#but since it shipped after the first 4...and those got out Just before the reapers hit...the 5th ark shouldve gotten caught up in it

[spacedlexi]

trying not to get my hopes up about andromeda being incorporated into the new mass effect but also 👁👁

[froggie1woggie]

it’s been 10 years since you’ve seen him.

the last time you saw him was right before you got shipped off to austria. he was the one who helped you pack away all of your shit, drive you to the airport, and say goodbye to you as you boarded the plane. 10 years is a lot of time to change. which is exactly what you did, you changed.

you were bestfriends since birth. your mothers were bffs and had been since high school. having their kids at the same time and everything. you and konig were attached at the hip. doing anything and everything together. from a young age he started to wear his balaclava, not liking how he looked. he wore it everywhere: school, work, shopping, sporting events, going outside! you name it he had it on.

except when he was alone with you. he’d take it off, feeling free and at home. he knew he was safe with you and he knew of your distaste for the face covering. always letting him know that he was perfect just the way he was.

as time went on you got used to it and so did everyone else. your senior year of high school came around and you both knew what you wanted to do. join the military! which was scary for you both due to being split up. but you did it, you join and as soon as that diploma hit your fingertips you were off to basic training.

3 months apart was hell for you both. you wrote each other all the time and when give the chance you’d call. when it was done and you were both back home, you didn’t separate. always with each other.

until you got a call. a call saying you were being shipped of to austria. why? you didn’t know but you couldn’t say no. you had two weeks to prepare before you had to leave. which seems like a decent amount of time but it wasn’t enough at all.

you didn’t know how long you’d be gone or what you’d be doing there. didn’t know anything only that you were leaving. leaving everything you ever knew, everyone who meant anything to you. leaving your family, friends, your home, germany. but most importantly, konig!

you both cried those entire two weeks. excited to be getting this opportunity but sad that you had to leave each other. 4 days before you had to leave, konig got a call. he was being shipped to afghanistan! they need him there asap!

after hearing that you didn’t know how to feel. you were happy for him of course. and glad that he wouldn’t be at home without you. but scared about something happening to him.

at first you both tried so hard to keep in touch. that went on for a year and a half. but then one day you just stopped answering him, not writing back or calling him. nothing. radio silence!

he automatically assumed you died. he grieved for years about his dead friend. thinking back on the memories you shared and how you made him feel. he’s regretted that he never told you his feelings all the years ago when he had the chance. he was just afraid of what you’d say and of losing you. he lies awake at night thinking about how you died, what happened? how did it happen? so many unanswered questions going threw his brain.

but as his time went of and his rank got higher, he thought about it less. he still thought about you and his childhood from time to time but not like he used to. he has bigger problems at hand, things that he needs his full attention on. and him being able to black out his mind and focus solely on his missions is what bumps up his rank. he got sent back to germany many years ago.

and that brings us to today! a just like any other for konig except he has visitors coming later in the day. three of the highest ranked ops is the austria military. The general, lieutenant, and the colonel. austria and germany have been good acquaintances for many years. and there are important matter that they need to discuss.

he doesn’t know the names for who’s coming, only call signs! chaos was the general, it’s said that that’s what he does best. reaper is the lieutenant, who is said the bring death wherever they go. and then pyro is the colonel, who is known for lighting his enemies on fire (dead or alive).

konig has heard stories about each of them. all of them are horrid enough to send chills down your spine. he would never admit it out loud but he’s nervous to meet them. they are who he dreamt about becoming when he was a young lad.

a knock on his office door brings him out of his thoughts. “come in!” he gruffs out. in walks one of his commanding officers, bullseye, known for his immaculate aim. “they’re here sir!” he says standing at attention.

“send em in.” he says motioning with his hands.

standing behind his desk wait for them to walk in as he can hear boots coming down the hallway. not having to wait long in come two men, one older with a gruff beard and one around his age. both men are relatively tall (no were near his height though). bullseye shutting the door on his way out.

the older one is the first to speak, “i am general wagner and this is colonel fischer!” they both reach there hands out to shake.

“konig.” he greets them and shakes their hends. “where is your third?” he asks.

“ahh yes, our lieutenant! should be here soon.” he chuckles to himself.

“ok. let’s talk business shall we?” fischer say as the three men sit down.

right as konig was about to speak he was interrupted by a knock. “who is it?” he grunts.

“lieutenant zimmermann sir.” he hears through the door. with a short come in he looks back at the two men in front of him.

as the door opens he doesn’t look up quite yet. listen to what wagner has to say. but he is excited, ever since he started hearing the stories about the reaper he’s wanted to meet him. he’s an idol in konigs eyes.

“sorry i’m late sir.” he hears said. taking a minute for his brain to realize that it’s a woman’s voice and when he finally does he whips his head up.

shooting out of his seat he stares at you! body stiff and tense. eyes wide and unblinking. voice caught in his throat along with his heart.

“is everything okay sir?” the general asks. everyone is confused as to why he abruptly stood up and is staring holes into you.

finally clearing his throat he speaks, ”liebling?” his voice is rough like sandpaper. it feels like he hasn’t had water in weeks.

upon hearing that word your body goes stiff as well. eyes becoming saucers. “k-kilgore?” you ask. you didn’t believe it.

konig thanked the gods above that his face was covered or you’d see his rosy cheeks and the crows feet by his eyes from smiling so hard. he fought so hard against the tear threatening to spill out of his eyes. and resisting the urge to wrap himself around you.

while you two stand there in your own world, the two man are sitting and looking at each other trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

pt.2 here

[hamliet]

RWBY and the Philosopher’s Stone

So, I finally watched RWBY after a friend name-dropped several characters and I was like wait... those names are alchemical. I was still pleasantly surprised to find out just how deeply rooted in alchemy the story is, from its characters to its plot structure. 

Background: alchemical structure is a type of story structure that focuses on inner transformation via outward obstacles. You can find it in literary traditions across the world, from Moxiang Tongxiu’s novels to A Song of Ice and Fire to Harry Potter to The Witcher to Trollhunters. Carl Jung incorporated it into his psychology. Daoism plays heavily into Chinese alchemy. The Wizard of Oz, one of RWBY’s main inspirations, is a blatant alchemy allegory. It’s everywhere, so it’s not surprising RWBY is drawing heavily on alchemy, but it is neat to see how blatant the references are. 

Thematically, the goal of alchemy is a metaphorical philosopher’s stone. The philosopher’s stone, in legend, is said to produce an elixir of eternal life, and to be able to transform “baser” metals into gold. 

In stories, when positive, as it usually is, this usually results in a character either overcoming death (see, Harry Potter) and/or transforming the world and others around him (Harry Potter saving his friends, etc.) But the journey from how they get from prima materia (raw material) to the philosopher’s stone? Now that’s the story. 

(When reversed, a metaphorical stone results in something that can destroy everything; see: the One Ring, also Salem, because Salem’s whole thing is that she cheapened the process of life and death, while alchemy states that death is a necessary part of achieving life.)

So, mostly I’m gonna talk about the symbolism I’ve seen so far and make some predictions for what’s likely to happen next in the story, and for the characters.

Each of the four main characters has a name that corresponds to one of the four phases of the Magnum Opus. “Blake Belladonna” refers to the nigredo, or black stage; “Weiss Schnee” to the albedo, or white stage; “Yang Xiao Long” to the citrinitas or yellow phase, and “Ruby Rose” to the final stage, rubedo, or red (Ruby’s name is quite literally taken from that stage). Naming them for these stages shows a dual purpose: while Ruby is the central character, she needs her team around her, and Team RWBY will save the world together. Team JNR is also a part of the stages, but I’ll get to what they represent later on. 

Jung associated each of the major stages with a major archetype. The major stages can be further broken up into a total of seven or twelve or even fourteen stages. Most commonly you’ll see George Ripley’s Twelve Gates referenced, and I believe that’s what RWBY is referencing as well since its allusions are pretty perfect. The "gates” or stages also sometimes overlap, especially when different characters might be at different stages. 

Nigredo: Seasons 1-3 

Alchemy begins by gathering the prima materia, or raw material. The characters assembling in season 1 is more of the gathering than the actual transformative process. But once we hit season 2, we dive straight into the process. 

Calcination occurs during the climax of season 2, during the fight on the train. Season 3 contains dissolution, or the washing of impurities through the exposure of certain secrets (like the fall maiden) as well as the literal dissolution of Beacon Academy, and separation (the end of the season, when Team RWBY is scattered). 

Narratively, Jung associated nigredo with the shadow, with someone’s dark night of the soul, their low point. In historical artistic depictions, often part of nigredo is dismemberment... which happens to Yang when she saves Blake from Adam. See, Splendor Solis: 

The goal of the shadow is that it should be integrated with, accepted, rather than denied. Facing the shadow is a necessary part of growth and ultimate transformation... and the point is, through facing the shadow, hope and light come.  

Peacock’s Tail: Seasons 4-5

Okay, I lied, there are sometimes five phases in alchemy. At the very end of nigredo, just before albedo, there is sometimes a flash of light, of rainbows and colors, that give hope. It’s not quite a phase, more of a moment, but it’s referred to as the peacock’s tail. While this is less plot-related, it does make sense that this is the point in the story where Team RJNR is formed. Why? Because look at their colors:

Ruby: red, black

Jaune: yellow, blue

Ren: green, purple

Nora: white, pink, orange

Between them we’ve pretty much got the full rainbow. 

We also have, in Blake’s arc, the introduction of Ilia Amitola, whose last name is the Souix word for “rainbow.” 

Albedo: Seasons 5-7

Albedo is associated with the anima or animus, or the part of ourselves that we are lacking (it’s generally gendered as the male within a female and the female within a male, but please understand he’s not talking literally and more in terms of traditional qualities ascribed as feminine or masculine that we may repress), which more than fits the fact that this stage begins while team RJNR is literally wandering around a continent called Anima. 

Conjunction is a term in which all the separated parts that can be salvaged from the Nigredo come together. Obviously the main incident for this is the fight at the end of volume 5, but I’d argue it overlaps a bit with volume 4 and even with separation.

The characters are only able to come together again once they’ve accepted aspects of their shadows. Yang deals with hers in Raven and Blake with the White Fang. Nora and Ren’s fight at their home village represents them dealing with their shadow as well, and also relates to conjunction because conjunction is the stage where the first chemical wedding comes into play. A chemical wedding is the joining of alchemical partners, and while I’ll probably discuss ships in another post (there’s a lot of set up alchemy-wise), I’ll just reference the obvious one here: 

The fountain image and a person shooting arrows is some pretty uncannily similar imagery to the fight at Nora and Ren’s home village. 

Next up in albedo is putrefication (focus on death and rotting). We see this with the encounter with the Apathy, who look like skeletons, cause death, etc. We’re also introduced to Maria Calaveras, aka the Grimm Reaper. (Her last name also means “skull” aka the white results of putrefication). 

Congelation requires a lot of water, and we see this in the focus on Atlas, wherein snow (water) is everywhere. The point of congelation is to separate the thin from the thick, the latter of which will of course become the Philosopher’s Stone. We see this through Team RWBY’s break with the Ace-Ops (aka the Aesops), whose simplistic morality and rule-following are not going to bring about character growth or eternal life. 

Citrinitas: Volume 7-?

Citrinitas focuses on the light, or fire. That immediately after congelation, a giant whale brimming with yellow appears in the white-colored Atlas is not a coincidence. Citrinitas is associated with the sage or the wise old man/woman, so Maria and Pietro fill this role. 

The first stage of citrinitas is cibation, which involves feeding with fresh material. I’d actually say that it seems quite possible cibation overlaps with congelation, in that there is a focus on food and on training with the Ace-Ops early in Volume 7. The next phases are sublimation and fermentation. I can see potential for sublimation in that it essentially is when solid becomes air (think of the setting of Atlas), but it’s too soon to say what this means for the plot. 

Fermentation, though... well, things will get worse before they get better. :’) 

Rubedo: 

Finally, Rubedo is associated with the fully individualized self. We can assume each of the main seven will come into their own, confident of whom they are. Oscar should, as well, and probably will have fully control over his body by the end (ie Oz will likely... find rest or whatever).

The stages of rubedo are exaltation (the creation of the stone after two contraries meet), multiplication (the stones’ properties increase), and projection (the stone’s abilities are projected over the entire world, aka presumably RWBY will save the world). 

The most common way to display multiplication is through, well, a lot of couplings. It’s why the main characters ending single seems extremely unlikely to me. Even if it seems a fairy tale ending, well.... *gestures to everything about RWBY being inspired by fairy tales* Fairy tales were also often alchemy based. But ships will get their own meta, because I actually don’t really ship much besides Renora and am for once not super invested in anything, but I can see the set-up for four or five ships.

