down-on-trump-voters/

No, really.

Here’s the thing. I’m not qualified to set the safe levels of different kinds of runoff in water-tables. It’s probably not zero (at least, not for most chemicals), but it’s also not “anything goes.”

It’s a question that requires subtle, interdisciplinary expertise: chemistry, health, environmental science. It’s an area where people of good faith can disagree.

These thorny, high-stakes technical questions that cross disciplines are the norm, not the exception.

Even if you have the technical knowhow to evaluate whether wearing masks fights covid, that doesn’t answer questions about vaccine safety, or whether zoom-school will turn your kid into an ignoramus.

Answer those questions and you’re left with still more: should you get in one of Southwest’s recertified Boeing 737-Max airplanes? Is the code specifying the reinforced steel joist that holds up your roof adequate, or is your building gonna collapse?

Should you eat carbs? Will your 401k preserve you through a dignified retirement? Answering all of these questions definitively for yourself requires earning 50+ PhDs, but also, people who have those PhDs don’t all agree with one another.

In a technologically complex world, there will always be official advice whose technical arguments we can’t understand. Our only reassurance is the process by which that advice is arrived at.

We may not understand the arguments, but we can recognize an open, independent process refereed by neutral regulators who show their work and recuse themselves if they have a conflict of interest.

We don’t always understand what goes on inside the box, but we can tell whether the box itself is sound. We can tell judges are financially interested in outcomes, whether they publish their deliberations, whether they revisit their conclusions in light of new evidence.

That’s all we’ve got, and it depends on a balance of powers that arises from a pluralistic, diffused set of industrial interests.

When an industry says with one voice that West Virginians are so fat that we can poison them without injury, it carries a lot of weight.

(so to speak)

It’s a stupid argument. It’s a wicked argument. It’s a lethal argument. It’s the kind of argument that might get you laughed out of the room if it is filled with hundreds of squabbling chemical companies looking to dunk on one another.

That’s the thing about conspiracies (and Dow was, in fact, engaged in a conspiracy to poison West Virginians to enrich its shareholders) — they require a lot of discipline, with all the conspirators remaining loyal to the conspiracy and no one breaking ranks.

The bigger a group is, the more it struggles to keep a united front. That’s why there’s so much billionaire class solidarity. Sure, it’s hard to maintain unity among a clutch of grandiose maniacs, but it’s much harder to maintain unity among billions of their victims.

Monopolization is corruption’s handmaiden — not just because it lets Dow hire fancy lawyers and “experts” to dress up “fat people are immune to poison” as sound policy, but because the industry can sing that awfful song with one voice.

Dow spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to win a policy that will save it millions — and cost the people of WV hundreds of millions or even billions in health costs, lost productivity, and, of course, the intergenerational trauma of ruined and lost human lives.

The reason millions in gains can trump billions in losses is that that the millions are reaped by just a few firms, who can wield them with precision to secure the continued right to impose costs on the rest of us, while the losses are spread out across the whole state.

For Dow to corrupt West Virginia’s legislature, it need only tithe a small percentage of its winnings to political causes and dark money orgs.

For West Virginians to fight corruption in the cash-money world of political influence campaigns, they have to overcome their collective action problem and outspend Dow — all while bearing the human and monetary costs of Dow’s corruption.

America is a land of manifest, obvious dysfunctions, and close examination reveals their common root in corruption.

Take the health-care system: Americans pay more for worse outcomes than anyone else in the rich world.

Their healthcare is rationed by faceless, cruel bureaucracies. They ration their medicine or skip necessary procedures. Patients hate this — but so do doctors and nurses, who have to hire armies of bureaucrats to fight with insurers.

Everyone hates this system. Everyone knows it’s rotten. Everyone — except for a handful of pharma, hospital and insurance monopolists, and the propagandists they pay to busily race through the crowd, busily swapping hats and shouting, “SOCIALISM! BOO! SOCIALISM!”

But while the US healthcare system is terrible at providing healthcare, it’s very good at jackpotting for monopolists. They reap billions while costing the public trillions, and they hand around millions to keep that situation intact.

We can see that in action right now. Nina Turner is running to take over a Congressional seat in northeastern Ohio vacated by Marcia Fudge when she joined Biden’s cabinet.

https://www.dailyposter.com/dems-launch-proxy-war-on-medicare-for-all/

For 30 years, every Congressional rep for Ohio’s 11th supported Medicare for All — a commensense measure to end the long waits, price gouging and cruel bureaucratic rationing of for-profit care. Unsurprisingly, Turner also supports M4A.

https://twitter.com/ninaturner/status/1404793650895331337?s=20

In response, a group of corporate, establishment Congressional Dems have launched an all-out attack on Turner’s candidacy, joining forces with health-care lobbyists to raise vast corporate fortunes to support her primary challenger, Shontel Brown.

The seven Dem lawmakers attacking Turner have collectively taken in $5m from pharma and health-care monopolists. James E Clyburn alone has pocketed $1m from pharma. He’s leading the charge against Turner.

https://twitter.com/TaylorPopielarz/status/1405121330433957888

Before Clyburn accepted $1m worth of pharma money, he co-sponsored Medicare For All legislation. Now he’s its most bitter opponent, insisting that it’s political poison (a majority of his constituents support M4A).

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2020-election/live-blog/south-carolina-primary-live-updates-democrats-vote-2020-candidates-n1145296/ncrd1146076

One million people in Ohio lost their jobs — and health care — during the pandemic. The system is murdering and maiming people. It’s a wasteful boondoggle that’s bad for everyone except a tiny minority of shareholders and the corrupt officials who accept their blood-money.

It’s not just healthcare. Think of Exxon Mobil’s crime against humanity and Earth: the 40-year coverup and disinformation campaign to delay action on the climate emergency. Exxon spent millions, made tens of billions, and cost us all trillions.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jun/30/climate-crisis-crime-fossil-fuels-environment

The megadroughts, once-in-millennium heatwaves, raging wildfires, annual floods-of-the-century and zoonitic plagues Exxon bought with their millions were objectively a very bad deal — but their concentrated gains beat our much larger diffused losses (so far). #ExxonKnew.

But corruption creates policy debt, and the interest on that debt compounds — in a degraded environment, worsening health, precarious work, and a collapse in trust in institutions. The corrupt have a structural advantage, but it’s not a sure thing.

Take Ohio (again). The GOP-dominated Senate passed legislation to ban Ohio cities from offering municipal broadband. Now, municipal broadband is the best internet in America: cheaper, faster and more reliable than anything the telecoms monopolists offer.

There are ~900 (mostly Republican) towns and counties where people get their internet from their local government:

https://muninetworks.org/communitymap

And they fucking love it, just as much as their Comcast-burdened peers elsewhere hate their service:

https://web.archive.org/web/20180808223947/https://www.consumerreports.org/phone-tv-internet-bundles/people-still-dont-like-their-cable-companies-telecom-survey/

Muni networks are better at everything to do with the internet: connection speeds, price, and customer service. There’s only one area in which they underperform relative to telecoms monopolies: generating profits for shareholders by overcharging and underinvesting.

There’s only a tiny minority of people who’d trade good internet service for profitable internet service (namely, the people receiving the profits). But the pro-monopolists have concentrated gains, while the public experiences diffused losses.

That’s why the Ohio Senate passed its budget bill banning municipal networks. But when the budget was reconciled in the Ohio House, the measure was killed, thanks to an all-out uprising led by the people of Fairlawn, who stepped up to defend Fairlawngig, their muni ISP.

The victory for muni broadband is a triumph of evidence over corruption — proof that the diffused nature of corruption losses can be overcome. It’s cause for hope, especially in light of this week’s collapse of the antitrust case against Facebook.

https://www.wired.com/story/ftc-antitrust-case-against-facebook-very-much-alive/

Facebook escaped justice by citing the theories of Robert Bork, Nixon’s chief criminal co-conspirator and Ronald Reagan’s court sorcerer. Bork insisted that anittrust law had but one purpose: to keep prices down.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/28/dubious-quant-residue/#incinerators-r-us

Any other consideration, especially political corruption arising from market concentration, was out of scope.

The court agreed. No surprise; 40% of the US Federal judiciary has attended a lavish “Manne Seminar,” junkets where they are indoctrinated into Borkism.

But the absurdity of ruling that Facebook isn’t a fit subject for anti-monopoly law is the beginning of the end for Borkism, prompting bipartisan calls — led by Elizabeth Warren — to explicitly redesign American antitrust.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/other/facebooks-surprise-antitrust-victory-could-inspire-congress-to-overhaul-the-rules-entirely/ar-AALCJz8

Corruption has many costs: monetary, human, environmental. But every bit as important is the cost to institutional credibility. Remember, none of us are capable of understanding the technical nuances of the dozens of life-or-death decisions we face daily.

If we can’t trust our institutions — if we don’t believe that regulators are neutral, good-faith experts in ardent pursuit of the truth and the public good — then our very idea of shared reality collapses, as Snowden has written:

https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/conspiracy-pt1

It’s hard to overstate the sheer, reeling epistemological terror of institutional collapse. When the EPA allows the chemical industry to poison America, how can you know whether the products in the store can be trusted not to kill your family?

https://theintercept.com/2021/06/30/epa-pesticides-exposure-opp/

Remember, the Flint water crisis came about as the result of corruption: the promises of “experts” that taking shortcuts to save money would come out all right, despite the copious evidence to the contrary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flint_Water_Crisis

What parent of a permanently damaged child, poisoned by lead deliberately introduced to save pittances for a tiny group of people, could ever trust any “expert” process again?

Michigan Republicans saved millions at the expense of billions, but the gains were concentrated among the wealthy white taxpayers of the state who enjoyed cuts to the top marginal rate, and the costs were born by the Black families of Flint. That’s corruption.

#pluralistic

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slugtranslation-hypmic · 4 years

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If you've seen the recent episode of hypmic, what are your thoughts on it? For me, All I gotta say it was... lackluster and underwhelming. In my opinion that is. I mean understandably they didn't have enough material out yet for the story but the last rap battle didn't feel special as I feel it should have been. And whats bothering me the most is how the characters are kinda just off, ya know? : p

Haven’t watched it in English yet, so I may have missed something. But I enjoyed this more than the previous two episodes. Anime spoilers below.

Once again, this Ramuda is very different from the manga and drama CD Ramuda, but I don’t think that’s a bad difference. He has a lot more personal agency which certainly makes him more entertaining, and I like a good antagonist or morally messed up main character. I enjoyed a lot his inner debate about leaving behind the rest of Fling Posse and the way he convinced them to sneak out with him.

But Fling Posse aside, I actually enjoyed the MTC vs MTR battle more than the manga. Since the manga came out over a year and a half after MTR won, there was no question about the outcome of this match. As a result, MTR felt pretty overpowered from the start, and there were no real stakes to the battle. Portraying MTR like underdogs was a good way to avoid that, and while the “power vs bonds” (I have zero clue what the subber called that, so my apologies if that’s totally off the subtitles) thing was kind of cheesy, it was a nice message. Power of friendship and believing in one another to overcome anything and all that. Of course, for that to work, you need to show more actual friendship and close bonds but... Oh, well, Matenrou did run from the law at one point earlier, so there is that. That’s a bonding experience if there ever is one. I do think suddenly deciding that MTC was super powerful and that MTR is super buddy-buddy was a bit subjective since MTC has been pretty attached at the hip and MTR has been kicking ass since day one, but whatever.

