#Some of these characters have overlap but I prioritized what was in character/funny

[bedtimegiraffe]

Fun Things Blades Characters Can Do Based on Their TTRPG Classes

Not restricting myself to the skills listed on the sheets, because that's boring. Also, assuming they're DnD characters, because that's sure what it looks like.

Aerin

Perfectly match anyone's accent after talking to them for 1 minute ('Master of Intrigue' under Rogue: Mastermind)

Insult people into being less competent ('Cutting Words' under Bard: College of Lore)

Make an experimental elixir every morning that will have one of six random effects on the person who drinks it (which could be flight!) ('Experimental Elixir' under Artificer: Alchemist)

Cherta

Telepathically spy using her spellbook ('Manifest Mind' under Wizard: Order of Scribes)

Make boots that you can use to teleport up to 15 feet away ('Boots of the Winding Path' under Artificer)

Imtura

Literally can't be scared while raging (basically getting really in the zone in combat) ('Mindless Rage' from Barbarian: Path of the Berserker)

Kade

Be at least middling when persuading someone at all times ('Silver Tongue' under Bard: Class of Eloquence)

Make himself magically understood by anyone, even if they don't speak the same language ('Universal Speech' under Bard: College of Eloquence)

Mal

Attack faster because he's charming ('Rakish Audacity' under Rogue: Swashbuckler)

Make others doubt themselves with sass ('Unsettling Words' under Bard: Class of Eloquence)

Nia

Cause magical damage by punching people ('Hand of Harm' under Monk: Way of Mercy)

While in Shadow form, summon a screaming shadow wolf ('Hound of Ill Omen' under Sorcerer: Shadow Magic)

Tyril

Magically create a quill that doesn't need ink ('Wizardly Quill' under Wizard: Order of Scribes)

Create an area where it's really hard to lie to him ('Zone of Truth' under Paladin: Oath of Crown)

Willow

Summon a bear, hawk, or unicorn (!) spirit to support the group in combat ('Spirit Totem' under Druid: Circle of Shepherd)

[sabertoothwalrus]

How did you get so good at drawing such expressive bodies/faces??? tell me your secrets!! (But srsly your skills are amazing)

AAAA THANK YOU!!

I think my initial inspiration was about 10-11 years ago watching Adventure Time and finding Rebecca Sugar’s boards. Sometimes I get a little frustrated because she gets so much more notoriety than the other very very amazing AT boarders, but….. her expressions man…. she was always able to convey so much with SO LITTLE. (SU’s expressions are on another level of course, but I think AT’s are just so impressive to me because they’re dot eyes)

But the thing is!! I’m also a fan of deadpan. Which AT also does very well. It’s tempting to want to do BIG, extreme expressions at every moment, especially in comedic comics, but you really don’t need to. I find that characters often feel more expressive if you reel it in more often. That way, when you DO have bigger expressions, they FEEL bigger!

for example, a panel where the contrast between big and subtle expressions sells the contrast:

I don’t really,,,, know exactly what I do that works, ?? I kind of just like, think of the emotion I wanna convey, make the expression, think about what my face feels feels like, and try to convey that. Using a mirror helps!! You’ll feel a little stupid but it’s funny.

some misc expression tips:

Definitely prioritize eyebrows, eyes, and mouths!

Noses aren’t as important BUT flared nostril can totally sell an expression, so it depends!

Remember that your upper jaw is stationary, and your lower jaw can move, and then your lips and cheeks can move all around that!

Just subtly changing the placement of eyelids and location/size of irises can completely change an expression

Don’t be afraid to make your characters look weird or stupid.

Don’t reinvent the wheel! Take reference from different media you like that stylize expressions in different ways, and find what works for you. I take a lot of inspiration from AtLA

Again, NUANCE! Like, when most people are sad, they do their very best to try NOT to cry. People hold things in. Sometimes what characters don’t say can speak louder than what they do.

some expressions I’ve done that have varying levels of nuance:

Also framing!! You can use the composition to help project how the character feels:

As for body language!

Having a better sense of three-dimensional form and anatomy isn’t necessary, but it sure helps a lot

Hands!! I have adhd and my family is italian so I use my hands a lot when I talk. But even still, most people don’t just leave their hands hanging loosely by their sides. People cross their arms and fidget with their zippers and put their hands in pockets.

Head, neck, and shoulders. If you can master the foreshortening of these overlapping shapes at most angles, you will be very powerful

Hips & feet!!!!! People RARELY stand straight with both feet flat on the ground with even balance. Most people will shift their weight to one hip, leaving one leg looser and at an angle. It also helps to practice perspective, because people also rarely stand with their heels lined up side by side. One leg may get kicked foreward or loosely bent backwards. I sometimes cross my legs when I stand.

Ultimately, if you want more lifelike expressions and poses, study from life!! Don’t worry about your drawing being “good” or “bad”, instead think about what can make it successful. Ask yourself, “is this conveying the expression I want to convey?” and if it’s not, figure out what you need to change to get it there.

[egg-emperor]

genuine question as someone who’s fav character is also eggman, why do you want eggman to be this like. Serious pure evil character, I definitely wish he was in frontiers more and had like a boss but, he’s goofy that’s kinda the appeal to me idk, I think jim carrey did him best

> "why do you want Eggman to be serious"

"silly" is literally the first thing I described in my last summary of what I really love and want to see him be lol

I adore stuff like the Twitter Takeover and Pontaff era including games like Colors, where he can be a big silly billy in casual situations but it's balanced out with him still having serious goals, showing his evil in his plans and actions, and still hating and trying to defeat Sonic. my favorite thing is the balance of humorous and evil and they commonly overlap in great ways too.

he is pure evil because the man at his most true to canon self hasn't given a single damn about anyone but himself and is very dangerous but I never said I wanted him to only be serious... one of the greatest joys of his character is that he has so much range from serious to funny and is best when he has that perfect balance to make you laugh but is still excitingly evil too.

I also love the range of him being a more funny cheeky mischievous evil in some situations just as much as I love his serious dark dangerous threatening evil. I really like when there's overlap of humor and evil in any way the most. it makes him enjoyable for some lighter more casually presented evil fun and his humor can actually add impact when he's doing serious suspenseful evil.

my main problem with Frontiers isn't the lack of a significant serious role, I can accept that but not how he's out of character in English. plus he's actually funnier and sillier in the Japanese version at least to me because of how accurately careless and rude he is to Sage outside of praising her only for how she's an impressive manifestation of his genius that performs efficiently.

it's also funny and lovable how traits of his manchild side shows in both versions with how he gets all angry and huffy and crosses his arms and is like "I don't WANT to!" whenever he needs to do something he doesn't want to, like he's being asked to share his toys because he always demands to do things his way. the humor is there and it's one of the only parts I do like in the English version.

though I am still bothered by how he spent most of the game sitting in Cyber Space, he could've at least had the chance do something epic when he got out whether it was a boss or not but it would've been nice since the real final boss fucking sucks lol. if they'd gone the Japanese route instead of writing him extremely OOC at the end then I'd be happy enough with English too.

but yeah you seem to be misinterpreting so I hope that clears it up. Eggman being silly and funny is something I enjoy and I'll never have complaints as long as they remember his evil and keep the balance. English version didn't but Japanese did. getting less screentime is a bummer but I can accept less as long as he's still portrayed well in the time he does get, that's what I prioritize.