I also want to highlight the other symbolic names that stood out to me: 

Ironwood. While I know Ironwood references the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz (tin being one of seven metals associated with alchemy), his name also references a second metal: Iron. Tin and Iron are the two of the three basest metals in alchemy (the other is lead). Iron in particular is ruled by Mars, the god of war, meaning it is associated with violence. It’s not a coincidence that pretty much from the second Ironwood is introduced, the concept of war comes up, and his entire character has gone on to be the embodiment of the military and violence. 

Tai Xiao Long. His name literally means “sun,” and Ruby’s mother is defined by her silver eyes (silver being a color traditionally associated with the moon). Ruby is thus considered the child of the Solar King and Lunar Queen, two mythical alchemical figures who together create the “Philosophical Child,” or the personified philosopher’s stone.

Pietro Polendina: his name literally means “stone,” and Penny is his philosopher’s stone. Penny is arguably a reference to copper, another of the seven metals, as copper references compassion and love, which seems like Penny to me. 

Qrow and Raven Branwen: crows and ravens are symbolic of nigredo, or the black phase; death, decay, etc. However, within the story I think Qrow and Raven fulfill this role as the Jungian shadows of hunters as a whole and of Yang. 

Sun Wukong: obviously a reference to the sun. 

Emerald Sustrai: Emerald is a reference to the Emerald Tablet, which in alchemical lore is a tablet containing the secrets of alchemy, as written down by Hermes (in legend). Hermes is, of course, Mercury. Everything about alchemy stems from the Emerald Tablet, so Emerald should be important. In addition, green is the color of the prima materia, so it references Emerald’s arc in being shaped and molded by Cinder. 

Mercury Black: Mercury as the mythological god is the legendary founder of alchemy, so like, he’s important. Mercury is also the third most important metal in alchemy, after gold and silver. It is necessary to achieving the philosopher’s stone so, like Emerald, Mercury is probably important. Mercury is of particular note because mercurial characters are common in alchemical literature: they make stuff happen. Think of Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, for example. Mercury transcends death symbolically (you can see the roots of this in Mercury’s backstory with his assassin father): it is difficult to pin down and can quickly shift from liquid to solid. Thus, in alchemy, mercury can shift between life and death. 

Mercury is also a noted servant of the white queen. I initially thought this a surface reference to Salem’s appearance, and it might be, but Salem is more associated with a black queen in the recurring chess motif, and I don’t see Mercury staying on her side (mercury isn’t fixed, after all; that’s its central tenet), so I kind of wonder if the “white queen” will be later revealed. Or maybe it just is a surface mention.

[nighttimepixels]

TALK TO US ABOUT MASS EFFECT I HAVE BEEN AN INSANE MASS EFFECT/SHAKARIAN TRASH PERSON SINCE 20-FUCKING-11 AND LEMME TELL YOU THOSE FEELINGS HAVENOT TARNISHED A SINGLE FRACTION IN THOSE TEN YEARS OH MY GOOOOOOODDDSSSS!!!!!!!

I DEMAND A PLAY-BY-PLAY UP TO THE MINUTE OF YOUR REACTIONS TO EVERYTHING!!!!

you are so valid and I totally see why everyone I've ever mentioned it to loves the hell out of it

aksdjlsdfj I meannnn if you want to hear my rambling about it then hell yeah

Okay, gonna put this below the cut to save everyone else XD also- since I'm not leaving this Mass Effect obsession anytime soon, if you're not interested in seeing occasional posts about it, please feel free to block the tag "night plays ME"~

(mild spoilers ahead??)

((also for real I mean it when I say this is rambling as hell lol, apologies and no stress if absolute no one reads all this))

OKAY SO Mass Effect 1-

Stars help me, I was honestly hooked right from the start?? Like even in Legendary Edition (the combined trilogy just re-released in one "can play it on one system + minor improvements", for anyone who doesn't know) where it's smoothed out, of course it's obvious that ME1 is a decade old... but the foundation for these relationships are all there and gods I love them already.

Like - Kaiden right off the top is a delightful good fightin lad, what the hell. I've heard that he's viewed as 'bland' by a good portion of the fan community but I dunno, he's a delight and even more complex by the time 2 rolls around and you encounter him on Horizon, it was honestly Ashley I was way more meh about - mostly because before you can learn about her family history/etc, she comes off as hella xenophobic and I was immediately offended for my growing space family that she didn't like/trust all the aliens around, pfff.

(she gets redeemed a bit through further actions/evolving thoughts, but I thought in retrospect it was a bummer that they didn't flip the order there, give her a chance to be liked before the complicating factor of being so rude about aliens >:c that then she could grow from... ah well. Apparently she has a good arc but uh, let's just say I chose Kaiden at the "key junction" in the latter part of the game so I won't be seeing anymore of Ashley uh... anytime soon, haha.)

Garrus??? Is??????? The ABSOLUTE best???????????

I liked him from the start, I'm always a bit of a sucker for a rogue-detective "the system won't bring this bastard to justice, so I've got to" type and all their moral shadiness XD But he just gets better, honestly, and where I'm at in ME2 (right before the Reaper IFF mission, as of typing this, with everyone's loyalty!) I am only digging myself deeper into this hole-

-*wheezing* okay anyways -

Wrex is AMAZING I love fightin' middle-aged krogan bastard, gods. Liara is great too, I'm a sucker for a wlw relationship (playing fem!Shepard, so) - buuuut I'll admit she's a bit more one-note in ME1. Last week while I was still on ME1 I remember hearing (while trying to dodge spoilers) that her arc is really good, though. I think they leaned a little hard on the 'innocent but sexy' sterteotype on her (so despite the yikes aspect of a few of the things I've learned in ME2, lol, I actually really like the complexity that's been added to her character.)

Saved Liara first, so by the time I got to Noveria and had the standoff with Benezia there was the chance to have emotions over Liara having to face her TwT and of course, I made the questionable but quality decision to free Queen Rachni heheh. no ragrets

More than a blow-by-blow of my choices though I totally wanna take the chance to say that even in the mild jankiness of ME1 (goddammit, the Mako.... please..... please just go up this impossible cliff I just want to resource hunt-) the way that the lore, both obvious/key to main plot and the lesser/filler/background/world-building kinds... I just love it. It incorporates it well, you can go ham in the codex learning more, or just dive into the basics - it's clearly a complex galaxy (and they do an even better job in 2 of fleshing it out further), and it never really felt overwhelming. It was pretty natural figuring it all out-!

Plus the interesting implications of resource hunting amongst the sapient races, and the little side missions you better bet I did every one of- there's so much rich depth in the story if you do 'em!! (And that lead with that Keeper side mission...? Looking back, damn, clever foreshadowing-!!!)

And oh my gods, Ilios??? hell yeah. I loved that mission so much, especially having Garrus & Kaiden with me when talking to the hologram/computer, and more than anything, that last sprint in the Mako trying to get to the jump before it closed-???

yeet the boi-

Also mannn I love a good setpiece, and having to go up the side of the elevator, space-side?? such a cool setup!!

Plus it felt good having been Paragon enough (as simple as the good v bad vibe system is, I don't hate it, lol) to avoid one of the Saren fights, ngl. And the er, "second fight" with Sovereign-Saren.... hell yeah

... I'll admit I had to double check my choice re whether to save the Council. I did in the end, but I swear, sometimes the way they phrase things I'm like ".... okay but Garrus is right, defeating Sovereign is more important than these few leaders??????" woops. Listen, priorities, is all I'm saying..... (￣ヮ￣|||)ゞ

'Course later they emphasize (in ME2) that there were 10,000 people on that same ship and I was like well I wouldn't have second guessed if I'd known that, I mean c'mon-

Also I did indeed romance Liara in this one, so I got that scene ;Dc But,,,, I also knew by the end that I was totally gonna romance Garrus in 2 since he's an option then finally,,,,, lemme tell you the guilt as I waffled over whether to romance Liara bc of it. hahaha.

Aaaaand Mass Effect 2-

So I'm only up to right before the Reaper IFF Mission, so I don't know the ending, etc etc lol. That said, I've just finished every side mission I've found with the exception of the Shadowbroker Quest and the Arrival Quest (I've heard the latter basically leads into ME3, and the former is best either right before the Omega 4 jump or in postgame).

So from the start - fuck yeah fuck yeah what a high adrenaline start Shepard noooooo but also yes save Joker aH-

The motion comic too hot damn nice job

I loved this setup, seriously - especially forcing Shep into this situation, having to work with/for Cerberus, and the compelling reasoning given behind "why" they do what they do (I especially found it a good point that the Salarians have the Task Force, the Asaris the Commandos, the Turians the- etc... like, true, when you put it like that, having a similar group advancing human interests/solving human interstellar problems is pretty reasonable...). That said, I love too that it really isn't shied away from how Cerberus is nonetheless fucked up - or its at least done fucked up stuff.

Listen, I still think some messed up stuff is gonna be revealed in 2's endgame......... after that Horizon mission and the Collector's ship???? TIM I SEE YOU YOU SHADY MF-

aaanyways lol...

I'm so so glad on a gameplay level they nixed the Mako style exploration. A few Hammerhead missions are fine and a lot more focused than the slippery ass navigation in that glorified ATV, pfff. The probes are a neat way of getting after similar resources - and more importantly, having good levels and some good hubs (the Zakera Wards, Omega, Ilium, etc) is way way more fun than having a more 'sprawling' space that is.... a lot of empty nonsense, lol.

Then there's the fact that we get Joker right off the bat and you can interact with him so much - and him and EDI??? Get out gods I love them. Kasumi is so right when she says they sound like a bickering old married couple lol. I have a terrible feeling that some shit is gonna happen with EDI..... but I don't think she's evil as-is, at least.

Side-eying the hell out of those "access forbidden" parts of her that she doesn't even know.... and the fact that her AI core has a locked door access................... something's gonna happen gdi LEAVE OUR ADOPTED AI ALONE.

(Also Joker pls stop fracturing your thumb on the mute button)

Also please save me there are so many hot aliens in this game,,,,, the xeno/monsterfuckers really comin' through strong in the sequels............... doin' the lord's work........................................

In general, I love how many levels ME stepped up in two with complexity and interwoven narratives!! Like, to the point it'd be almost a drag to replay ME1, even though it was fun going through it (if occasionally a bit tedious with the cookie cutter rando planet science/mine facilities, lol). Like, just from how fun and interesting ME2 is, mostly! more of all the pre-introduced races, plus new ones, plus more filling in of intragalactic politics, and more interesting implications of all these space-faring races mixing....

Also gods WREX and his planet holy shit,,,,, fuckin' hell yeah my man get their shit together and also adopt Grunt yes good-

And Mordin??? My singing semi-evil scientist best friend forced to confront his choices more than he thought he ever would have???? With some of the best ongoing general report chatter of all the companions??

(when I tell you I choked on my coffee when I talked to him after confirming romance choice w/ Garrus and that 'pamphlet' and 'anaphalactic shot if ingesting-' kajsldkfjsldfjk)

Like, fuck, the fact that they actually dive into the mixed morality and horrors of the genophage, and you can confront Mordin on it, for good reason, yet he still stands his ground, until finally some bits of his loyalty mission seem to... affect him, and I'm guessing might set up things for 3 with him? Unsure, but either way, damn, the fact that they start to dig into it...

And Taliiiii my beloved forbidden alien wife TwT her loyalty mission was SO GOOD. I love how varied they all are?? Getting to defend her and discover what she'd unwittingly been a part of-!!

Zaeed is a bastard but tbh I love that he is and that he's unapologetic in him - and Kasumi omg, best thief. A heist?? Gods, yes- I love our couch lounge chats XD

Samara is..... illegally.......... she's an illegally powerful and beautiful and eloquent MILF...........................

(.... listen I'm sapphic as hell and I'm kicking my own ass for picking her up last aksjdlfksjdfl - but her loyalty mission, damn. And seeing how there's this interesting cultural subset, and the struggle with the Asari in that they unquestioningly accept/respect justicars, but also know that the impact outside their culture is a diplomacy nightmare waiting to happen-)

,.,,,,,T,,, Thane,,,,,

I am weak for morally implicated murder dads okay?? And that voice??? His mannerisms?????? How you first see him, and that prayer after assassinating her...???????? And his history/his people's history with the hanar, gods I love how messy it is, it feels so much more real!