I VERY MUCH liked Jakurai doubting his own strength, especially the bit of “If I was truly strong, then Yotsutsuji would never have been hurt”. We don’t get to see much of Jakurai’s self-doubt or other negative emotions in any media, which makes him more of a one-dimensional character than he really ought to be, so I was pleased with that. Also Samatoki then questioning his own bond with Nemu... ouch.

I’m guessing we’re going to get a TDD episode and a wrap up episode now. I’m pretty interested in seeing how they’ll do TDD, although I’m guessing it won’t be much more than Chapter 14. Speaking of which, we’re finishing that up this weekend. Whoo!

#not a translation #asks #hypmic spoilers

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queen-scribbles · 3 years

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Acceptable Risk

Art trade fic for the extremely patient @theheroofoakvale, exploring if Shepard’s recruiting Thane had gone a little.... differently.

-----

The door opened with a quiet hiss, and Shepard’s entry was greeted with the raised barrels of several assault rifles. The mercenaries, however, paused before opening fire, despite being confronted by three heavily armed individuals pointing guns back at them.

The asari in the middle of the cluster--clad for business rather than combat--spun to face them, her eyes widening. “Shepard?!”

Shepard smirked, centered his pistol on her. “Nassana.”

There was a muffled clatter in the ceiling that had the mercenaries’ attention swiveling upward. Her posture shifted defensive. “You’re dead.”

“I got better,” he retorted, and shot her in the throat.

Her bodyguards zeroed back in on him and his team, torn between them and the threat above, and that was their undoing. A dark figure dropped from one of the ceiling vents, and Shepard used that moment of distraction to take out two of them. When the remaining mercs focused in on him, the dark figure punched one in the throat and shot the other center mass. The few that were left went down quickly.

Massani and Vakarian kept their guns up, leveled at the late arrival, a drell, as he stood in the middle of the carnage, eyes fixed in an unblinking, regretful stare at Nassana Dantius’ body.

“Sorry if I stole your kill,” Shepard said after letting the silence go as long as he could tolerate. His pistol hung at his side in a loose grip, ready if he needed it. He didn’t think he would.

“I was not here for her, though the galaxy is no less for her removal,” the drell said softly, finally looking up from the dead woman and blinking just before he met Shepard’s gaze. “I am here for you.”

Behind him, Massani muttered a quiet curse and Vakarian tightened his grip on his gun, but Shepard didn’t even flinch. “I did wonder. Dantius hardly seems worth the time for someone of your... reputation.”

“And yet you still came,” the drell said, clasping his hands behind him and looking in no rush to kill anyone.

“She used me.” He let the barest edge of a snarl color the words. “I can go along with a likely trap if it gives me an excuse for payback. Also,” he took half a step forward, “seemed the best way to meet you, Krios. We need to talk.”

Thane Krios did not look at all perturbed that his target knew who he was. His expression remained impassive as he studied Shepard’s face. “Do we? What about?”

“I need your help on a mission. You can feel free to continue trying to kill me after we’re done.”

“Why?” Krios asked, still studying Shepard’s face.

“Why, what?”

“Why do you need me? Why should I help instead of killing you now?”

Shepard laughed darkly. “The fucking galaxy is at stake, I need the best of the best, even if they are out for my blood.” Another half step forward, Vakarian and Massani following this time until he waved them back. “As for the second question.... I know some things about you, Krios. I know you’re dying, and I know you have a son.” His pistol folded in on its clip as he crossed his arms and stared hard at the assassin. “And where he is. I imagine you’d hate for something to happen to him before you had a chance to mend fences.”

Three rapid blinks, a sharp breath, posture unchanged, but it was the most reaction Krios had shown in this conversation. “And would you make this... something happen if I say no, Shepard?”

His calm was impressive. Shepard wondered if it was an easier illusion to maintain with eyes that had neither pupils nor iris to betray strong emotion. “If I have to. I need the best, Krios, which is you. Don’t really care how I get your cooperation.”

Krios was silent for a long moment. “This threat must be grave indeed for you to employ such measures.”

He was nigh impossible to read, but the slight shift of his clasped hands was hint enough. “I’m hunting an enemy who’s abducting human colonies and has ties to the Reapers, I’d call that pretty damn grave. Like I said, you can resume trying to kill me if we survive. What’s it gonna be?”

Another heavy pause, though shorter. “You have left me only one viable option if I care about my son.”

Shepard arched a brow.

“I will assist. Consider this a pause in the contract on your life.”

“Good enough for me.” Shepard cast a smug glance at Dantius’ corpse, then turned to exit the room. “We’re done here, so you can either come with us or meet us at the ship.”

“I will meet you shortly. I have a few personal effects to gather,” Krios said.

“Alright. We’re on a clock, so don’t dilly dally,” Shepard replied, and motioned their departure to Vakarian and Massani.

“What’s to stop him from shooting you on our way down?” Vakarian muttered as they headed for the elevator. “He’s already planning to kill you and you threatened his kid.”

Massani beat Shepard to the answer. “Doesn’t know if there’s a dead man’s switch on that something happenin’ to his boy if Shepard bites it.” He chuckled darkly and smirked at Shepard. “What the hell’d you do to earn a death mark, anyway?”

Shepard shrugged, watching the blur of downward travel out the elevator’s glass-paned wall. “Hell if I know, Massani. Certainly pissed off enough people for there to be some options.”

The mercenary gave a rough laugh and slapped him on the shoulder. “Wear like a badge of fucking honor, kid. Means you got someone real riled up.”

---

Krios was, as promised, aboard the Normandy well within an hour. His personal effects he’d gone to collect were few enough to fit in a small shoulder satchel that he politely refused to let anyone inspect. (Lawson was not happy when Shepard told her to drop it, clearly suspicious of allowing an assassin on board without first vetting his gear.) He settled in life support at EDI’s suggestion, and ruffled no feathers with the rest of the crew, unless you counted Taylor’s mistrust of his career in general.

“What will be expected of me, Commander?” Krios asked, in that same modulated tone he’d used on Illium.

“No shipboard duties, if that’s what you’re wondering,” Shepard said. He leaned against the wall by the door and studied Krios. “You can do as you like here. When we have missions, I may want you to come watch my six, if your skillset seems a good fit.”

“I see.” He folded his hands, elbows braced against the small worktable at which he sat. There was a hesitation under the words that almost rang in the air.

“If there’s something else you wanna say, now’s the time,” Shepard prodded. He didn’t have time to be gentle prying out secrets or whatever.

“My son,” Krios said, words measured and careful. “You say you know where he is. Would you be willing to share that knowledge?”

Shepard mulled it over, weighing the value of his options. “In time,” he finally said. “We have a couple pressing assignments that are more important than family reunions. But if we hit a point with some free time I’ll let you know.”

Krios nodded, his expression unreadable as ever. “Very well, Shepard.”

“One thing I need to know from you,” Shepard began, pushing away from the wall, “is if whatever’s killing you will affect your abilities in a fight.”

“It shouldn’t, not yet.” He paused for the space of a few blinks. “I should have several months at least before the symptoms become noticeable even to myself. More than enough time to complete your mission, if it is as urgent as you make you sound.”

“Is that something you doubt, Krios?”

“Not at all.” Krios pushed to his feet and crossed the room to examine a rack of spare rifle parts. “Even someone of your reputation would have to be on a mission of urgency to blackmail an assassin sent to kill you into helping your cause. I simply mean this threat seems the type where a decisive outcome will be reached swiftly; whether in victory or destruction. Well within the time I have before functionality is... affected.”

“Good.” Shepard nodded. “Not sure when I’ll need you, but I want to be sure you’ll be worth it when the times comes.” He left the room, noting Krios’ undertone murmur as he did, and from the cadence wondered what the assassin was praying for.

---

Shepard first tested him on something that seemed of no consequence; a mercenary base on a backwater planet trafficking stolen eezo. Thane did his job, no more no less, all the while making note of how the man fought. The risks he thought worth taking, the sacrifices that were acceptable cost, the balance of recklessness and cunning. It was not a complete picture, not off one mission, and Thane wouldn’t act on what he’d gleaned even if it were.

Not with the blade the commander had hung over Kolyat. Not with the hope of learning where his son might be. Patience was the hallmark of an assassin, after all; knowing when to strike as well as how. And Thane had been an assassin a very long time. He could wait.

Especially as conversations with others aboard the ship painted a clearer and clearer picture of the mission’s scope. A trip through the Omega 4 relay was very likely to be suicidal just on its own. Destroying whatever these Collectors used as a base doubly so. When Shepard made ‘if we survive’ comments, he wasn’t joking. Thane could wait. He could help with the mission--it was a worthy goal after all, one he would have assisted in accomplishing without the threats--and then resume his contract.

After the mercenary base was eliminated, and easily, Shepard made use of Thane’s skills a few more times. Usually on missions with plentiful shadow coverage and good sight lines.

“How’re you holding up?” Garrus asked on one such mission, the two of them picking off targets from a bit of a distance while Shepard made viciously short work of the battlefield.

“I’ve had worse assignments.” Thane’s rifle kicked against his shoulder and the krogan he’d been targeting dropped. He fired another shot, just to be safe, and watched the body jerk then lay still, before searching out another target. “What of you?”

Garrus snorted, took down his own target. “I’m here because he’s my... friend” --there was a brief hesitation, as if the turian wasn’t completely sure that was the right word--”and I trust that whatever he’s doing is worth whatever it costs to accomplish.”

“You’ve fought alongside him before.”

“Against Sovereign, yeah.” Garrus’ mandible twitched as he focused on sighting in another shot. “This feels different.”

He didn’t elaborate, and it was only a few moments more for them the claim victory and press further on with their mission.

Thane watched Shepard, and wondered what had changed in the eyes of his friend.

---

It was after the derelict Reaper, after adding a geth to their mix, that Thane’s patience paid off. At least in part.

“Your kid’s on the Citadel,” Shepard informed him out of the blue. “Lucky for you, Vakarian has some unfinished business there as well, and the techs need some time to integrate the IFF to the Normandy’s systems. I can spare a side trip for personal issues while they get that squared away. Be ready to go in an hour.”

Thane didn’t protest. Didn’t question. He could ask for details on approach to the Citadel.

They set a cold knot in his gut when he learned them. “He’s here to kill someone,” Shepard said bluntly, and all Thane could think was Like father, like son. That was not a path he’d ever wanted for Kolyat. Shepard didn’t have a lot of details, just that Kolyat was there. Apparently even Cerberus’ resources had limits.

They spoke to a C-Sec officer, then to Mouse at his suggestion--Thane was surprised but pleased he was still alive--both conversations Shepard kept as short as possible. Clearly he was not in the mood to waste time. Thane wished that hadn’t involved the commander breaking Mouse’s nose, but couldn’t muster much sympathy when the same proved true of Kelham once they got his name and interrogated him.

“We have some time, not a lot of it,” Shepard growled. “And we still need to find Sidonis when we’re done with your shit, Krios.” He turned to Captain Bailey. “What can you tell me about this Talid Kelham wants dead?”

The picture Bailey painted--up and coming turian politician, vocally anti-human and gaining support--made it obvious why Kelham would want Talid gone. He had to be very bad for business. He was also in a very vulnerable position currently; pressing flesh on a walk through the Wards with only one or two bodyguards along for protection.