I'm not a fan of carrey's take because he doesn't have the Eggman essence that makes me enjoy it (I only see carrey). but I like Eggman's humor and it's one of his most charming, fun, and important personality traits besides his evil. I'm not asking for that to go anywhere either, I love game Eggman exactly as he is pre English Frontiers and the point is I don't want them to change a thing about him.

he is a pure evil character that can be very serious but he can also be very silly and all sides are important and lovable and add to his charm to me

[unimportant-sonic-questions]

The purpose of this blog is to poll for questions about the Sonic series and its characters. My goal is for these questions to be very specific and entirely unnecessary to consider.

I will accept submissions for questions/poll suggestions, with the following "rules":

Questions should be SFW and appropriate, basically. This much is probably obvious.

I aim to post mainly questions in the vein of headcanons or "If this situation occurred, what do you think would happen". I'm not currently aiming for just general meta opinions on the franchise (e.g. "Do you like this game"), but there may be some overlap in certain cases.

I may not be able to post every question submitted, if I'm too busy. I will probably prioritize ones I think are funny or interesting.

I won't put "See results" options on my polls, since I think it's funnier if you have to choose one. I will include options in the vein of "Another choice not listed" or "None of the above" in more open-ended questions though, and I encourage elaborating on your choices in replies or reblogs if you feel so inclined.

[ameliarating]

I read through @pumpkinpaix‘s deeply thoughtful post about cultural appropriation and dismissal of Chinese cultural concerns (two related but distinct phenomena) in non-Chinese MDZS/CQL fan-spaces and should-be-obvious-but-painfully-is-not disclaimer: 

When it comes to these things, the voices that should be rising above the rest are the Chinese fans speaking out about what they’ve seen.

I’m only here because I feel I have what to say on this bit here: 

For context, we are referencing two connected instances: the conflict described in these two threads (here and here), and when @/jelenedra tweeted about giving Jewish practices to the Lans. Regarding the latter, we felt that it tread into the territory of cultural erasure, and that it came from a person who had already disrespected diaspora’s work and input.

Context

The Lans have their own religious and cultural practices, rooted both in the cultural history of China and the genre of xianxia. Superimposing a different religious practice onto the Lans amidst other researched, canonical or culturally accurate details felt as if something important of ours was being overwritten for another’s personal satisfaction. Because canon is so intrinsically tied to real cultural, historical, and religious practices, replacing those practices in a canon setting fic feels like erasure. While MDZS is a fantasy novel, the religious practices contained therein are not. This was uncomfortable for many of us, and we wanted to point it out and have it resolved amicably. We were hoping for a discussion or exchange as there are many parallels and points of relation between Chinese and Jewish cultures, but that did not turn out quite as expected.

What happened next felt like a long game of outrage telephone that resulted in a confusion of issues that deflected responsibility, distracted from the origin of the conflict, and swept our concern under the rug.

Specifically, we are concerned about how these two incidents are part of what we feel is a repeated, widespread pattern of the devaluing of Chinese fans’ work and concerns within this fandom. This recent round of discourse is just one of many instances where we have found ourselves in a position of feeling spoken over within a space that is nominally ours. Regardless of what the telephone game was actually about, the way it played out revealed something about how issues are prioritized.

(Big surprise, I’m going to talk about Jewish things and MDZS)

I haven’t read the fic in question, but I have certainly made many posts about Jewishness and the Lans, imagining certain traditional Jewish educational settings and modes of learning and argumentation as superimposed onto the Cloud Recesses. I’ve also written other posts, mostly for me and the three other people out there who would find it funny, imagining different sects as different Jewish sects - or at least, who they have most in common with.

Never was I imagining these characters or worlds to be actually Jewish, but, as people often do in fandom, I was playing around in the spaces, delighting in overlaps I found, out of a deep-seated wish that I could have anything like MDZS or so many of the other fantasy I loved with Jews.

I’m jealous. I’m so jealous. 

Here’s how I was relating to it: 

China is a country of billions with an immense media audience of its own, its own television, movies, books, comics, etc. The only Jewish equivalent could ever be Israel, very tiny, and while there is a lot of good Israeli television, books, etc out there, it doesn’t approach what’s available from China, and certainly none of it has broken through to be a fandom presence of its own, not even in Jewish only or Hebrew speaking spaces. And even when that happens, the creators don’t often draw on Jewish history and myth. (One example I can think of a show that does is Juda, a Jewish vampire show from Israel, but I know exactly one (1) person on tumblr who’s seen it.)

So I was treating MDZS the way I treat American media - as a playground. Since I can’t find Jewish stories, especially in fantasy, I’m going to play around with it in non-Jewish stories.

Here’s how I should have been relating to it:

There are so many people who, like me, have been hungry to find themselves and their stories and their magic in fandom spaces. They have a show that’s made it big. Is it fair to, even playing around in tumblr posts, set so much of that rich cultural context aside in order for me to find room for my own? 

In the U.S., at least, where I am, it’s not the same as doing the same thing with, say, The Lord of the Rings (where I wrote a fic making use of Jewish mourning practices and assigned them to the Beorians) or Harry Potter, because that’s taking a dominant culture which is all I usually ever see and make room for myself. 

In MDZS, especially in the English language fandom where the Chinese cultural context is never dominant and is often shouted over and overlooked, and where there just aren’t many other examples of media that made it big in the fandom, I am only making room for myself by shoving aside something else that barely has any room at all.

In many ways, I became the fan that frustrates me, that writes about Jewish characters celebrating Christmas, rather than the fan that I wanted to be, which gets excited about cultural overlap and similarities. I’m sorry and I apologize.

My first reaction was not to. My first reaction was to say it’s not the same. Because it isn’t the same. It’s never the same when minorities do things to each other. But even if that’s less destructive, in some ways it’s more painful, because that’s where we should be able to look to each other for solidarity. (Obviously this is in English language fandom - Chinese fans are not a minority in Chinese language fandoms!)