Also Jack is a mess and I love her (and want to get her some therapy, omg), and her and Miranda nearly duking it out after you've done both their loyalty missions??? so good and makes a lot of sense-! Honestly I would love more interactions between teammates on the ship, but there's already so much the devs had to balance I can't blame 'em for minimizing, heh. But suffice to say I also love Miranda and Jacob, even if I'm softest for my alien crew XD Hell yeah Jacob, we'll get loud and spill drinks on the citadel indeed TwT

.... I could write a whole essay on how much I love Garrus oTL Perhaps because he and Tali are the throughlines from 1 on your 2 crew, I have some of the strongest feelings about them... but genuinely, he was one of my favorite companions in the first game, and how you find him as Archangel in two? Getting to help him fight his way out after he's gone nearly 48 hours straight fighting off three gangs alone, jfc. His vengeance quest and what can happen there.... That line? fuck me, that line -

It's so much easier to see the world in black and white. Grey? I don't know what to do with gray...

How DARE you come for my heart like this, devs holy shit

(also, some other choice faves so far from the series from him include We can disobey suicidal orders?? and This wasn't in my training manual... [in 1, if you have him with you @ th Thorian fight] and his whole.... pop the heat sink - in his romance ;Dc)

asdasdfksadjfkl like I said I can write an essay on him PFFF suffice to say I'm very looking forward to his romance scene and where things go in 3

But yeah gods I'm just gonna keep rambling if I'm not careful lol. Gods I don't even know what to talk about it's all so good and while I can understand people roasting the obviousness of Paragon V Renegade (v neutral) choices/alignments, I think they do a pretty damn good job in 2 of pushing it further - to the point that there were some times that I accidentally got renegade points and I wasn't that mad, haha. There's so much fun in the interactions that I just have a good time anyways~

I have so many thoughts about TIM (The Illusive Man) and Cerberus.... theories evolving galore............... and like, what the hell!! Omega 4 going to the center of the galaxy is such a cool twist, goddamn - though my heart still breaks at losing Kaiden (his line if you haven't romanced him?? about feeling like he lost a limb when he lost you??? holy shit.... but I also can't blame him for not trusting Cerberus to the point of it affecting his ability to trust Shepard... like fuck Shep go after himmmm) I'm really excited to see where that goes since he comes back in 3, and what the fuck happens with Cerberus bc while I love the fact that obviously there are a lot of people in it for the right reasons, doing good work, there are those that are doing the opposite, and I have a very bad feeling about where TIM will end up landing....

All that said though I need to do the Reaper IFF mission (where I'm lightly spoiled as to getting That Boy, but not how/what happens to make it so - just that it's apparently wise to have all your side missions done before getting him...) and the actual Omega 4 jump. So we'll see what happens and what I think about it from there heheh!

.... major kudos and genuine props if you made it here to the end, I am so sorry for not editing on condensing all this, and appreciate you so much ;w;

[gerbithats]

A long sims 4 rant

Starting this I can already predict it’s gonna be a big one so if you stick with me, thank you and I’ll try and add pictures to make things feel easier 😆

I was thinking about it and I mean really thinking about these community surveys we’ve been getting and how they speak volumes on the way the game is handled but also also how we position ourselves as a community. I noticed alot more game changers are starting to get pretty vocal about their thoughts since the first community survey came out and that’s refreshing to say the least, but it shows a pattern that we all present: give us what is missing no matter how. We want beaches. We want cars. We want more stairs. We want bunkbeds. Etc.

So these things are probably somehow rushed into production to please the community and then, when we finally get it, it’s like we finally realize that what this game truly lacks is gameplay and not more items.

I invite you to come and think about the packs and the stuff we got throughout these 6 years with me.

🏢 Chapter 1: The apartment issue 

Yes we got apartment buildings with city living, but sometimes it doesn’t even feel like it’s a game feature because it’s L I T E R A L L Y related to living in a city, so it’s not a real feature. We have no possible way to play with apartments and condos outside of san myshuno because for the first time ever we can’t build or own apartments. This was such a missed opportunity of giving us new lot treatments like condos and even rentable properties. I mean, just think about how those 2 features could allow so much new gameplay and stories with it (I can literally imagine being a landlord, having to go fix renters stuff in my their places and doing social events as condo meetings).

The neighbors in that type of lot could also help solve somehow what so many people mention as “boring lot gameplay”. Let’s be real. hardly something ever happens with so little npcs and only the walk by sims (You have to literally run after them to make things happen sometimes and it shouldn’t be like that). But if sims were to live in the same condo or building as yours, sharing common living spaces that’s a whole other thing. Which brings me to the fact that even in the city, where apartments exist, there’s no common area other than the halls. Imagine if we could build laundries, rooftops, basements, patios with pools and all that sort of stuff.

That sort of detaling and really getting deep into the pack’s features is even show in elevators: we can’t use them ourselves (for building) and they’re not even animated, your sim is just teleported (even the modded ones have animations and that’s just awkward).

🌊 Chapter 2: Swimming in shallow waters

“We want a beach”, we said. So they gave us a beach, and a beach only. I’ve never seen so many people call a pack “shallow” as I’ve seen it happen to Island Living and tbh I do agree with them ‘cause... there’s really not much to do in this pack. For the first time ever swimming was restricted to this pack which is already a big let down by itself, but then features like deep diving were added for no reason and of course, as a rabbit whole, not actually contributing with much to do. So how could it be better?

My answer is pretty obvious: resorts. It is a livable world, but that don’t mean your sims can’t take a vacation from work and just stay there if that’s the gameplay you want to go with and resorts match perfectly with that, not to mention it would have great integration with packs like spa day. It also means a new lot type and lot system, that wouldn’t be much new if the city living building condos and sublocating them as I mentioned would’ve already been implemented, but now with the feature of renting it yourself too. Resorts could also have their own event schedules, integrated with the seasons calendar: cava parties every wednesday, yoga lessons on thursdays, etc. And the best thing would be: if you own one, you can make your own events and traditions. imagine just how fun that would be. A feature like this would also mean it’s already done for other packs coming later on, maybe a colder destination where you can ski and build iglus or even another cultural based pack like jungle adventure.

Other obvious resolution would be better mermaids. Make it harder to become one, being only able to get the kelp from a mermaid themselves. Make it less anticlimactic, having an animation of them turning before they just walk in water with a tail all of the sudden, maybe just some scales in their legs. Give them more unique features and powers like vampires and spellcasters have, such as easily persuading people (sort of like the mind control feature aliens have) and maybe even a secret lot, like a grotto where all the mermaids are. Give them curses with the points system to go with it, some mermaids are actually sirens amirite

🥶 Chapter 3: Seasons change, gameplay stays the same

Activities truly based on the season that are specific to that moment create urgency and different moments. Something I can think of is integrating a pack we already have: spooky stuff. It does feel lackluster ‘cause it’s missing opportunities, but imagine going trick or treating but actually going, loading different houses and gathering it while a meter like the active jobs one guided you. Forming groups with friends to do it or maybe for tpeing trees and bushes if you’re on the rebel teen side and destroying their porch jack’o lanterns. It could even be randomly generated, like the game would send you to 3 different houses to do it (that would bring lots of replayability value ‘cause you could end up in houses with neighbors that love you and will give you candy no problem, but maybe also neighbors with family feuds that won’t answer their door or make it harder for you to accomplish the event objectives), maybe one of those could even be a abandoned one that’s haunted or something like that.

The implementing of a better wants and fears system is very essential for this pack. Yes your sims get overheated and a popup message tells you they need some water or lighter clothes, but it’d be so good if they’d actually want to go to the beach, swim in the ocean, take a vacation from work and go to a resort. Heatwaves that would make your sim act weird, not strangerville level of weird, but maybe not obeying your commands.

Blizzards so strong that work and school would get canceled and you actually don’t have the option to leave your home lot anymore until it passes would not only add a different element to the gameplay, but also add value to the weather controler machine.

🥺 Final chapter: The general “more stuff to do” and “more things happening” factor

The game offers all these beautiful secret worlds and yet when you finally get to them there’s not much to do other than searching for rocks and frogs and doing some fishing. I miss going to a community lot hidden somewhere and finding an eremite, goddamn bigfoot, some crazy npc or even just an actual community lot with something to do and people doing stuff in it. Unique community lots would also be a way to make towns more lively and captivating like they did so well with realm of magic and the casters alley section of the world. Maybe forgotten hollow has this abandoned haunted house where people claim they’ve seen the grim reaper walking around. Maybe sixam has a alien station where they clone human sims. Maybe sulani has this beautiful sunken ship beach where a club of people that dress up as pirated meet. Maybe Del Sol Valley has a movie theater where you can watch premieres. Maybe Oasis Springs mine hides actual gold that you can collect and get rich outta nowhere. That kind of stuff.

I can’t stress this enough, but NPCs are so important to shake things up. It was so good to have a pack like realm of magic where the we would have to go to the three sages in order to progress. Having unique sims like this or npcs that change the way your story is going like burglars, firefighters, cops, social bunny, bonehilda and even a fortune teller is so important to keep things impredictable and interesting.

Age groups really need more specific restricted gameplay for better feel of progression. Many people say sims 4 is a young adult simulator and well... there’s not much to show that differs from that. Toddlers are as interesting as hamsters, locked in an object waiting for you to feed, clean and give them attention. Teens really should feel more like a transiction period, and the wants and fears system would really help out with that. I miss being able to participate in more elements that would mark a sims life even if they’re cheesy as heck, like having a prom, graduating, having a midlife crises.

In conclusion

First of all: if you got to this point thank you and I’d really wanna know what you think about all of this.

Some people may find even ridiculous for someone to go about a rant this big on a game and to that I have to say I agree lol I can’t help it tho, honestly, the sims has always been the game I’m most passionate about and it helped me express myself and my creativity so much since I was a kid. I really do care about this game and this franchise.

The point I want to make with this is: perhaps we shouldn’t ask for more and more different stuff, but actually put some effort into showing things we already like in the game and how they can be improved to make it more interesting. At the end of the day I still want spiral staircases, ladders, paintable ceiling, werewolves and all that but does it really matter if they get added to the game following the same patterns as the things pointed in here? Also we really are getting to a point where only a few things are missing as far as cas/build/buy go and I believe it’s time for us, as a community, to give gameplay as much importance as all these things we wanted so bad that got implemented. I probaby forgot to say something here and I didn’t even mention the infamous hamster pack, but anyway, I hope the point got across.

I try really hard to believe that the gurus are here for us and that most of all we, as a community, have a very strong voice, all we need to do is make it clearer and stronger about the things we really wish for this game.

[blodreina-noumou]

The 100: One Final Rewatch - Part 2

Introduction

This is it. My send-off to The 100. One full, complete rewatch. Season one to season seven. Episode 1 to episode 100. Every cringeworthy, beautiful, brutal, heartwarming moment. Every chopped plot thread, every inspiring character arc, every sailing and sunken ship. Every gut-wrenching death and every narrow escape. The best, the worst, the utterly mediocre.

All of it, in order, one last time.

(Part One.)

Episode 1x01: “Earth Skills”

Highlights

Best quotes:

“When the last man from the ground died on the Ark, he wasn’t the last Grounder.” - I love this in part because later in the season we get a glimpse of the list of Ark-Grounders. It’s a fun little world-building detail.

“What’s up here,” gestures to Monty’s brain, “is going to save us all.” - And it did. If we pretend s7 never happened.

“You’re the youngest zero G mechanic on the ark in 50 years.” ... “52, but...so what?” - Raven’s love of accuracy coming through, as well as a cute little humblebrag. God I love s1 Raven so much.

Best moments:

1. A pretty small thing, but I love all the background shots of The Hundred going absolutely buckwild as Wells returns from burying the ones who died on the dropship. The two teenagers just openly making out on the forest ground. The boys chasing and tackling each other. The fucking drum circle. Those little background moments are so dumb and fun. Some magic was lost along with the Delinquents. The Hundred deserved more attention and time.

2. Raven! Spacewalking! Smiling! Sneaking around places and learning things she shouldn’t! Raven figuring out the kids were taking the wristbands off in like two seconds! My heart soared when I saw her. Raven!

3. When Bellamy seriously considers killing Clarke in that spike pit. If only the other boys hadn’t shown up to help him save her. Can you imagine how different this show would be if Bellamy killed Clarke in episode 2?? One can dream.

Lowlights

Worst quotes:

“What’s wrong with a little chaos?”

“You’re too hot to be my brother’s bitch.”

“No, Atom. I won’t be disobeyed.”

(These are all gonna have to do with Bellamy until he calms tf down, sorry.)