Thane had to admit surprise when Shepard was alright with them splitting up to track Talid and (hopefully) find Kolyat.

“You can’t find him alone any more than I can,” Shepard commented with a sharp smile s he and Garrus headed for the catwalks. “Stay sharp, Krios.”

As if he would do otherwise. Still, he bowed his head and asked Amonkira for strength and guidance before he vanished into the shadows, hoping they weren’t too late to save his son from a very familiar dark path.

Are you really surprised? a voice inside him mocked as Thane picked his route along catwalks and ducts, through shadows and crowds. Even if he hates you, that’s the example you left.

He shook it off. He didn’t have the luxury of internal debate right now. He had to pick out his route on the fly, keep in touch with Shepard and Garrus, plot out several ways to handle the situation that all depended on Kolyat’s behavior. And he didn’t know his own son well enough to predict that, so his solutions were all loosely structured ideas at best. Some plan was better than none.

It was a close thing, despite their best efforts. Kolyat spooked, shot the bodyguards and dragged Talid into his apartment with a gun to his head.

Shepard was only a step behind once Kolyat broke cover and very quickly had a gun pointed at him.

Thane went very still, watching this standoff. He didn’t know Shepard well enough to know what the man would do, but he knew what C-Sec protocols would be, and he could hear their approach. Shepard had been very clear about the limited time they had for this side trip, the fastest resolution--which would also fulfill C-Sec’s mandate to keep Talid alive--would end with his son dead, and Shepard was not a patient man.

Kolyat’s anger blazed, even from across the room, and he was far from willing to cooperate, his pistol pressed to the back of Talid’s head.

The loud crack of a pistol shot nearly made Thane flinch, his chest squeezing in protest at the thought of his failure. Just this one thing, I wanted to fix just this.

But Shepard’s shot snapped Talid’s head back, not Kolyat’s. The turian collapsed in a spray of dark blood and Kolyat recoiled. In that moment of distraction, Thane surged forward and twisted the pistol out of Kolyat’s hands, unsure if the tremor was adrenaline or rage.

Shepard was talking to an incensed Bailey; “No one will miss a racist asshole, I did you a favor”, but Thane’s focus was all on his son.

“This was not the best way,” he said softly.

“What do you know?” Kolyat hissed back, struggling against Thane’s unrelenting grip.

“More than you might think.”

Kolyat yanked away as if the contact had burned him. Fury simmered in his eyes, and resentment, but he was alive. C-Sec would still have to take him in for what he’d been ready to do(attempted murder? That would likely be the charge), there would be consequences for what he tried to do, and Thane didn’t know if they even could “mend fences” as Shepard had put it. But he was alive. And hopefully could be deterred from a path Thane wouldn’t wish anyone to tread.

“Krios,” Shepard barked and Thane pulled himself out of his reverie watching C-Sec lead Kolyat away. But rather than Time to go, the commander nodded after the arresting officers. “Massani can help with tracking down Fade. You have until we’re done. I wouldn’t count on more than an hour or two.”

Thane blinked, thrown off kilter by the gesture, but recovered quickly. “Understood.” He’d taken three steps after the C-Sec officers before he stopped and turned. “...Thank you, Shepard.”

The man waved him off, already walking away with Garrus in his wake.

---

An hour and a half didn’t go very far working through a decade of distance, but it was a start.

“Why do you stay with him?” Kolyat asked when Thane’s comms crackled with a heads-up Shepard and the others were on their way back and he stood. “If... this” --a quick gesture, more a flick of the wrist than anything, between the two of them-- “is so important?”

For you. In more ways than one. “Shepard’s mission is... critical. And there is, unfortunately, a time limit on saving the galaxy.”

Kolyat snorted at his father’s dry humor. “Right.”

“I will keep in touch,” Thane promised. “Perhaps we can meet again once this is finished. If you would like.” If I survive.

“...We’ll see.” Kolyat was staring at the table rather than him, but Thane would take it.

He nodded and headed for the door. “Very well.”

“Does he have something on you?” Kolyat asked abruptly. “With the reputation Shepard’s made, he doesn’t seem the type honorable people would be following.”

“I have made no claims of honor,” Thane said quietly, hand on the door frame. “And with the stakes of mission, some sacrifices may prove necessary.”

“Sounds familiar,” Kolyat muttered.

Thane made no reply, and didn’t look back as he left the room with a cold weight in his chest.

---

It ha been the right call letting Krios reconnect with his son. He seemed more centered, more focused, for having dealt with his baggage. Probably that whole ‘something to live for’ schtick. Shepard only cared that Krios did his job and the mending bond made the kid an even more effective pressure point.

Not that Krios had ever protested. Ever balked. But everyone had their limit, and if he happened to find the assassin’s, it never hurt to have a brute force solution in your arsenal. Especially as they were very close to actually pursuing the Collectors through the Omega 4 relay.

“Just a few more tests,” Lawson assured him. They wanted it to work right, after all. It’d be a real short trip otherwise.

“So,” he asked Krios, “out of morbid curiosity, who wants me dead?” There were plenty of options, he wanted to know who wanted it badly enough to hire an assassin. And it wasn’t like he currently had anything better to do with his time.

Krios cocked his head, a flicker of what might have been amusement crossing his face. “I cannot tell you, Shepard.”

Shepard snorted and arched a brow. “Client confidentiality?”

“Client anonymity,” the drell corrected.

“You let some faceless coward point you at a target with my body count?”

“As you know, I am dying,” Krios said in that implacable tone of his. “Odds of survival were... far from troubling, as a factor.”

“And odds of success?” Shepard retorted.

This time there was definitely a small smile before Krios schooled his expression neutral. Not mocking or cocky, just... amused. “There is a first time for everything.” The faint amusement was gone when he locked eyes with Shepard. “How will we handle this, commander? When we are finished our mission, assuming we both survive, and I resume my contract to kill you?”

“Feel like giving me a day’s lead?” Shepard grinned sardonically.

“I could be persuaded,” Krios said. He shifted in his chair. “Let us see how things progress, shall we?”

You’d never know to look at the man he’d been... convinced to help with this by threat of harm to his son. He seemed perfectly at home, posture easy. He didn’t talk to the crew much, Shepard knew from EDI, but it was hardly surprising an assassin was accustom to solitude.

As if summoned by his brief thought of her, a glowing sphere materialized on the AI kiosk. “Shepard, Miss Lawson wished you informed that the IFF installation is in its final stage. For the shakedown we will need complete access to the Normandy’s systems, so it is recommended you use the shuttle for whatever you plan to undertake next.”

“Got it,: Shepard tossed in vaguely the direction of the AI. “That’ll make things tight,” he muttered to himself. He had something in mind that would likely need the whole team. They’d fit in the shuttle, but it would be tight. Last thing he needed was Lawson and Jack killing each other before they even hit the Collector base.

Krios was eyeing him with curiosity. “Commander?”

“Gear up,” Shepard said, heading for the door. “Got a search and recover that might take all hands.”

The assassin nodded and pushed to his feet, heading for his locker. “Very well.”

---

Their mission went well. Things on the Normandy in their absence, not so much. Shepard left a fully-staffed state of the art warship an returned to a picked-clean husk manned only by his pilot and the now-unshackled AI.

The Collectors had bloodied his nose, cost him his crew. Again. He’d had it. “Ship’s not getting any more ready than it is. Joker, head for the Omega 4 relay.”

“Aye, aye,” came the determined, hungry reply.The pilot was probably even more eager than Shepard to punch back at the bug-eyed bastards.

Unlike Joker--and probably the others--Shepard viewed getting the crew back as a secondary objective to taking out the Collectors. The threat they posed to humanity ended now.

Get us there was his order, and that didn’t change when they came out of the relay having to dodge starship wreckage, or when they were harried by drones, or even when a fucking occulus busted into the hold.

“Krios, Massani, with me!” he barked, rifle in hand, listening to the scrape and thud of wreckage and lasers ricocheting off the upgraded hull on the way to the bowels of the ship. By the time they had trashed the occulus, Joker had them past the debris field and the drones, and a new problem had arisen.

New, but familiar--the same Collector vessel that he had encountered numerous times before. But this time, the Normandy had sharper teeth. “Let ‘em have it!” he ordered, a command Joker follow with alacrity Darting, looping, dodging, the pilot had them dancing around the larger ship, deftly avoiding the beam that had been their destruction before.

The surge of satisfaction at destroying the vessel was short lived, as it erupted in a fireball more than large enough to knock the Normandy into a crazy, barely controlled descent that could more bluntly be called a crash.

“Everyone alive?” Shepard checked over comms. When that was affirmative, he followed with, “Assemble in the CIC.”

This was it. A quick rundown of schematics pulled from the vessel and what he expected to find inside, a victory whatever it takes reminder, and it was time to go.

---

Than prayed silently to Amonkira as they disembarked from the Normandy. Let our hands strike true, and victory be worth the cost. There would be a cost, of this he was sure. He was familiar enough with Shepard’s methods by now there was little room for doubt. If I am among that cost, please guide my son, that his steps may trace a better path.

He wondered, if he should fall, whether his client would hire someone else to complete the task of killing Shepard or if they would let it go. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He wanted to survive, to speak more with Kolyat before the end, but it would be what it was.

They split into groups, Shepard leading Thane and Zaeed, Garrus the rest of them, to serve as distractions while Tali crawled through the vents to let them pass. It was a good call; the Collectors swarmed thick enough any other plan would likely have been overwhelmed by the sheer number of them. They were not given the luxury of time for sighting in targets, so Thane stuck with his pistol--and occasionally biotics--firing, reloading, firing, with the odd interruption to scrounge more thermal clips because he’d run out.

Shepard’s back and forth with Garrus and Tali was just background noise, like the beating wings of their foes, as Thane gave his focus to the task at hand.

Tali stumbled out of the vent just as they finally reached the heavy doors barring the end of the hall. She beelined for the access panel, teetered as a couple shots ricocheted off her shields.

“Get it open!” Shepard barked as the three of them wheeled to give her cover fire. “Vakarian, where the hell are you?!”

“Almost there, a group of the bastards ambushed us!”

A Collector dove toward Tali and Thane shot it--rushed, imperfect, but the grazing shot knocked it off course long enough for him to try again. This time, it fell and did not rise again.

---

The sense of urgency, pounding Hurry, hurry, hurry through Shepard’s veins thrummed louder as the door beeped and started to hiss open. A muffled burst of gunfire reached his ears a handful of seconds before Vakarian and the others came into view, hauling ass down the passageway toward them.

“Massani, Krios! Through the door!” He rattled off a stream of cover fire, driving the Collectors to hang back for a second. Just a second. But it was enough time for the second fire team to reach the end of the passage and dart through the door.

Krios and Massani maintained some cover fire from the far side of the door, buying breathing room for the others as one by one they darted through the door. Lawson brought up the rear, her barrier shimmering out as the doors groaned on closing.

“They’re stuck!” Tali bit out, shoving one door with scraping, grinding protest along its track. Shepard and Lawson ducked through the narrowing gap just as a final shot slammed into Lawson’s shoulder and sent her stumbling.

“I’m fine,” she ground out, slapping medigel on the injury as the group of them shook off the adrenaline to register what the room held.

The walls were lined with dozens, hundreds, thousands, of the Collectors’ pods. The dingy yellow glow throughout the room spoke to them all being occupied.