I do believe that there should be room to make silly posts about the Lans doing things that Jews do, because the Lans do do things that Jews do. When I made an edit where Lan Wangji was responding to Lan Qiren quoting in Hebrew from the Jewish prayerbook rather than the sect rule to distance from evil, I did that because he was saying the exact same thing. It was wonderful to me, that a Lan sect rule could be exactly the same as something I pray every morning.

That’s very different from when I wrote imagining the Lans as Jews which left no more room for the Lans as Chinese Buddhists. It’s those later things I apologize for and what I’ll be careful about in the future.

I do still want to return to something I said just above, however: “Because it isn’t the same. It’s never the same when minorities do things to each other.”

I worry, as I wrote in a separate post, about the tendency I see in anti-colonial, anti-imperialist spaces to look at Jewish practices and laws and culture and see it as an example of Western hegemony rather than as a survivor of it. Especially in a post that talks about the Chinese diaspora experience, where the very word diaspora was coined to describe the Jewish scattering across the globe and only much later was used for other cultures and peoples.

I don’t object to its now much more universal use as a word. It’s useful and it’s powerful and I believe it can be used to build solidarity. I do ask for, however, recognition that while Jews, especially in the West, might reproduce Western hegemony and use it against others, our own ethno-religious experiences bubbling up is not one of those reproductions.

In other words, when we erase, accidentally or purposefully, the Chinese cultural and religious contexts of characters in MDZS/CQL in our rush to write in Jewish cultural and religious contexts, we are doing harm as ourselves, not as representatives of Western/European/Christian hegemony. And in fact, what inspired us to write in our own contexts is that there are certain things (deference to elders, life carefully regulated by a series of laws about everything from interpersonal-ethical behavior to food habits to modes of speech, cultural horror regarding desecration of the dead, etc) we find in these stories that we don’t find in many Western stories that resonate with our own cultural background.

Which is not to erase the harm itself. I am sorry for it and I will do my best going forward to write about overlaps without erasing or replacing what is already there from the beginning and should remain so.

[animebw]

Binge-Watching: Baccano, Episodes 11-13

In which everyone’s stories reach a fantastic conclusion, the sun rises on a hopeful day, and I consider what this show’s been trying to say all along.

Legend of the Rail Tracer

You know, it comes to my attention that we’ve technically reached the end of Baccano (save for some sequel OVAs, so we’re not done quite yet, but I digress), and there’s one aspect of it that I’ve never really even touched on: its themes. Which is unusual for me; I tend to gravitate toward theme the most when analyzing anime for this blog. It’s often the easiest aspect of storytelling to examine in great detail, and it makes for some of the most rewarding experiences as I break down how certain themes pay off or falter. But that’s been missing with Baccano because, well, it doesn’t really have much in the way of themes. It prioritizes story and character above all else, weaving itself solely out of the actions its characters take and not worrying too much about any deeper meaning behind those actions. In that sense, it’s one of the purest exercises in sheer storytelling craft I’ve seen in a while. And none of this is meant as a criticism, to be clear; while I tend to value themes above all else, the fact that Baccano’s won me over so completely without so much as a whiff of them is a testament to just how damn good its construction is. It’s just that with how low-key this show has played about its deeper meaning, it’s made the act of sussing out what, if anything, it’s actually trying to say take a bit more effort and focus than I’m used to. But now that we’ve reached the end, I think the pieces have started coming together a little more satisfactorally.

At its heart, Baccano is a story about a vast array of different people whose stories all overlap in ways they weren’t expecting, and the conflict comes from how they all react when their pathways collide. Firo says it best as he mulls over Isaac and Miria’s unexpected party-crashing: ”It’s funny, innit? The way people bump into each other?” Across time and space, the show’s central cast has brushed up against each other in too many ways to count, influencing, however subtly, the direction all their pathways led. Ladd’s chilling confrontation with the railway tracer calls back to the framing device this show started with, two people bickering over the nature of the story they’re in and what meaning should be drawn from it. Ladd has always been the protagonist of his own narrative, a confident presence who overwhelms and dominates everyone in his path. But in this final stretch, he finds himself faced by not just Vino, but Chane as well, the first two people who refuse to be intimidated by him. They reject his story in favor of their own, walking their own paths that matter just as much to them as Ladd’s does to him. And Vino takes this idea one step further, hypothesizing that this is his story we’re living in. He is the only person that matters in this world, the agent of justice they all must answer to, the one person with the strength to determine who deserves mercy and who deserves death. Not even death scares him, because even if he’s killed, it won’t be him who’s removed from the world; it’ll be everyone else removed from his. Now there’s a chilling philosophical concept right there, huh? Once you’re gone from the world, you’ll be the only person left who exists in it as you perceive it. And isn’t that the ultimate victory?

The Joker Card

But the actual nature of the story the rail tracer’s in doesn’t bear that theory out. Because nobody is alone in this narrative; their collisions and unexpected meetings all influence the direction they take. Stories are not built out of a single protagonist alone, after all; they’re formed out of an entire world full of people, each with their own part to play. And the parts everyone plays in this hectic story, the ways their stories influence each other and intersect, are where they’re all able to come out their best. Their connections form the entire basis by which they’re able to make it out of the chaotic situations they find themselves, pushing each other out of the lines of fire until the sun finally rises on a grateful new day.

Actually, looking back on this whole deck of cards, there’s a common agent in all of these conclusions: Isaac and Miria. Czeslaw suffered unspeakable abuse at the hands of his former family, to the point where he’d given up on a live lived with others, but then Isaac and Miria almost sacrificed themselves to save him, never expecting anything from him other than himself. Ennis was built to be a tool that could be cast aside on a whim, but the basic humanity these two jokers extended to her gave her a sense of self-identity that allowed her to break free and become her own person. The confidence they gave Jacuzzi was what allowed him to face down his final opponent with the cherry bomb of love Nice granted him (“Don’t be such a naughty boy.”) and find his way back to her as the sun finally rose. It was their timely intervention that knocked a fleeing Dallas flat on his ass (”It’s perfect for this narrow road!”), inadventently capturing him so he could be sent to swim with the cement fishes for all eternity. Hell, their completely coincidental theft of the immortality serum they mistook for liquor, followed by their equally coincidental reunion with Firo and his men, directly led to them all drinking the serum, which allowed them to survive Szilard’s assault and finally put an end to his reign of terror. So not only are Isaac and Miria the best goddamn characters in the entire show (upon realizing they haven’t aged for 70 years: “Does this mean that every morning, we are reborn anew?”), their chaotic path through this chaotic story is the trail blazed through the underbrush that everyone is able to follow out of the darkness and into the light. Their sheer chaotic energy was so powerful that it literally saved everyone else along the way. That’s how goddamn amazing their earnestness is.

