#because she's basically my exclusive andromeda because like ?

[adveanture-archived]

it is very important to my portrayal of ted tonks that he does not PINE for andromeda black 

[drabsyo]

Is there a difference between Catra and Bellatrix/Pansy?

I've never thought about it before but I would have to say, yes. I'm not certain about Pansy, but with Bellatrix there are definitely some parallels there.

🔴 They were both left by someone they cared about, and they labelled that person a "traitor", Andromeda for Bellatrix, and Adora for Catra. And that betrayal impacted their lives so harshly, to the point where they were consumed by pure hatred, and they had obsessed over it, cradled it, held on to it.

🔴They're both ruthless, and dedicated to their cause; Bella's loyalty to Voldemort, Catra's loyalty to the Horde (at least before she was redeemed). The way they think is pretty similar too, in almost any situation it was always "how can I benefit from this at the end?" instead of "is this the right or wrong thing to do?", and they work their way through that, cunningly, almost easily I'd say. Catra even manages to use that cunningness to save Glimmer in the end, which is this whole

🔴 Pansy, Bella, and Catra were also fed false propaganda at a young age, an extremist view, manipulated by individuals in seats of power. Pansy and Bella thought lesser of muggleborns, Catra hated Princess (with the exception of Scorpia, but we'll discuss that further on).

The parallels are there. There are quite a lot, now that I think about it... I'm sure there are more, these are just the ones I can think of at the top of my head. It has been a while since I last saw She-Ra, and to be honest, I don't think we actually have enough canon material for a more in-depth analysis for either of Bella or Pansy's characters but we work with what we've got.

🟢 The difference I would say is, although I'm not claiming to know Catra's psyche or character better than anyone, Catra's loyalties. Catra held this long standing grudge against Adora. (Sure, Bella held that same grudge against Andromeda and towards every other witch/wizard that went traitor every other Wednesday and, granted, we can also argue that Bella attempted to protect Andromeda by crossing her out of the tapestry. And we do see Catra trying to protect Adora at times, and getting punished for it too, much like how Bella took the brunt of the consequences of Andromeda's "betrayal"--Bella getting married off to Letrange, all that.) But Catra's hatred towards Princesses was triggered after Adora left. She was content before Adora left, she didn't show any signs that she hated any of the Princesses. Catra felt content because Adora was there, and the rest of the world didn't matter. It was more of: "Forget about them! Forget about Hordak, forget about Shadow Weaver! Some day, all of this is going to be ours, Adora!" (not a direct quote from Catra)

But then Adora left. Adora left the Horde, she didn't leave Catra. But Catra took it personally. Yes, it's the same with Bella too. Andromeda left, but she didn't leave because she wanted to get away from Narcissa or Bella. She left because, like Adora, she found something else to fight for. And that involved the complete opposite of what their, Adora and Andromeda's, initial "people" believed in.

Scorpia is a Princess, Catra knows that. She doesn't hate Scorpia for it, she considers her as an ally because Scorpia chose to be on her side, their side. The divide between "them" and "us" is now clearer to her ever since Adora left her for "them". It was more about "Which side are you on?", rather than the whole pureblood politics/propaganda that was basically "Oh we're an exclusive club and you're not invited, and since you're not invited, you SUCK". (I know that's such a dumb way of phrasing that but it's 3 am and my mind is too sleep addled to come up with a more graceful way of putting it and I'm fairly certain that's not all it's about in the first place.) It still overlaps, yes, we can argue that Bella's hatred for muggles was probably even more amplified after Andromeda left her for "them", but Bella has always been loyal to Voldemort. Catra wasn't loyal to Shadow Weaver or Hordak. She even betrayed Hordak, lied to him, and overpowered him in the end. Sometimes she even thinks that she knows better than him. She didn't hold any love for Shadow Weaver either. She didn't believe in any cause solely because of Hordak or Shadow Weaver. Her loyalties, I think, were mostly to herself--to make sure she succeeded. Sure, Catra felt like she had something to prove and there was satisfaction in being able to fulfill that, much like Bella, who did that by being the only woman to take the Dark Mark (I think), but Catra outgrew that desire to prove herself to people like Shadow Weaver, people like Hordak. She wanted that same goal she told Adora in the first episode, except now it's "Forget about them! Forget about Hordak, forget about Shadow Weaver! Forget... about Adora. All of this is going to be mine someday." But she never forgot about Adora. I can probably keep this argument going but-- I am sleepy ;-;

AND PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE know that I am NO WAY an expert, and I'm just spit balling here, I'm probably wrong, feel free to tell me if I am, or if you have a better argument/discussion, and if you wish, we can keep the discussion going. Because this is really interesting! I've never considered it before, but now that it's been mentioned, I can't stop thinking about it lmao. Though honestly, I've been pacing my room for the past few hours, debating myself over this and yes, you are right, I am an awful debater. In any case, I do hope my garbled thoughts gave a bit of insight, anon. Though I highly doubt it... Still! Thanks for this ask :))

[priorireverte]

Congratulations Rachie!

Your application for Narcissa Malfoy has been accepted. I am so excited to have both halves of one of my favourite pairs around, and to see Narcissa being amazing and calm and collected even when facing a total upheaval of her world—again.

Please look to the checklist for the next steps and reach out if you have any questions!

OUT OF CHARACTER

NAME & PRONOUNS: Rachie / She/her

AGE: 29

TIMEZONE: GMT

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I can generally be on every day for a few hours, and then a little bit more at the weekends! I work full time (and am currently in temp housing) but I try to find time each day to be online cause rping is my stress relief!

ANYTHING ELSE: No triggers. But I’ve been rping in the HP world for approx 10ish years? I’ve rped on a dedicated site, and then more recently on tumblr. I’ve also been rping non-HP role plays on tumblr on and off for about five years.

CHARACTER DETAILS

NAME: Narcissa Violetta Malfoy (neé Black)

BIRTHDATE: 31st August 1956

DEATHDATE: N/A

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Cis Woman, she/her and Demisexual. When asked, Narcissa would more than likely say she was straight, and has probably never been attracted to anyone not male. But in actual fact it is the emotional connections she has with a person that really leads to the eventual sexual attraction. In actual fact since she has had a strong emotional bond, and relationship with Lucius, she has never looked at anyone else in that manner at all.

BLOOD STATUS: Pureblood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Slytherin

OCCUPATION: Technically Narcissa is unemployed, and most of the Wixen world would view her as a housewife, and having never worked a day in her life. In actual fact Narcissa has ‘worked’ as a private     potioneer ever since she graduated Hogwarts. She brews and works out of Malfoy manor. Of course, she’s very exclusive, and charges very high rates. It was generally the other purebloods that she would brew potions for.

FACECLAIM: Charlize Theron

CHARACTER BACKGROUND

POSTBELLUM

If there was one thing that drove Narcissa more than anything it was her family. She had always been a family person, and to her there was nothing more important than the family she had created. They were the reason she made the choices she did, and why she betrayed the Dark Lord. One might not even call it a betrayal. Technically she wasn’t a death eater. She was never marked. But it was clear to the Wixen world the side she had chosen. But she had chosen to betray the cause anyway, and she does not regret it. The war hadn’t been anything she had really wanted, and so for it to end, was something she was grateful for.

She isn’t the woman she was then though. Not anymore. In the manor, she might seem more like herself. But she sometimes finds herself more clingy, or more in need of physical contact. It sucks because she doesn’t really have many people that want to hug her anymore. Her relationship with her husband sometimes feels strained. She still adores Lucius, but it’s been more difficult since the war. They both went through so much, and are both still working through things. But what Narcissa knows is that she will always love and be dedicated to her husband, regardless of the choices he made.

These days Narcissa is just taking each day as it comes. She still worries that someone might change their mind about the Malfoy’s getting a pardon. She could probably talk her way out of getting imprisoned, technically she was never actually involved. But she worried about what a jail sentence would do to her husband and son. She tries to hold her little family together and navigate through the world.

But she is fearful. Fearful of what will happen if her sister, or the dark lord come back through that veil. She betrayed them, and she knows they will come for her if that happens. Now she’s just praying it won’t happen.

PERSONALITY

positive traits: Loving, Loyal, Fighter, Determined, protective negative traits: Manipulative, Calculating, Cold, worrier

Narcissa has always been a loving, loyal and protective person. She has always been a person with a huge heart, even if from the outside people might disagree. When she loves, she loves hard, and it is almost impossible for her to stop loving someone. This of course was tested when Andromeda left. If being honest, Narcissa still loves her sister, but she had to turn away, if only to protect herself. The bonds she forms are deep, and very emotional. They can be taxing, and sometimes too much.

As loving and friendly she is to those lucky enough to be close to her, Narcissa is also incredibly calculating, cold and manipulating. She has an extraordinarily strong talent in manipulating people to do her wishes. Add a cold exterior, and she managed to get a ice queen reputation. To be honest, it kind of amused her, as it was really so far how she would describe herself. But it fended off the people that she once thought weren’t good enough to be around her. It’s been a reputation she’s found hard to shake off in recent years, and she stills finds herself having to prove that she is kind and caring. Narcissa still doesn’t care too much about what people think of her though. People will talk about her regardless.

Narcissa is incredibly academically talented. Sadly at school she wasn’t really allowed to pursue a career, and her parents didn’t want her to focus too much on her schooling. But Narcissa was very clever. Her best subject was potions, and she was determined to carry on brewing, even after she graduated. It was a huge stress reliever for her, and she know being able to brew, and escape from reality, is something that kept her sane over the years.

Family has always been important to Narcissa, and if anything was the main driving factor in everything that she did. That is something that is being tested at the moment, especially with Bellatrix being back. She always said she would be loyal to her family, but this was a little too far. It is something she is really struggling with, and she finds that she really doesn’t have anyone to talk too about it.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY

The one thing striking from her childhood was the need to always be perfect. The Black sisters had to be perfect in every sense of the manner. It was a tough childhood, one filled with distant parents that never seemed to be quite happy enough. Narcissa was lucky in the sense that she was the baby of the three, but even then, she wasn’t a boy, and so her father would always be disappointed. Along with the need to be perfect, became the need to be pure. The law of being pure was pressed into her from a young age, and breaking that law became something that the young girl would become terrified.

The only decent thing really was her sisters. The three Black sisters formed a bond like no other, and Bellatrix and Andromeda were big factors in making her happy. Having her sisters love made the disappointment her parents expressed a little more tolerable. Everything would be okay as long as she had her sisters.

But then suddenly she didn’t have Andromeda, and it felt like her world was collapsing around her. The net suddenly got tighter then, and Narcissa probably couldn’t have left even if she had wanted too. Narcissa was just lucky that she was soon an adult, and could at least escape her parents house. They might have still had some influence on her, but she had a bit more freedom then.

Growing up in the Black family was hard. She always had to be perfect, and she always had to be pure. But the love she got and expressed for her sisters helped to shape Narcissa into who she became, and for that she couldn’t regret, or want to change anything that she had gone through.

HISTORY

To be honest, just before the end of the war her life was pretty terrible. The death eaters were running out of her house, and she felt like her life was being dictated. This wasn’t what she signed up for when she married Lucius, and she hated it. She hated not feeling comfortable, or happy in her own home. Tensions were high, and the only reason she survived was because of her family. It was tense with Lucius too, but he and Draco kept her going. She had to keep them safe, and that gave her a purpose.

Before then, before the dark lord had returned, her life has been pretty great. She got to do basically whatever she wanted, and it made her happy. Sure, she should have been upset that they hadnt won the first war. But, she was just happy that she got to live the life she wanted. She brewed her potions, and she had her family close. Family was the most important thing to her, and she was just glad that they were safe. The world might mistrust them, but they were safe, and for that she would be forever grateful.

The second wizarding world was hard for Narcissa. She shared the view points of the death eaters, but it took her husband away from her. First, at night, when he went on tasks for the dark lord, and then completely when he was sent to Azkaban. It was only her loyalty, and her love of her family, that kept her in that manor. Her love for Lucius was tested, but her marriage vows never faltered. For better, for worse.

She was a Black and a Malfoy, and so, at Lucius’ side was where she stayed. If that was the right choice….. only time would tell.

OOC EXPLORATION

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

Narcissa has always been one of my favourite characters in the harry potter world. I love being able to really delve into who she is, and what drove her to become who she did. We get so little about her in the books, and so I love basically having a blank slate to work on. It really interests me in being able to play Narcissa, and see who she is as a person. There is so much more to Cissa than just being a mother, and I love the opportunity to explorer this.