Movement caught Shepard’s eye and he swung his rifle toward the potential threat. it was just one of the nearby pods; the dark-skinned, dark-haired woman inside stirred, pounding against the transparent canopy in a futile attempt to escape. Even as Tali and Krios rushed forward to try and free her, the pod hummed and the woman only had time for a single terrified scream before she simply... liquefied into a sludgy brown paste which drained away almost before his crew had time to recoil in horror.

“Commander! Over here!” Taylor fumbled with a nearby pod until a very disoriented figure tumbled out. “It’s the crew!”

That broke the horror that had frozen them, and the group surged forward to free their comrades before the same fate could befall them.

Chambers. Daniels. Donnelly. Gardner. All of them were here, as Shepard ran a mental roster, but Chakwas was the one to explain. Near as she could tell, the humans in the pods were being reduced to genetic material and ...piped elsewhere in the base through tubes, though she wasn’t sure where or why. That sounded like where they needed to go.

“We need to get them out of here,” Taylor said, hovering near a few of the engineers as they stumbled to their feet.

We don’t have time for this. “You wanna take them back, be my guest,” Shepard returned brusquely. “We need to destroy this base, but we can mange without you if it’s that important to you.”

“It is.” Taylor’s voice was firm as he tugged Chambers’ arm around his shoulders and herded the crew back toward the Normandy. “See you on the other side, Commander.”

---

Thane almost offered to accompany them; it was a lot of people for one man to safeguard. But Shepard was already snapping orders for the next stage of their infiltration. He’d be taking Garrus and Zaeed, sheltered from the overabundance of Seeker swarms by Jack, down the shortest route that followed the tubes. “The rest of you follow Lawson on the other route EDI indicated, draw some of the flying bastards off.”

Forward, then. Thane checked his reserve of thermal clips, made sure his pistol was undamaged, and fell in with the others as the door hissed open and they pressed on.

They hadn’t advanced far when the first Collectors appeared, drones and a small number of husks that were easy enough tot pick off. Their numbers only increased as time wore on, but that was the point wasn’t it? Draw them here, so Shepard could get through. Thane stood shoulder to shoulder with Tali as their squad advanced, shared his thermal clips when hers ran out first, lent what strength he could to the biotic barrier Samara had summoned to protect their backs.

“There’s a lot of them, Shepard!” Miranda hollered into comms when they were forced to take cover from a particularly large group, dotted with abominations and led by a scion.

“Good!” his reply crackled back underscored by gunfire. “Keep them the hell off us! We’re almost there!”

She hissed a quiet curse, then, “Yes, Commander!” Her fist flared blue and a pair of husks flew off the edge of the path. “Samara, push them back on three!”

The justicar nodded and the rest of them by unspoken agreement turned their focus to give the women cover fire.

“One!”

Strafing fire raked Grunt’s armor and he bellowed a laugh as he shot back. Thane admired his defiance.

“Two!”

The barrier Samar had been maintaining shrank inward in preparation. Amonkira, guide their strength.

“Three!”

The combined power of two gifted biotics exploded outward in a wash over overwhelming ozone-scented blue. Just as it slammed into the descending Collector horde, a heavy, white hot pain tore into Thane’s arm and side.

He was dimly aware of Miranda yelling for them to move, of a hand closing around his bicep to drag him with them, of his legs moving to keep up until the gave out and he was hauled over someone’s shoulder instead. There was rushing sound in his ears and it wasn’t until it was it was punctuated by gunfire and Miranda hollering at Shepard they were under heavy attack Thane realized it was Collector wings and not the lure of unconsciousness.

“Give us a minute, Lawson!”

“We don’t have a minute!”

Shepard’s curse was broken by static. “Vakarian, get that door open! Now!”

Time was fuzzy with the pain that swirled fresh at each jolted step of whoever (probably Grunt) was carrying him, but it still seemed an eternity before, muffled, he could hear someone calling an encouragement.

He slammed against something and the pain flared so white, for a moment he saw Irikah’s face. There was a dull murmur of voices, then a spike of numb shot through the pain and spread, blanketing, pushing back until he was aware again.

Tali knelt beside him, her omnitool just closing down as he became conscious of her presence. “Good, you’re still with us.”

“Thanks to you,” Thane rasped. He passed one hand gingerly over his injured side. The healing wound was large, like from a plasma- or other energy-based weapon rather than bullets. He could cope much better with bullets.

“You are welcome,” Tali said, pushing to her feet and offering him a hand up.

Thane accepted, but leaned against a wall once he’d gained his feet. It would take a few minutes for the medigel to truly do its work. He cast a surveying glance about as he waited. Mordin was limping heavily, Grunt, Garrus, and Zaeed all had significant battle damage to their armor....

And Miranda lay still, half-slumped against a wall, pistol resting in her limp grasp. Shepard knelt next to her, blood streaked in his stark white hair, but stood even as Thane’s gaze landed on them. “She’s gone,” he confirmed, as if there was any doubt. He half-turned, hand rising to his ear, expression flint-hard. “Got it, Joker.”

Garrus’ mandibles clicked. “The crew?”

“They made it back.” Shepard shoved a new clip into his rifle. “Taylor died getting them there.”

Thane grimaced. He should have gone along.

“It happens,” Shepard said, as if he’d caught the self-reproof without even looking. “According to EDI, this next room’s the core. Vakarian, Massani, you stick with me, the rest of you cover our asses.”

He didn’t wait for agreement or confirmation, just strode to the console for the necessary door and and punched in the command to open it. Garrus and Zaeed followed silently, the former briefly locking eyes with Tali before the three of them disappeared down the hallway.

---

The rest of them hastily arranged themselves in a defensive perimeter, gazes and weapons trained on the two doors that separated them from the Collector forces.

Thane said a rushed but heartfelt prayer to Kalahira for their fallen, working the fingers of his injured arm to test the medigel’s progress. It would do.

The sheer number of Collectors made the task a difficult one--more than once Thane feared running out of clips for his pistol until a brief pause between waves allowed them to scavenge and share from the fallen. This sort of sustained firefight was far from his normal milieu, but this close to the end he was still determined to do his best.

They held as battle chatter from Shepard’s squad broke through the static. They held even though Mordin fell and Legion fell and Jack nearly followed, snarling and spitting curses as she struggled back to her feet. They held until Shepard’s order came over comms, “Move if you don’t want to go up with this place!”

Then they ran, Samara and Jack shielding them from as much as they could, the rest picking off the bolder Collectors even as they ran. They reached the Normandy, adrenaline surging as they gave Shepard’s squad cover fire until they were aboard as well. Joker had them rocketing toward the relay before the doors had fully closed, and the whole ship seemed to hold its breath until they were safely through.

---

As the adrenaline wore off, all Shepard wanted to do was sleep. But he couldn’t. Not yet. There were things that needed to be settled first.

Krios was in the medbay, sitting serenely still as Dr. Chakwas more thoroughly treated the nasty, half-healed burns on his side and forearm. (In sharp contrast to Jack, who was glowering and cursing about both having to sit still to let her injuries heal and being around so many people.)

“Looks like we both survived,” Shepard said without preamble. Chakwas took the unspoken cue and moved off to see to Jack.

“Indeed.” Krios didn’t move, hands folded in his lap as he sat on the edge of a bed.

“You make up your mind about that head start?”

Krios chuckled. “I believe my recuperation will be a bit more than a day, Shepard. A good time for me to visit my son, I think, and a good head start for you as the contract resumes.” His lips twitched to a small smile. “Perhaps my client will reconsider in light of your actions.”

“Doubt it,” Shepard snorted. “I get the sense their beef with me is personal. Doesn’t lend itself to rational decision making. We’ll see, I guess.” Stranger things had happened, but he wouldn’t be holding his breath.”I’m not going anywhere near the Citadel, in case the Council gets any bright ideas about me or my ship, but we can drop you on Omega before we head off.”

Krios nodded solemnly. “A fair arrangement.”

A less intelligent person might have wondered--hoped--leaving him on Omega injured was as good as a death warrant, but Shepard had seen him fight. It would take more than a set of already-healing electrical burns to put Krios at a disadvantage against the thugs on Omega. (And if they did happen to prove too much for him, one thing less for Shepard to worry about.)

“We can have you there in an hour or so,” he said. “once the doc’s done with you go get your things together.”

Krios inclined his head. “I shall.”

---

It had been a while since he was last on Omega and Thane hadn’t missed it in the slightest. Fortunately he wouldn’t be here long. Passage elsewhere was easy enough to procure, and from there he could work his way to the Citadel. He could take some time to mend more fences with Kolyat before he resumed his hunt.

That was one thing about Shepard; he was never a hard man to find.

#queens fic #art trade #seb shepard #mass effect fic #hope you like it #hope i got seb right

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codenamebooks · 3 years

Text

Five Feet Apart Book Review

by Rachael Lippincott

2/5 stars | CW: dead family, death, terminal illness, divorce

Stella and Will meet in the hospital because they both have Cystic Fibrosis (CF), a terminal lung disease. At first, Stella thinks Will is arrogant and rude, and Will thinks Stella is overbearing and a goody two shoes. But as they work through their differences, they realize they’re following into dangerous territory because people with CF can’t get within six feet of each other.

This novel is adapted from the screenplay by Tobias Iaconic and Mikki Daughtry. If I would’ve known this before hand, instead of during the acknowledgements, my expectations going in would have been different. A lot of my complaints and dislikes fall largely on the fact that movies/screenplays move a lot faster, with a lot less depth than books do. Although I’ve tweaked how I look at this book, all of my comments still apply.

From the first 25 pages, it felt cliché and predictable. Certain things that were supposed to be a shock weren’t eluded to subtly. Will as a character, when we first meet him, is also an over exaggerated cliché of the sarcastic boy who doesn’t care about safety. He’s just rude, rather than seductive. About more cliché characters, Poe is uncomfortably stereotyped. A Colombian gay jock who’s Catholic parents were deported and his catchphrases(?) felt like they just modeled him after what they think a gay Hispanic is like. There’s even something to be said about the notion of minority side/best friend character dying to further the plot of the white main character. Poe didn’t have to be Will’s friend. He didn’t have to be okay with Stella risking her life to be with Will. The fact that he died the night of Will’s birthday party that Stella set up doesn’t sit right with me. It was very predictable that somebody was going to die. I thought it’d be Will or Stella so this was only a slight plot twist from the cliché I was expecting. It reads very much like a 2013 John Green novel. I would have adored this when I was in 7th grade. Now, it just seems childish and limp.

If you hate fast paced relationships, especially ones that are “hate-to-love” but just feel like insta-love, this book is not for you. It makes no sense for Stella to keep thinking about Will after she definitively decides she hates him and vice versa. Why would she go check on him instead of telling someone it looked like he was about to fall off the roof? Why would she go into his room if she’s scared of a disease he could possibly give her? There’s no reason given for either of these. His POV started with absolutely zero depth. Despite being in his head, I felt like I was watching him from an outsiders perspective: all actions, no thoughts. That’s how this entire novel is, all telling and no showing, one of the first things I was told not to do in my writing workshop courses. Will tells the reader he could talk about drawing for days but I’d rather see him just gushing about it longer than one sentence. The characters are only an idea of what they are supposed to be.