Worst moments:

1. Less than two minutes into the episode, the crew stumbles on a humanoid skeleton, with one creepy twist - the skull is misshapen and strange. This is never explained. The Grounders are just normal humans. The Reapers? Normal humans on drugs that make them scary cannibals. There is nothing in this universe that ends up with a skull shaped like that and it will always make me mad.

2. I really wanted to skip through all the scenes with Team Adult. The only thing that saves the scenes on the Ark in these early episodes is Raven. I was rolling my eyes so much in all the scenes with Kane and Abby and Jaha. I just don’t care. 

3. I have to bring it up again because god - Bellamy stringing up Atom in the woods for kissing Octavia is not only cruel but also insanely childish and possessive of his little sister. It’s so weird and I think a lot of Bellamy fans gloss over this, and a lot of the other shitty things he does, in these first few episodes. He is literally an antagonist for the first five episodes! He does fucked up shit and no one talks about it!!

Small Things

What I Never Noticed Until Now

1. Kane says Bellamy is from Factory Station. That means Octavia and Aurora were also from Factory Station, right? I guess it makes sense, since Aurora was a seamstress. I’ve always had a hard time paying attention to the Ark scenes in the beginning. (This is also yet another example of world-building that had a lot of potential and no follow-through. A full prequel about the Ark would interest me. I want to know more about the different stations and their roles.)

2 - I don’t know how I missed it, I guess it’s testament to how little these episodes interest me, but the squad rescuing Jasper gets attacked by a (poorly CGI’d) big cat and Wells shoots the shit out of it and Bellamy says, “Now she sees you,” right in front of Clarke?? It’s a weird moment and I’m so glad the show drops a lot of this dumb teen love drama after s1. Apparently I didn’t think at all about where they got the meat at the end. I swear I paid more attention as the series went on.

MVP of the Episode

Raven Reyes!! She brings so much life to this series. A sassy but capable young mechanic whose just old enough to have missed getting sent to the ground, pairing up with the clueless adults around her so she can save her boyfriend’s life. She brings a lot of wit and heart to the series before it fully figures out what those things are. 

Overall Impression

This episode improves on the pilot...barely. Everyone has settled into their post-pilot looks, which is comforting. A lot of the writing is still really clunky, but it seems like the actors are starting to settle into their characters and figuring out the tone of the show. It could be better, but it could’ve been a lot worse.

Episode Rating: 4/10

The first four episodes are going to get low rankings, y’all. But there are brighter moments ahead! Because, as we know, shit gets real in the next episode.

[nobody-knose--archive]

hiiii just sayin if you ever wanna talk about any of your ocs i would absolutely love to hear about them :>

well. Since You Asked /lh

talc was a stephen univouse oc because of course i had one. he was pretty masc even though all gems are generally fem/use she/her but because su is over & they’re an oc i say they use she/he/they <3 their deal was like, being one of a rather large (6 or so not including her? i never wrote any of this shit down & honestly wasn’t even that consistent at the time) group of defective (came out the ground real wrong (made in ground meant for peridots actually! during the war in heaven (that’s a reference y’all won’t get (oh god june your penchant for parenthasees has rubbed off on me)) or whatever it was called)) pearls who were super fragile (poofed incredibly easily) hence the name talc. pink diamond thought the lot of em were a novelty at least so they kinda hung around the human zoo because i came up with all this shit way before season 4 or 5 or whenever the lads actually went to homeworld for real. the gang of them were found family & because they’re all yknow identical they named each other after their respective weapons (or at least their defining abilities).

so from what i remember there was crossbow, katana, naginata (those two were friends <3), one with a mace maybe?, metal (no weapon but strong metalbending abilities. i didn’t intend for them to be That much like the cg’s peridot), possibly one with kunai or a halberd, and dagger (the main boi). after the war & a long damn while they all got split up, dagger sent off to be an unobtrusive servant to jasper/peridot, crashlanding on earth in the same ship as them at the end of season 1, only surviving thanks to this ability she got to teleport/make portals like lion via her gem. her gem cracks though but steven’s there to fix it and then she very very gradually warms up to the crystal gems while wandering earth & casually yining & pearning for her old buddies. i’d have probably gotten around to fleshing more shit out with the crew (i think naginata shattered katana at a diamond’s orders or some shit but who cares it’s never relevant just angsty), dagger ends up with vague weak metalbending skills of their own, but i sorta lost interest in them, especially after i came up with...

[kaguya] (definitely. definitely not his concrete name. however he is japanese so i wouldn’t be good at coming up for a name anyway. so kaguya will do) was a per.sona oc who i came up with in like 7th grade specifically since that was the year i became aware of/developed a genuine fear of death <3 per.sona 3′s whole schtick is getting past your fear of death & moving on with grief and all that complex stuff so it was basically the perfect universe for me to craft an oc for at the time. he was gay (but demisexual) for minato also. if you know per.sona 3 i’m sure you know how well that worked out. i later transported him into per.sonas 4 & 5 just because i wanted to flesh him out more, develop him over a long period of time, have him react as an adult to these new kids doing per.sona shenanigans, and also because per.sona 4 & 5 style shadow confrontations are cooler & have more room for symbolism. (if it’s worth anything i stuck him mostly into the arena zones of 4′s canon so as to not terribly interfere with the main plot, it being a mystery & all)

also he went through really really extensive development. unlike the other guys here i honestly intensely developed them for a long time straight (never wrote anything down of course, but i was honestly really into them even for a way into last year). for example at the very beginning they were fem, cheery, and spry, much like 90% of my self-inserts when they start out (talc was exceptional at first <3), and instead of using a scythe like i settled on, they used a sickle. which is. mainly because i forgot the grim reaper used a scythe & not a sickle. but also because they had slightly more of an egyptian vibe going on at the time so it was technically more of a netjeri blade w/ a handle or some shit. also their per.sonas (they had 3 of course one for each game <3) were saturn, hou yi, and yssgaroth, though i only decided on the final one kinda recently so it’s still up in the air. saturn was mostly a physical fighter w/ some minor mudo, hou yi was a strong wind user (w/ bonus gun in p5) and yssgaroth was mostly almighty and status effects. i did not care about being op i just cared about imagining my character & per.sonas Actually In The Games

boy. anyone else? of course there’s someone else. “[tsu ikae]” definitely does not have that name because they’re also japanese and i cared even less about getting them a name. kaguya i at least used as placeholder sometimes but no this one just has no name. they’re a dang.anro.npa oc by the way. maybe this post will get me cancelled someday who knose. i came up with them in probably 8th grade, and at first they were a super straightforward self-insert, for myself to react to events/talk to characters/generally exist within the dangan universes. the problem was i eventually realized i needed a reason for them to have a presence in thh, gd, kh, & udg (& maybe 3 but only the despair/hope arcs really. just. generally in those time zones i guess) when logically those are all extremely different points in time & space that shouldn’t be able to contain the exact same character each time. so i came up with a super convoluted backstory that ties greatly into v3′s extremely spoilery themes but who here cares about dang.anro.npa spoilers anyway. they were a Literal self-insert of themself into the dangan games, they Literally didn’t exist in the dangan universe(s) outside the framing of the games themselves. there was something going on with like, being inflicted with despair by going through (simulations of) killing games v-however many times, there was something of a climax happening where they remember every single killing game at the very end of v3, lots of shenanigans.

most of that’s not important, you know what is important? i projected all of my impostor syndrome onto them without even realizing it. i made them the penultimate fencer because i thought that’d be neat & then made some deliberately unclear additional plotline about them maybe-maybe not being the penultimate lucky student (&/or penultimate charismatic student, who only gets into hope’s peak for convincing the admins personally with charisma, i came up with that all by myself <3) because Surely Only Being The Penultimate Fencer Isn’t Good Enough And They Must Be Faking Their Ability To Get In yadda yadda It’s All Luck y’all probably have impostor syndrome you know the deal. the wild thing is how i did this before even realizing i had impostor syndrome i was just like “oh wow what if it wasn’t clear whether they were actually good enough to get in what if they were secretly insecure about the validity of their skills despite projecting an infallible exterior” without being self-aware in the slightest. good times!

“that one feh oc” i just brought up in the post because i couldn’t think of anything else. if i’m going to talk about it i might as well talk about my pok.emon or sonic ocs from when i was like 10, there might be years between them but there’s not much difference in content tbh. it’s practically my archetypal “cheery playful character who doesn’t take things seriously but is also immensely powerful &/or in intense danger + emotional/literal pain at all times”. it’s a weirdly specific archetype but it’s my weirdly specific archetype <3

dan, adrian, & david i’ve technically brought up before and this post’s long enough they can be for another day (dan’s like my main ld oc, based on a mask of my own face, while adrian & david are based on adrian by the fullerenes). meanwhile eszi & jele (+ o. i. by extension) like i said i barely invented them they’ve got quite a bit more development to go before i chat about them in public. as for juno.... he can come later <3

[overdrivels]

TWtaH Notes

I’m finally free. It took three years and nearly 150k words, but I’m finally done. I can’t believe it. 

It started off as a simple idea and a simple premise: a chef!reader who, while knife sharpening, catches Hanzo’s attention. It then evolved into a full-fledged fic with a plot and plot twists. Originally, it was supposed to be around 10 chapters long, but then it grew out of control over the years as I tried to figure out how to end what I started. 

In addition to being a redemption fic, this was also an information dump fic. Since this is the very first slowburn I have ever finished and I have the feeling I won’t have much opportunity to do the same ever again--I don’t think any other fandom would give me the ability to showcase all these tidbits like Overwatch does--I literally threw as much knowledge as I could reasonably incorporate as possible.

About plot changes:

Most of the original plot points survived the writing process, some minor ones didn’t for plot related reasons, so this surprisingly went better than I thought it would. 

There was supposed to be another scene where Chef faced off against Reaper in chapter 20 or so, but upon reassessing Reaper’s character, I decided he wouldn’t do that, especially not against civilians or put himself in harm’s way just to say something to Chef. He wouldn’t even say anything to his family in the comics, what makes anyone think he’d do anything to someone he had even less of a personal relationship with?

There were supposed to be more scenes about Chef’s fencing, but I couldn’t fit it in and it ended up being a one-trick pony plot device. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, but that’s how it turned out. There was supposed to be a scene where Chef fights back against Talon during their infiltration of the Watchpoint.

There were points where Hanzo himself talked his way out of situations and forced me to change the plot. In the kitchen when he first meets Chef face-to-face, he wasn’t supposed to get the chef to forgive him which is the biggest plot deviation I’ve had and it forced me to reconsider large sections of the story. Honestly, I think it’s for the better though because I was really at a loss as to how to progress the original plot under those conditions.

I also wanted to emphasize that when Chef left, there was increased tension between the members. There was little commonality joining them all together except for the fact they all needed to eat. In order for some parties to work, you have to have your support characters, and in that case, it’d be Chef. But I seem to have bumbled through that bit and made it less impactful so if I ever got a chance to rewrite this, I’d probably stress this bit more.

Symmetra was supposed to have a much bigger role in this, somehow she fell to the wayside with that one plot change in the kitchen I mentioned before. On the flipside, Ana and McCree got a way bigger role than expected. 

One of the biggest plot changes was Hanzo hating peppers. Originally he was supposed to hate onions but I thought there was way too much onion in Japanese cuisine to omit them, so I thought of something that would seem more ‘childish’.

To be fair, I also don’t really like peppers all that much either. But I sure as hell love onions.

The proposal with the miso soup at the end, the plot twist where the chefs are the real treasure, and some other minor details have been there since the beginning of the idea’s conception. Things like Reaper trading Overwatch’s life for the tamale, the name of the restaurant, and Hanzo’s fight with Genji only came after the fic was being written. 

Real life:

Covid really took its toll on me since a lot of this fic revolved around food, tasting it, experiencing it, making it, etc. I lost a good portion of my taste and smell, and it’s not back 100% even months later, so a lot of what I begin to describe after a certain point is just based on memory. If a pre-pandemic world, I would have been running around the city, sampling foods and writing down my impressions, but with things as they were, it didn’t pan out that way.

I tried to stuff as many of my favorite foods (and not so favorite foods) here as much as possible. There were a lot of foods I omitted because there’s only so much I could fit in here. A companion compilation fic of the Overwatch characters eating their favorite foods or just eating food in general made by Chef sounds really appealing right now.

May, June, and July made me really want to expand the story and include things in the fic that would turn it ‘problematic’ or at least morally ambiguous. If I did that, this fic would never be finished. 