And the Rail Tracer himself? In the end, he respected his own sense of justice too much to let such noble actions go unfulfilled. That’s why he’s the one who saves Isaac and Miria from falling off the train, why he lets Jacuzzi go in the end, why he gives Chane a potential out from her scarred, broken life, leaving the ultimate decision up to her carved message in the roof of a train. He believes in his eternal presence as the captain of this story, but he still can’t help but see the value in helping all these other stories turn out for the better. After all, as he says to Ladd in one of the most badass moments in the entire show, it takes true strength to show mercy and compassion to those who deserve it. It takes courage to let yourself be kind when vengeance would be the easier option. And with the exception of Dallas and Ladd, who well deserved the failures they were saddled with, everyone in this cast was worthy of that compassion. After all, why suffer in silence when you’ve got good old Uncle Isaac waiting to wipe your tears away with a cheery grin? Everyone’s stories deserve to be told. But more importantly, everyone’s stories deserve the happy ending they finally arrived at. And that, more than anything else, is what I feel is the driving force of Baccano, why all the brutal violence and double crosses in the world can’t take away from its overwhelmingly optimistic spirit. Sometimes, you just gotta enjoy the party of life, no matter who you end up dancing with.

Odds and Ends

-Jesus fuck, this show’s dramatic editing is killer. I get tense just from rapid shots of people’s eyes.

-”Fathers don’t enslave their children under the threat of death!” I knew I liked Firo.

-”Stretching a bit there, don’t you think?” Yeah, like anyone could see Jacuzzi as a brutal thug.

-”But my mind’s made up and I’m not gonna cry now!” GOD, Jacuzzi’s great.

-”I’m the only one who gets to kill her, understand?” Ladd, honey, I think your priorities are a liiiiittle skewed.

-So, considering we know Ladd survived the night, hoe did he get the serum in him? Cause otherwise, he just got splattered across a water drum at 120 mph.

-”The times when I feel like crying the most are probably the times when I need to be the best, right?” God, he’s so good. Yeah, Jacuzzi’s definitely second best. Cry as much as he needs to, so the tears don’t get in the way when it counts.

-”Woo-hoo!” Everyone’s a dirty, dirty shipper and I LOVE it.

-”According to the British sun, or whatever it was-” GOD DAMMIT OF COURSE

And we’re done! Well, almost, I’ve still got one more session to go with the sequel OVAs. So see you next time for the actual end of Baccano!

[purkinje-effect]

The Anatomy of Melancholy, 6

Table of Contents Go to first. Go to previous. Go to next.

Updated 2019.01.29. (Minor name tweaks.) Insects tw.

That night after pairing a dinner of pan-seared Cram with a few shots of bourbon, Carey slept on the couch in the second floor lobby. He bundled up comfortably in a hospital blanket from the stock room. As much as his mind protested, he knew better than to sleep in his new braces and binding--especially not the corset. But, he reminded himself that he could simply don them fresh upon waking.

Day three at the pharmacy crowned first thing with Carey testing the elevator once more. As much as his constitution had prioritized his need to seek out the orthotics--god, sprinting down the Commons like that had felt disgusting--he knew exactly what he wanted lay on the third story. And while he had the braces on his side, he hoped that the elevator could shuttle him there reliably.

So, he located scales in the stock room. From there, he estimated he weighed just over a 110 pounds clothed, and he made Angel hover on one as well, to guarantee its thrusters’ applied pressure didn’t translate into weight. It stepped off, still confused.

“I’m not sure what this accomplishes, Sir.”

“Here, bring me a walker.”

“Surely.” It complied, and when indicated, balanced it folded up and upside-down on the scale. “Eleven pounds.”

Carey looked over to where the walkers were stored, folded up on the shelf.

“Put... ten of them in the elevator car for me, please. No, twelve.”

“I might have a misunderstanding of how these are used, if you need so many...”

“Look, they’re just the easiest unit of measurement I have handy. I don’t need a walker.” I don’t think, anyway... “I know it seems funny, but.”

Once Angel achieved the request, Carey pushed the third floor button and let the elevator travel upward. Once the light went off on the operating panel, he called the elevator back to the second floor.

“Twelve more.”

“...Yes, Sir.”

A second test proved the elevator could handle roughly a minimum 250 pounds.

“You can put them back in the stock room now.”

“As you wish.” Angel hovered back and forth with its three tentacle-limbs each loaded with four walkers at a time. “Seeing as you didn’t consider the elevator safe enough to test personally, does... whatever this was... assuage your fears of it?”

“I think I could handle riding it to the third floor, if that’s what you’re asking.” Carey stood and snatched up the last of his sweet roll, and shoved it in his mouth. He dusted off his hands in a steeling gesture, then stepped into the again-empty elevator. His grin with a cane across the car threshold kept the pocket doors from shutting. “Come with me?”

Angel rushed to cram in with its owner.

“Oh! So soon?”

“Third floor,” the elevator announced, holographic and androgynous.

With a pleased sigh, Carey exited the car with his Handy in tow. The doors shut behind them. This floor’s lobby had two armchairs and a coffee table, and some large fake potted plants. The door to the stairwell was in tact, as were the bathrooms. Like the two floors before it, this lobby still boasted both elevators. Unlike the other floors, besides access to the other floors this one only had a single heavy white wooden panel door. Before entering, he put his hood on again from his back pocket.

The chemist let himself in, and walked into what looked like a reception desk littered with paperwork, a terminal, and a keyboard. The light of his Pip-Boy scattered across the receptionist who now lay decomposed in the floor beside her office chair. Relieved to have found no ghouls, he took his hood back off, his hair mussed worse for nothing. Behind the desk stood a heavy digital security door. Squinting, Carey tried to peek in with a hand against the glass. He could see a faint green glow, but had no way of knowing if it came from a backup power source or the indicator light to something inside. He banged his fist on the glass angrily and slouched at the computer terminal with a growl.

“Fuck me. I knew the chems would be behind glass like this.” He scrutinized the terminal on the desk. “At least the terminal the door’s wired to is still working. It’s heavily encrypted, though. Could take me days, weeks, to figure it out.”

“Is it really so critical to gain access to the chem stores?” A hard pause and Carey turned his head slow to glare at his Handy. “Yes, yes, it’s certain to have some kind of medication that can help.” It knew this had nothing to do with its owner’s health.

“Could you be a dear and... make me a pot of coffee, Angel? I’m going to be at this for the rest of the afternoon.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

Angel dashed off, grateful for the chance to get away before popping off sarcasm. Besides, it knew his chem stash was inside it, and if it excused itself, he couldn’t get at them.