I finally began to like the novel when the stakes started getting higher. Stella having to get surgery with her dead sister’s traditions looming in the back of her head along with her divorced parents and high risk of death actually made me feel something! I became invested enough to care about the outcome. This was probably because it began to stray from what I expected as Stella became more rebellious, making the scenes more fun. It was still very fast paced with nothing to fill the time. The actions done didn’t line up with the time that was supposed to be moving. An hour would supposedly pass with 15 minutes worth of dialogue instead of just moving throughout the day. To combat that, I took in as much as I could from the funny lines and second-hand-embarrasment inducing scenes that are cute, or at least supposed to be.

If you like really corny and cliché young adult romance novels, this one is for you. If you like romances that aren’t supposed to work and the characters try their hardest to defy the odds, this one is for you. If you like fast paced, hate-to-love romances, this one is for you.

#five feet apart #rachael lippincott #book review #booklr #bookworm #bookish #book

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randomikemendegen · 5 years

Photo

“Hah? If there’s nothing you need, then scram. I’ve got no time for pointless small-talk.”

Name: Leviotan Genov

Dorm: Octavinelle

Year: 3rd

Like/s:

Gambling

Musical instruments

Fairness and keeping to your word

Word puzzles and chess

Dislike/s:

Meaningless things/conversations

Debts and being indebted

Needless spending

Spicy foods

Twisted from: No one (he’s based on a Killer Whale/Orca)

Short Description:

A 3rd-year from the Octavinelle dormitory, and Viviane’s “older brother”. He appears to do as he pleases and minds his own business, to which he expects others to do the same. Despite his conscious distancing, he at times follows Azul’s orders and genuinely cares about one person; his little sister.

Personality:

He’s aloof and prefers to not bother intruding on other people’s business unless it benefits him, his sister, or his benefactors. That’s not to say Levio has no social skills at all, he’s actually quite pleasant to talk to…. if and when he actually talks to you. He’s also very observant and actually pays attention to what is going on in his surroundings, keeping information within his head until he can later use it on the perfect or right time. Also, due to being raised in a household that respects and highly values women in a positive light, Levi’s naturally inclined to be nice and courteous to women, even offering to assist any female that look like they need help— he’s actually kind that way, though he doesn’t regard himself as such and just considers it as a circumstantial attitude due to how and what type of environment he was raised in. Also, despite his rather gruff and tough appearance, he can actually be rather formal and patient, though he mostly reserves this side to gatherings or important parties and stuff.

Believe it or not, but he’s actually an instrumental genius. What that actually means is, he can pretty much play any musical instrument very easily even though he’s never used it in the past. It’s to the point that he only needs to hear a piece of music ONCE, and he can already replicate it to near-perfection. Despite looking and acting so seriously most of the time, Levio’s actually pretty playful and a bit of a snarky tease, since he whenever he’s in a good mood or around people he even REMOTELY is close with, then he’ll poke fun at them over small things on occasion like; say if that person’s crush is nearby, then he’ll do his absolute best to make his “friend” turn absolutely red from embarrassment. Though at random times, he will choose a random person and then try to push their berserk buttons for the fun of it. Levi genuinely cares about Viviane and would do absolutely anything and everything to make her happy and to stay that way; he’s almost worried about her due to her lackadaisical attitude and the fact that because she got so used to seeing sketchy-looking guys back at home, she has absolutely zero fear in approaching literally anyone.

With all that being said…. it will not be denied that Leviotan has a rather sadistic side. He also has a bit of a bad habit in gambling away anything— he more often than not ups the stakes and even often bets his life mostly for the thrills, though he quite easily crushes the opposition on that note since that’s his “finale”. Additionally, Levio may not look like it, but he is the type of person who WILL mess with and up your entire life and psyche just for the fun of it. Sure with his domineering size, he’s 198cm by the way, he could just easily beat anyone up, but he much prefers the way of “breaking them by talking”…. though he isn’t against in using both. Levi’s also not ashamed of actually using his “ties” and “connections” behind the scenes if he gets genuinely pissed off, or if one of his benefactors needs something done about it, or, god forbid, if you’ve done something bad to Vivi in which case, pray to whatever god out there that Lev himself does NOT deal with you; trust me, you’d rather wish you were dead than deal with an angry Leviotan.

Relationships/s:

[Will be edited in the future]

Trivia:

His first name, [Leviotan], is actually derived from [Leviathan] and [Lotan]; both are sea serpents/dragons with the former being from Jewish/Christian belief, while the latter is from the Canaanites— although the name also came to be used as a term for “great whale”.

His last name, [Genov], comes from the infamous Genovese mafia— the oldest and largest of the “Five Families”, and was originally known as the “Luciano (crime family)”.

He and Viviane may be siblings, but the latter is actually his adoptive younger sister-- meaning they share no blood relations. Still, he treats Viv as if she was actually his younger sister.

Viviane was also supposed to end up becoming the heir to the Genov family name due to their succession law of having a female lead the family. Though because of her adoptive status, and the fact that she vehemently rejected it(since it felt too “restraining” for her), Leviotan was chosen instead despite being a male. Both of them don’t really mind or care about this outcome in the slightest.

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pyroandtheprincess · 4 years

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Hey y’all. I hope everyone’s well. Yes, I’d give my left foot for NaLu, but I’m multi ship garbage. You may or may not be aware that I post and reblog a lot of #kacchako on my page. I find them utterly adorable and I’ve been sitting on a few ideas with them for a while. I decided to finally put some of my thoughts into writing. This is the first part to one of the many mini stories I think of as I’m trying to sleep at night, and it just so happens to be pretty ~angsty~. What can I say, the quarantine has me in my feelings. I’m sorry, but I needed to release some of the tension. As with most of my writing, I didn’t feel like editing so please be kind. I hope you enjoy, but if you don’t that’s okay too. All the best and happy reading! 🥰

“Rookie Mistakes” (part 1/2)

They are fucked, royally fucked. As much as they both have trouble admitting it, they are in deep shit.

How could he have let this happen? How could either of them have let this happen? How could a routine stake out of a suspected hideout (a warehouse of course because villains aren’t creative or original) turn into something so out of his control? He is the fucking number two hero and his badass wife is number fucking eight. They own their own hero agency. They literally train rookies. Only rookies would make these kinds of mistakes. Fucking extras. How could they walk right into a trap? Are villains getting smarter? No. The hero’s who assigned them to this god forsaken mission just underestimated the powers of the new recruits in the this damn villain organization they are investigating. This fucker they are facing is totally not who they were expecting. A quirk that creates large puffs of air from blinking seems harmless until the “puffs” are actually razor sharp blades that are deadly accurate and fast as fuck. Well, atleast the fucking idiots were able to recognize his quirk comes from his fucking eyes! Fucking way to go! He should have done his own damn research. He and Ochako were completely blindsided and now they are scrambling to dodge him.

Once again, they are fucked.

They need to come up with a game plan and fast. Katsuki needs to find a way to pull Ochako away for a second so they can figure this shit out. As he just barely weaves out of the way from yet another blade of air flying past his face, he makes a split decision. Thinking on his feet, he sets off a chain reaction of smoke bombs in a move he calls “smoke screen” and tugs his wife behind a crate. The villain quickly moves to place his dumb looking, bulky sunglasses over his eyes and disappears into the black cloud.

They both take a moment to collect themselves before Ochako speaks up.

“This is bad, Katsuki. We need a plan or we are seriously fucked.” Ochako whispers as she peaks her head out from behind the crate to scope out the area still covered in a plume of smoke.

“No shit, Cheeks.” He whispers back. She glares at him briefly, letting his out burst slide knowing he is just frustrated with their performance thus far. “Any and all bright ideas are welcome.”

She sighs, “Ideas are still formulating. But, did you notice that his attacks don’t happen every time he blinks? Either he is controlling when they happen, or they are random.”

“Great.” Katsuki huffs, joining her in peaking over the crate. “We can’t fucking form a plan until we know if he is actually in control or not. If he isn’t we could take advantage and charge at him. But, if he is we need to strategize so we will be able to dodge and strike him down.”

She is quiet for a second before she responds, “You know, having been your partner since before we starting dating, coupled with the experience of being your wife these past 5 years, it still amazes me that you can actually control your impatience and plan out your attacks. Who could have guessed this from you after UA?”

“Oi. Not the time to be pushing my buttons.”

“You aren’t denying it,” He could hear her smug grin, and it almost made him crack a smile. Almost. “But, with what you said in mind, I think we can actually take advantage of either outcome. I noticed his attacks are linear, he can only target one of us at a time head on. I think our best option is to split up. I’ll take the left and you should take the right side of the floor. That way if he targets one of us, the other can take him down from behind-where he can’t actively project his quirk- before he can turn around.”

Katsuki couldn’t hold back his proud smirk, “Good eyes,” he pauses for a second, “We’ve been married for 6 years in 2 weeks.”

She looks at him briefly to playfully roll her eyes, “Technically, it’s still 5.” She shifts so she can lean her back against the crate and pulls him down to her eye level, all playfulness in her demeanor has shifted to steady focus. He loves when she gets serious.

“I also think he needs those ridiculous glasses to protect his eyes from anything entering them. Since they block his eyes, they must somehow be rigged to stop his quirk. That means if I’m right he can’t use it right now and we should definitely get going before the smoke’s all cleared.”

Her quick plan was definitely their best bet. Guess his gamble paid off in more ways than one. His grin widens at the exciting thought of the tides turning in his favor. He’s ready to kick ass.

“Let’s move.”

With that they nod to each other once and stealthily start moving toward the cloud of now semi disappearing smoke.

Katsuki slowly makes his way through the right side of the plume. Although it’s dissipating, it’s still too thick to see through. He’s grateful that his eyes are no longer sensitive to the burn of smoke after years of training. He sometimes thinks his tear ducts have been burned away after so many high heat explosions, only to remember his tears on his wedding day and when both his kids were born. Man, love has made him soft.

Suddenly he hears the distinct sound of cheap plastic (he blames his parents) falling and skipping across the concrete floor. That could mean only one thing, stupid looking sunglasses. Dumbass must have tripped! He reacts in the speed of a lightning strike, lifting his gauntlet and setting off an ear shattering explosion in the direction of the sound. The force of which blows the remaining screen away.

Lowering his arm, a triumphant smile on his face, pro hero Ground Zero fully expects his villain to be out cold in front of him, ready to be cuffed and sent to prison so he and Ochako could wrap up and get home. He couldn’t be more wrong.

Instead, in front of him stands a concrete pillar with a sizable chunk missing from it. Dust from the debris floats around taunting him. His blood boils.

His smile falls and he quickly turns around to face his opponent already looking at him with a sinister smile and a very dark look in his eye. Dumb sunglasses no longer on his person, thrown as an annoying clever decoy.

He had been fooled into clearing the rest of the smoke with another explosion. And now he is an open target.

“Fuck.” Is all Katsuki can mutter because in the blink of an eye, literally, blades shoot towards him.

“NO! KATSUKI!”

For the first time in Katsuki’s life, time moves in slow motion. He hears only the echos of his wife shrieking his name and his adrenaline pumping blood through his ears. With each beat of his pounding heart, Ochako’s frantic scream fades away until he is left with nothing but himself, this mother fucking villain, and the blades of air rushing toward him. It was as if they were transported somewhere else far away.

Katsuki was a very smart and observant man. These traits helped him become a great, no, a fucking great hero. He knew many things with certainty, two of which he could recognize now. The first blaringly obvious thing he knew was the two razor sharp blades of air barreling towards him were, without a doubt, moving at speed even his lighting fast reflexes wouldn’t be able to react to. There was no way in hell he could dodge them. With that being said, the second thing he knew was that if these blades hit him, which they most certainly would, he was going to die.