Characterization and development:

Junkrat and Roadhog are much more docile in this story than I would have headcanoned them simply because food security is life-changing. I really liked the idea of Roadhog using his farming skills and being less homicidal with the right environment. They both know food is sacred. 

Argus 20 is in reference to Argus Panoptes, the all-seeing many eyed giant from greek mythology. The 20 comes from “hindsight is 20-20” (but now 2020 has a very different connotation and I’m thinking it’s pretty fitting). The reason for this is because she oversaw a lot of what was happening especially in the front of house. It’s not mentioned in the story, but she oversaw things like purchasing the restaurant, setting up the dummy accounts, organizing and obfuscating the donations, etc.

In case there was any confusion, ‘Tanuja Deshmukh Singh’ is Asim’s deadname. When he left Overwatch and became Asim Singh, his family disowned him. He was then free to live as himself, but he never discarded his last name because he still wanted to be connected to his family in some vague way no matter how much they disliked or denied his existence.

Head Chef Richard has been in jail. His backstory is basically after firing his staff to protect them from the fall out, he basically told the press he fired them for insubordination and took the fall for the kitchens and got quietly arrested. He was sent to the same prison that Chef would end up at. He’s not a very honest man, I don’t think, but he’s a character who was molded by the story and its needs rather than being a pre-established OC. 

I kind of wanted to write the fic in a way where Argus and Asim weren’t bad guys but people who were forced to make difficult decisions because of the position they were put in by Chef and by Talon. Cause, you know, sometimes you do things to hurt people without realizing it.

I couldn’t decide whether I wanted to push another ship in the background. If you see hints of different pairings here and there, you may be seeing it right because I kept flip-flopping between chapters as to whether I wanted to or not, and if I decided I did, I kept changing the pairings.

Hanzo. Where do I even start with this guy? I had a really tough time trying to stick to one interpretation of his character. I kept reading other fics and going, “Yeah. Yeah! I want that!” But then it just became a huge mish-mash of characterizations until I wasn’t sure who he was anymore. But I clung onto the thought of “he’s the first son of an Asian household dealing with his spoiled brother” to help get me through it. It reminds me of that tweet that goes, “You think you can hurt me? I’m the eldest daughter in an asian family.” It was so relatable. Channeling eldest sibling in asian family vibes. 

Chef. It was so hard. It was so damn hard writing a faceless character for so many words. I can usually do it in a one-shot because I can get away with not mentioning stuff, but in a slowburn?? It’s so difficult. Multiple times I had to stop myself or revise things because there were characters talking about Chef and I didn’t want to make the dialogue unnatural by saying ‘chef’ ‘chef’ over and over again. There were other moments like Soldier carrying Chef out of the Cellar and I was like: “What if the reader is taller than Soldier?!” It was a struggle. The other struggle was characterization. There were so many in-story stressful moments that I wanted Chef to start crying at but the timing of it was so frequent that I had to nix most of them or risk making Chef unrelatable. 

lol i’ve made several pseudo-cameos in the story because I’m shameless. 

Miscellaneous:

Man, my style changed so many times throughout the story. At some point I ended up writing outlines made solely of dialogue and wrote the story around it. It was oddly distressing when I realized my words wouldn’t come out like they used to.  

This fic has seen me through a ridiculous amount of crap. I kind of wished I kept a journal or something because these past three years have been nuts. 

After this, I’ll probably retire from writing Overwatch and then go into my usual writing hibernation that spans about 4 years before I reemerge with an unquenchable thirst for something stupid. 

In my nearly 20 years of writing fanfic, this is the first slowburn I’ve ever completed. To be fair, the last time I even tried was like...over 10 years ago when mediaminer was still a thing and didn’t ban CYOAs.

This was also the longest single fic I’ve ever written. I have wirtten 200k in a year before but never for any single thing.

God, this was hard. I partially did it to prove that you don’t need to use placeholders like ‘Y/N’ and stuff like that and it was possible to write a slowburn with gender neutral stuff, but I had to cheat a bit. But it’s done. 

I’ve worked in the restaurant business for a few years but not as a chef. It wasn’t even high-end either. I wanted to talk about the work conditions because it’s pretty tough in the kitchens and the amount of drugs and vices people turn to and the conditions in which people come to work is nuts. 

I wanted to cover a lot of controversial topics to see if I could but it just didn’t fit in the story. I wanted to tap into things like social justice, racism, prejudices, political landscapes, and so on. Even within Overwatch, I’d imagine there’s a lot of tensions stemming from just basic ideologies. I wanted to see if I could write about both (or more) sides of challenging arguments and still remove the author’s opinions from the story, but I’d imagine that’ll bring its own complications. Last thing I wanted was to start a fight in the comments or something.

I almost made the crew travel to Asia with implications of a changed geo-political sphere from today. Like...the status of Taiwan would’ve been interesting to touch upon, but I didn’t feel like I had the knowledge to expand on it enough.

Almost every waking of my life, I have thought or worked on this fic. During meetings, during conferences, during client calls, while I’m on public transportation, in different countries. I don’t know what to do with myself now.

Anyway, if you have any questions or anything or just want to shout at me, inbox is open.. For now I’m just going to lament over the fact that Genshin Impact gives me motion sickness and I can’t play despite working so hard to roll Mona.

[elizabeatrice]

Mystery Spot (Chapter 68)

Let’s Talk About JSHK Manga #4

If you get the title reference, I applaud you.

Warning: 1) !!! MANGA SPOILERS UP TO CHAPTER 68 !!! Duh.

2) I dropped a couple of f bombs and several curses here ... I really ranted lmao.

3) This reaction/review is closer to me spewing wild theories rather than an actual review. But these wild theories are my reactions. So. Ehhh these theories are probably wrong anyway. Lemme have my dark, twisted fun, mkay? Not sure if they’re entirely coherent though.

Had trouble copying some kanji this time around ‘cause they’re so freaking blurry! So I got too lazy to write this yesterday haha. Thank you Ropes of Fate for the translation! Truly commendable heroes of the fandom *sobs*. I also used three panels from Chapter 61, translated by Caim.

Let’s jump into it (ba dum tss).

This chapter is a bit shorter than usual and boy do you feel it. Well. At least I do. But I really hope sensei are taking some time to relax. Last chapter was 45 pages, after all. Y’all deserve it you wonderful creators.

First of all I would like to dedicate the biggest f bomb for the villagers because what the fuck. Why the fuck would you sacrifice poor, innocent young girls just to keep yourself safe? And it’s not even a sacrifice to kami-sama! Y’all just droppin’ these girls to be eaten by supernaturals! And y’all practically manipulated them smh.

Are y’all insane?! Y’all could’ve just moved the fuck out. What kind of insane people just decide to stay near a literal pit of hell? Don’t give me the ‘we’ve lived here for generations’ bs okay ‘cause y’all neighbors be getting eaten by supernaturals but y’all rather trade innocent young girls for your own safety. If Berkians and Asgardians can suck it up and be the bigger nation with all that ‘Berk/Asgard is not a place it’s the people’ shit, y’all can too.

I’ve disliked characters in JSHK before. But I’ve never hated JSHK characters before. Until now. Y’all fucking did it, dumbass villagers.

Ahem. Pardon me.

Because my brain is a literal self-debate machine let me just say that I did consider several possibilities in these ‘people’’s defense. There’s the obvious ‘some people back then didn’t know any better and believe a human sacrifice will solve everything’ mindset. Then there’s the possibility of them being trapped in their village for some reason, hence not having any other choice but to sacrifice those girls.

But y’know what else could be the case? ‘Cause my mind really went dark there for a bit.

The Minamoto clan let it happen.

In the last chapter it was mentioned that the Minamoto clan was involved. And this is a bit shocking now that I think about it more ‘cause Teru has always been adamant that all supernaturals are evil and must be exorcised, humans must be protected.

But what if they just let the villagers sacrifice these girls so that the monsters can be contained in this village, in that pit, instead of running amok to other places and cause more trouble?

Which makes me wonder.

Uh. Where did Teru go to? Does he know about this? Did he go to that pit (or that village, if Kamome Academy wasn’t built on its land)?

If he does know, isn’t he interested in saving a fellow human student and underclassman? If he does know about the Akane clan, isn’t he interested in telling his VP, who’s obsessed with an Akane? Unless ... you know ... he meant for this to happen, which I kinda doubt.

He must know something about this. He went out of his way to make Akane promise to protect Kou if something were to happen. What’s more dangerous than the Grim Reaper showing up looking for a sacrifice who turned out to be Kou’s beloved senpai’s best friend? What if Akane had to choose between Aoi and Kou at some point?

Okie next I wanna talk about Hanako. This is gonna sound just as far fetched as the previous bit lmao but here goes.

Boiiii y’all saw it. The pause before his answer. His face drawn out of view, in an evasive body language.

(Hanako my boy pls do us all a favor and stop lying to your girlfriend, we all know how well that turned out in Picture Perfect lmao)

Theory. He knew what’s been going on all along. Or at least the gist of it.

Remember this?

Imma take a detour a lil bit.

The Far Shore/torii gate refused Nene in chapter 67, right? In my Chapter 67 reaction I said it was the bracelet that saved her but now I think the bracelet probably disguised her as Sumire in the villagers’ eyes. So the Far Shore/torii gate refused her, and we all thought it was because she wasn’t an Akane.

But then we found out that Hanako was right about the village. It was just a ‘made up world’ inside Shinigami’s boundary. It’s just a reenactment of the day Sumire died, probably based on Shinigami’s memories, as the first page of Chapter 64 said.

So of course Nene was refused. Because in his memories, Sumire was the one who fell into the pit that day.

Sumire also said in this chapter’s narration that the villagers sacrificed young girls. Not Akane girls. Also, before the sacrifices began, the monsters already ate villagers anyway, right? They didn’t only eat young girls. It wasn’t said as such. The villagers probably just chose young girls because that’s sorta like the equivalent of offering the best meat or smth. Practically a please accept our humble offering of tenderloin wagyu, O Horrible Monsters.

The coveted bloodline thing was probably a plus, not obligatory. Often in stories, people with high ‘spiritual energy’ are supposed to taste more delicious and grant whoever eats their meat special powers or smth (e.g. Tang Sanzang from Journey to the West). Also ancient cultures sacrifice young girls often, that was the trend.

And they proceeded to try to sacrifice Nene anyway, despite her not being an Akane. They said it themselves. “It doesn’t matter if it’s that girl.”

So according to the (rather vague) information we have, it’s possible that the sacrifice doesn’t have to be an Akane or a girl.

Some of y’all have been theorizing that the Yugi twins got involved with supernaturals, and that sorta lead to their death.

What if this is it?

I myself am not sure how it went down if this is really the case. But I keep imagining our boy’s infamous ‘I’m not going anywhere’ being said by Sumire because bruh she’s the epitome of not going anywhere. She was chosen to be sacrificed since she was a child, not given a choice. Even after she died and became a yorishiro, she was imprisoned in this time prison world or whatever, reliving her death every single day with no escape.

And I couldn’t help but think ‘hoooo shit what if???’

I mean. I don’t know who was the chosen sacrifice. Could be Tsukasa, could be Amane. Maybe he killed his brother so that he wouldn’t get sacrificed, and decided that he’ll die along with his brother. I’m not going anywhere. Maybe it also means I’m not letting you send my brother to be eaten by monsters, and since we can’t escape either, we’re staying here no matter what.

And if the Minamotos were really in on it, it makes sense for Grandma Minamoto to accuse Amane of being an evil murderer. He practically got in the way ‘of other people’s safety’ by killing the chosen sacrifice.

banjjakz also said something about the possibility of Tsukasa being a previous sacrifice. Read about it here and here. It’s pretty interesting!

Besides, a wonder whose precious person got sacrificed and later became their yorishiro? That’d be some parallel, haha.

Sure, Sumire said ‘if the kannagi was switched’. But the early narration didn’t mention a sacrifice of kannagi. Just ‘young girls’.

Look just lemme have this, alright?

Oh. Also I wanted to point out the possible tension/trust issues between Hanako and Nene but many other blogs have pointed it out quite well so I’m just gonna stick with my wild theories.

But I will address what Nene said about the pit.

Where is said pit anyway? In Kamome? Why is it open? Is it Tsukasa changing rumors and allowing more supernaturals to cross back to the Near shore? More likely. I mean, he does grant wishes for supernaturals after all.

Oh. Speaking of Nene. Let’s give her a round of applause for her character development. She’s become of better judgement regarding men’s terrible behavior. Wow. That’s my girl. I mean, we still don’t know much about Shinigami, but from what I’ve seen so far, Sumire guuuurrrrllllll you deserve better.