Carey found the password was ten characters long, based on the command line which blinked at him. This newer model of RobCo terminal interfaced with Pip-Boys, to his delight: it took both holotapes and the key-prong. Eager, he rooted around the receptionist’s desk drawers for a holotape he could cannibalize. The receptionist relied heavily upon a large library of them, and she had entire dedicated file cabinet specially suited for them among the furniture of the small office. After loading a few of them to browse, he found one with only two or three entries on it, and proceeded to format it.

“Thank you, Eleanor.”

While the tape formatted, he continued rummaging the desk. Nothing looked like it could have been the cheat for the password. Before he dove into repurposing the holotape, he made sure no holotapes in the library stuck out to him, which might have been the key all along.

Carey removed his Pip-Boy and set it up on the counter. He pulled up the command screen on it and loaded the blank holotape into its cassette tray, then plugged in the key-prong to make use of the terminal’s keyboard. He still hadn’t figured out how to input data into the Pip-Boy directly, and this was a facile cop-out. By the time Angel returned, he’d gotten embroiled in composing a simple decryption tape.

“Here you go.” It set a clean mug of hot black coffee beside its owner. “Is the going as tough as you expected?”

“Not so sure yet. I’m just grateful RobCo put out any cross-compatible models before the world ended. I don’t even know if it’s possible to write anything to this Mark IV model of Pip-Boy. You remember that I clocked into the Deenwood Compound with the key-prong of my Mark III model? The thing had a holotape in it we had to guard with our lives, and plugging it into the security door loaded the data from the holotape into its terminal, which only had the key-prong and not the holotape cassette tray. Two-part key. I guess that’s how they kept people from doing what I’m doing now.” He nodded thankfully as he picked up the mug with one hand and took a testing sip. When it didn’t taste horrid, he took a second. “Exquisite. It may be two hundred years old, but fresh ground coffee still tastes fresh. Angel, you still make the best coffee.”

“That means the world to hear, Sir.” Its ocular lens flitted anxiously. “What is it that you’re ‘doing now’?”

“I’m writing an algorithm that suppresses the encryption that’s censoring what each byte of data holds in it. It’s not going to crack the password for me, but it’s at least going to let me see letters instead of a billion bytes of punctuation. If I’m lucky, it’s a word and not a random set of characters.” Carey stopped a moment and counted on his fingers as he mouthed the letters. “Damn, ‘pharmacy’ is eight letters. ‘Pharmaceutical’?” He shook his head.

“I’m not sure that’s wise, though I’m most impressed, Sir.”

A few more skims of the script left Carey confident enough to pop in the tape into his Pip-Boy and run it. It seemed to work, Eleanor’s screen then displaying twelve ten-letter words, interspersed with miles of ASCII symbols. He didn’t see any good guesses among them, so he tried the first on the screen: CIRCUMFLEX. His script indicated the input had only two characters in common with the answer.

With so little overlap, he couldn’t readily discern a pattern; so, he tried the second word: JACKANAPES. It also had two characters in common--however, his script told him one of these characters was in a different position from those of the first guess. He wasn’t a master at hacking or decryption, just good at undermining basic protocols, so the formula to putting this information to good use didn’t present itself immediately. He started scrawling notes on a piece of scrap paper, and jotted down the twelve words so he could still study them should the terminal clam up like he thought it would likely soon.

The third blind attempt--ACQUIESCED--had yet another pair of characters in common. He wondered if any of these three pairs overlapped. Noticing the trend, he observed finally that all twelve possibilities had an ‘E’ in the ninth position, and he bit his upper lip. He scrawled a sort of Hangman at the top of his notes:

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ E _

The computer let him have a fourth try, so he tried the fourth option: SEXUALIZED. He laughed in frustration when this not only was wrong--the terminal locked him out for trying too many times. Yet, thanks to his decryption script, the screen displayed that the guess had four positions in common with the actual password--three which he hadn’t had prior.

As he downed his rapidly room-temperature coffee, he pored over the twelve words looking for further patterns. Six of them ended in a ‘D,’ and ACQUIESCED was the only one of those that didn’t end in ‘IZED.’ He’d already tried SEXUALIZED, so he had his next four attempts narrowed down fairly quickly once he formed a strategy. In hindsight, it would have benefited him to forge a strategy before the series of attempts.

The screen said Carey still had 34 minutes before it would let him test his theory. He sat back with a sigh, and glanced around the room with closer attention to detail. Angel had gone back downstairs. He took a smoke break and glanced down at Eleanor. Cautious, he knelt down to check her for valuables. In addition to praising she had on her person what looked like the passkey to the private elevator, he also took the silver locket around her neck. He couldn’t make out more than there being three faces between its two halves, the snippets of photography faded beyond recognition. He pocketed the passkey and jewelry, and proceeded to go through the desk for valuables now that he’d combed it initially for keys. Something felt so relatably muddy about the passing thought that the password had died with her.

“I’m about to get it, though,” he told her, “especially if it lets me try four more times.”

The time didn’t pass quickly enough, and his mind wandered again to the African beetles. He recalled folk medicine making use of all kinds of insects, for all kinds of remedies. Termites, centipedes, even grasshoppers, scorpions, and spiders. He also knew of the less reputable uses, as the vehicle of imbuing the individual with different boons... or as the source for powerful hallucinogens. A resin distilled from the finely ground powder of a particular arachnid he couldn’t recall the identity of--camel didn’t sound right--had been highly sought after in the black market, and he and Jacob had dealt with it several times. Simply named, the junkies called it Resin. From his understanding, its psychotropic potency exceeded that of even psilocybin, or even Jet, and one typically heated it just enough to liquefy in order to inject it. He never sampled the stuff himself, owing to its notoriously high addition rate.

He’d had enough expensive habits to nurture.

Half of them went into cooking Melancholia. Melancholy. You are what you put in your body, right? He’d have to take stock of how much of the chem-coction Angel had left.

The Handy had left the carafe of coffee with him, and he topped off his cup. His thoughts returned to the giant cockroaches and horseflies that had infested the New England Commonwealth. He wondered if any served the same significance as the Resin scorpion?

Eleanor’s terminal let him in again at last, and he hunkered down to scrutinize his choices against the list to ensure it hadn’t shuffled them. All four of his theory-words still appeared among them and he sighed, taking one last puff off his cigarette before putting it out in Eleanor’s ashtray. OXYGENIZED. Five in common, proving to Carey his theory held clout. Among the remaining three, he ruled out the unlikely TEXTURIZED, and tried SEQUELIZED. When that didn’t work, power of elimination left him with ALCHEMIZED.

Somehow, he’d all along had a feeling it was the right answer. He’d always thought he liked Eleanor.