This roleplay has such an interesting idea. Not only does it have the post-war to explore, which is so interesting for the the Malfoys. But it also has the fact that people are coming back from the dead. Technically Narcissa is a traitor to both sides, and it’s something that I am really looking forward to exploring! I’m also looking forward to exploring the relationship between Lucius and Narcissa, and seeing how this was shaped and changed by the outcome of the war. Lucissa is my fave HP ship, and this is something that really excites me!

ANYTHING ELSE?

Nothing right now, but i’ll probably set her up an pinterest cause I love creating aesethetics for my charries!

[author-a-holmes]

Andromeda - Describe your main characters

Aquarius - Who’s your least favorite character to write?

Thank you for the ask!

I actually thought I already had a post on Stella, but I must have thought about it and then not done it? Or maybe Tumblr ate it. Regardless, here we go!

Looong post, so I’ve shoved it under a cut. I may have gone a little overboard with Andromeda ‘^_^

Andromeda

Stolen has two main characters actually, Stella Korazon and Reilly Mosswolf. Stolen is a Fantasy Romance and I write in 3rd person close, so while Stella gets about 2/3rds of the book, Reilly gets the other third fairly consistently as both of these characters see and perceive the world very differently and, so, they can show the reader different things.

Reilly Mosswolf

Reilly Mosswolf is the elven guild master to the Antillune Thieves Guild. Several hundred years old, he’d been a thief most of his life, but only taken over the guild from the previous guild master, and his mentor, Aldune Lamuird, for the last 50 or so.

He has no living family, his parents died when he was young, his mentor, Aldune, also passed and his sister was recently murdered. The closest thing to family Reilly has is his closest friend, Dara. Because of the number of people he’s lost, he tries not to let himself get too attached to the thieves in the guild. He uses affectionate sounding nicknames to distance himself, and will only use a person’s actual name if they’re important to him.

He’s naturally playful, he enjoys jokes and pranks and teasing, but he’s also on the guarded side. Especially during the events of the first two books, Reilly’s under a lot of pressure from the rival guild trying to encroach in his territory and attacking the thieves he’s responsible for.

Physically, Reilly’s quite tall at around 6ft1 (1.85m). He’s got a sun-burnished skin tone, somewhere around the ochre range, and black eyes which are a sign of his Desert Elf heritage from his mother. Shoulder length black hair, and not quite enough stubble to be called a beard, he favours dark clothes but has been known to lounge around the guild in light browns and creams in the summer.

I do have an Artbreeder image of Reilly, but he’s so specific in my mind that it’s really difficult to get an accurate representation. This is the closest I’ve managed to come so far, although at the end of this month Netflix is releasing a new show called Shadow and Bone, and Ben Barnes is playing a character called the Darkling which, in the right lighting to give him skin that warm ochre tone, I might be able to get a close-to-accurate face claim from so I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

Stella Korazon

Stella is the main character that the readers experience the world of Moryann through. She has my whole heart and at least half my brain’s attention at any one time. 

Her Da’ raised her. He’s what’s known, in-world, as a “Scrapper” and they are exclusively humans who travel across Moryann and sell their wares as they go. Some are more legitimate than others, but since there are many who are tricksters and scoundrels, all scrappers tend to be looked down upon and distrusted. 

Stella’s Da’, Colm, is the kind of scrapper that gives them all a bad name. Most of the things he sells are hoaxes and/or fake items, but that’s because his primary source of income isn’t selling his junk, but stealing.

He trained Stella to steal from the moment she was tall enough to reach pockets, and before that, she was the distraction so that he could rifle through peoples belongings, so being a thief is all Stella has ever known.

And she’s very, very, good at it.

Stealing is actually how Stella meets Reilly. Without giving away too many plot-related spoilers, Stella finds herself in a position where she is persuaded to appropriate heist plans from Guild Master Mosswolf. She changes her mind after she’s stolen them, however, and in an attempt to get gold to flee her employer, she tries to sell Reilly’s own plans back to him.

There’s a dichotomy to Stella that I love writing. She’s not stupid, or naive. She knows how the world works, and has not been sheltered from the harshness of it, but she has been kept from socialising. Her Da’ taught her to trust no one but him and her own instincts so while she can read a persons body language and figure out what their next move might be, or how they might respond to a certain situation, when it comes it actually reacting to people or things in a genuine way she’s a little out of her depth. It gives her a certain level of wisdom but with an innocence that’s always a delight to write and play with and I’m never quite sure as I move through the plot which aspects of the story are going to trip Stella up and force me to juggle certain story elements. 

Physically, Stella’s strangely striking. She’s small and slim, and uses this to slide into places that most thieves can’t go. She’s 5ft3 (1.59m), and her long blonde hair reaches the top of her hips. It’s often braided to keep it out of the way, but it’s rarely if ever tucked behind her ears which have scarring she prefers to keep hidden.

With delicate features, and very large deep blue eyes, Stella gives off the impression of being much younger than she is, and this is something else the young thief will often use to her advantage. My face claim for Stella is Amanda Seyfried, but I have a pretty accurate Artbreeder for her too.

Aquarius

My least favourite character to write is Tanar Orinan. I actually really like his character but I find him difficult to connect with because his humour isn’t my humour.

Tanar is light-hearted, playful, protective, but a prankster at heart. He rarely takes things seriously unless he has to, and I find that difficult to relate to as I’m basically the opposite <3

I love him, but writing him is a struggle. He only has a few short scenes in book one, but he features more prominently in book 2 so I’m going to be relying heavily on my First Readers for feedback on Tanar’s sections to make sure I’m hitting the tone of his character correctly.

[dgcatanisiri]

Part of me wants to make more comments to that producer for Greedfall to explain just how badly her response missed the mark, but... I mean, if that was her take away from three pretty clear, short, and succinct tweets, I don’t expect a long, drawn out rant to get the point made any clearer.

I mean, it’s really pretty simple. It’s not that gay players are asking for more content, in the sense that it’s asking for the amount of content to tilt in favor of the gay (I mean, even just for novelty value, it’d be nice, but...). It’s about how we want EQUAL content, more content in the sense that we can tell - we have eyes - that the amount of content we’re being given is less than that of straight players, and we’re tired of feeling like a second class audience. 

This isn’t a numbers game, a “oh, well, only 10% of people are gay, so we can’t really appeal to them.” Because what, exactly, does it matter, when “ten percent” of the human population is still larger than the population of the United States? That’s your “ten percent of people,” a population that is only surpassed by the two largest populated nations in the world. No, numbers are an excuse.

For whatever reason the people responsible for making these decisions have said and are continuing to say “we don’t care about gay people.” At best, it’s “we’re more afraid of angering the straights by having content that makes them feel icky.” And yet... Gay gamers are some of the most loyal customers you could ask for - treat us with respect, and we’re on board for forever. Like, I joined the BioWare fandom right in time for Dragon Age 2 to be released, and I was preordering the following games regardless of the controversies that happened... Until Mass Effect Andromeda was released with only two gay male romance options, as opposed to three for everyone else (and, as was later revealed, a fight to keep the one lesbian option exclusive for women, on top of the female!Ryder love scene where Peebee rides a non-existent dick...). At that point, I swore off BioWare preorders. 

Like, think about that. I did love Dragon Age 2, so it didn’t impact my choice to preorder ME3. But the ending debacle happened, and... Hell, I was actually fairly accepting of them. Didn’t think twice about preordering Inquisition, and not only is this the game where I ended up hating my two romance options, but I also basically bought my preorder for nothing when it turned out that they were dropping support for the system I’d bought it for during the DLC cycle, meaning that I not only had to buy it again, I also needed to buy a new system with it. And even through that, I still preordered Andromeda. Only to have my faith in BioWare shattered, and literally the only reason I picked it up on day one was because of the already-placed preorder. 

It was the same with Odyssey, too. We were ALL talking about how we were in a relationship with Ubisoft now, cuz they were treating us all right in this franchise that has historically had little to do with us (not just gays but women, too). And then the utter BULLSHIT. of Legacy of the First Blade, requiring a heterosexual breeding pair to contribute to this ludicrous plot connection they wanted to make that doesn’t even work in the context of these games, considering that it was all to connect the Eagle Bearer to a character whose driving motivation in her previous appearance was to avenge the death of her only child - what, exactly, was the point of “preserving the bloodline” when it canonically dies out a relatively brief time later? No, the writers came up with a story for a heterosexual Alexios, who would be able to knock up the daughter of Darius and still run around being the mercenary while she’s pregnant, and they didn’t care about anyone else.

At the end of the day, this isn’t a problem about who’s getting what content. I mean, that’s there, we can talk all day (check the tag, I certainly have) about the kind of content that gay players are getting in comparison to their straight counterparts, where the same stories repeat themselves over and over in media, frequently treating a character’s queerness as the only thing about them that matters, the only thing that drives any plot they receive... But this isn’t that argument.

This is the argument that gay players deserve to be given an equal footing with the straight players. Not on a numbers basis but on a respect basis. Because at this point, anything less than equal treatment, in terms of the time and effort put into their content as straight characters receive, is at most performative allyship, but not a genuine effort at being inclusive. Because it’s an active choice to give gay players less.

[ferociousqueak]

A Review of the Year – Writing Meme 2018

I’ve been really terrible at answering memes I’ve been tagged in these last few weeks. Sorry about that everyone! But it’s a new year, and both @mordinette and @ripley95things tagged me for the thing a couple days ago so let’s get things started right :D

Total number of completed stories:

If you count all the one shots from Desstober (when I wrote a one shot for Dess most days), about 19. Considering the longfics I still have in the works, I’m clinging to that number to remind myself that I can actually finish the things I start.

Total word count:

I’m gonna go with words posted because the words written are kinda scattered and hard to count, so: 45,869. Oof. Probably my least productive year in a while, but that’s fine. Can’t change it now. That just leaves more words for me to write in 2019 :D

Fandoms written in:

Pretty exclusively Mass Effect, but @pagerunner and I are still kicking around a crossover for the shows Lucifer and Leverage.

Looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected?

I definitely started 2018 with grander aspirations, but circumstances converged on me so that I had next to no Me Time for about, oh, nine months. (Not for the reason that length of time usually implies, but the real reason is headdeskingly similar *sigh*)

What’s your own favorite story of the year?

This question is so haaaarrrrd! Because I like a lot of things I wrote for different reasons. I like You shouldn’t have come here because it’s kind of the first moment Dess starts to grow up. I like All’s Fair because it’s finally letting my OTP ship sail. I like I know you do because it’s such a great brother-sister moment between Dess and Hadrian. I like You should have seen it because it was kind of a sweet moment and much-needed support between Dess and Alli. I like Light in the Dark because I don’t write nearly enough Vetra even though I love her with my whole heart. I CAN’T CHOOSE AND YOU CAN’T MAKE ME.

Did you take any writing risks this year?

Not especially. Well kind of. Not in technique or structure or anything. I’ve held the Hannah/Dess ship pretty close to my chest for a while now, but even though I’ve intended them to be endgame since pretty early in writing Hawks and Doves, I’ve written them almost exclusively platonically with a lot of subtext hinting at more romantic feelings. But in All’s Fair, they finally, finally, FINALLY kissed! I considered that kiss, and this ship, a bit of a risk because I’m working with one canon character who’s basically an OC and another OC, so there’s next to nothing in the games that hints at their story. It’s a whole new ship, specific to my universe, and it’s friends-to-lovers on top of it. I took a risk in hoping I’d written their relationship well enough to this point that anyone reading the story would either 1) at least be able to see the natural evolution of their relationship, or more ideally 2) actively want them to get together. So far, the response to them getting together has been overwhelmingly positive, so I feel like this risk paid off :D

Do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year?

YES! I wanna finish All’s Fair (or the gala fic, as I’ve been calling it) because then the whole Hannah/Dess ship will be solidified and I’ll finally be able to get on with things in Family Resemblance without that little turn of events hanging out there. And I know I’ve only got the first chapter posted, but there’s a whole lot more I’ve written. I just started posting it in November and then the holidays started happening so :/ Right now, I’m a couple hundred words away from having the next three or four chapters done :D

Best/most popular story of the year?

I’m not exactly sure how to measure this one, but I’m gonna say the first chapter of All’s Fair takes the cake because it’s a completely new ship that wasn’t in the games, and it’s had a pretty positive reception. And for just one chapter of OC shipping (and so far the only thing that’s happened is one kiss), it has about 100 hits, which is pretty good for me!