Regardless of my ships, these supernatural boys should take notes from my precious Kou and how he loves so selflessly. Lmao. Remember that one post-chapter panels in Picture Perfect where he said he’ll find Nene a prince in the real world, even though he likes her? Broooo I want ten of this precious boy.

Lastly, Akane and Aoi.

Where are they? They look like they’re stranded in some wild boundary somewhere, the one with half sunken houses and lost things that usually appear in color spreads. I am so hyped, ‘cause I love the aesthetics, and I wanna see more of this place.

Oh. And Akane’s alive. Phew. I gotta be honest though, I kinda looked forward to his death. Not because I hate the kiddo. He’s technically still human, right. I’m just wondering whether his death or Aoi’s would cause Teru to outright declare war against the Seven Wonders because aren’t these folks supposed to protect students like they claim to be? (This, of course, ignores my previous theories about the Minamoto clan)

Basically I just wanna see some shit go down with Teru mkay ‘cause this powerful dude has been useless for quite too long now.

Aoi’s still pretty confusing, too. She went from this weird expression:

to this:

She kinda looked like she was still under the influence of the drug thingy. But she was also concerned about Akane, even though it’s not like how she worried about Nene in the past. And she knew Akane longer than her, they practically grew up together. Real Aoi would be in tears seeing his condition, y’all. So I guess the drug thingy’s effect is slowly wearing out.

Closing! JSHK is dark but usually not in ways my brain expects it to be. (And a lot of times I still get surprised with the amount of comedy it has lmao.) Sooo sensei are probably gonna prove me wrong about most of these, anyway. Haha.

As always feel free to discuss.

[whiskeyworen]

Pirate misadventures!

So last night me and my friends finally got enough of us together in Sea of Thieves to run a Galleon for like, the second time ever. Oh man, that was a trip. We got sunk by a VERY skilled reaper crew, got pwned by FlameBeard or whatever his stupid fiery head is, and got ambushed while in port by a sloop that made the mistake of firing on a four-man crew. Actually, we think that guy was logging out for the night and wanted to sacrifice his ship in glory. We totally get it. Either way, while we were unloading in port, he dropped anchor a little bit away and just started pelting the ship with his single guns. So...we returned the favor. In spades. We unloaded EVERYTHING we had on him. Cannonballs, Blunderballs, special balls, Flareballs, Mastbreakers....all of it. About 20 seconds of sustained 4-cannon fire and the sloop was gone. Later we ran into Flamebeard or whatever his fiery-talking-head is. At least, his Ships of the Damned fleets. So we tried to take them out, picking them one by one. It did not go well. We were doing okay until we had THREE ghost ships on the port and TWO on the starboard, and of those ships, one on each side was a ‘special’ Ghost ship. We did get some absolutely glorious full-broadsides off on them. Movie-quality awesome. Then something weird happened. We’d patched all the holes, at least we thought so. We weren’t taking water. But then all of a sudden, after a particularly BAD barrage, the ship just... sank. Bow first. Just went straight down. We don’t know why, but either we didn’t beat the fleets fast enough and the boss just instantly sunk the ship, or we took a single hit in a spot we couldn’t see on the bilge deck, or we hit some kind of ghost mine/powderkeg bomb that we didn’t see at all, but it instantly wiped the ship. So we immediately headed back there after respawn, because all our crap was floating in the water out there. Cut to an hour later, and some VERY close calls, but we got all our ghostly goods, and ran for port. (that’s when we ran across the Sloop who we ended up giving the 21 gun salute into his lower hull). Towards the end of the night, we were anchored off an island, and noticed a Skeleship was doing that eerie, slow approach they sometimes do. It was already within the calm water ring of the island, and wasn’t slowing down or turning. And it wasn’t aggroed. The plan was, if the Skeleship grounded itself, or stopped reasonably close to us, we were gonna take some powderkegs and blow her keel out and sink her right there. We had 4 barrels ready just for that. So I go up to the mast where we keep it (not gonna put those things in the hull dammit), and I go to drop one down the ladder. Except I have a brainfart, and click the wrongest button in the game. I lit the fuse. In a panic, I dropped the barrel, with the correct button which I was supposed to use before. So a lit keg goes right down the mast and sits in the middle of the ship. Near 2 of my 3 other companions. The only thing I had time to say over voicechat before the detonation was “Ohshit I lit it!” Instantly; 2 down. Mast breaks and throws me into the sea. Fire on upper deck. Holes punched in middle deck. Holes punched in bilge deck. I apparently went from Level 1 in Reaper’s Bones to 13.  I’m dying laughing, while my companions are just dying in general. I swear up and down it was entirely a mistake and an accident. But goddamn was it funny as hell. Even more so when I find out the guy closest to the blast had been going to pick up the barrel, and noticed it was lit right before it blew. So I’m not trusted with gunpowder anymore. LOL. Oh, the Skeleship? It did get close to the island. Sat there through all our chaos. Probably saw and heard us exploding. And then it turned away and wandered off. Apparently we were too stupid to pay attention to. LOL On another island, a bit later, we found a Red Sapphire Mermaid statue sitting about 3 feet from shore. So we loaded up the rest of the gunpowder we had left after my little...accident... and surrounded it. Keep in mind, the sun was setting, and night was setting in. It got dark very fast. Standing at safe distance, my friend shot one of the barrels. We expected an explosion. We did NOT expect one of that sheer SIZE and BRIGHTNESS. Because the statue was in the water, we didn’t get a fiery explosion with smoke. We got a water-blast. Pure white flare of white. It was bright on MY screen. My friend was closer since he was the shooter; the flare covered his whole screen. In his words. “...I think I’m blind now!” “That was an awesome explosion. I wonder when my vision is gonna come back?” It was the biggest and best blast we’ve ever seen or made happen. Even beats out that time we blew the keel out of a skeleship and watched the thing bounce on the water as the exploding keg lifted it out of the sea. One of these days, we are gonna assemble enough gunpowder to make a damned CRATER of an island....

[aricazorel]

N7 month prompts Day 4–War

Using this prompt list

(This takes place during Messages chapter 11; Kaidan’s side of things)

Friday, September 22, 2186 CE, Sol System en route to Mars

Kaidan Alenko had taken command of the Normandy until Shepard and Anderson arrived. He had assumed the admiral would have.. That hadn’t happened. The original N7 had reinstated Shepard and given command of the SR2 back to the officer he had once mentored. Now as they sped away from Earth, the L2 was left to wonder what now?

The Alliance had not even been prepared for a reaper invasion. Even with all the work Hackett and Anderson had put forth under the radar. The reapers had taken Earth from them without much of a fight. Either way they were at war. A war he knew they weren’t prepared for. One he wasn’t sure they could win. How could they when the enemy was so advanced and used your own people against you?

He fiddled with the weapons he had procured from the armory as he glanced at a trunk near his workbench. His SpecOps armor was contained within it. Kori had insisted he stow it aboard that very morning for just in case. Even with their time apart, he knew better than to discount her hunches. This was one time he was sure she wished she hadn’t been right.

With war spreading to the other species soon, he wasn’t sure what their plan could be. No one species was strong enough to conquer the reapers. It would take a collaborated effort between all of them. And the odds of that occurring naturally were slim. They would have to be convinced and that was where Shepard came in. It had been one of the last orders Anderson had given him. If anyone could carry that order out, it was John Shepard. But it was still a tall order to ask for.

With everything else going on he hadn’t heard anything from Kori. He knew she should have been on the Normandy but he didn’t know for sure. He’d assumed command automatically, too busy to let his concern and fear for her safety be at the forefront of his mind. She had training, she was resourceful, and loved to improvise. She would be okay. She had to be.

Kaidan took a breath as he thought of his mother and father. He knew he had been forced to leave them behind. His dad was a dedicated officer. Retired or not Gavin Alenko would make sure they were safe. His mom, Kaitlyn, wasn’t helpless either. They would be okay. They had to be…

They were at war now. Anything could happen, especially with an enemy like the reapers. But he had to have faith. He had to be strong. He had to believe…

Suddenly their was a chime and the elevator doors of the cargo bay opened to reveal Lt. Commander Kora Reese. Kaidan’s breath caught in his throat. She was okay. She was fine. She had made it off the planet and had been aboard the Normandy the whole flight from Earth.

Kaidan closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. One less thing to worry about or so the logical side of him said. The side that remembered he had woken up just that morning with her in his arms wasn’t so convinced. So many things were still unknown and so many things could still go wrong. He opened his eyes as the smile she’d given him that morning as they laid together before readying for the day flashed through his mind. He would fight to see that smile every day. He would fight a damned war for her, to keep her safe.

He watched as Reese exited the elevator and walked up to Shepard. The Lt. Commander saluted. “Lt. Commander Reese reporting, sir.”

Shepard turned around as he furrowed his brow. “Lt. Commander Reese?”

“Ummm, yes, sir. I’ve been promoted a couple times since we met last, sir,” Kori explained as Kaidan kept his eyes on her. He knew she was aware of his presence and his gaze on her, but duty came first.

“I see. We’re heading to Mars to—"

“Meet up with Dr. T’soni, sir. I know. I kept a comm open thanks to EDI.”

“EDI? You know?”

Kaidan attempted to focus on his weapons as the Normandy’s AI spoke up. He wasn’t truly successful as he continued to listen. “Jeff vouched for her. And as the ranking officer in charge of the retrofit, it was only logical for her to be aware.”

“I see,” Shepard replied, amusement in his voice.

“Shepard, you should also be aware that Lt. Commander Reese is the ranking officer aboard after yourself and Major Alenko.”

“EDI,” Reese snapped. Kaidan recognizing that tone. She didn’t want to be in command. “Joker can—"

“No, Joker can fly the ship, but I want you in charge while I’m gone,” Shepard said firmly.

She frowned but offered no further protest. “Aye, sir.”

“I want a full report on everything when we get back and I mean everything you can get your hands on,” the Commander ordered as he went back to his gear.

“ETA 10 minutes,” Joker called over the comm.

“Got it, Joker,” the Specter said as he walked over to Vega and the larger guns. He threw over his shoulder. “We launch in less than 10, Major. Make it count.”

“Yes, sir,” Kaidan replied as he glanced at Reese again. Shepard knew, even with just a couple of minutes of seeing Reese again, the Commander knew they were together.

Kori met his eyes, her lips quivering. She was trying to hold herself together. Had she been as scared for him as he had been for her? Had she been too caught up with getting the Normandy in the air to let him know she was aboard?

As calmly as he could the Major motioned for her to follow him over behind some crates in the corner. As soon as they were out of sight of the others, Kaidan took her in her arms, lifting her off the deck plates. He buried his head in her shoulder and whispered, “I thought I’d lost you.”

“I’m here…things were so hectic I didn’t have time to message you…I’m sorry,” she whispered back, wrapping her arms around his neck tightly. He felt her trembling against him as he tried to be strong for both of them.

“It’s okay. We’re okay,” he said pulling back enough to look into her grey eyes. She nodded as he saw unshed tears in her eyes. She was trying to just strong for him too. “We’ll beat those bastards and take back Earth. You have to believe that.”

“I do,” she replied, nodding with a weak smile.

He frowned, knowing the smile wasn’t genuine. It was to keep him from worrying about her. “Then why are you crying?”

“We just started working things out…We started talking about moving in with each other…It’s selfish…”

It was selfish but she had just voiced exactly what he had been feeling. Without seeking permission, he kissed her, putting everything he felt into it. He knew it was hard and demanding, more so that was normal for him. Memories of their night together before Ilos flashed through his mind. The desperation of that night, the danger of the pending mission, the need to know the other was still there. That they were alive. Just as they needed that now.

Kaidan felt her grab his shirt. Her arms still tightly wound around him. She was restraining herself as much as she could. He knew that but like her, he wanted so much more.

Reluctantly he pulled away, his eyes never leaving hers. “I need to suit up.”

“I know. Just—“

“I’ll come back to you. I will. I promise I would already, remember?”

“Kaidan…”

“I will, Kori. Believe that.”

“You’d better, Alenko. Or I’m gonna be pissed,” Kori said as she ran a hand through his hair.

“Understood, Lt. Commander,” he said with half a grin as he cupped her cheek. He would do it for her. He had to.

“Be safe,” Kori whispered as he let go of her. As he walked towards the lockers he made a promise to himself. Anytime he walked away from her from now on, he would always come back to her. He would never leave her alone again not if he had anything to say about. The Reapers and their war be damned.