After confirming the password, Carey left the door shut. He called out to Angel to see if it was within earshot, so he could report his success, but he didn’t get a response. He put his Pip-Boy back on and took his cane and his cup of coffee with him into the pharmacy lab and stock room alone.

His Pip-Boy cast a hard rim light on the equipment and shelving. To his left around the corner lay the chem lab, and to his right, the pharmaceutical stock with a dozen or so metal stock shelves. Even better than he expected, he sipped on his coffee, and took in his victory in awe. Given some acclimating, this could certainly be a veritable playground for Melancholy.

The chemist specialized in sedatives and painkilling agents. That’s what the military wanted him for: to study the applications of opiates. The more he thought about it, the more he felt the moniker fit him better than his own name, or nationalized name, ever had. He’d gone by his last name longer than he could even remember the exact point at which he’d committed to it. But to become a symbol, an avatar of the poppy? He had already, in his short time unfrozen, become something entirely otherworldly than he’d known in his past life.

Yes. Before the vault. That was a past life. Being frozen had been antiseptic in nature, and killed off the bacterial infections of compunction and reservation. This new world fostered a culture which could nourish and condition the latent aspects hidden away within himself which humanity had failed to recognize. Without time, he could tell neither if this quality was pieces of his identity to which society had been willfully oblivious, nor some vestigial proof of an embrace of atavistic progress.

But he would tap into it here. This building would be a crucible for change.

As he leaned proudly against the desk at the inventory side of the room, he felt a sharp pain in his foot, and jerked with a hiss. The mug shattered in the floor when he dropped it, and coffee splattered everywhere. He flashed his Pip-Boy this way and that because he heard the spill agitated something in here. Breathing heavy, he clutched at his cane. He wasn’t alone. Another ankle-bite jerked him to the floor, and he slid head-first backwards into the metal desk-front. With him now in the floor, the vermin revealed themselves, a dozen RadRoaches skittering eagerly toward their next meal.

Go to Next »»»

[asrafarel]

On Shiro’s and Sendak’s similarities (or maybe I’m just seeing double)

(art by me) ************this is S3 spoiler free************* I haven’t even watched the last trailer yet. warning: long post It always pains me to see how most of the fandom is depicting Sendak as a bossy motherfucker with a short temper acting like a brutal fighter and enjoying non-con relationships. Seriously, have we seen the same show? Ok, Sendak is a villain (with a high potential for a redemption arc, please Dreamworks don’t let me down on this), but that doesn’t automatically make him an horrid asshole.

Yes, Sendak is a nasty opponent but he still has a lot of common points with Shiro and both stand on an equal foot in terms of leadership and fighting abilities (though I think that if Sendak had a less heavy and bothersome prosthetic he’d move better and thus maybe the result wouldn’t be the same, but I have nothing to support this theory). Actually, they have so many similarities they are literally mirroring each other.

First, let’s make a list of things we know about their shared past :

Shiro was detained on Sendak’s ship (along with the Red Lion)

=> Sendak is Zarkon’s first Commander, the emperor trained him personally. Sendak is loyal to death to the Galras (not to Zarkon, let’s double check this*) and trusted. He was given the responsibility to watch over a lion and the should-have-been-their-greatest-weapon-dude (I guess his name was Shiro or something).

They both had the Druids experimenting on them (although Sendak was willing)

=> We know (from his official bio) that Sendak lost his eye and his arm during his time on the frontlines (meaning quite some time ago, since that was before he was promoted in the hierarchy - only low ranks soldiers fight on the frontlines -, it also means Sendak rose up from the very bottom and earned his title through merit just like Shiro who started out as a cadet in the garrison) and volunteered to get a bionic prosthetic. Shiro stated that the Druids took his hand (yeah, hand, makes you wonder how much is actually missing).

Shiro has hallucinations about Sendak

=> Crystal venom is probably my favorite episode so far and it drops so many bombs about them, it’s impossible to think they never talked to each other before. The way Shiro provokes Sendak and the fact he’s getting a reaction from it tends to hint they had this conversation once, but reversed.  

So far nobody got under Shiro’s skin like Sendak did (not even Zarkon)

=> Seriously no one else did. This is (flashbacks aside) the only time Shiro panicked for real, like he completely lost his shit. Not Zarkon, not Haggar impersonating him or being stranded on a foreign planet wounded with angry animal on his tracks got him desperate like Sendak did. I know Shiro was hallucinating, but to him it was real and it was probably just a replay of past events (though I can’t prove this yet).

Now a list of their common points:

First in command of their respective boss (aka Zarkon and Allura)

Leadership skills (also charisma)

Lost an arm (opposite of each other)

Were Druids’ toys at some point **

Scar on face

Tacticians (have a good look at Sendak’s last sentries, they’re all half-broken and he managed to pull out a working plan with just 2 guys and 5 nearly out-of-order robots)

Composed demeanor (Sendak is more composed than Shiro tbh)

Matched in terms of fighting abilities, twice a draw (epic fist bump + last blow and in both situations they do have exactly the same stance, still the most epic fight to me)

Dedicated to their cause, never giving up even in desperate situations

Supportive and/or encouraging (Sendak praised Haxus easily)

“Climbing from the bottom to the top” career path (then falling into disgrace)

Both are the strongest around in their own group

(also they like to get lost in space)

(both names starts with an S *ba dum tss!*)

That makes 12 (14), but the core similarity is much more global. It encompasses all of this and is more like the general idea of their characters. Sendak is dark!Shiro in a way. They both have the same role and rank in their respective organisation, the same way of handling stuff coming their way with a seemingly cool and composed attitude, not letting their anger get the best of them.  

Sendak broke loose only when Pidge cut his arm off, crushing all hopes of winning and despite this he kept on fighting until he was trapped. Ironically, Sendak was made prisoner and detained on the Castle of Lions just like Shiro had been on his own ship. Reversing position and situation again.

They both are doing the same kind of choices (avoiding a fight if necessary, prioritizing tactics over frontal assault, giving everybody a role and benefiting from other teammate's skills -Sendak is the Commander/fighter/tactician and Haxus is the com tech/hacker/mechanic and their skills don’t overlap- etc..) and handling things in a similar way (they don’t give up, face desperate situation with determination, fight mental battles, etc..). It’s pretty fascinating because they are very different but at the time they’re totally similar.

Another thing that I realized while doing this analysis is that they have exactly the same career path. They started small and proved their worth. Sendak was named first Commander and Shiro is recognized as the best pilot on Earth. Then shit happens (Sendak lose to the Paladins and Shiro is framed for pilot error) and they both fall into disgrace.

Also, I’d like to pinpoint something in order to annihilate brutal-bloodthirsty-fanon-Sendak. During ep.4 (The fall of the Castle of Lions), when Sendak and Haxus are marching on the castle with their damaged sentries and Shiro opposes them, Sendak actually asks Shiro to let them through.