As the attack reaches the halfway point between him and his attacker, number 2 hero Ground Zero, Katsuki Bakugo, feels a wave of emotions crash into him that he can’t place. They are emotions so foreign, he wouldn’t be able to find their origin even if they were circled on a map for him. With them come a heavy dose of realization.

It’s over. All his hopes, all his plans for the future will never come to fruition. Being number one hero? Kiss that goodbye. Since he got his quirk he has been working to be at the very top. For years he has put his everything into being a hero. Blood, sweat, even fucking tears have been shead to get him to where he is. But as devastating as that is, it’s nothing is compared to when he thinks of his family.

He will never see his daughters smiling face again. He’ll never hold his son in his arms again. He will never get to tell or show Ochako how much he fucking loves her. Man, he really has gone soft, but his fucking pride or ego or whatever the hell can fuck off. All the people he loves are flashing before his eyes and sending a massive wave of sadness, regret, dread, fear, and, most damning of all, hopelessness, washing over him.

He is terrified and he is going to die.

Suddenly, he is doing the most cowardly thing he has ever done. His eyes are betraying him and beginning to close, not wanting to see his end coming. Not wanting it to be over with such a bright and happy future ahead of him. If he has to accept it, he doesn’t want to watch it leave. He just hopes that Ochako can forgive him and his young children will remember him.

But, just as his eyes are about to shut. They widen in surprise as he feels himself being slowly pushed out of the time warp and physically forced aside.

It’s her, it has to be.

Ochako’s shoulder slams into his side with the force of a freight train. Just as he begins falling he notices a piece of debris, with the help of zero gravity, hurtling towards the villain. It successfully smashes him in the middle of his face definitely breaking his nose and, based on the loud crack, potentially fractures his skull. He drops like a rock before Katsuki hits the ground.

Katsuki’s eyes flick over in time to see the blade hit Ochako. Blood splatters, floating around her as if she’d used her quirk on it. The force of the blow is enough to send her flying a few feet backwards and flip her body over mid air. The horrible sound that resonates after her impact with the floor signals real time again.

On the ground, his hip and shoulder throbbing, Katsuki’s heart is about to burst out of his chest with how fast it’s beating. He’s in shock and can hardly breathe, but he isn’t concerned about himself.

“Cheeks?!” He shoots upright, ignoring the feeling of bruises forming, and turns his head slightly to see his wife laying on her side with her back to him. There is blood along the ground, trailing to the pillar he had hit were a another sizable divot has made its place slashed into it. A small pool is already starting to form beneath her.

“No...no.” He says feebly.

He scrambles across the floor to her, turning her over to see the gash in her side and a split in her forehead from her impact with the floor. The sight hits Katsuki with another horrible hard to process feeling.

“Oh god, please no.” He rasps as he scoops her up and places her into his lap slightly upright so her head rests into the crook of his neck.

One of his hands cradles her head to and the other moves to apply pressure on the wound to her side. Blood sleeps through his gloved fingers. He can feel her breathing faintly against his neck, but that does nothing to ease his rising anxiety. He leans into her, maneuvering his head just above hers so that he can use his finger to press against his ear piece.

“SOMEONE SEND A MEDIC, URAVITY IS DOWN!” He bellows, “I REPEAT, GET YOUR ASSES OVER HERE NOW!”

He let’s go of the button and instantly gets feedback that help is on the way. A small amount of relief washes over him, but his breath is stolen by the sound he hears next.

“Kat-suki?” A weak, garbly voice asks. The voice of an angel.

“Ochako!” A relieved smile creeps on to his face as he cups her cheek, “Oh thank fucking god! Hey look at me, keep talking to me,” he moves her face so she can look at him with glassy brown eyes.

“You... You okay?” She slurs, “Where’s the vill-?” She moves to sit up, but Katsuki stops her, applying more pressure to her side which causes her to wince.

His smile falters, “Hey, don’t move tiger. Don’t worry about him, you already took him out remember? Just keep your eyes open and keep talking to me.”

“I...did?” Her eye brows crease in confusion. She’s not fully with it right now, he can tell by the look in her eye. Her rosy cheeks are starting to lose their color. His fear is settling in.

Memory loss? Not good. She’s losing to much blood and she definitely has a concussion. If Katsuki wasn’t concerned before, he is about to freak out now. He is reminded once again of his tear ducts existence, but he needs to stay calm and strong for her. He has never been the best rescue hero but he certainly is not the stupid kid he used to be. He can feel her sinking deeper into his embrace, and her eyes are getting droopier by the second, where the hell is this back up?

“‘Chaks what are our kid’s names?” He knows he needs to keep her awake and talking.

“This... hurts.” she says grabbing weakly on to his arm applying pressure to her side. She’s not listening, his eyes are watering now.

“Ochako,” he pleads placing his forehead against hers and squeezing his eyes shut to stop the tears rolling down his cheeks, “Please, talk with me. What are y-our babies names? Tell me.”

“Katsuki...”

“No that’s my n-“ his voice cracks and she stops him with gentle carcass to his face. Her hands are trembling.

She whispers something he can’t quite make out and then her hand falls limply to the floor just as the steel doors fly open.

Katsuki doesn’t sleep that night.

————————- end of part 1 of 2

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loquaciousquark · 5 years

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Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E64 (May 28, 2019)

Another week, another adventure into the the wild and dangerous minds of BWF and his wacky sidekicks. I have to say, the quality of Critical Recap has increased dramatically since it first started. Awesome job, Dani! Tonight’s preroll is the celebration of the birthdays of Laura & Liam, which is today, May 28. For those who don’t know, this shared birthday is why they decided to create twins in the first campaign.

Tonight’s guests: Taliesin Jaffe & Matt Mercer.

Tonight’s announcements: Next Monday, June 3, the episode with Ashley Johnson of Between the Sheets will finally air at 7PM Pacific. Brian says she hates talking about herself, but he got her to open it up. They’re already filming season 3 of Between the Sheets, and that will drop monthly episodes once it begins airing. The My Little Pony oneshot, led by Mark Hulmes from High Rollers, will air this Friday night, May 31, at 7PM Pacific. Roger Craig Smith will be one of the special guest stars on that episode. Tales of Equestria will be loaded to YT on Sunday. Denver Pop Culture Con will be this coming weekend. Limited photo and autograph tickets are still available.

Episode 64: A Dangerous Chase

CR Stats: The phrase “end of the day” was used 11 times this episode. 5 things were invented: “don’t shoot the messenger,” “don’t beat a dead horse,” “par for the course,” the game of golf, and ravioli. Laura held Jester’s astonished look for 15 seconds. CR has now aired over 800 hours in total.

DMing for Colbert was surreal for Matt. It was a week one pipe dream for Matt, which means he was a little afraid it would be a letdown. As soon as they began talking about Stephen’s history, he started feeling more comfortable, but it wasn’t until he saw the first cut the next day where he realized how great it had been. He hopes it isn’t the last opportunity they have to play together. They managed to raise over $100,000 for Red Nose Day.

Caduceus is taking a Mary Poppins approach to talking to people as a way of teaching by example. He hopes people will realize that you don’t have to always use violence to get the information you want. Taliesin, on the other hand, realizes that will never happen. Matt talks about how much he really likes the the impact Caduceus has had on the game, and both Tal & Matt talk about the 3-4 day planning session they had on what high wisdom/low int looks like. “That’s rough, buddy.” “Ahh, that’s exactly what that looks like.”

The M9′s deception during Speak with Dead was a little better than Matt had anticipated, so he gave away a little more information than he’d originally intended. Tal talks about how this must have been something Clay watched happen many times growing up in a funeral home, seeing his family Speak with Dead in order to give peace to a grieving family. It’s an interesting juxtaposition of seeing something his family used a bunch of times growing up being used in a very different way now.

The Charis DC was just because it was a very very high DC--but not impossible. There are people in the world who know about it, but they wouldn’t have reason to cross paths with the M9. It would be like an archaeologist.

The stern Cad during the interrogation was partly an act, because he was trying to perform, but also because there’s a bit of Cad we haven’t seen yet. They all agree that in the cast of CR Ashley is the most actual zen. Everyone agrees Travis isn’t even in the running.

Cosplay of the Week: @graviteacosplay with this nifty Nott cosplay.

Matt was a little surprised they took a path just straight through the Barbed Fields instead of taking a more circuitous, safer route. He expected the rest of the group to protest and was more surprised when they didn’t. They talk a bit about Fjord as an agent of both order and chaos and about how he’s trying to find his place in the world.

The near-death experience has left Cad in a place where he’s not making the best decisions right now. He knows this is dangerous, but he knows they need to check it out, and since they’re “on a mission from God,” everything they do is right. “His risk assessment is a little off right now.” Matt is delighted remembering Sam’s face; BWF points out it’s rare we get one on Sam like that.

The Sorrowsworn are scary because they’re entirely based on emotion. To further develop them, Matt likes looking at their abilities and basing their movement in a horror-film way off that. He knew he would get Travis; he wasn’t expecting to get the rest of the table. “I was very proud.”

Tal has no idea how Cad will process these horror creatures. He wasn’t frightened or freaked out by the grotesque, but he wasn’t really prepared for it, and having Caleb go unconscious was a bit of a fright.

Brian mentions for probably the third time in this show that the next season of Blindspot will be the last one. I’m getting the feeling he’s very ready for it to be done.

When Matt was developing Xhorhas, he wanted to develop all these other societies without the ties to the dark gods. How would they develop with their clan ties? What about as people were assimilated into the clans? What tropes has he seen in other media that he needs to avoid? He talks about how when you build independent areas of your world, it’s a helpful thought experiment to imagine what would happen if they collided. He developed a lot of Xhorhas in pockets and then put it all together.

Tal asks Matt if he was surprised they’d picked up the dodeca. He wasn’t exactly surprised--he’d planned for pretty much all the outcomes of that particular early encounter. He’d meant it more as an exploration of the intro to the Xhorhas world and the Krynn dynasty.

Tal laughs about his very visible reaction to Laura’s Vex voice coming out of Jester this episode. It had nothing to do with his efforts at diplomacy later; he just realized he hadn’t been paying enough attention and had no idea what part of Jester this was supposed to be coming out of.

Fanart of the Week: Just a couple of bugs flyin around, by @_sunsetdragon.

In talking about Clay’s pranks on his siblings, he thinks at some point they at the very least took the bed of an errant sibling out while they were sleeping and put it in a tree overnight.

Matt talks about how if there’s nothing in the books that suits the monster he needs, he just creates one. Tal & Matt start talking about a monster he made for an old campaign called a Dragon Engine; it was designed to build a disease that turned all dragons in a world to crystal, which in turn slowly destabilized the world/planes. Matt took a Dollar Store doll head and covered it in Saran Wrap & hot glue with wings & tentacle bits in odd places. His inspiration was a fetus god boss from the Dark Stalker series. Tal remembers being so annoyed he made this amazing, horrifying creation out of four dollars’ worth of miscellanea. Matt talks about how you can do a lot of amazing things with a bit of hot glue (veins, paint, skinless surfaces).

Cad is aware that the the Xhorhouse is a stationary point in his quest; he is not measuring his quest via distance. He feels okay being stationary right now.