[shockdowndefiance]

You've been visited by the random OC question fairy! :D ~☆

Pick five of your character's most influential milestones (moving away from home, a first kiss, a death, etc.). Why and how did these milestones affect your character?

Thank you for the question! Once again I am answering for Allison Shepard as she’s the only MC I really have fleshed out. I sat down to write out her most influential milestones and narrowed it down to the five I felt would be most interesting. In chronological order:

1. Finding out she was a latent biotic and suddenly developing biotic abilities at the age of sixteen 2. Meeting her first boyfriend, Finn

After she was expelled for punching and injuring another student, and moving to a different human colony, she enrolls in a new school and meets Finn on her first day there:

A teen boy slouched casually against the wall opposite the office, moving to stand up when Allison shut the door behind her. His dark hair flopped down into his bright blue eyes as he moved, his hand almost continually going up to move it out of the way.

"Finnegan Osmani. Call me Finn," he said once he was close enough, holding a hand out. Allison took it and gave a brief shake before she pulled back. "You're that new kid, right?"

"I am," Allison said, turning and looking around. "I hear you’re my chaperone."

Finn laughed. "That's one way of putting it. Hey, rumours going around; you are a biotic, right?"

"Sure am," Allison said, turning back to look at Finn with a cool glare. "You gonna make something of it?"

"Nope." Finn grinned. "My lil sis is a biotic, she'll love to meet you."

Allison smiled herself.

Maybe introductions weren't going to be so bad.

Outside of family everyone treated Aliison and her twin brother Elliot like a ticking time bomb. Finn was the first one to fully embrace who she was, biotics and all. This was in part because of his younger sister also being a biotic, so he had some knowledge of what being a biotic meant.

Walking in to that new school, she had put her hair up and left her amp fully visible - she didn’t care what anyone thought of her, whispered about her. Hating her for being a biotic was the same as hating her for having green eyes, and if it meant she rounded out high school as the ostracised creepy biotic whom no one talked to...well, she didn’t care.

And then Finnegan showed her that, no, not everyone was going to act like that. Some people would be accepting of who she was, biotics and all.

Again, this has gotten really long so the rest is under a cut!

3. Enlisting in the Alliance 4. Getting dumped by Finn 5. Defending Elysium from pirates and slavers 6. Being awarded the Star of Terra for her actions on Elysium

Allison didn’t do anything special on Elysium.She didn’t do anything more than any other marine would have done (and in fact some of them willingly laid down their lives so that others could be saved). Being hailed as the Hero of Elysium is an aggravating and unnecessary epithet, and doubly so when her status as a biotic soldier is emphasised.

(This does create positive associations with biotics so it’s at least something but, again, she’s an average biotic. Nothing special. Stop advertising it on recruitment posters so much.)

She receives the Star of Terra (among others: namely her officer commission, invitation to ICT school, and a special commendation) for her actions, but despite all the pomp and circumstance, unless she needs to wear it it stays hidden away in its box in storage.

It doesn’t help that she’s the daughter of Hannah Shepard, well-regarded veteran of the First Contact War. People expected a lot from Allison, and barely four years since enrolling in the Alliance, they had humanity’s newest hero on their hands. She brushes off most applauds about her status; they take it as her being modest, she intends it as a stop bothering me about it but she can’t not keep it.

(This does later cause a bit of friction between Allison and Ashley later, but that is 8-9 years later in the timeline.)

7. Being invited to participate in the Interplanetary Combatives Training course 8. The untimely death of her paternal grandfather In the late 22nd century, the average life expectancy for humans is around 120, with some individuals reaching 150 years old.

As such, Allison’s paternal grandfather dying in his early nineties was a shock to all. It occurs in the middle of Allison’s ICT learning, and as a result it delays her graduation by a year. Completing ICT can be done in a year, but Allison spread it out a little because she wanted to pace herself - being one of the first biotics invited into the program, she didn’t want to crash and burn (despite there being no shame in being able to complete the first rank, she personally would have hated having done so).

Her grandfather’s death causes her to step back and reevaluate things a little. She idolised her grandfather so much (I have an idea for an art piece when Allison was about eight years old, on the back porch of her grandfather’s house; Allison is pulling a face because she and her grandfather are eating liquorice; she despises it but her grandfather adores it, and because he adores it she reckons that she must also adore it) and losing him punches a hole in her career plans.

She stays in the Alliance (not much else for a biotic to do, and her family going back many generations has been military, so she doesn’t quite know what else to do) but she misses him for a long time. 9. Completing her Interplanetary Combatives Training course and being awarded N7 rank 10. Accidentally interfacing with the prothean beacon on Eden Prime and getting the first glimpse of the impending Reaper invasion 11. Becoming a Spectre, part of the Citadel's specops group 12. Rescuing both Kaidan and Ashley from the near-doom mission on Virmire 13. Allowing herself to fall in love with Kaidan This harkens back to Finn and him seeing her as a whole. For Allison, being in the Alliance and having a relationship doesn’t mesh - initially she’s working on her career, aiming to get her officer’s commission, then Elysium happens and people are more interested in her as Commander Shepard, Hero of Elysium than they are of Allison.

Kaidan’s different. Heck, all of the Normandy crew are different (barring those who knew her prior like Anderson and Adams) - while they respect her as their XO/CO, they don’t idolise her like other people she’s met. She can pull off heroic feats and achieve the near-impossible, but a large part of that is down to her crew and how they are all able to work together.

But Kaidan sees beyond rank, sees beyond medals, sees beyond her service history, and does indeed see Allison, the person. Admittedly at the point in time this occurs, Allison hasn’t seen how bad things can get, and she doesn’t know how much of a rock Kaidan will be to her, but to realise that he loves her, the entirety of her, and not the hero plastered across the recruitment vids, or the thin line between reverence and rejection biotics often get.

But they’re military, she’s his CO and he’s her HOMD. She’s gotten a lot of leniency running as a Spectre ship but she still answers to the Alliance. Fraternization is not allowed, and so they push their feelings to the back once the Citadel is saved and Saren and Sovereign are killed. Kaidan requests to be given a new posting, a space halfway across the galaxy, given a few months and then start an official, public relationship, and allow Allison a shot at a normal romantic relationship. 14. Dying and being ressurected 15. Finding out that the Collectors are protheans, enslaved and mutated by the Reapers 16. Leading a team through the Omega 4 relay, a place where no one had returned from, to destroy the collector base and returning victorious 17. Blowing up a mass relay in batarian space, killing over 300k batarians and being put under house arrest 18. Almost losing Kaidan after an ambush on Mars 19. Uniting the galaxy against the Reapers and delivering the killing blow, ending their message for ever 20. Waking up to a post-Reaper galaxy with both physical and mental injuries, and learning how to manage with those

Allison wakes up in a hospital bed for the second time in her life after a major battle and she almost cries. Let me rest, she thinks, fearing that Cerberus has gotten to her again and they’ve rebuilt her again to go rogue and save the galaxy again. Hasn’t she earned her rest?

Well, yes. She has.

She’s in a hospital in London, her mother at her bedside as medics struggle to sedate her, worried that Allison will injure herself more without it. Miranda, the one who rebuilt her after the Collector attack, is leading the team. Allison is officially awoken from the induced coma/sedation about a month later and told what happened.

She lost her lower left leg, replaced with a prosthesis in the short term and a tissue cloned leg in the long term. One arm was dislocated, the other broken; a scar now bisects her face from forehead to nose, before curving around her cheekbone to her ear.

The Normandy has disappeared, no one knows where her or her crew are, including Kaidan - whom she had married just hours before the final assault against the Reapers.

Allison gets a multitude of diagnoses - acute stress disorder, anxiety, depression, panic attacks. Physically she recovers without issue, though she considers the clone tissue leg a waste (I can manage just fine on a prosthesis thank you) when there are others around who could benefit from the resources used on her.

But she’s got one more epithet to add to her collection - saviour of the galaxy, and a one-of-a-kind medal to accompany that. Her immediate family survived - her parents, her twin brother, her younger sister. And somehow Kaidan and nearly everyone on the Normandy survives too, reunited about three months after Allison officially wakes up.

But she struggles with her mental health, lashing out at Kaidan for his idea to take her to inner British Columbia, to his family’s orchard. Logically she knows it’s the best idea - remote and peaceful - but her brain rebels, another choice made for her, another change to her life that she has no control over.

But she apologises, rests, and recovers. Takes up Anderson’s apartment on the Citadel when it’s habitable once again and considers, maybe, retiring from the Alliance and pursuing a normal life.

Maybe.

(It doesn’t stay that way for long.) 21. Choosing to get pregnant and raising children with Kaidan

[ramblinganthropologist]

N7 Challenge 17  - Happiness

Summary: Even in dark times, Alistair can find a little happiness when it comes time to clean the cage. Animal husbandry is practically second base, right?

---

The only thing better than getting to see Garrus' ass was getting to see it when he was hanging a tarp over the skylight. Of course, there was the downside of it being uncovered in the first place. Fuck the retrofit team on that one...

Then again, the whole sucked into space to die thing was really more Alistair's problem. Most people didn't come back from that one, so... maybe he should be a little more sympathetic.

…

Nah. Fuck the retrofit team.

“Do I have it straight?”

Garrus, unlike Alistair, didn't need a chair to reach. He was just fine stretching the tarp over the expanse. In a matter of seconds, he had the most hateful space hole covered up with a bright blue bed sheet they had found on the Citadel. Now he was just sticking it in place.

“Yeah, it looks fine.” He sighed in relief. “Thanks, babe. It's been hard sleeping since I got back to the Normandy because of it.”

Well, that and the whole Reaper thing. But technically, both of them were off duty at the moment so they were trying their best not to bring that up. Something about the reminder of species-destroying, planet fucking synthetic lifeforms really killed the mood.

“No problem, Al. Glad I could help.”

Something about the turian's nickname made Alistair smile as he leaned against the wall, watching Garrus clean up. It had taken him long enough to use his name at all, much less the shortened version. Talk about a turian's sense of duty... but at least they had broken the habit of calling him Shepard.

Like... they had fucked a few times. That was a sort of first name basis thing.

“Well, neither of us are back on duty for a couple hours...” Garrus sat down on the bed, and the look in his eyes was nothing but indecent. “Have any ideas on how to fill them?”

Alistair chuckled despite himself as he pointed to the wall. “Unfortunately, Saren's cage needs cleaning. He didn't like what the retrofit team did with the place either.”

Right then, the space hamster's terrain was an unholy mess. Bedding was everywhere, and he had turned over two of his hides. Somewhere in that mess he was probably plotting to bite the shit out of Traynor should he ever get close enough. He was lucky Saren didn't have fingers, or he was pretty sure the little guy would have broken out to achieve his mission.

It was only natural; he had survived the Omega 4 Relay too after all. That sort of thing gives a hamster a real chip on his furry little shoulder.

“Cock blocked by a hamster then?” Garrus chuckled, a sound that did terrible things to his insides. “Mind if I lend a hand? It's been ages since I've seen the little guy.”

That got Alistair laughing as he started to dig into his hamster supplies. “Sure, if you can find him. After he went Hurricane Saren on his enclosure, I have no idea where he's hiding out. Usually he likes under his wheel, but...”

Garrus finished for him. “He flipped that too I see. Are you sure he's a space hamster and not some horrifying mini pyjak?”

Yeah, the hands were all wrong. Still, the Spectre chuckled as he pulled out bedding and his cleaning tools. Today's color was blue, so at least Saren was getting a pop of color in his enclosure. Maybe he could add the palm tree chew and a rock hide too... give him a little island getaway.

Yep, island theme cage. He could see it now.

Humming to himself, Alistair brought everything over to the wall that contained Saren's enclosure. He popped the panel out and reached in to start tidying things. Much to his surprise, the scurrying of tiny feet soon followed.

And then Saren tried to bite the shit out of his finger.

“Well, someone's grumpy.”

Alistair made sure to keep his fingers out of the way as the space hamster came barreling out of his hiding spot. Something about his beady eyes being so laser focused on carving out a pound of flesh for the indignity of the move was charming. Of course, his teeth hurt like hell so he wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of getting a bite in. At least Saren got the chance to look intimidating as he worked out who was coming to see him.

He calmed down once he realized it was the food guy. Worked like a charm.

“Someone looks fierce today.” Garrus' voice was softer as he peered over. “I thought space hamsters were nocturnal.”

Yeah, but... space was funny like that. Normally, Saren wouldn't be up for a few more hours. The move had probably displaced his internal clock, so used to the set time on the Citadel where he had been staying during Alistair's house arrest. Now that he was back on ship, he was making adjustments too. Apparently, they made him a little cranky.