Story of mine most underappreciated by the universe, in my opinion:

I don’t quite like the implication behind claiming something is “underappreciated” because I’m always thrilled for any appreciation, but one story I think didn’t quite get the platform I would’ve like for it was Light in the Dark. It’s a good story, but the fandom for Mass Effect: Andromeda petered out a bit when BioWare said they were putting the franchise on ice. What can you do :/

Most fun story to write:

I had an absolute ball writing all those one shots for Dess in October, so I’ll take them together and say Between the Letters was the most fun :D

Story with the single sexiest moment:

I don’t usually write sexy things, so the kiss in All’s Fair is definitely the sexiest thing I wrote last year. Maybe People like you have no imagination is up there too, but it didn’t have the same emotion behind it.

Most sweet story:

I think Light in the Dark also gets this one. It’s a formative moment between Vetra and Sid as they’re trying to make it on their own, and despite the challenges, they can still take a moment to be sisters.

Story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters:

Justification, the chapter of Family Resemblance I posted last year, made me consider other aspects of my OC Bethany Greenwood. Before that chapter, she’d started to fade into the background, but after Justification, I have more plans for her :D

Most unintentionally telling story:

In 2018? Hm… I’m drawing a blank. If I’ve written anything that’s telling, it’s probably more obvious to others than it is to me :P

Hardest story to write:

FAMILY RESEMBLANCE OMG

Write an alphabet fic, I said!

It’ll be fun I, said!

Let’s make it a political intrigue crossed with a family saga spanning 30-ish years! And change perspectives every chapter! No big deal!

*cries about it*

Biggest disappointment:

That I didn’t write more :/ But I’m trying not to be disappointed about that. You can’t drive by looking in the rearview mirror. I might not have written as much as I wanted last year, but I have plenty to write this year :D

Biggest surprise:

That so many people are so enthusiastically on-board with Hannah/Dess :D My heart is so full that so many readers were rooting for them!

Number of fic chapters written in 2018:

One *cries about it*

Number of chaptered fics completed in 2018:

I think I need to call my lawyer…

Relationships:

Mostly Hannah/Dess, but there was also a little Dess/Adrian that was fun (if a little sad) to write! I also wrote a little bit about Dess/Cassia and their . . . interesting relationship. I consider Cassia aromantic and Dess demiromantic, so neither one of them considers their sexual relationship something that would ever last once it stopped being fun. They are friends, though, and Cassia does care about Dess being happy, so she’s actually very happy to learn about Dess and Hannah finally making romantic overtures :P

Proudest achievements:

Honestly, that I was able to write anything at all. I was especially happy about fleshing out some of Dess’s background and character (especially the parts that don’t include Hannah) because I feel like she’s more than just a love interest now. And the fact that I wrote 18 one-shots for her in one month surprised even me! I wanna do that again, but with Sana this time :D

Writing goals for 2019:

Finish writing All’s Fair. This is at the top of my list because I really can’t proceed with Family Resemblance until All’s Fair is done. Thankfully, it’s not supposed to be that long, maybe 40k words at most and I’m already sitting at about 20k.

Continue writing Family Resemblance. The next chapter is K (Kismet) and it’s mostly finished but still needs some pretty heavy editing—and it’s gonna have a special appearance by Adrian Nyx :D Then L (Liminal) still needs Alli’s half, but it’s gonna loop Bethany Greenwood into the story more tightly in Michael’s half, which is already done. Then M (Mindoir) still needs to be written, and I’ve been putting it off because it’s gonna be so hard on everyone :( Then N (Nexus) has Alli’s half done and about half of the second part, which will be from a perspective that’s neither Hannah’s nor Michael’s :D Really if I can work Alli through the rest of her pre-Alliance life (O, for Opportunity) this year, I’ll consider it a win.

Write a month of one-shots for Sana. It was a lot of fun when I did it for Dess, and I have a lot I want to write about for Sana in the same way! And for anyone wondering, yes. There will indeed be at least a brief glimpse at baby!Sana :D

Who knows? I might even post a little smut ;)

I think I’m also gonna start keeping closer track of my word counts this year. I’m not gonna set myself a word count goal, but I think it would be informative to know when I’m most and least productive and figure out why. Let’s say every first of the month I’ll tally the words from the previous month and break it down from there. Yay spreadsheets :D

Now for tagging! How about @pagerunner, @servantofclio, @black-rose4, @tarysande, and @thievinghippo. Only if you want to and if no one’s tagged you already, of course!

[smokeybrandreviews]

Exclusive Bias

With Xbox buying Bethesda, there’s been a ton of talk about exclusivity and if it’s good or bad for the consumer. As a gamer of, what? thirty-one years, i wanted to chime in a little on what i think this means. I am on record as being a straight up Sony shill. I’ve been team PlayStation since my brother brought home his friend’s copy of Final Fantasy IX some twenty years ago. Sony has been good to me in regards to content that i gravitate toward. I play a lot of RPGs and single player outings and that has been PlayStation’s emphasis since their inception. I love those types of game because, more of ten than not, they have the most compelling narratives. I do have the original Xbox but that’s basically to play literally six games; Dead or Alive 3, Dead or Alive Ultimate, Kotor, Kotor 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball. I also had Sudeki but that game is kind of trash. When the next gen came around, i bought a PS3 and never looked back.

Xbox became the console of the NA region. They have a lot of First Person shooters and cater hard to the battle royale crowd. Madden and 2k have a massive install base on the Microsoft console, not saying there aren’t that many on the PlayStation ideas i have been known to get down on a 2K every so often, but those games are easily more important to that system than Sony’s machine. I mean, Sony just makes great f*cking games and Microsoft doesn’t. I don’t care about Halo or Gears or whatever else they want to force my face into. I enjoy wast worlds with compelling characters like the Horizon series or the new God of War. Hell, even their licensed titles like that new Spider-Man game sh*t on everything that Xbox has to offer, which is why i think they shelled out so hard for Bethesda. Xbox is not a console built for my gaming tastes and this acquisition doesn’t change any of that. From what I've seen Microsoft pushing, buying Bethesda moves them farther away from my interests as a whole.

I love playing games. I have for years. The thing is, for me, narrative trumps game play in this genre. Video games are far more enriching entertainment that film, and we all know how much I love cinema. A cursory search through the archive on this blog will show you essay after essay, review after review, that I've written about movies. Video games take those experiences and profoundly expands upon them in every facet. The fact hat you can play a game, interact with the narrative instead of just experiencing a story being told to you, is amazingly rewarding to me. Once I played my first Final Fantasy title and understood what could be achieved with story in games, I was hooked. This turn toward the cinematic in both narrative and presentation with the PS2/Xbox era, lends itself to the core aspects of why I love movies as a whole. However, gaming is free from all of those Hollywood studio constraints. Unless you work for EA, 2K, or Activision. Those guys are assholes. Outside of those horrific companies, the creativity displayed with gaming is profound and some of the best narratives I've ever experienced, have been interactive. Even shooters and fighting games are starting to incorporate story into their game play heavy entries, all of which I adore. I love great story telling and video games present a medium that can give the most immersive take on those narratives. Bethesda tends to tell some very interesting stories but I don't know that their plots are enough for me to buy an Xbox. A lot of the titles I play tend to have more unique, original, worlds to explore outside of the pedestrian fare presented by the house that Todd Howard maintains.

I need to clarify that i play a ton of Japanese RPGs. I like their battle systems and like that they have a rather eclectic choices in how to deliver that type of content. Western developers often force an RPG into a hard fantasy world like Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls, which is fine because i generally enjoy fantasy stories, but i love sci-fi or a modernized version of a fantasy title even more. Final Fantasy VII is one of my favorite games of all time specifically for those reason. Off the top of my head, I can think of the Xeno franchise and Star Ocean games that give me something new, something different, but still grounded in sci-fi fantasy. That’s not to say the west doesn’t occasionally hit it out of the park. Mass Effect fast became one of my favorite titles in stark contrast to my aversion with shooters but that narrative and character writing was just too delicious not to get fat on, you know? Despite the shoddy nature of Andromeda, i still really enjoyed the character writing in that game, i just wish there was a better, overall, writing. Bethesda doesn’t have games like that. They don’t make titles that capture my imagination or lure me back in with grandiose worlds outside of that Arthurian or Tolkein-esque fantasy world. I don’t care for Elder Scrolls and my chick is the Fallout fan, even if she’s wavering due to how sh*tty 76 continues to be. I was looking forward to Starfield specifically for this reason but, knowing Bethesda and their hard on for the FPS, I probably would have passed on I anyway, RPG elements or not. The only games available on their roster currently that would even tweak my interests are maybe Doom and Wolfenstein but, even those are a near miss. I just don’t care for shooters. I don’t care about what Bethesda makes.

I think that’s the ultimate stance i have on this; I don’t care. Look, gaming is f*cking awesome and everyone should be able to play with everyone but I'm not going to sit here and say that a first party studio should be forced into supplying games to a direct competitor. It’d be nice if that were a thing, maybe have one of those timed exclusives or whatever, but I'm not ignorant of commerce. I know that in-house studios don’t have to share with outsiders and i am okay with that as long as the quality of games doesn’t diminish. Do i hope Bethesda continues to release on the PlayStation platform? Sure but that’s mostly because my chick likes their games, not me. I asked her of this merger was enough to buy an Xbox if Bethesda went exclusive and she said, rather frankly, no. There’s not enough content coming out of that company to warrant another five hundred dollar purchase, especially since we are both, for sure, getting a PS5. The fact that the aforementioned Horizon and God of are are almost certainly going to be exclusive to Sony is more than enough to secure that purchase but it looks like Final Fantasy XVI is going exclusive, too. Probably limited but still, I'll have that game long before Xbox receives it. It might suck for the Microsoft lot but i am indifferent to it. Sony makes better games for me and my tastes so my loyalties lie there, exclusivity or not.

[smokeybrand]

Exclusive Bias

With Xbox buying Bethesda, there’s been a ton of talk about exclusivity and if it’s good or bad for the consumer. As a gamer of, what? thirty-one years, i wanted to chime in a little on what i think this means. I am on record as being a straight up Sony shill. I’ve been team PlayStation since my brother brought home his friend’s copy of Final Fantasy IX some twenty years ago. Sony has been good to me in regards to content that i gravitate toward. I play a lot of RPGs and single player outings and that has been PlayStation’s emphasis since their inception. I love those types of game because, more of ten than not, they have the most compelling narratives. I do have the original Xbox but that’s basically to play literally six games; Dead or Alive 3, Dead or Alive Ultimate, Kotor, Kotor 2, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and Dead or Alive: Beach Volleyball. I also had Sudeki but that game is kind of trash. When the next gen came around, i bought a PS3 and never looked back.

Xbox became the console of the NA region. They have a lot of First Person shooters and cater hard to the battle royale crowd. Madden and 2k have a massive install base on the Microsoft console, not saying there aren’t that many on the PlayStation ideas i have been known to get down on a 2K every so often, but those games are easily more important to that system than Sony’s machine. I mean, Sony just makes great f*cking games and Microsoft doesn’t. I don’t care about Halo or Gears or whatever else they want to force my face into. I enjoy wast worlds with compelling characters like the Horizon series or the new God of War. Hell, even their licensed titles like that new Spider-Man game sh*t on everything that Xbox has to offer, which is why i think they shelled out so hard for Bethesda. Xbox is not a console built for my gaming tastes and this acquisition doesn’t change any of that. From what I've seen Microsoft pushing, buying Bethesda moves them farther away from my interests as a whole.

I love playing games. I have for years. The thing is, for me, narrative trumps game play in this genre. Video games are far more enriching entertainment that film, and we all know how much I love cinema. A cursory search through the archive on this blog will show you essay after essay, review after review, that I've written about movies. Video games take those experiences and profoundly expands upon them in every facet. The fact hat you can play a game, interact with the narrative instead of just experiencing a story being told to you, is amazingly rewarding to me. Once I played my first Final Fantasy title and understood what could be achieved with story in games, I was hooked. This turn toward the cinematic in both narrative and presentation with the PS2/Xbox era, lends itself to the core aspects of why I love movies as a whole. However, gaming is free from all of those Hollywood studio constraints. Unless you work for EA, 2K, or Activision. Those guys are assholes. Outside of those horrific companies, the creativity displayed with gaming is profound and some of the best narratives I've ever experienced, have been interactive. Even shooters and fighting games are starting to incorporate story into their game play heavy entries, all of which I adore. I love great story telling and video games present a medium that can give the most immersive take on those narratives. Bethesda tends to tell some very interesting stories but I don't know that their plots are enough for me to buy an Xbox. A lot of the titles I play tend to have more unique, original, worlds to explore outside of the pedestrian fare presented by the house that Todd Howard maintains. 