Dunamancy had nothing to do with Caleb; Matt had that inspiration on his own as he was developing the Krynn dynasty. It just ended up working very very well with Caleb’s backstory. He talks about how when he reads theories on Reddit about things linking up, 60-70% of them are actually complete coincidence.

Caduceus has zero interest in the war. At best he doesn’t really like the Empire, but Tal doesn’t think he has the intelligence to formulate a more complex opinion on the war. He has no stake in or understanding of the war in any deeper capacity.

Shakaste’s current location was made up on the spot. Everyone thinks about who Shakaste would main in Overwatch. Matt pulls out the McCree voice. Bastion’s short is Matt’s favorite. BWF loves Reinhardt’s. All three of them start talking about John Wick 3 which I HAVEN’T SEEN YET, GDI, if they spoil that I’m going to weep bitter tears of bitterness. Okay, good, we get out alive.

And we’re done and done! We linger on a shot of Matt & Tal trying to figure out why Episode #69 is funny... (nice).

#critical role #critical role spoilers #talks machina #talks machina spoilers #long post for ts

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emperorren · 5 years

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Wait are people actually feeling suicidal over Daisy’s words?

A word of advice from someone who has been in fandom for.. .too long, tbh. Don’t lose your sleep over actors giving their opinion on shippy stuff. Really. Actors don’t have a clue of what shipping is, and those who think they do end up doing... what Daisy did, i.e. try to sound like they have a nuanced understanding of the discussion and controversy surrounding the pairing, which often results in parroting anti arguments without even realizing it.

Actors trying to tackle ship discourse = bad, bad news. But also irrelevant. One, Daisy was clearly stating her opinion on the dynamic as it is by the end of TLJ. Two, she said something similar (minus the “I can’t get behind it now”) pre TLJ and we STILL got a reylo-heavy movie. Three, she has said plenty of positive things about Reylo, and Kylo, and Kylo’s redeemability, which she also reinforced, unprompted, in this particular interview, hinting to the fact that things might change drastically in TROS. Four, even if she genuinely dislikes Reylo (and tbh I don’t get how she could, purely from an acting/artistic perspective, because it’s SO good for her character to be involved in such a high stakes dynamic, and so good for her personally to have a superb actor like Adam as her acting partner), it’s going to have ZERO impact on the actual outcome of the movie. They don’t write a multimillion dollar franchise around this or that actor’s personal feelings lmao. No matter how important he or she is. Watch Mark fucking Hamill be eternally pressed about Luke’s arc while nobody at Lucasfilm gave a rat’s ass and went through with TLJ Luke as per plans anyway.

You also need to be aware that there are going to be many moments like this in the months to come, and it’s likely going to get even worse after IX, when actors will be no longer contractually obligated to stay tight lipped or afraid of getting an earful from their bosses. Chances are John will come out and say “I was pissed that f/rey didn’t happen over reylo”, or that Daisy will go on record saying certain scenes were uncomfortable for her to shoot or that she would have preferred Rey to not have a romance at all, or that she wished she could have done that trajectory with John’s character, shit like that.

At the same time, actors are also rarely consistent about this sort of things. One day they will praise the dynamic, another day they’ll make shitty jokes about it, depending on what they feel like focusing on, what part of the audience they’re addressing, what’s the tone of the question, etc. That’s because, again, they don’t lie awake at night thinking how this dynamic will evolve, they don’t have feels, they don’t have (necessarily) a clear and set in stone opinion of what the pairing should be were they in charge (also because they’re not writers, but performers).

The point is you can’t let ANY of this ruin your enjoyment of this fictional dynamic, or taint your fandom experience. Chances are there will be other interviews in the next months where Daisy says the exact opposite anyway.

#suicide tw #fanwank #star wars worry #daisygate #negativity for ts

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magnumdays · 5 years

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Magnum PI - 2x11 - Day I Met The Devil review

So second week in a row we get a bit of a military/ bigger scale sort of episode. Magnum is called back to duty and sent off to South America to snatch up a shady bad guy.

And while I do love that we get two separate sequences of Magnum looking amazing in his uniform and the whole opening was really fun, this episode for me didn’t feel like a season finale or even a true Magnum episode.

I mean, I get that Ivan is the bad guy this season and so putting this episode as the season finale makes sense in that regard. Except this ep. had hardly any of the things I watch Magnum PI for - small but important or personal cases with happy endings, fun characters bantering/ arguing/ interacting, beautiful Hawaii areal shots (yes I’m a sucker for beautiful scenery), friendship, Magnum breaking into places, more banter, some deep conversations, the Ferarri (LOL).

It did have the leave no man behind/ loyalty amongst soldiers (and towards country and between friends) theme which I love. But on a grander scale rather than personal. Even than Higgins little speech on how getting in trouble to save Magnum would be worth it and being all “we all know it would so let’s just move” felt grander than normal somehow.

IDK, this plot was a little out of place. And because Magnum was spending the whole episode hanging out with two boring characters I don’t care about at all, trying to kidnap a guy I don’t know or care about, I just felt “whatever” about it.

I wasn’t worried for Magnum -because he’s Magnum - nor did I care about him getting the bad guy because there were no emotional stakes. Even the twist where it who turns out to the bad guy wasn’t the bad guy and the awkward tech guy actually is, wasn’t even that interesting because this episode had made me fail to invest in the outcome. Something Magnum PI is normally really good at, be it a little old lady’s haunted house, a girl’s missing cat, or a guy hiring Magnum from beyond the grave.

Another part that made it feel off, was probably it trying hard to be serious while also light and fun. This ended up it just failing at both ends for me (other than for a few instances at the beginning.)

Also what was with Ivan the bad guy just kind of half admitting his plan there at the end? Like I needed you to help me get the guy so I could ask him what he told the police. That’s a lot of work to go to for that.

Seriously. If you’re a guy with enough resources to send five mercenaries to break into an author’s private estate to find out who the guy you’re looking for is by looking through old manuscript, then arrange for the kidnapping of a guy to blackmail his military-boss dad into sending Magnum to South America to get an introduction to the guy you’re actually hunting for, I feel like you could use that money to figure out some smarter plan to get to the guy you wanted in the first place. It’s just too unbelievable.

And why would Ivan risk exposing himself by going on the op. himself? Not the most brilliant of bad guys is he now?

If I was writing this episode I’d have had Green (military boss with the kidnapped son) be the one who Ivan wants something from. Maybe he’s figured out since he was Magnum superior he has the intel he needs. Then Green would secretly call Magnum to help him find his kidnapped son and that’s how they’d all get involved.

We’d stick close to home - never leaving beautiful Hawaii, there would be some tension in the gang/ with Higgins because Magnum won’t share the info on whose kid they’re trying to find (or something) and in the end they’ll find out Ivan is behind it all and maybe put a face on him because they were clever and figured out his plan. Not because he randomly decided to reveal himself.

Or we’d just cut out the scenes gang figuring out Magnum is in trouble and deciding to go save him, have Ivan and his bad guy BFF actually be introduced as fun, sympathetic characters and the “bad guy” as a mustache-twirling baddy. Then when the twist happens we’re all surprised and maybe even Magnum doesn’t want to believe it. We can then have the gang show up - another surprise - to save him.

Them getting there and finding Magnum can just be something done off-screen. And because we know the gang, how much they love Magnum and how smart and connected they are, it wouldn’t be too big of a stretch for them to have come to save him (except for maybe Gordon). They could end with them sharing fun stories about how Rick had to trade his favorite watch or something for a gun.

But that’s just me…

I’m also a bit disappointed we did not get Perdita in her “Tactical Barbi” outfit which I thought was supposed to be in this episode (but that’s from the crossover one? I thought someone said it was from the finale but whateves). And what’s going on with Higgy’s hair? It’s like they straightened it and then put curls back in rather than just go with her normal messy curls -and while she looks posh in this new way - I like her hair better when it’s a bit more natural and messy like this.

We do get Rick being adorable while handing out the rifles to everyone! Look at him, he’s like a kid in a candy shop! This was like the best moment of the episode, everyone getting their guns and bantering about borrowing a helicopter from drug smugglers.

Overall, as you can tell, I’m not real happy about the finale. I probably won’t even bother to watch it again (I normally re-watch each episode at least once within the first few days). There was no emotional impact at all and even the (meant to be) the dramatic reveal of Ivan didn’t shock, scare or even amuse (me). It was just ‘right, um, that dude? okay?’ in my humble opinion.

Hopefully, next year once we get the second half of the season the show will be back to its normal charming self!

Until then

What did you guys think? Was this episode amazing and I just have zero taste? What was your favorite moment? Least favorite?

————

Some of my other Magnum PI episode reviews; 2x05, 2x06, 2x07, 2x08, 2x09!

#Day I Met The Devil #Magnum pi review #magnum pi #magnum pi season 2 #Thomas Magnum #magnum pi cbs #magnum pi finale

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blackcatmanor · 5 years

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Predictions for RWBY V7 Ending (w/ photos)

RWBY vs Ace Ops

The Ace Ops will square off vs RWBY and the initial outcome will be RWBY getting away. A lot of people think the "Ace Op Traitor" theory will come true vis-a-vis Marrow using his semblance to freeze his team, but I don't think that'll happen. I think RWBY will have to work together to simply get away from the fight, and they will have to maneuver around the campus while avoiding the Ace Ops. Overall the Ace Op conflict will be resolved another way....

Winter Maiden powers- Fria will die and Winter Schnee will get the powers. I am the most ambivalent about this prediction because I also half think they are setting up another Maiden misdirect like volume 5's twist, and the obvious Maiden candidate will not have/get the powers. With Ironwood desperately trying to direct the powers to Winter, it would be a large misdirect for the plan to fail completely.

However, the reason I am leaning more towards Winter Schnee getting them is because I think the overarching story is setting up that the RWBY girls will get the maiden powers and will therefore be the force that eventually stops Salem. Presumably Raven's final thoughts would be about her daughter, so Yang will get Spring powers. Cinder is being set up for a big confrontation with Ruby so she'll get Fall, which leaves Winter and Summer. So Winter Schnee may be an in-between conduit for Weiss to receive the Winter powers (*sniff* :’( I hope I’m wrong), and somehow someone in Vacuo will have to get to know Blake enough to get her the Summer powers upon death.

Ozpin Returns- Ozpin will return to help Oscar and resolve the overall conflict with James, and Ozpin will be the only person who can talk him down off the ledge. He already appeared briefly when Oscar was in trouble, so now that he is in mortal danger I think he will help Oscar fend off Cinder and Neo until RWBY/JNR can show up and assist.

This could set up a lot of epic fights, with Oscar/Ozpin fighting them first and unlocking Oscar’s semblance (because he mentioned in 6 episodes ago so by RWBY logic it’ll be unlocked now), and RWBY and JNR arriving as well to fight Cinder and Neo.

After fighting off Cinder and Neo, I think Ozpin will then atone for his secrets to RWBY and Ironwood. There has been a lot of talk about Ozpin's secrets this volume so he will have to address this topic (and hopefully RWBY will have to atone for their secrets as well, otherwise they are huge hypocrites). They all vow to be honest with one another, and use their newfound honesty and power of friendship to urge Ironwood to change his mind and save Mantle. He could also be encouraged to do the right thing by the reluctant members of the Ace Ops, such as Marrow and Clover.