*then fight starts*

(Kinda dubious dialog out of context… Dirty jokes aside, it could have been foreshadowing for Crystal Venom: Sendak actually got into Shiro’s mind.)

What’s important here is that Sendak had no intention to fight Shiro if it could be avoided. He’s no bloodrager on the loose. He fights when it’s needed, avoid unnecessary troubles and is dedicated to accomplish his mission. Just like, guess who? Yeah, Shiro.

The choice of words is also very interesting. Sendak didn’t ask Shiro to get out of his way or to get down or to go away, he asked him to “stand aside” as in to stay out of the matter, to not butt in, to let him do his work. Maybe I’m stretching this but that’s not exactly what you ask an enemy and when Shiro rejects the option, only then, Sendak goes for the kill. What’s funny is that he didn’t kill him when he had the opportunity later. He didn’t even knock him out, he just tied him (while Lance, who wasn’t considered a threat wasn’t even tied). To me it’s more like the way you treat a former ally (maybe ally is a bit too much).

I really really really hope Sendak is going to get some screen time in S3 and that the veil on their common past is going to be lifted. The character has so much potential and also the ability to drive Shiro insane (not the same insane as Slav tho).

I still might update this at some point with the upcoming seasons.

Hope you enjoyed it!

----------------------------------------

Notes:

* Actually, the reason I think Sendak’s loyalty is to the Galras rather than to Zarkon comes from his first appearance. His very first quote is : "I fight for the empire. I conquer in the name of Galra. No foe has ever stood in my way and none ever will. Vrepit sa!" Maybe I'm stretching things too far, but to me it could be some sort of foreshadowing of Sendak turning against Zarkon (most likely Lotor) because he goes against the Galras as people. Remember, Ulaz said to the Paladins that Galras supported the empire because it would bring them stability, there was something genuinely desperate and hopeful there (incidentally hope is exactly what Shiro is to Ulaz). After all, their home planet had been destroyed, thus making them homeless too. Also, in S1e1 Zarkon refers to the Alteans as a foul race and that Voltron is rightfully theirs. We know nothing about the “dark history of the Paladins”. Galras probably have a very different opinion on who’s the bad guy. In S1e3, when Haggar asks Zarkon if Sendak can be trusted he doesn't say "yes, he just said he trained him and that only victory or death would stop him. So, I kinda fancy the idea of Sendak having certain aspirations for the empire and turning against whoever fails to reach said aspirations. Be it a Galra prince or whatnot.

And last thing but not least; Zarkon didn’t seem really forgiving regarding defeat/failure (that’s the fastest way to be demoted -cf. Morvok and the Kerberos commander- and in the Galra meritocracy that must means something huge), during S1e3 Sendak himself said: “Emperor Zarkon challenged us to rise from the mud”. That’s a cute way to say atone for failing him, but now that the emperor himself failed… what is Sendak going to do? How is he going to react?  

** This is what Sendak is implying by saying: “I see you spent some time with the Druids, they do love to experiment.” Meaning they used the first Commander as a pet project and probably not too long before he set foot on Arus since it’s implied Shiro got his prosthetic just a few days before being released by Ulaz. In any case, it’s less than a year ago meaning that Shiro probably met Sendak equipped with a less advanced prosthetic (or maybe no prosthetic at all). Also, and that’s very interesting, Sendak seems to discover Shiro’s prosthetic during the battle, which means the last time Sendak saw Shiro he still had his organic arm. @ferretfam thank you soooooooooo much for your help @canadarama here you go! Pssst! Sendak’s fans, give me your thoughts on this if you’d like @vrepit-sa @deception-and-disgrace @candyfoxdraws @ograndsovereign 

[freedom-of-fanfic]

why antis do the thing: being an anti with problematic canon

why do antis stay in fandoms where the canon material itself is problematic? Relatedly, why do antis stay in fandoms where the creators support - or fail to denounce, at least - bad ships and nasty shippers?

--

Most antis seem to have a funny little disconnect between mass media creations and fandom creations.  Despite insisting on purity in their fandom spaces, antis will consume mass media-created works that canonically contain terrible things that they regularly fight against: incest, adult/teen relationships ('pedophilia' in anti parlance), noncon/dubcon, etc.

How can they do this?

In my experience: Antis hold fandom to a higher standard than the mass media on which fandom is based.

Fandom tumblr and social justice tumblr heavily overlap because fandom is where many queer, marginalized people go for acceptance and refuge. Additionally, much of English-speaking fandom comes from regions where LGBT and women's histories are very undertaught. The direct result is that many antis have received the large majority of their social justice education in fandom spaces.*

That makes it only natural that antis would expect fandom spaces to be better at things like maintaining safe spaces, prioritizing queer/LGBT stories, prioritizing PoC stories, etc. than the very media that caused a fandom to exist in the first place.  In the eyes of an anti, fandom should be fixing the canon problems by cleansing fandom space of the canon problems and patching those problems with good fanon.  Fandom certainly shouldn't be taking the bad parts of canon and running with them to ship or create things that are less than wholesome and positive.

Fandom should, as a collective, know better.

Of course, reality is that fandom - like the media it's based on - is made up of fallible humans who are steeped in the same culture as the media creators, and therefore fandom is generally just as prone to the same problems, both real (cultural misogyny and racism/bias towards white male characters, etc) and imagined (dark themes and fanworks, heavy focus on romance/sex, not always shipping the Most Correct ship, etc). This infuriates antis, who then set about fixing it by yelling at the bad parts of fandom until it shapes up, and often to the exclusion of creating or encouraging fan content that would meet their standards of correctness.

In contrast, mass media creators generally get a pass for reasons that are likely as varied as the antis that cut them the slack, but in general, mass media creators - particularly white, cis, male mass media creators - just aren't expected to know as much about activism. Antis don't bother to try to fix them because they won't even understand what antis are getting up in arms about in the first place.

Other prominent reasons for cutting mass media creators relative slack:

they don't respond as strongly as fan creators do, if they respond at all, to anti pressure/harassment, and calling people out isn't as interesting/doesn't feel productive if the target doesn't react

antis, like all humans, are prone to double-standards, and mass media creators are put on a pedastal that fan creators are not

antis feel that as long as they recognize the problems with the canon work and don't interact with them in fandom it's 'safe' to be in problematic fandoms

It is, however, worth noting that if a creator shows the slightest awareness of social justice issues but in some way falls short of anti-shipping purity standards, antis will frequently go after the creator as brutally as they go after fellow fans. Additionally, antishipping tends to be more prominent in mass media fandoms where the canon content is socially aware, like Steven Universe.