I need to clarify that i play a ton of Japanese RPGs. I like their battle systems and like that they have a rather eclectic choices in how to deliver that type of content. Western developers often force an RPG into a hard fantasy world like Dragon Age or Elder Scrolls, which is fine because i generally enjoy fantasy stories, but i love sci-fi or a modernized version of a fantasy title even more. Final Fantasy VII is one of my favorite games of all time specifically for those reason. Off the top of my head, I can think of the Xeno franchise and Star Ocean games that give me something new, something different, but still grounded in sci-fi fantasy. That’s not to say the west doesn’t occasionally hit it out of the park. Mass Effect fast became one of my favorite titles in stark contrast to my aversion with shooters but that narrative and character writing was just too delicious not to get fat on, you know? Despite the shoddy nature of Andromeda, i still really enjoyed the character writing in that game, i just wish there was a better, overall, writing. Bethesda doesn’t have games like that. They don’t make titles that capture my imagination or lure me back in with grandiose worlds outside of that Arthurian or Tolkein-esque fantasy world. I don’t care for Elder Scrolls and my chick is the Fallout fan, even if she’s wavering due to how sh*tty 76 continues to be. I was looking forward to Starfield specifically for this reason but, knowing Bethesda and their hard on for the FPS, I probably would have passed on I anyway, RPG elements or not. The only games available on their roster currently that would even tweak my interests are maybe Doom and Wolfenstein but, even those are a near miss. I just don’t care for shooters. I don’t care about what Bethesda makes.

I think that’s the ultimate stance i have on this; I don’t care. Look, gaming is f*cking awesome and everyone should be able to play with everyone but I'm not going to sit here and say that a first party studio should be forced into supplying games to a direct competitor. It’d be nice if that were a thing, maybe have one of those timed exclusives or whatever, but I'm not ignorant of commerce. I know that in-house studios don’t have to share with outsiders and i am okay with that as long as the quality of games doesn’t diminish. Do i hope Bethesda continues to release on the PlayStation platform? Sure but that’s mostly because my chick likes their games, not me. I asked her of this merger was enough to buy an Xbox if Bethesda went exclusive and she said, rather frankly, no. There’s not enough content coming out of that company to warrant another five hundred dollar purchase, especially since we are both, for sure, getting a PS5. The fact that the aforementioned Horizon and God of are are almost certainly going to be exclusive to Sony is more than enough to secure that purchase but it looks like Final Fantasy XVI is going exclusive, too. Probably limited but still, I'll have that game long before Xbox receives it. It might suck for the Microsoft lot but i am indifferent to it. Sony makes better games for me and my tastes so my loyalties lie there, exclusivity or not.

[theoracleparadox]

✍

Questions for the mun!

✍ : Offer 3-5 tips on how to get other role players started on interacting with your muse.

I was confused by the question. I don’t think it’s too difficult to interact with my muse. I made some key points to keep in mind, and then listed some basic plot ideas I always have on hand. 

Key points while interacting with Andromeda: 

1. Depending when we interact during the game’s timeline, Andromeda might lie a lot because of her situation. It can be confusing, but I will always point it out and explain the truth and the reason for the lie. 

2. During the game’s events, Andromeda is 24. There is a ton of backstory behind her, but you don’t have to read it because I will probably end up explaining it. Andromeda will not explain it, but she will have the attitude that she knows more than she should. 

3. Andromeda is resistant to others getting too close to her, because she has a lot of things to hide. At the same time, this has made her lonely. She might get snappy if she thinks someone is prying into her business, but if she thinks they are like her and can be trusted, she might relax. 

4. Any sort of shipping will have a rocky start because of the previous key point. Andromeda is used to being on her own, doing whatever she wants, and taking off whenever she pleases. She thinks a romantic interest will either a) stop her or b) come along and potentially get in the way or c) make her do things she doesn’t want to do. Andromeda is stubborn and independent, which might give others the wrong idea. Alternatively, wait until she is older and more settled. 

5. Andromeda is your typical witch in the woods trope, although she is often found outside of the woods and is younger and friendlier than other renditions of the trope. 

Easy go-to plot ideas: 

1. If your muse gets infected with the Scourge, they could get a visit from Andromeda. Even if they don’t, there is plenty of gossip among the hunters about Andromeda’s activities because she’s not too careful about hiding it, especially as time goes on. Easy plot idea (but do expect some conflict between the muses). 

2. In Andromeda’s backstory, there are two instances where Kingsglaive were sent to escort her back to Insomnia. Neither plots are exclusive to Glaives; other characters could interact with her once she’s returned to Insomnia. 

2a. The first instance happens when she’s only 16, so eight years before the game’s events. She causes a huge scene in Insomnia with her new, uncontrollable and violent power and flees to Duscae. Glaives are sent shortly afterwards in order to retrieve her. At this time she’d have a huge guilty conscious and brood a lot. A typical teenager. 

2b. The second instance happens a year before the game’s events. After fleeing Niflheim, Andromeda returns to Galahd to repent for attacking the resistance. After about a year of her aiding the resistance, word reaches Insomnia and Glaives are sent to escort her back to the city again. At this time, Andromeda is more sure of herself, much more sassy, and generally smarter because she has lived through some things. She gets along great with the Glaives. 

3. I’ve always wanted to explore her year in Galahd more. I never wrote it out; I only wrote a whole chapter on it then had her return to Lucis. A lot can happen in a year, especially if it leads to her adoption in Galahd. Andromeda was very dedicated to Galahdian freedom and had had no intentions of leaving the islands. 

4. WoR is also my go-to setting for plots because there’s a lot of potential there. Andromeda is not as bothered by the darkness as everyone else is. She is not hopeful of the king and the light returning, but happy because she finally feels free. All of the nations have fallen. Refugees are refugees regardless of whether they have their authentic papers on them or not. She travels around with the hunters, avoiding the attention of Crownsguard and Kingsglaive if she can, although gossip about her “magic” abounds when people have nothing to do. And she always has to be careful not to use her more violent power, which attracts and strengthens daemons and could destroy whole outposts. 

[perseus-huntress]

He could be the silence in this mayhem, but then again he'll never love you like I can...

It may be high time to tell the story of my doomed Jaal romance, or how Reyes Vidal made me question my own sanity.

So this started way before the game even came out. Me and @biotic-commando spent months just despairing, waiting for Andromeda to be revealed/released.

That slow trickle of characters and information was infuriating especially as Cora and Liam went first. As a proud Shakarian and all round Alien banger, I was holding out hope for either a new species, turian or quarian or just anything, not human shaped in general. When Vetra was introduced my first reaction was "Thank fuck, Turians!" immediately followed by "But also meh...", I never liked Nyreen and it kind of imprinted. (As an aside I was entirely wrong there too, I would kill a man for Vetra now, but she just wasn’t hitting the sweet spot at the time.)

And finally after months of torture Jaal was unleashed on the world, the clouds parted and a single tear escaped me, this was it, he was the one! My patience paid off! They delivered a Swoll alien with the second most menacing staredown known to man. I melted immediately and the remaining months leading up to Andromeda were spent straight up praying to the Bioware gods for him to be romanceable. 

Footnote, because you are all well aware of where this is heading, through this entire process, I knew there was a “Reyes” and he was not a quarian, and that was where my interest died a death. It was all just general background noise to Jaal. 

Fast forward to release, being in Europe, the game came to me a couple of days later, and all I kept hearing was that Jaal was to die for. My body was ready, I took an entire week off. I was gonna get me some of dem thick thighs. 

Meeting Jaal for the first time was everything I ever hope for and more. The entrance, the first contact was just beautiful. I dragged the poor boy everywhere, ever, harassed him and others about him at any given opportunity. He cried in the Moshae mission and I became a wet puddle on the floor. He was sensitive! Fucking Win. 

And then Kadara happened. No, I did not drop everything ever and throw my entire underwear drawer at Reyes. But something in the background ticked quietly. I would like to say that I stayed strong and clear, but I didn’t. I flirted, violently, with Reyes. And then felt terrible about it, and then flirted again and felt even worst because Jaal was literally in the room. 

I ditched Kadara pretty quickly, after that, I don’t think I even got as far as doing the Murders quest before I scarped out of there. Did a bunch of other stuff, continuously flirting with Jaal, and mentally telling myself that its all about Jaal. ALL ABOUT JAAL DAMN IT! 

And then the game locked me basically out of everything but Kadara. So I absolutely had to go back. I scrambled around trying to lock in Jaal but his loyalty would not trigger so back into my shame box I went. And flirted with Reyes like a wanton harlot that I am. I could not stop myself, he was my siren song and I could not look away. Jaal was still in the room. I felt super bad. 

The story continued and I eventually locked in with Jaal. The magical moment that it was, I remember screeching about it. A lot. And only then did I dare go back to Kadara. And then the Kiss Interupt happened. And all was lost. 

I spent a long time convincing myself that Reyes was just a toy, fuck him, flirting with him gets me where I need to be blah blah blah... as some of you maybe be able to testify Reyes was slowly taking over and my own arguments for Jaal were becoming weaker by the day. 

I did finish the Jaal romance. I really genuinely enjoyed it, a few personal bugbears aside. But man did I feel bad. Jaal is a wonderful character, and he never deserved to suffer a Ryder/Me side eyeing Reyes at every opportunity. One day I will make a Ryder just for him, a Ryder that won’t eat face in broom closets when no one is looking, a Ryder who will love him wholeheartedly.

I am now replaying Andromeda, an exclusively Reyes romance PT, and honestly? I was fucking dumb. I so should have listened to that tick. It was exactly what I needed without knowing I did. It soooo much more enjoyable. 

Star crossed lovers, pfffft. Idiot. :) 

[reactingtosomething]

Kris Reacts to The Defenders (cont’d)

"For Whatever It’s Worth, I’m Glad You’re Here.”

Find my off-the-cuff mini-Reactions to the first five episodes of The Defenders here. A full-sized Reaction with some others may be forthcoming later in the week. SPOILERS AFTER THE JUMP for the rest of the season. Some non-spoilery, mostly Daredevil-related thoughts first.

I feel even more strongly than before that to get very much out of The Defenders, you really should watch both seasons of Daredevil. There are for sure lots of quality Jessica-Luke moments, don’t get me wrong, and in the unlikely event that your favorite Defender show is Iron Fist, Colleen Wing gets a surprising amount to do. But the most important non-Defender characters, including significant villains, are from Daredevil’s supporting cast.

I love Matt Murdock (although not as much as Caroline loves Matt Murdock), but he has got to stop referring to New York (or is it just Hell’s Kitchen, or Manhattan? I’ve never been sure) as “my city.” Especially when Daredevil never really gave us a sense of what either the Kitchen in particular or NYC in general means to him. In fact, I’d love a moratorium on all superheroes referring to “My City,” especially if we rarely see them interacting with the people and places of “their” cities in meaningful, specific civilian capacities. The bar here is set by Luke Cage, which in two episodes does more to flesh out Harlem than the entirety of either Daredevil or Jessica Jones (which are otherwise the best entries in the Defenders series) did for Hell’s Kitchen.

The Defenders shares a composer, John Paesano, with Daredevil. This is not surprising, as these shows also share showrunners, Douglas Petrie and Marco Ramirez (who were producer-writers under Drew Goddard and later Steven DeKnight in Daredevil s1). What is surprising is how much I like the music in these shows. It’s pretty melody-light, and vaguely “atmospheric,” and there’s a lot of repetitive percussion, which all taken together is generally a style that annoys me. But what usually annoys me about that style is that it’s intended to blend into the background, to not really be noticed at all. And Paesano’s music, while it isn’t always super prominent in the sound mix or anything, uses simple but still hummable leitmotifs that -- even if in your experience their overall impression is to blend in -- can be recognized as very Of This Show. In other words, unlike many movies that have melody-light or even effectively melody-less scores, often with aggressive percussion, things scored by Paesano actually have musical identities (including Mass Effect: Andromeda, whose musical identity is probably the second-best thing about it, after combat).