This would mean that V8 would still be in Atlas, with Ironwood trying to complete the Amity tower in order to call for help from Vacuo (if you remember in S6 Tyrian mentions "if Ironwood comes to his senses and calls on aid from Vacuo..."), with a looming time constraint of Salem's impending arrival.

The villains score a victory: I think a lot of the criticism of RWBY lately is that the villains don't really succeed in anything. Ever since the fall of Beacon they have repeatedly failed, and I think the Writers are going to be looking to reverse this narrative. Additionally, Salem said to Emerald that Cinder had to redeem herself, so I think Cinder will get a win this volume, especially since Watts and Tyrian did not. Maybe Cinder will grab the lamp and escape, giving Salem 1 question she can use if and when she learns how to use it. Maybe to ask where the relic of choice is at Beacon.

A main character suffers an injury

Based on the CRWBY teases this week, I feel like we are going to get another character maiming. And let me explain why I already hate this on principle.

1. It's been done- twice. When Yang's arm was cut off it was shocking, because it showed that our characters were in a world where the element of danger existed. However between the fumbling of that story line (more below) and Weiss being maimed only to be saved and continue fighting a mere 1 episode later, it's becoming a cliché and points a glaring spotlight on the plot armor the four characters have. No one realistically believes any of the main 4 girls will die, but a well-used maiming can interesting if used sparingly and executed correctly (more below). However, the mishandling of Yang’s maiming, and Weiss’ injury in Volume 5 officially removed all emotional return elicited from character injuries, and continuing to carve up main characters will have diminishing returns unless they rely on gross-out value, which, a RWBY animator said they animated a scene that’ll make people barf, so I guess that’s the strategy now. *eyeroll*

2. It has no meaning to the story

So a character might lose a [insert body part here]. With the technology available to them being seemingly boundless, what does it matter? Lose your eyes? Here are fully functioning robot eyes! Missing an arm? Here is a robot arm with quick eject feature. The characters never have to make do with living a life minus one body part, which makes the possibility of a character losing a body part seem pointless and devoid of character impact.

Nonetheless, even with the technology available able to quickly replace missing body parts, it still could have an emotional impact if such an injury changed who the Victim is as a character. But alas, that is also a problem here: maiming in RWBY never impacts someone as a person, nor does it becomes a catalyst for character change or growth. The pain and trauma of losing a limb or being maimed is never teased out and explored. Let's look at the most notable maiming’s:

Maria was the only person whose injury actually had emotional stakes, as it changed her entire existence. She actually has PTSD-like symptoms (unlike Yang- fight me!), as we are told her trauma prevented her from returning to her life as a Huntress. She was too scared and traumatized to fight anymore, with a (possibly irrational) fear that someone would try to finish killing her because taking her eyes wouldn’t be enough. However, for being the only character with demonstrable PTSD-like issues, the way they handle the revelation she was a brave warrior forever changed by a traumatic injury was super weird. She says she gave up on fighting, so she is a coward and disappointment, while implying that Yang is *so brave* to be able to keep fighting after her injury. And no one argues differently.

She wasn't cowardly, she was traumatized. The fact that the writers paint Maria as some coward who “only looked after herself” was super strange, and her helping the group implies that she has to redeem herself in some way for her “cowardly” actions. However it does shed an important light as to maybe why getting maimed doesn't affect our main cast- because apparently having any hesitation to fight after losing your eyes makes you super *lame-o*! to Miles and Kerry.

Yang- This is the first, and most egregious example of traumatic injuries having zero impact on a main character. For someone as gung-ho as Yang, losing an arm should have made her more incredibly traumatized because her "jump into combat" attitude is directly what cost her a limb! This should have fundamentally shaken Yang to her core, having her question her abilities and her tactics and entire life of training. Instead we got a hand that sometimes shakes with vague triggers, which really just served as a catalyst to the romance between her and Blake. Once they become an item the hand shaking stopped entirely and we NEVER saw it again! Also, no one clap back that Adam being gone means her “PTSD” is gone. The cause of your “PTSD” being gone doesn’t mean your actual disorder goes away.

Weiss is another example of massive injuries having no impact on the main cast. She was impaled as a plot device for Jaune to unlock his semblance. She is completely back to normal 1 episode later, with no ill effects. The writers somehow wrote a “Weiss being impaled” story line while completely avoiding Weiss within it! That is almost skillful.

So, characters being injured has been done, to almost zero emotional yield. If they go the maiming route they are going to have to do it a lot differently than they have handled these injuries in the past, and actually spend time fleshing out what happens to someone who suffers this kind of injury. These events should have emotional impact and not just serve as a way to have the main characters end up looking like grizzled pirates.

I just hope they skip it entirely, but I’ll keep an open mind. If it does happen I am predicting Blake being injured because it’ll be a way to further the Bumblebee relationship, and it will also be a juxtaposition between Yang’s injury with Blake taking off, and Blake’s injury with Yang being there for her.

#rwby #rwby vol7 #rwby predictions #weiss schnee #yang xiao long #blake belladonna #ruby rose #rwby bumblebee #marrow amin #harriet bree #ace ops #ozpin #rwby oscar #cinder fall #maria calavera

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bifacialler · 5 years

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So I went to see Frozen 2 with the fam

And let me put it into context, I thought the first one was... massively overrated.

[Disclaimer: all of this is my personal opinion and you may not agree with it. There is a very high chance you will not agree with it. Also, I watched it with Russian dub, so maybe some finesse was lost on me.]

Like okaaay, it’s a sister-tale and it was okay in terms of story and engagement, and yeah, we all laughed about Elsa’s ghost braid and the one-face syndrome of the female cast, but the animation quality was good, and Hans plot twist WAS unexpected. It just didn’t blow me way narratively. Maybe because Snow Queen was important to me as a child and the old soviet cartoon will forever be my go-to reference.

So when I went to watch the Sequel, I a) had next to no idea what it was going to be about and b) seeing the trailer, I was sure the animation would have upgraded, and I hoped they would take on the misgivings of the first film and improve upon them.

Frozen 2 (as it turned out to be) was not the film I expected to see.

I’m going to make this (try to make this) a spoiler-free review. This is mostly for me to spill acid in the wake of Oscar Nominations that thought to include this sequel and fucking Live-Action Animation movie we are not going to name, and not KLAUS.

Which is the best animation made this year.

You can fight me outside if you don’t agree.

[Missing Link was okay, though not as emotionally thoughtful as any other Laika work. Toy Story 4 was alright-ish, but still underwhelming in comparison to TS3. The only film I have no questions about is HTTYD 3 - it was very good, but this is not what this post is about.]

So anyway, Frozen 2 is a total mess.

Visually it’s wonderful, and the sisters look different (slightly), and parents have some sort of personalities, which still makes their Else-related decision strange and shitty parenting. We all agreed it was after the first film, but I’m going to return to this pint later.

There are two major themes going to through the plot, the first one just bashing you head-first from the very beginning, while the other follows... two minutes later. The thing with these two themes is: the first one is the most foreseeable plot twist of all time, especially if you consider this film as a product of our current social climate, while the second one, while kinda the continuation of Elsa’s “Let it go” character arc, takes this arc to some very very far-fetched OP level, that at some point you really have to sit back and force yourself to suspend the disbelief of “Elsa, the most Magical Girl of them all”.

It’s honestly a shame. Because these core themes are not the worst. There are a lot of element to them that the film introduces that are good, and could work, EXCEPT the film either does nothing with them, or tries to underplay them as something mysterious and strange which... they kinda don’t feel like.

All of these problems stream from one massive misgiving the film has, and it’s that the film doesn’t clearly know who it is for. It tries to play the card of “kids who watched the first movie will come to see this one, so this film is for them”, but what was supposed to be a step forward, somehow became two steps back. The theme A will not engage adults, because adults will see through it in 5 seconds and the final outcome of it will be the only thing acceptable as an outcome (within the current cultural climate, as I mentioned before), while at the same time it will not work for kids, because they will, quite frankly, not give single fuck about it. They will giggle at Olaf and his questionable shenanigans, that will pop up at random times during the film, kinda stalling the plot - no, let me correct myself. Kids will engage with Olaf’s slap-stick, and... nothing else. I wish I could not say that, but I sat in the movie theatre packed with kids, and this is what I saw and heard. When the kid on the seat before me (6-7 yo) during one of the most emotional parts of the film replied to Anna’s “what am I going to do now?” with “nothing”, it dawned upon me that the message did not connect.

I personally had to pause myself several times during the showing, just to ask myself: What the actual hell am I watching?

And then we come to theme B. I heard in one of the reviews that this film would have been a much better, more engaging film if the creators made it Just Elsa’s Story. Both themes could have been included, but the emphasis wold have been solidly of theme B and Elsa, and how we, as audience, would experience this whole process with her, and I agree. Not that it would have been completely awesome for younger kids, because the concept of it flies a bit over their age group, but it would have been interesting for Elsa stans, and as a general themes of the movie.

But this universe is not just about Elsa. It has Anna as well. And this movie does Anna a huge disservice. I’m not even going to talk about Kristoff. That was just... sad. So very sad, and pointless, and every time their interactions came on screen I had to stuff down my second-hand embarassment and marvel at how this relationship is not ready for what the film wants it to be and how can you mess up the intriguing chemistry that they started to in the first film. (Also, if you actually like the whole Kristoff in the Woods music video, but somehow ever said anything bad about Strange Magic, you are on my problematic list. I’m not fucking around.) But Anna - she was a decent character, and humanly believable, and now she is... in this movie. This is Elsa Movie and Anna is... also in it. (Unlike Kristoff.) Wow.

But the strangest thing about this movie is that with both themes A and B combined, we encounter a dilemma that overruns both of them, and in many ways, renders them null. It came to my attention when some young dad behind me muttered half-way “Can you believe these two run a kingdom?”, and I had a revelation. They DO run a kingdom. And the narrative “call to action” is kingdom-related, except it’s not, because it’s Elsa related. And Theme B is kingdom-related, except it’s not, it’s past related. It’s a question of responsibility, except somehow all of this responsibility is not about the Now. The characters feel the need to fix what was done before them, to discover what was before them, while literally abandoning the present for the past. The one time when the stakes are actually raised, ONE TIME in the whole movie when you have to actually worry, I was seriously more concerned about how the whole of the kingdom is.... I can’t explain it without spoilers, but when the ruler has to chose between the mistakes of the past and the preservation of the current, I’m honestly fucking worried about the kingdom and the people living in it, and maybe Anna and Elsa should not be fucking rulers. I’m just saying.

But even that is, this one stake... is flushed down the drain. The resolution of the film feels rushed and jumbled, and most importantly, Nothing is Lost. I had to sit and watch in awe at how Zero Sacrifices were made. The characters make a right moral choice therefore there will be no bad consequences. What the actual fuck. For a film that makes us wonder about who we are and now we make major decisions, it offers no serious outcomes to these decisions. And this is why it’s two steps back.

First movie made it clear that Letting it Go is not just about your personal freedom, but also about stepping out of comfort zone to embrace who you are and what is important. It made it clear that personal relationships are not straight forward, and take time and work and communication.

And it feels like this sequel kinda spit in the face of all these ideas. The characters now do whatever they want, and in the way, especially in application to Anna and Elsa, repeat the very same mistakes their parents did, except it’s now somehow a good thing. Because everything works out in the end because magic.

Oh, fuck off.

#long post #tldr Frozen 2 is not very good #except for animation quality #it was very pretty #not much else

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