*in 2013-2014, social justice education on tumblr took a very hard, very sudden turn directly into REG territory. About the same time, anti-shipping culture sprang up. Coincidence? I think not.

[lesbianalicent]

mass effect: andromeda review

abandon hope of not seeing spoilers, all ye who click the cut

overall: 3/5 main story: 3.5/5 dialogue: 5/5 fuck all of you it was hilarious combat: 5/5 worldbuilding: 2/5 squad: 4/5 overall gameplay: 2/5 side quests: 1/5

this is gonna be long, y’all, i have A Lot To Say

so, first thing’s first: ryder is a treasure and probably the best protagonist that bioware has come up with since hawke or shepard. inquisitor whom??? they’re absolutely hilarious and whenever they open their mouth i know something delightfully terrible is going to come out of it. i find it interesting that the older folks who play this game (late twenties and over) HATE the dialogue but the younger folks who are around ryder’s actual age don’t? it’s an interesting split that i could write essays on just bc of how ryder talks bc it’s so similar to how i talk.

god she’s such a little asshole i love her i would die for her.

THE PROS: -fantastic combat that is probably the best that bioware has ever done, not having a set class is wonderful and being able to switch to do whatever you want is [prayer hands emoji] i can finally be the biotic infiltrator combo of my dreams -I LOVE BEING ABLE TO PROJECT MY DADDY ISSUES ONTO RYDER THANK YOU FOR THAT BIOWARE -kissable!! turian!! gotta Kiss That Turian!! -the tempest crew feels like a tight knit family, they feel Real, hearing them banter on the ship itself is lovely and seeing how their relationship grows over the course of the game is delightful. the movie night single handedly saved me. the emails and the message board killed me dead. -nakmor kesh is my girlfriend -liara t’soni cameos -SAM, i love that ai i hope he knows that. he’s a very different character than edi and i really like that? i like the relationship he has with ryder it’s a lot different than shepard’s relationship with legion and with edi -the little easter eggs scattered around, like hunting dr. okeer’s research and finding zaeed’s son -the main story missions really felt like mass effect, and there’s some great choices you have to make that i hope will have actual effects later in the series -STUNNING scenery, holy shit -nomad banter -peebee/vetra, specifically. thank you sheryl chee for my life. -THE RYDER FAMILY WHAT THE HECK I LOVE THESE ASSHOLES -loyalty missions were a lot of fun, liam’s specifically is SO funny i love that boy -i would die for the tempest’s crew THE CONS: -too big. way, way, WAY too big. like take the hinterlands and make it into several PLANETS big. it’s exhausting and it was neat at first but by the end i just wanted it to be done, i had to resort to doing a speed run just so i wouldn’t burn myself out on the first try. if i wanted to play an open world game i’d play world of warcraft or skyrim, honestly. the open world aspect of it is dEFINITELY one of the game’s biggest weak spots, and i’m def gonna save my completionist run for when some mods and patches come out so i don’t burn myself out real quickly. i still haven’t recovered from my dai completionist run and that was a year ago. -the loyalty missions are fun and interesting, but except for cora’s they really didn’t seem to have much of a point other than unlocking romances. in me2 the point of the loyalty missions was that the crew would draw a line with shepard somewhere, things you said and did could lose their loyalty and if you lost their loyalty the characters could and often did die in the suicide mission. these seemed more like personal quests, they didn’t even unlock new outfits :/ -okay. listen. i understand that garrus is a fan favorite. and i love him too. but holy shit liara had a VOICE cameo and he still got the most references. that goddamn archangel paintjob? “reach and flexibility”? having his picture in the codex? his goddamn father being in a flashback? liam mentioning a scarred turian vigilante? meanwhile kaidan and ashley get nothing, lmao, Okay. like shit even shepard only got referenced ONCE like come on y’all. not even gonna mention the battle of the citadel? that was a big goddamn plot point, especially since ryder was RAISED ON THE CITADEL? you’d think that the sovereign attack would be traumatizing. -dragon age characters got references but ash and kaidan don’t.........lol.........i see you bioware.............. -what was even the point of editing shepard’s gender -if you’re gonna have references you should at least have a little reference for every major character like the game is so fucking big you could have done it without being in your face. ellen’s role with biotics? reference baat. general williams and shanxi. wrex when talking to drack’s clan urdnot friend. -i really wish they’d have at least had some major choices from me1 imported in, like “did the council survive, who was the virmire survivor, was everyone recruited, did wrex survive” etc.  -speaking off, there’s plot holes for days. i can’t get a confirmation on when in 2185 they left, but if they left before shepard woke up and they didn’t ever recruit garrus in me1 then WHY would garrus’s dad talk to alec about it. the fuck my dudes. -yeah. plot holes for days. i’m tired and a bitter OT fucker. -gil’s.......entire.............storyline............lol GOD bioware...... -having the two crime lords being the latino man and the black woman. i see you bioware. -sloane’s entire storyline god bioware........... -the remnant are literally just synthetic protheans and the kett are organic reapers -i’m tired of this trend in bioware games where they use the “SILLY MORTALS YOU CANNOT EVEN COMPREHEND OUR ACTIONS, THEY ARE BEYOND YOUR UNDERSTANDING” like with the reapers it was cool, corypheus was a disaster and quite frankly so was the kett but whatever. -activating the monoliths and having to do sudoku. why.  -not prioritizing quests properly. you could miss one of the biggest twists in the game bc you don’t finish that fetch quest to get all the memory triggers, and that twist was the main one that i actually wanted to see (shepard and the reapers and liara’s SOS) -PEEBEE’S SEX SCENE GOD. TOO MUCH. BIOWARE. -JAAL WITH HIS VAGINA HEAD GOING DOWN ON SARA RYDER. FUCK.

that’s all i can think of atm but my main issue with the game is that bioware doesn’t seem to know how to prioritize quests, it’s SO BIG, and they treat their mlm like garbage. also racist tropes ahoy.

i’m really excited to see where they take the franchise tho! definitely got some solid future plot points with whatever the fuck the remnant were, whatever the kett are after (ugh...), discovering what happened in the milky way, who killed jien garson, who is the benefactor (my money is illusive man and tann’s power hungry froggy ass had her killed and it was unrelated just coincidental), ellen ryder’s recovery, the quarian ark, etc.

i hope they keep the same squad for the next game! continue the romances as well as add in new ones, maybe add a couple of new squaddies. i like having the same characters overlap in different games, it makes you actually care about them. add in scott/sara as a squaddie! LESBIAN/GAY SQUADDIES. keep ryder as the protag or so help me god..........

it really, really makes me miss the original trilogy tho. and playing it knowing there’s a bunch of ppl who wont ever touch it but will play andromeda hurts me deeply.