Take the first music we hear in season 2 of Daredevil, “The Devil of Hell’s Kitchen”:

At first this seems like it’s just gonna be generic chasing-and-punching music, from literally any post-Bourne action franchise, but around 1:14, the ostinato that’s the backbone of the title theme kicks in. It’s much faster than in the titles, but instantly recognizable. Even if you don’t consciously recognize it in the moment, you probably feel a distinctly Daredevil vibe. It goes away again for a bit as the action of the scene ends, but returns as we see Matt (relatively) clearly for the first time in the season, a devil perched on a chapel.

This music from the climactic fight of the s2 finale, “They Have Nothing Now,” is another good example, riffing on both the ostinato and the main melody that starts about 18 seconds into the title theme.

Contrast this with the Guardians of the Galaxy movies, which do have a melodic instrumental theme, but which you almost certainly don’t associate with the movies or the characters. Partly this is because it’s just OK, but mostly it’s because what anyone remembers about those soundtracks are the needle drops of the Awesome Mixes. Don’t get me wrong, the Awesome Mixes are cool and all. But they also consist of music that most people would not specifically or exclusively associate with Guardians. Weirdly, the same composer worked on Atomic Blonde, which takes a similar approach to its music. This always seems to me like a missed opportunity. It’s like your movie or your show is somehow incomplete. What is Star Wars without John Williams? Or Batman: The Animated Series without Shirley Walker, 30 Rock without Jeff Richmond, Battlestar Galactica without Bear McCreary, Game of Thrones without Ramin Djawadi? What is Wonder Woman’s No Man’s Land without “No Man’s Land”? 

Anyway, all this to say that I’m a weirdo who REALLY LOVES A LOT that when a character briefly plays an instrument late in The Defenders, what they play is the show’s simple, vaguely Danny Elfman-esque title theme, rather than some overused classical piece.

Moving on... spoilers below!

There’s a lot about The Defenders that doesn’t work, and we’ll get to some of it. But unexpectedly, what’s stuck with me -- perhaps its single greatest achievement -- is that after the shitshow of his solo series, it renders Danny Rand pretty likable. Or at least, much easier to empathize with, much more often, than in Iron Fist.

In episode 6 when he’s tied up and Luke is babysitting, Luke (sarcastically) asks him to recount again the story of how he earned the Iron Fist by punching a dragon in the heart. Danny has a very bad sarcasm radar, and complies, and Luke has to remind him that he doesn’t give a shit or even really believe him (EVEN AFTER ALL THE WEIRD SHIT THAT’S HAPPENED). And Danny gives this sigh that back in Iron Fist I probably would’ve found petulant and childish. It does still feel, for lack of a better word, very young here. But I also found myself honestly feeling bad for the guy. He’s trying so hard, and in episode 4 he was the only one who (this is crucial) like the audience was rooting for the team to be a team, yet everyone keeps treating him like an annoying little sibling. Also, he’s telling the truth, he’s been telling the truth since he got back to New York (admittedly in the least persuasive ways possible at the start of Iron Fist), and since he got back to New York almost no one has believed him. And finally there comes the one guy in The Defenders who doesn’t have to believe Danny because he knows that Danny’s telling the truth: Stick. But then Stick is the one who wants to take Danny off the board at the top of episode 6, pulling the rug out from under him just when it seemed he had an all-in ally and even a potential mentor (something he realized he still needed very badly late in Iron Fist). This can’t be a fun place.

So that sigh actually carried some decent emotional weight for me. All the more because Luke immediately realized he’d genuinely hurt Danny’s feelings, and not just “get over yourself, you privileged white boy” feelings but “this is a central part of his identity that I’m mocking mercilessly” feelings.

Now, to be clear, Danny is an annoying little sibling. But Iron Fist never really recognized this, because it wanted Danny to be an imposing, menacing badass when what it needed him to be -- what The Defenders makes him -- is sweetly goofy and eager-to-please, a puppy who just happens to also be a trained killing machine. Danny’s the kind of guy that the cast of Leverage would call “adorable” with equal parts condescension and fondness, the kind of guy about whom you might say “bless his heart” and actually kind of mean it.

It should surprise no one who knows me well that despite all of the above, I Extremely Approve of Elektra pretty easily outclassing Danny in their fight at the end of episode 7, Iron Fist or no Iron Fist. 

But as Caroline mentions in her thoughts on her Patreon (and as she discussed in her Daredevil s2 reviews), it’s never super clear what it means for Elektra to be “the Black Sky.” For that matter it’s still unclear (though more deliberately) what the full potential extent of Danny’s Iron Fist powers is. And I think The Defenders could’ve gotten a lot more mileage out of parallels between Danny and Elektra as “living weapons.”

In general I’d hoped, perhaps foolishly, for a lot more from Elektra than we got. I didn’t have any problems with the acting, to be clear; I’m basically in love with Elodie Yung, entirely on the strength of her absurdly charismatic performance in Daredevil. But because Elektra doesn’t come back to life with her memories, Yung has to spend most of The Defenders keeping that charisma locked away, until a Plot Twist (Elektra killing Alexandra!) that I’m not convinced entirely works. I went along with it wholeheartedly anyway because it meant Yung got to unleash her full powers again. Or it would’ve been her full powers, if there’d been a lot more time to flesh out exactly what and who Elektra 3.0 is. 

We get a complete-ish answer by the end of the show, when it becomes clear that Elektra not only has her memories of Matt back but is still in love with him. But this is a character whose main challenge in her first life was that she was never permitted to figure out for herself what she wanted to do with that life, and “hijack the Hand’s plan to return to K’un Lun, and more importantly become immortal” -- though immortality certainly makes sense as a thing Elektra would want -- doesn’t come close to concretely addressing the ultimately relatable existential crisis (what is my place in the world?) that she faced in Daredevil. 

Sigourney Weaver is able to sell a desire for immortality as Alexandra Reid’s overriding concern because we meet her getting a (vaguely defined) terminal disease diagnosis, and because we spend a lot of time with Alexandra dwelling on her physical fragility and on her concerns about legacy. Yung’s Elektra doesn’t have that way in, and the writers don’t have the time or space in the last act of the season to do more than gesture broadly at Elektra’s desire to finally decide her own destiny. I think the reason this doesn’t land as well as it ought to is that it’s framed as a Villain Monologue, delivered to Danny, a character with whom she doesn’t have history. She doesn’t have this conversation with Stick (she just stabs him), and worse, she doesn’t really have it with Matt outside the chaos of a fight scene, though at least they get that last (?) kiss.

There’s a lot of lazy dialogue in The Defenders, especially in the finale, though thankfully these actors for whom we have a lot of banked affection just about pull it off. The last line of the cold open -- Luke’s “let’s go do something crazy” -- is... just kind of there? Which is a weird choice for the first big punctuation mark in the climactic chapter of this crossover event. He could’ve said that at basically any other point of the show; this should have been a line he could only say at this moment. 

Trish’s “Jess is a good friend speech” to Karen is not great. It’s not awful, either, but it’s not all that specific: Jess doesn’t do any of the things most of us in the real world ask our friends to do, “but when it comes to the real stuff, the stuff that’ll last forever...” What is that stuff? That Trish is interrupted by Malcolm and Foggy with some Bad News feels a little like the writers just didn’t know how to finish that sentence. How exactly are Matt and Jessica good friends? Yeah yeah yeah, they save your life, cool, standard superhero. But what’s the last time Matt in particular was 100 percent emotionally there for you? I do remember Jess and Trish’s friendship being my favorite part of Jessica Jones, but it’s been almost two years and some details would’ve been nice. 

Actively bad is the exchange that ends this scene: “That was the epicenter.” “Of what?” “Everything.” That’s just -- come on. That’s nowhere near as profound as it seems to want to be. That Midland was the epicenter of the earthquake is PLENTY to convey to the others that “ohhhhh that WASN’T a natural earthquake and shit’s about to go down.” In the abstract, “EVERYTHING” may sound more important than “the earthquake.” But the latter was a major inciting incident of The Defenders, and because none of these characters actually knows all of the other pieces the Defenders themselves are concerned with, the specificity of the earthquake is what should have been prized.

(In general, though, I did love that Karen and Trish got a scene together.) 

Luckily the best lines -- or at least, the best line readings -- of the episode come in the scene immediately afterward:

JESS: If you’d told me a week ago that I’d be here, with you two, about to blow up some building and fight ninjas to save New York... LUKE: (sigh) MATT: (chuckle) For whatever it’s worth, I’m glad you’re here. JESS: What? MATT: No, circumstances could be better, I’m just saying, you know -- I’m glad we found each other. LUKE: I’m not hugging you. MATT: (resigned sigh) JESS: You guys ready or what? LUKE: No. MATT: ...No. JESS: Sounds about right.

The sheer endearing-ness and tonal perfection of this moment is hard to convey in writing. Charlie Cox’s delivery of Matt’s “No” in particular is just terrifically world-weary. The other thing I need to say about this scene is that I identify a weird amount with Matt’s series-long resistance to the team culminating in a belated moment of emotional openness, only for him to be met with the realization that the emotional availability of others doesn’t work on his schedule. 

It’s possible I’m reading way too much into this. After all, I also identify with Luke’s resistance to hugging it out.

(My favorite dialogue in the show is probably still the “Are those pork?”-through-“God, you’re weird” exchange of episode 4.)

Another dialogue thing that stood out to me in the finale was the repeated trope of The Moment I Saw You.

Elektra, to Matt: “We’re together. Something I’ve wanted since I first laid eyes on you.”

Claire, to Foggy, about Matt: “But there was no talking him down. He had his mind made up the day I met him.”

This isn’t remotely unique to The Defenders, but it is a trope I tend to find annoying. I don’t think I believe in love at first sight, is probably part of my problem here, and I guess I get it if your mileage varies on that particular account. But it also feels lazy that it happens twice in a relatively narrow span of time, and about the same character, no less. Arguably more importantly, this is -- I know I lean on variations of this word a lot -- such an unspecific thing to say, in a show that had SO MUCH specificity at its disposal in the solo series. Why “since I first laid eyes on you” rather than a callback to something Matt said that night, or to their Sexy Sparring Session? Why “the day I met him” rather than a reference to Claire stitching Matt back together, or finding Matt in a literal dumpster?

(I liked that Claire and Foggy got an “our mutual friend” scene, but as others have said, it’s super weird that Claire and Matt never had a moment.)

There’s probably also something to say here about destiny and purpose, which ties into Elektra and Danny, and into the formation of the team itself, but again the show didn’t really make the time for that. I'm absolutely not suggesting that they needed 13 episodes -- I just don’t think they really managed their time well -- but with so many characters to serve, maybe 10 would’ve been interesting? To give Elektra a more robust arc post-Alexandra, if nothing else?

(About Alexandra -- I read some reviews to the effect that Sigourney Weaver held the first few episodes of The Defenders together through sheer force of will and Sigourney Weaver-ness, but I did not feel that way at all. I mean I thought she was very good, but the writing mostly wasn’t deep or clever enough for her to take the character of Alex anywhere near the level of Cottonmouth or Kilgrave or Wilson Fisk, and I think this “Sigourney Weaver is the best thing about The Defenders” take was mostly wishful projection on the part of people who know her corpus much better than I do. I’ve seen Alien but not Aliens; #sorrynotsorry.)

I did love that both in the premiere and the finale, Luke got to call back to Pop’s “Forward” mantra, without repeating the full “Forward always, always forward.” It was a nice way to show that Pop’s philosophy is thoroughly a part of him now, and that -- unlike Jessica, the person he’s with for the second callback -- he’s really deliberately thinking about his future.

I also liked, or wanted to like, that Jessica said maybe they could get coffee, but I wasn’t entirely sure what was intended by this. See, in Luke Cage, “coffee” turns out to be a euphemism Luke uses for sex, or at least a one-night stand.  But he’s with Claire now, which may be a reason he doesn’t deliver the established winking response from his own show: “I don’t drink coffee.” (Misty said it to him back then; he replied, “Neither do I.” I don’t think Luke not drinking coffee was a thing in Jessica Jones, and even if it was, it would totally be in character for Jess not to remember.) Apart from the lack of a callback response, my uncertainty comes from “we should get coffee” almost inevitably meaning, in my experience, “we are definitely not going to make the effort to get coffee,” even if we’re both totally sincere about wanting to catch up, which seems like a relatable social phenomenon Jess would snark about. 

To backtrack a bit -- that big fight scene in episode 7, against Gao and Bakuto and Murakami? It was... not shot well. Way too claustrophobic, and at least by the high standards of Daredevil, way too choppily edited. Most of the fights in The Defenders were underwhelming -- really missed Philip Silvera’s work -- but that one in particular stood out as a mess. (Caroline remarked that it’s a shame the fighting styles of the team aren’t better differentiated, at least in the show’s latter half; this is particularly true for Matt and Danny. It’s interesting that although Finn Jones is overall much better at the action here than he was in Iron Fist, the fights in The Defenders do lose a fair bit of the wushu character that previously distinguished his hand techniques, at least, from Matt’s.)

Anyway, I could probably say more -- I’m particularly sorry I haven’t done justice to the Jessica-Luke dynamic, or to the Daughters of the Dragon -- but I’ve lost most semblance of a train of thought here, so I’ll stop. I do recommend checking out all of Caroline's Random Thoughts, and, as always, the episode reviews over at The AV Club. (As of this writing the AVC is currently on episode 5.)

Though I did want a lot more from The Defenders in a lot of ways, as with the pretty strange and uneven Age of Ultron it was still a lot of fun to spend time with these characters, both alone and together. This was very much a show that did not manage to be more than the sum of its parts, but at least many of those parts were very pleasant. And frankly, I’m glad the run of episodes 6 through 8 was the last thing I watched this weekend, rather than the trainwreck (Tormund banter, zombie burning, and Dany’s winter wardrobe notwithstanding) that was this season’s penultimate episode of Game of Thrones.

I’m also cautiously optimistic about the possibility of a Luke Cage-Iron Fist team-up show, and to a lesser extent even -- I can’t believe I’m gonna say this -- the next solo season of Iron Fist (which will have a new showrunner -- Scott Buck is helming Inhumans, something about which I have strong feelings that we just can’t get into right now -- and add Simone Missick’s Misty Knight to its roster). If that’s not an endorsement, I don’t know what is.

[furederiko]

Recap time!!! And I'm not just talking about this post being a recap-view, because really, Kyuranger episode 27 is indeed a RECAP-episode! A journey back in time, both literally and figuratively...

- If you didn't see it coming, then well... you're not alone. Me neither! The show isn't even actually pulling off something 'new' here, because it IS that time of the year for mid-season recap (for comparison sake, Zyuohger had theirs in episode 27 as well). I guess Kyuranger has been so fast-paced and its plots are so tight, that I honestly didn't expect a clip-show to land on my feet. Especially following a melancholic cliffhanger that involves one of its member turning evil. - Then again, this IS TOEI we're talking about, so it's not like they're going to abandon their annual pattern, right? Inspite of that, the company almost always (mind you, not every year fares the same) finds a way to make a Super Sentai clip-show to be... FUN to watch. In the case of Kyuranger, it's through an unexpected occurence within the ORION, during its 'Time Travel' journey: stowaways onboard the spaceship!!! Fun fact: In my opinion, it's a fitting episode to do a recap. The team reviews their adventures so far, while onboard the ORION as they travel back in time? Coincidence? Not really. Clever writing, if you ask me. Oh and yeah, we're getting twice of them a year now. The second clip-show will usually take place later after the New Year break. - Just to refresh our memory, the 'Time Travel' team consists of (in numerical order) Stinger, Champ, Raptor, Spada, Commander Xiao, and Tsurugi. Everyone immediately splits up to apprehend these intruders. Who are they? The lesser Indavers, a.k.a. the Jark Matter cannon fodders. Oops, I mean grunts. How did they come onboard? Apparently, Akyanba told them to infiltrate the spaceship during that Barbeque moment. Yeah, another good proof of her cunningness. - Oh, before you wonder why ORION had such poor security, the answer is too obvious: Balance was alone in the spaceship at the time. And he was also tweaking the system to integrate Holorogium. That's probably why the security didn't alert their presence back then. Holy Moly indeed! Gotta love Tsurugi's 'holy moly'-s hillarious outburst though... XD - Stinger and Champs apprehend the Yellow-striped Indaver in what seems to be the Private/Training Room. Xiao and Raptor catch a White-striped one in the Small Engine Room. Tsurugi and Spada corner and interrogate the Blue-striped in the Kitchen. The fourth is a feminine-looking Purple-striped one. This one (he? she?) is chased by Xiao... who then clumsily hurts his back, forcing Stinger and Champ to take over, but is later chained-down by Spada using the #40 Andromeda Kyu Globe. - These Indavers bring their own surprise to the story. First of all, they can actually SPEAK. Turns out, they have been wearing masks/helmets all these time! So they are basically the show's equivalent to the... StormTroopers, right? With one key difference: these helmets prevent them from communicating, hence why we haven't heard them talking until now. Second, they are lifeforms called Inda. 'Blue' claims that they are fed up of being poorly treated by the Shogunate. That's the reason why they sneak into the ship and wants to join the Rebellion. Hmmm... is that the honest truth? Third, two of them have showed up in previous episodes before. A clever twist that provides an excuse to include footage from past episodes, even if it might merely be an afterthought. - Speaking of past episodes, here's a quick list of what the clip-show includes: 1) Kyuranger's debut episodes. The core ones are from episode 1 to 5. The extra members are from episode 9, 10, and 21. 'Blue' reveals he was one of the Indavers who got hit by Lucky's 'meteor shower' when he first used Leo Kyu Globe on Planet Jugjug. While 'Yellow' was among the Indavers who got kicked by Ursa Minor Skyblue when he utilized the 'giant' power of Ursa Major Kyu Globe for the first time. 2) Voyagers. Along with their various mecha combinations for Kyuren-Oh, Ryutei-Oh, Ryutei Kyuren-Oh, Gigant Phoenix, and of course Kyutamajin. 3) Kyu Globes. The Change and Skill varieties, including what categories they can be classified into. According to Spada, there are ones that can be used for attacks, for utilitarian purposes, for plain fun, as well as... strange ones. No kidding, that's his actual words! Oh, and yes, there are plot-related ones, like the Argo Navis components. 4) Random scenes from various episodes, including that small crossover with Gavan and Dekaranger, and 'Rivalry of the Reds'. Mainly the ones showcasing the tumultuous bond between the members. - Speaking of bond, we get to see briefly how team 'Save Naga' is doing as well. Hammy is still feeling guilty and down about Naga, Kotarou is looking concerned about that, Lucky and Balance are both annoyingly optimistic and carefree as always, while Garu is still unsure about Tsurugi. Oh yeah, that last one reminds me. This episode confirms that Tsurugi still retains his self-centered personality! It's more tone-down than before, of course. He still doesn't like to be ordered, and even thinks the Kyurangers are being too kind and naive to show sympathy for the four Indavers. He firmly thinks, that they deserve to be thrown into the time hole instead. Ouch!! - And well, about that? Turns out he's right. There's a fifth Indaver, 'Red', who has been hiding in the Main Computer Room all these time. He reveals (albeit hillariously ignored with the Barbeque talk) that the Indas are created by Jark Matter, so it's completely unlikely for them to rebel. Those other four was merely a diversion so he can mess around with the system, and sabotage the 'Time Travel' plan. - The ORION is forced to land... in the Cretaceous Era! As soon as they step out, the team even encounters the real Gabutyra (notice the hair? And how it just plain ignores them as they bicker? LOL). After a failed-attempt to sway Tsurugi into their side, these Indavers go ahead and challenge the team. With the hope that their victory earns them a promotion into Tsuyo-Indavers or Malistrates, that is. Completely forgetting how they are also... lost in time. LOL. They even have their own roll call sequence, as Jark Sentai, Go-Indaver. - Team (sans Raptor, who stays behind to repair the ORION) decides to deal with them... without even transforming into Kyurangers. Yes, we're getting a very early (and clearly incomplete) suitless roll call!!! In the end, Tsurugi ruthlessly and selfishly (should we be surprised?) breaks the rule, and transforms into Phoenix Soldier to wipe out all Go-Indaver with his Phoenix End. The others are occupied with Xiao's back issue anyway. LOL. - The fact that Jark Matter tries (and fails) to stop them from going back in time, proves that something big DID occur back then. Can the 'Time Travel' team uncovers the secret behind Don Armage's seemingly immortality? Will the 'Save Naga' team be able to rescue one of their own who was lost in the darkness? That my Toku-loving friend, is the story for another day...

Overall: I know what some of you are thinking. A recap/clip-show episode already?! Then again, one would easily admit, that it WAS definitely enjoyable. Part of it was our classic 'Bad Guys turn Good' trope of the season, but the rest of it was just plain having fun. And I'm not any bit complaining about that. After a doze of emotional rollercoaster, this was one of the lighter episodes that's obviously aimed to be that way. After all, we DO need to take a breather every now and then, right? Today's episode is excellent to those who haven't been keeping up with the show. But the good thing is, even for a clip-show, Kyuranger still manages to 'shake things up' (easily reminded me of Go-kaiger). This episode still offered something new to its world-building/mythology, and progressed the story even if not in a major way. Of course, things are expected to be heating up again real soon. So hold on to your horses, and prepare yourself for another round of wild ride... Next week: Balance vs Naga. Oh Nooooo....!! And Sir Orion makes his official debuts!!! PS: Yeah, feel free to call me inconsistent, but I've decided to change Sir Olion's name into Sir Orion once again. Because... well, we'll likely get the answer to that this Sunday. Also, the spin-off series "Kyuranger High School Wars" will be arriving very soon on September 9th, 2017. It is directed by Koichi Sakamoto, and will be exclusively available on TOEI Tokusatsu Fan Club app. You can check out its first official trailer online! Looks fun, doesn't it?

Episode 27 Score: 7,9 out of 10

Visit THIS LINK to view a continuously updated listing of the Kyutama / Kyu Globes. Last Updated: August 29th, 2017 - Version 2.12. (WARNING: It might contain spoilers for future episodes)

All images are screencaptured from the series, provided by the FanSubber Over-Time. "Uchu Sentai Kyuranger" is produced by TOEI, and airs every Sunday on TV-Asahi. Credits and copyrights belong to their respective owners.

[velynven]

Soooo my initial impressions of Andromeda (~10 hours of play, holy shit) before I forget to check back on tumblr because I’ve gotten lost in Mass Effect all over again. (Spoilers)

I am straight and I want to flirt with both Lexi and Vetra.  But Lexi is a little weird because it’s the name of my bf’s dog.  I love both their personalities and so far, I feel that they’re great additions if for no other reason than they’re different from the typical Asari and Turians of the trilogy.  Add PeeBee into that.  She’s awesome, too.  I did not expect her to be so geeked out on the Remnant stuff.  

Cora’s a bad ass.  I love the layers that they’ve added so far and I am particularly pleased that they’ve handled Ryder basically stealing her promotion.  Cora’s Alec’s second, so when he dies she should be taking over.  As she says, she’s trained for this for so long but when he hands the role to Ryder, she is graceful and respectful of Alec’s wishes.  She knows what’s best for everyone and she makes that decision, backs Ryder completely, and what I probably liked the most is that she’s honest with Ryder about her feelings in regards to the situation, or does a damn good job pretending to be.  And the Asari commando time results in some really nice dialogue moments in the get-to-know-you bits.

Drack and Liam are cool but neither particularly stand out to me yet.  I will say for sure that Liam is a beast in combat so he will be a mainstay while I experiment with the third slot for awhile.  His backstory is pretty cool and I do think I’m most interested in seeing how he changes through the story when compared to the other characters.  I think the strong front he puts on will either result in him becoming that strong person or he’ll crack and it won’t end well for him.  I hope for the better outcome, of course.

(Critical-ish for a couple of paragraphs) Combat is meh for me.  Still a little confusing and I am super pissed that the only sniper rifle I can use atm is the Viper.  Fuck that thing.  I want a sniper rifle that does sniper damage.  The Viper barely hits harder than the Carnifex (which I <3 and was the second thing I made). I’m not as happy with Incinerate as I was in the trilogy but we’ll see how that evolves.  I also need to look into if it’s possible to control your teammate’s actions as you could in the trilogy.  I am doing fine but I miss that dearly as I felt it was part of what separated this from other shooters when it came to gameplay.  

And then there’s cover.  It’s not bad but it could use a lot of improvement.  I feel like I get what they were trying to do and your open maneuverability in combat is definitely miles above where it was in the trilogy but I still am not comfortable in the new cover system.  It just doesn’t engage very well.  The other issue with it is that I can’t seem to turn around: as in Ryder’s facing to the right behind this wall, shooting around the right side, now I want to slide to the left side and shoot around that side.  Her backside just sticks out the left end of the wall and she shoots over/through it.  If someone knows the control that makes Ryder change direction, I’m all ears!

Annnnd just a few short thoughts:

As you’ll see by my Shepard, I’m pretty damn white so my thoughts are not as weighty as those from a POC on this matter but I would still like to share them because I feel that the situation is encouraging.  Please correct me if I’m wrong.  It’s pretty darn diverse, looking exclusively at the humans.  It’s not overwhelmingly white, the various names are ethnically diverse as well, and it feels much more in line with BioWare’s canon that most of the human species is mixed race at this point.

More female turians (yay) and a krogan so far, but no Salarians, which is to be expected without their Ark here.  There is a Quarian ark with Hanar and Drell possibly on the way but no one in-game really knows.

There has not yet been even an allusion to the Reapers or Shepard yet. :(

But overall I am liking the game so far, though at this exact moment I want to play more Horizon Zero Dawn.

[self-fulfilling-prophet]

Mass Effect: Andromeda 30 Day Countdown Ryder Meme

6 Days: Does your Ryder know your Shepard? What do they think of Shepard? Would they get along? What would Shepard think of Ryder? 

-This is one of those things I am hesitatingly thinking about, for fear of canon. I feel like they would know Shepard at least. Their Dad is an N7, and not many people hold that rank. Both twins think she is totally awesome, knowing all about her heroics from vids and their dad.

Shepard’s reaction under the cut because I got carried away

When Shepard meets the twins, they are just kids, brought along to some formal event by their dad. Scott proudly tells her that he is going to be an N7 like her and dad, and she laughs, telling him that if anyone could be N7, it would be Alec’s son. Scott pushes Sara forward (who had been hiding shyly behind him), and suddenly Shepard’s heart stops. Shepard doesn’t have many vids or holos left of her family, but my god, this little girl is the splitting image of Shepard’s little sister. It takes a second before she registers that Sara is talking, and all Shepard can do is nod. “Are you planning on becoming N7 too?” Shepard asks after she regains her composure. She isn’t sure what she wants the answer to be. Sara shrugs, and Shepard feels the knot in her heart lessen. “That’s ok, you have plenty of time.”

The next time Shepard meets them, the twins are teenagers. Scott excitedly tells her how much longer he has until he is able to enlist. Shepard has seen this enthusiasm before, an old soldier now; she knows he will either break or thrive. But she bets Scott will thrive. She looks at Sara, now older than her little sister ever was, and asks if she plans on enlisting too. Sara shrugs again, claiming it’s that or study medicine. Shepard raises her eyebrows at the sharp juxtaposition of the two roles. “I don’t want to be left behind,” Sara whispers, so her brother can’t hear. Shepard nods, understanding. “The two jobs aren’t mutually exclusive,” Shepard offers, but she knows which one she hopes the girl will follow.

Shepard happens to be invited as a guest speaker at the twins graduation from basic training. Scott can’t stop smiling, save for when his sister kisses him on the cheek and he squirms. Sara is smiling too, but it is much sadder than her brother’s. Shepard remembers a whisper, and realizes that they must have gotten their postings already. Shepard still sees her sister in Sara, but she is beginning to see herself there too. The soldier in here is happy, thinking that Sara is just the type of person who the Alliance needs. But the older sister-turned-only-child and orphan cries for innocence lost.

[amorremanet]

2, 10, 42, 47

asks for fanfic writers

well, no. 10 and no. 42 are over here, but!

2. things that motivate you

* The stereotype that autistic spectrum people are only good for STEM-related things. Like, for all of the folks on the spectrum who are good at STEM things, that’s great and I wish them all the best — but I suck at math and I can’t do anything science-related without turning it into, “how can I make a sociopolitical sci-fi critique out of this” or, “but do gay aliens believe in me,” so nah, I’m gonna pass on doing anything STEM-y.

I’d much rather give a big middle finger to everyone who has this ridiculous notion that autistic spectrum people are completely and utterly uncreative, and that we are only ever good for STEM things, and I’d like to do it by being successful in my chosen creative pursuits, please and thank you.

* Tangentially? Temple fucking Grandin. I don’t actually have any problems with her, herself — but I have a lot of problems with how allistic people hold her up as The One True Way To Be A Successful Person Who “Suffers From” Autism™ and how about fuck that, no. I want to be a successful autistic writer who is nothing like Temple Grandin, apart from both of us being white autistic women/dfab people who are going to be identified and treated as women by other people irl regardless of any wibbly wobbly messy gender feels on our part.

* Talking with people about my projects. On one hand, it’s a way of getting feelings kind of like validation. On the other, and way more importantly for me? I love getting feedback from people, or hearing the questions they come up with — like, on NYE, my aunt and I chatted back and forth about my novel while playing a weird card game with one of my cousins, and Aunt Kelly asked some questions that got me to put a few ideas I’ve been playing with into words more concretely, which was super-helpful — and I get a lot of motivation to work from getting jazzed up about things through talking with people.

* Totally a petty thing, but? Getting cranky with JK Rowling over all of the Good Ally Cookies she doesn’t actually deserve to claim, or all of the characters of hers who Deserved Better (lol, uh. today, my therapist learned that I get Upset about Percy Weasley very easily and about my longstanding hate-on for his parents, and bless her heart, when I went, “uh, I just over-identify with Percy Weasley a lot and there’s a good deal of projection going on here but I also don’t think I’m wrong,” she kinda smiled and nodded and went, “I can tell :)” — she’s great, I love her)

or how, even ignoring all of the #Problematic things about her body of work in the Potterverse, there’s SO MUCH GOOD SHIT in the HP series but she’s so clearly invested in the plot as she envisions it and the story she wants to tell for Harry, to the exclusion of all else, that she ends up completely short-changing basically every other character who is not named Severus Snape or Hermione Granger (most of the time, but not 100% of the time)

Like, I’ve said it before and I will say it until everyone is completely sick of me saying it, then I will continue saying it anyway: JKR views all of her characters — barring Harry, and sometimes Snape and Hermione — as plot devices more than she views them as characters.

She’s a bit better about some of them (Remus, Sirius but not as much as Remus, Ron and Luna but not as much as they deserve, Neville and Draco but not in the ways that they deserve)

but she’s really bullshit about most of them (this is not a complete list, but: Cho; Ginny; Cedric; Tonks; Fleur; Albus, Aberforth, and Ariana; Voldemort — not in that I need her to be sympathetic toward him but ffs, some 101-level consistency in his characterization would be nice; Kingsley; Percy; Wormtail; James; Lily;

Lockhart — “I’m not bitter about JKR’s ableism and victim-blaming with regard to Gildylocks,” I say bitterly, with a bitter expression, while hanging up informational posters about how bitter I am; Andromeda and Ted — deserved better, this is not a question or a debate, I want to say that it’s not even an opinion, but tbh, I know that it is, so hmph; Regulus; Barty Crouch Jr. because he is my Favorite and I can’t make this list without mentioning him;

Bellatrix — again, I don’t need her to sympathize with Bellatrix because how about no? but Bellatrix Black Lestrange is one of the shittiest villains I’ve ever read, in terms of HOW she was written, and I think a lot of the flaws in how JKR wrote her could have been remedied if she actually did anything to make Bellatrix a fully realized character, which would’ve made her a more effective and meaningful villain, and not a shrieking Saturday morning cartoon caricature;

Molly and Arthur — I’m not going into full detail about why I hate them today, you lot can just go read my tag on the subject if you want to know, and I don’t think that JKR’s “plot device first, people second” method of characterization is the only problem? But I think it’s a major contributing factor to The Problem Of Molly And Arthur, because she presents them as this image of Idyllic Domestic Perfection even when their actions and the internal fabric of the Weasley Family, don’t support that claim, and it sucks)

—basically, JK Rowling motivates me by fucking up a lot, because she was one of my idols as a kid and as a teenager, and she was a relevant and immediate source of inspiration because Oh My God You Can So Too Write Novels For A Living And Make A Difference In People’s Lives, and I’m not exaggerating when I say that she saved my life a few times, albeit mostly in indirect fashions…… but she fucks up a lot, and this is motivating for me because it makes me want to do better than her.

It’s not even exclusive to HP fic, either. Like, she’s one of my biggest sources of motivation to work on my novel and put thought and love and heart into making it the best that it can be — because I want to do better than her and even if I never have her kind of money (which lol, never gonna happen), I still want to beat her at something. Once I earn it, I will happily accept beating her at artistic integrity and commitment.

Is it petty? Yes, definitely. But hey, man, fish gotta swim, dogs gotta eat, and sometimes, I gotta think about my issues with JK Rowling to remember that I need to do better than her and motivate myself to do the work

* You know those, “do it for her/him” memes based on that one thing from The Simpsons that people make with their fave characters and/or celebs? Yeah, I kind of want to make one for myself with Oscar Wilde. Because there’s a lot about him that wasn’t ever perfect (he was a white guy in Victorian England, even accounting for his Anglo-Irishness, so…… yeah), and there are several points on which I don’t agree with him (like, for example: if you are such a shit to your wife that your boyfriend, who is so completely up his own ass that it’s a miracle he hasn’t found a way to Narnia, notices and calls you out on it? I’m kinda thinking that you might want to reassess how you treat people and stop being like that, bub)

—but I also want to be a fabulous gay Slytherclaw social satirist who uses that #aesthetic and the popular tropes of the day to do my own thing and redefine outside the box, and hey, if I ever get a, “wit and wisdom of…” book published with some of my coolest quotables in it? That would be an awesome bonus.

* “Okay, but seriously: how obvious can I be that Yael and Elizabeth are a big, ‘fuck you’ to Marvel about all of their queerbaiting with Charles and Erik before I can get sued for it? Because while Yael and Elizabeth are still characters in their own right, their original inspiration was, ‘hey, what if I flipped the bird to Marvel about all of their fucking queerbaiting with Charles and Erik, and did it with extra lesbians? that’s be pretty fucking cool,’ and I don’t want to be sued, but I also don’t want for my point to be missed here”

—or more generally, “I can’t die before I finish my novel, I have a lot of people to piss off and call on their crap through the magic of the written word *makes a sparkly rainbow with my hands like Spongebob going, ‘imaginaaaaaaaation!!! :D’*”

* So, there’s this one bit in Dry, Augusten Burroughs’ memoir about the early parts of his struggle with alcoholism and addiction. In his rehab, one of their assignments for group therapy is to write letters to people in their lives and feel their feelings about these relationships. He writes to Pighead, his best friend/“it’s complicated,” who is HIV-positive.

Reading the letter at group, Augusten finds himself crying, then shares the whole tangled-up backstory that he and Pighead have together, from how they first met on a phone-sex line, to how Augusten fell hard in love with him, to how they were friends with benefits and then he told Pighead that he was in love with him and Pighead plays the, “I love you but I’m not in love with you” card (that is verbatim what he says in the book, and the way Burroughs reads it in the audiobook kills me every single time), so Augusten dates other guys and tries to fall out of love with Pighead, only for Pighead to come see him first when his HIV test comes back positive and realize that he’s In Love with Augusten only, “after he became diagnosed with a fatal disease”

—which gives us the great line, “Part of me felt deep compassion. And another part felt like, You fucker.”

(Which is seriously one of my top ten lines in all literature, ever. tbh, it’s probably top five, but the top ten list would be hard enough to come up with to begin with, and I’d have to parcel things out into Poetry, Prose [possibly split into Fiction and Nonfiction, at that], and Dramatic Writing just to get it down to ten things on each list, and? It’s just a perfect line, oh my god)

At the end of it, Augusten has a moment with Kavi, another one of the patients at his rehab, who is addicted to cocaine and sex. Kavi tells him about how he left his lover who was HIV-positive after his diagnosis, so that he wouldn’t be the person getting left for once, and about how he feels like cocaine never leaves him. And we get: “Suddenly, I want to drink.… I don’t want to drink in a jovial ‘Highballs for everybody!’ way. I want to drink to the point where I could undergo major knee surgery and not feel so much as a pinch.”

I just.

There is so much about this section of the book that fucks me up so hard, but in ways that I love so much — and there’s a lot that I love about it for a lot of reasons, but like?

Speaking entirely with my writer hat on right now?

That part is just immaculately written. Every word is perfectly chosen, and they are strung together just right. Burroughs chooses the exact right images and scenes to characterize his and Pighead’s developing relationship, and his moment with Kavi, and it’s just

This part of the book makes me remember why I write. Because I have been reading and rereading this book since high school — I have had my battered up and taped together paperback copy with the yellowing pages since Easter 2005 — and this part STILL fucks me up, every. single. time. The audiobook version of it still fucks me up every. single. time.

Back in high school when I first read it, it hit me so hard because I had a habit of falling in love with girls who were straight and/or just did not like me back (and it would get worse, because the girl I was in love with who dared me to write D*rarry just to see if I could? Would go on to put me in the position of being her Girl Friday while I got to watch her love everybody but me, and praise the creative work of everybody but me, and go on about how two of her other friends were totally brilliant and misunderstood creative geniuses because they were incomprehensible and it was totally bourgeois for me to want to write to be understood but it was okay she knows I’m ~mainstream like that, but then still call on me — which made the whole Augusten/Pighead thing hurt so much more for me because I was kind of her, “I love you, but I’m not In Love with you”)

(I will say this about that relationship: I didn’t handle it well, either. I was petty and jealous, and waaaay more damagingly? I hadn’t yet grasped the idea that you sometimes have to just let people be messed up at you about the shit they’re going though without trying to fix everything for them, especially when there’s nothing that you can actually do to fix it. In retrospect, it’s kind of hilarious that I loaned her a copy of Perks of Being A Wallflower that I never saw again, because the whole idea that you can’t just constantly put someone else’s needs before your own and call it love, and the related concept that doing this is actually kind of a form of selfishness, in a way?

………yeah, that was VERY relevant to how I handled that relationship, and she rightfully called me on a lot of shit related to those ideas, and I spent a lot of time having an unfair chip on my shoulder because I was jealous on one hand, and indignant about how her other friends got to be Real Artists™ because their shit was incomprehensible but I got to be a Poser Artist™ because I wanted to be understood and not just fap around with some neo-Dadaist nonsense — and as seen here, I still do have a chip on my shoulder about Dadaist anything, but in fairness, I’d have that with or without any of this story because Dada is the worst — and I’m not saying that I was totally pure or innocent in anything here.

But at the time, I cried a lot over Augusten/Pighead feels because I felt that whole, “I love you but I’m not in love with you” situation and trying to fall out of love with someone only to crumble when they needed you and resent them for needing you but hate yourself for resenting them — I felt all of that so hard.)

My appreciation for this part of the book has evolved and changed over time, and it’s deepened — as I’ve learned more about LGBTIQ history, I’ve come to appreciate the context of the story more and gain more of a sense of reverence for the LGBTIQ people who came before me and actually fought through the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and it has changed how I read this part of the book more than anything else (c.f., my passive-aggressive addition of the REST of the quote to one post of the, ‘deep compassion vs. you fucker’ part because I was really annoyed with a bunch of straight people who were reblogging it without the full context and acting like they actually had any idea what it’s like to be gay and in a situation like Augusten is with Pighead here) — and I just

The biggest thing about this part of the book that’s made it stick around for me? is that no matter how I’ve appreciated it at any point, and no matter which parts of it have been the most important to me at any given moment, and no matter WHY it’s fucked me up — it’s still fucked me up so hard every. singled. fucking. time…… but in a way that has always made me feel a lot less alone in the world

It’s sort of similar to something that one of my fiction profs in undergrad once said about creating characters: we were talking, in one of our biweekly one-on-ones, about a story I’d brought in with one of my more off-putting characters (his name is Emerson, he’s an abrasive little shit who does a lot of very fucked up things and was kind of influenced by the Kurt/Karofsky plot back in season two of Glee because that was happening on TV at the time and I had a lot of feelings about it that I didn’t have any other way to deal with because I didn’t want to write Glee fic about all of it. He was more similar to Karofsky than Kurt)

I was convinced that everyone would hate him (not least because he an asshole to basically all of the other characters and assaulted the guy he had a crush on while he was high). Instead, he was actually really popular and one of my classmates, who I admired because her writing was so lyrical and confident and she was a great person, said that she found herself identifying with him, especially during some of his worst moments in that draft. While I was boggling about this, Professor Lucy said that one of the reasons why Emerson went over so gangbusters in workshop was that, instead of going the route of creating a tabula rasa character like Stephenie Meyer wrote Bella Swan to be, I’d given him so many clearly defined character traits and behaviors

According to Professor Lucy, the specificity is what makes it easier for people to identify with characters and feel for them, because it makes them more fully realized. (The, “according to” is just for the sake of attribution because this is a point that I’ve taken to heart and that I do totally agree with Professor Lucy about.) And I feel that a lot with the Augusten/Pighead part of the book because it’s so specific and it’s so grounded and it’s so REAL

And that’s a huge part of why it’s always gotten to me emotionally, and why it’s stuck with me after all this time, and why it’s consistently made me feel less alone and irreparably freakishly weird

Anyway, this got way longer than I intended to get, but the ability to affect someone so deeply with your work — that’s a responsibility that I take very seriously when it comes to writing, with regard to all different aspects of how you can possibly do this with the written word — and this part of Dry is such a source of motivation for me because it’s such a great example, for me, of How To Do An Emotionally Affecting Writer Thingy Well

I use technical language like this because I am such a Serious Business Writer, oh yes I am

47. how many unfinished ideas/stories are you working on at the same time?

I usually don’t count, because it’s usually a lot and not all of them are really guaranteed to ever be properly finished, oops.

[vgwriter]

Metro Exodus: A Review

The End of a Trilogy

The Metro series is based off of the books by Dmitry Glukhovsky, with each game set in the world of Metro 2033 (the book) and at times, having Glukhovsky writing them. Metro 2033 came out in 2010 for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and was met with critical praise for its setting and horror aspects. Last Light came out in 2013 and built on 2033, adding better graphics and AI. Last Light was one of my favorites on the 7th generation. Exodus came out in February and took the series in drastically different direction. The complex and narrow Metro is traded in for large maps and non-linear missions. The changes are handled well by 4A. This game still brings great tension and story to the FPS genre but unfortunately still has bugs that have persisted through the entire series.

The Good

*SPOILERS*

#1-The Story

4A does something that not a lot of developers do when they make a modern FPS: they focus on the story. Exodus is the third installment of the Metro game continuity but it doesn't really build on the previous two, which were focused on the Dark Ones. Instead, it takes the story in a new direction with exploration outside Moscow and into Russia. The game explores several themes and ideologies with its story including religious extremism, slavery, the inherent violence and love in humanity. The player follows Artyom, his wife Anna, her father Col. Miller, and a half dozen Spartans as they go through nuked out Russia in search of a new home. They pick up a few people as the game goes on as well.

The story starts out with Artyom wanting to explore the outside world in hopes that there are people in it. Everyone says he is crazy but it turns out he is right and they steal a train to go explore Russia. They go to a marsh and pick up a nurse and her kid and one of the soldiers hits on her by making her tell him if her daughter knew her father was dead... it's really a touching scene. They get married later but Anna ruins it by coughing really loudly because she fell down into a toxic bunker two chapters ago (somehow no one saw her sickness coming). Then Artyom and Miller have to go and find her medicine all while Miller and Anna give Artyom back handed compliments or saying this all his fault for getting them kicked out of the Metro. They think they've found a home but turns out it's controlled by Petra Pan and the Lost Boys and Girls. Then they finally get the medicine and the ending depends on how the player played the game. It's not an original story by any stretch and has some dips in execution but coupled with the enviroments, it is a good enough story to warrant another post-apocalyptic setting in a rapidly saturating genre.

Now, there are a few big plot decisions that effect how the story plays out with the morality mechanic in this game. Basically, if the player kills people and does stuff that people normally do in a FPS game, they get the bad ending. If Artyom is just a sneaky little Russian, the crew stays together and they all live happily ever after. Well, kind of, it is a Russian story after all. Pretty simple choices but they do change the tone of the game considerably and for that I will give 4A props on making in game decisions matter.

The dialogue can be a little iffy at times and there are some parts that are roughly translated (Miller uses his Russian name instead of his Anglicized name during one scene) but each character is their own person and brings a great voice to the ensemble. My personal favorites were Anna and Nastya. Over all, the game tells an effective and gripping story of people trying to survive a moralless wasteland and remain the honest people they were before.

#2-Maps and Enviroment

The story is broken up in to 4 large maps with smaller train sections linking the travel to them. It's actually a great move and a refreshing change of pace from all the gigantic map games that have come out recently. The first two maps are just large enough to warrant not having a fast travel system while still making exploration interesting. The other maps in the game are more linear in design with the first and last map being down in the Metro again. This variety in maps keeps the game fresh and makes each area refreshing and interesting instead of an over used chore.

Where this game really shines is the enviroments. Each map feels completely brand new, with very few reused assets like in many other open world games (especially western). Each level seems fully realized and lived in as the player and Artyom pass through areas that feel like someone else's home. The best thing is that each level feels this way. In terms of enviroment, there are no dips in quality in any of the chapters. Each level has this realistic level of destruction and a shared struggle to survive that seeps into every corner of the game. The place where this really lifts this game up is the last level, Dead City. Without the enviroment, the story really wouldn't have landed well with its obvious forshadowing and unoriginal overarching story. The desolation of the city and constant danger everywhere do a great job of putting the player in Artyom's mind with his anxiety and desperation in trying to save Anna. The enviroments throughout the entire game lift up the psychological undercurrents of the characters and really put this game on an artistic level despite its other problems.

#3-Weapons and Customization

The weapons in Metro are the best kind of customizable in that the options the player makes for what weapons and how they customize them actually matter. There are five kinds of weapons: revolver, shotguns, rifles, sniper, and special. The specials are the air rifle and crossbow (there is also a railgun but I never figured out how to equip it). Each have different positives and negatives to them and feel different to play with in game. The customization is also diverse with each gun having different parts that the player can find out in the world. Unlike other games where the player must find several different components or blueprints (looking at you Andromeda and Fallout), 4A just gives the player the customization if they find it. It provides a great utility in the game without focusing on it, which is how customization should be.

The Bad

#1-The Combat

It is clear that 4A's focus on this game was stealth. The character is slow, the aiming for PS4 is absolutely terrible even after trying to tweak it, and the enemies are super shifty. All of this adds up to a bad combat experience. I can't count the number of times I just said "f*** it" after failing to hit the same guy 3 times only to discover that Artyom was caught in a corner of two inch ledges. This games combat is severely unpolished and makes the otherwise great game difficult to play for bad reasons. When compared to other fps's like Far Cry 5, this game feels definitively last generation. It's like the Crash Bandicoot of fps, really precise shooting on imprecise controls (don't @ me cause you know it's true). This really sapped the fun out of the game.

#2-The Clingy Map

I mentioned this in the last paragraph but the enviroment is not fun to move through. Artyom sticks to everything. There were times when playing this that I would try to be sneaking and come across a small step that I had to get over and couldn't. I had to jump and when I did the enemies who I was sneaking from would discover where I was instantly. They also messed up going down stairs, even though I'm pretty sure they discovered that technology in 2004. When Artyom "walks" down the stairs, he keeps his forward momentum and goes in an arch over the stairs he is "walkig" over. The maps do have a great feel about them but they are not fun to walk around and that really hurts this games replayability for me.

#3-Unpolished, Epic Games, and Bad Camp Design

I've heard and seen all sorts of bugs on the PC version but the PS4 has no shortage of bad glitches either. My very first shot, the first time I ever fired a gun in the game, it didn't make a sound. That sadly set the tone for the whole game. Each chapter was more frustrating than fun and that was caused for a number of reasons but all of them could go under the umbrella of unpolished game design. There have been several recorded game breaking glitches or the AI just acting real dumb. Aside from that the game is an exclusive on PC for Epic Games. Normally I don't concern myself with PC master race bullsh*t but Epic Games has some very shady business practices on a platform that has a great storefront in Steam. Sadly, this does effect the overall game for consumers and that is why I mention it in my review.

The last bad thing I'll mention is the camp conversation interface, or lackthereof. The characters just start talking and they never seem to stop. Being raised in a polite household has taught me to never walk away when someone is talking to me and this game made me rethink my entire upbringing. The conversations are okay but they are sooooo slow and there is no way to control them at all. They just talk to you and it is honestly annoying, easy to ignore but still annoying.

The Non-ESRB Rating

This is tough to give but Metro Exodus is a 2/5. While I love this game for everything that it adds, it is just more of a hassle to play than fun. The combat and general unpolishedness of the game are what really sink this game for me. I really hate that it does this too because the story and enviroments are really cool and enrich the story so much. The tension in the game is real and the map design is refreshing with its variety and design depth. This game had so much potential but it just feels wasted on such a buggy and unpolished product.