He could appreciate that – the Reapers fucking everything up made him a little cranky too.

“Guess he's still adjusting to being back on the Normandy.” He carefully reached out to stroke Saren's furry little head. When he came back with all his fingers attached, Alistair held out both hands. A few seconds later, he was pulling his hamster out of the enclosure. “Aw, there's my little guy. Don't worry, I'm not the retrofit team.”

Garrus chuckled softly above him. “Going to be a little hard to clean his cage and play with him. I can keep an eye on him while you work if you want.”

Alistair blinked, trying to process the words. If he didn't know better... but the meaning shined through. His heart honestly skipped a beat as he turned to face the turian, Saren still cupped in his hands for safety.

His boyfriend wanted to hold his hamster. They had officially reached a new stage in the relationship. Fuck bases, animal husbandry was where it was really at.

“You sure?”

His mandibles twitched – he was embarrassed. “I mean I held Colonel Fluffytail back on the old Normandy once...”

Right, Alistair remembered that, partially because the sight of Garrus cuddled up with his now departed hamster had almost made his heart stop. What could he say, he was a sucker for strong men with cute animals.

And, even better, he had long since taught the turian the basics of not killing a space hamster, so no worries about that.

“If he starts getting too rambunctious or he bites you, I can take him back.” Alistair carefully held out his hands as Garrus extended his, talons down. Saren scampered across the bridge and was soon lifted up to the turian's cowl.

Cue the heart stopping. Fuck, it was too cute. He needed to work or he'd never get anything done.

So he turned away and started spot-cleaning. Once that was done, on went the new blue bedding to mimic an ocean in the corner. Since the older stuff was white, he could practically see the sandy beach in his mind. Something about that made him smile as he turned to get the palm tree chews.

Then he almost dropped them.

“Been a while, little guy. You're getting kinda chubby. Did Al's niece fatten you up while you were gone?”

Garrus was carefully stroking Saren's head with the blunt side of his finger. His voice was so low it was almost a whisper, yet the translator still managed to pick it up. All the while, Saren was cuddled up close to his scarred mandible, looking more peaceful than he had in months.

Alistair kind of forgot how to breathe in the moment, but could you blame him?

It was hard then to not see the turian a few years down the line – well ,maybe a lot of years down the line – with a small turian next to him. He would probably use that exact same tone, wear that similar look that was so full of caring and affection. Those talons could probably put toys together or hold a crying small one...

…

Where the hell had that come from?

Alistair blinked as he looked down at the palm tree chew in his hands, still needing to be put in the cage. Definitely not from the wood. He shook his head and shuffled back to the cage, propping the palm tree near the edge of the 'water'. Then he added a bit more bedding to shore it up before flipping the wheel right-ways.

“It's looking good. Much less tornado alley now.”

Garrus was speaking in normal tones now as he handed over the rock hide he had pulled from his collection. Heart still pounding, Alistair accepted it and placed it over the tunnel Saren had used to escape his underground lair. It was basically perfect now – he just needed to refill the water now.

“I hope he likes it.” At least his tongue worked now. “He seems fond of you.”

The turian chuckled low – it was that chicken sound Alistair had come to love. “I think it's because the guy who feeds him has a thing for me. Don't pets guess that sort of thing?”

That got the Spectre chuckling as he elbowed Garrus in the side – to no affect, of course. He was a turian after all, that's what the carapace was for. “I have a thing for you?”

“Something like that, it was kind of hard to tell when you were making me beg last night.” But then he stopped and patted Saren on the head. “Er, maybe I should save that kind of talk for when this little guy's back home. Don't want him getting the wrong idea.”

Laughter filled the room as Alistair needed to lean against the wall. It was the strong, soul-scraping type of laughter he had been sorely needing with everything going on. Definitely dislodged some of the crap that had been building up inside him. When he was able to straighten up again, he felt lighter. The burden wasn't completely gone yet, but it felt lighter.

He felt better.

“I think he's well aware of that by now, babe.” Alistair wiped his eyes, still chuckling a little. “He's nocturnal.”

Garrus' mandibles flapped in embarrassment as he stroked Saren's head. Classic avoidance gesture, with a furry pal to pair up. “Oh... right.”

He nodded to the cage, careful not to dislodge his ride-on buddy. “Time to put him back in, then? He probably wants to check out his summer getaway.”

Alistair nodded and held out his hands once Garrus had hold of his pet. Soon, Saren was back behind glass. Within seconds, he had zipped to the rock hide and disappeared from view. Somewhere, in his hidden tunnel system, he was a happy camper.

Good. He deserved a little happiness.

“I take that as a good sign he approves of your layout change.” Garrus reached down to squeeze his hand. “Unless he's secretly plotting revenge against us.”

One again, the Spectre chuckled as he squeezed back. “No, I think he approves. Usually he kicks bedding if he isn't happy.”

It would take until tomorrow to know for sure, but as long as the food bowl stayed right side up he could be content with his job.

“Well, you would know.” Garrus squeezed again, but then he was glancing to the bed again. “So... we still have time...”

This time, when Alistair chuckled there was nothing friendly about it. He felt his voice shifting to the lowest it would go as he placed his hand on the front of the turian's carapace. “Oh? Is that so, Vakarian? Well...  I'd be more than happy to correct your form.”

And then with a push, Garrus was on the bed. Lucky for them, Saren was buried under a lot of substrate. After all, they had a couple hours to themselves – might as well make the most of them. And now that the skylight was properly covered...

Well, he felt ready to go the extra mile, let's just say that.

[b-listbadboy]

Castlevania Season 3 was disappointing

(Spoilers for Castlevania Season 3, if you haven’t seen it yet it’s out now on Netflix. I suggest watching that first before reading this review)

I won’t say it was an awful season by any stretch of the imagination but man was it a drag to get through.

Almost nothing of significance happens for the majority of the season and the things that did happen felt extremely off and weird. 10 episodes, 25 to 30 minutes each, and every single one except for the fucking TWO LAST EPISODES were spent dicking around with a mystery that had little to do with anything from season 2 beyond a really out there twist that I’m sort of iffy on. Top that off with a lackluster arguably stupid ending to leave us off on a needless cliffhanger, and that’s the magic remedy that will leave me feeling pretty damn frustrated.

The best parts, in my opinion, were with Isaac’s massive undead crusade he was waging throughout his journey for revenge, and Trevor and Syph’s interactions with each other as well as with the little villagers. Isaac’s arc going from a servant of Dracula to slowing evolving into the master of the damned felt genuine, intriguing, and badass! I really wish he was the next main villain instead as it makes sense thematically. He carries out Dracula’s nihilistic views of humanity in a similar but now more direct way and that can lead into something really intriguing. However, for some reason, this season left him and his whole journey on a back burner, and virtually everything else that is implemented into main villain role fell flat on its face execution wise.

For example; The new vampires of this season are Camilla’s three other empress sisters, and while they do have a plethora of personality at the very least, that kind of comes at a cost of the main threat being extremely diluted. We go from this hurting sympathetic undead overlord with the power of an anchent GOD, to a couple of wicked sassy sisters who just wanna eat people forever? It’s a bit lame of a progression from what we once had, we know Vampires like to eat people that’s nothing new or exciting. There’s no real twist to it besides it being “led by women in the dark ages” and granted that makes sense here since it IS the dark ages, but come on we literally just had arguably the BEST adaptation of friggin’ Dracula! This shouldn’t be all they got moving forward from that.

Now, I have ZERO issue with the main antagonists being female or even two of the four sisters (not by blood don’t worry) being a lesbian couple. I hate that I have to emphasize this, hell I often defend Cinder Fall in RWBY more than anyone in the fandom at all despite her issues as a complex and sometimes flat out badly written character. However, The four of them in this season have the most basic of plans that it seems arbitrary status quote fluff at best. It felt like just because it’s Castlevania, we HAVE to have the vampires as the villains. Even though in the games the Belmont’s were literally fighting werewolves, dragons, skeletons, and the GRIMM REAPER??

Therefore, the sense of urgency and tense calculating plans of ‘survival vs extinction’ is completely gone. And yknow in a way, I can kinda initially SEE that working in a sort of “Empire Strikes Back” esque plot. Yknow, with Alucard and the gang go around cleaning up Dracula’s leftover horde only for Isaac or even Camilla to have this huge vengeful comeback of dominance? But there’s no one exactly “striking back” or even taking any kind of immediate initiative after Dracula’s death. It’s been MONTHS after the whole event and no one seems like they really care about that world changing event from the last two season’s. Everything is fine and dandy, no one has a single worry in the world! How enthralling...I miss Godbrand 😑

Besides the plan the four empresses have as well as Issac’s revenge, which I hope will both be more explored in season 4, no one really has any goal to warrant THAT kind of length of a season. This is more of a Netflix problem that I have with most of their shows and it’s one of the reasons why I don’t like watching them. Almost every singe show Netflix produces now, feels the need to overstuff itself with needless filler that gets us really nowhere until the very end where it SUDDENLY all comes together. But because of the nature of binge watching and considering how Netflix wants to desperately keep their subscriptions in fear of intimidating competition, they make these shows 12 episodes long with HALF HOUR OR MORE amount of filler content that’s supposed to satisfy us cause it’s “cute”?! No, stop this shit! Granted, Castlevania wasn’t nearly AS bad as the live action shows, but honestly, what exactly was shown to us that couldn’t have been reduced to like 5 solidly paced episodes focused on one or two plot lines ONLY like before? It worked perfectly back then, why change what ain’t broke?

As much as I don’t like the immediate rush of Trevor and Syph’s out of nowhere sexual relationship, I didn’t overall mind it too much since they still somewhat felt consistent. Their characteristics play off very nicely with one another and it’s pretty easy to see the chemistry between the two....HOWEVER I’M STILL GONNA COMPLAIN ABOUT IT SO HERE WE GO!

I get that they were setting them up as an endgame ship of the series, there’s no denying that, but they start fucking for what feels like (to the audience) two days after and I think that’s a bit ridiculous! Even if Alucard states that it’s been at the very least a month worth of time since the events of Season 2, there’s no real physical signs showing that statement to be true. Hell, Trevor’s beard and hair remains the same despite a HUGE passage of time where it would naturally grow out to indicate said time passing by. But both him, Syph, Alucard, and damn near everyone else looks the exact same as last season. So for all I know it could have been like a week since Season 2 and that to me doesn’t feel exactly earned. The Season 2 finale didn’t explicitly leave off Trevor and Syph officially a couple, they felt more like partners in crime more than anything else. Not to say that there wasn’t any chemistry there to develope INTO a relationship GRADUALLY, but going from a little spark of interest to the immediate jump of them sleeping together naked all comfortably as if they’re a goddamn married couple is a STRETCH! Even Trevor himself thinks so too so don’t jump down my throat about not being immediately swooned by the shipping fanservice given to us. I don’t dislike them as a couple at all, in fact I think their dynamic is cute! However, I would have also liked to have this couple feel natural and earned. They most certainly do not feel earned this way, at least to me.

Oh god, then there’s this out of nowhere sexual tension between Alucard and his new two recruits from another region hinted at in the previous season? Mind you, Alucard was doing literally NOTHING throughout the entirety of Season 3. Yep, literally the ONE DUDE WHO BASICALLY KILLED DRACULA gets about fuck all story progression afterwards out of the three. But what they DO give him are these two new vampire hunting student’s who look identical to one another (no racial they just literally look like fraternal twins) so I assumed they were either siblings or a couple, which makes it REALLY WEIRD WHEN THEY BOTH FUCK ALUCARD OUT OF NOWHERE?! I’m NOT making this shit up I promise! What makes even less sense is that it was really just a ploy for them to steal the Belmont knowledge of killing vampires to show to their people who have been enslaved. Which of course ends with them being killed so it really makes this entire conflict in his character damn near pointless besides “sad vibes check”, but here’s the thing...why didn’t they just keep doing training with Alucard?? There were virtually no downsides to having him teach you how to kill Vampires to save your village from being enslaved, he was teaching you both very well and gave you like the eternal knowledge of how to kill literally EVERY MONSTER and even let you live in the castle FOR FREE, food and wine included! What was the turning point for them to want to kill him all of the sudden? Cause he’s a vampire?? THEY FUCKING KNEW THAT ALREADY!!! Why was is suddenly not a problem at first but then coincidentally a problem now? If they wanted to use this to somehow depict this notion of “Oh my dad/Dracula was right humans are the worst” mindset, trust me, it was better conveyed with Isaac. These twins side plot not only made no sense, but also felt unjustified for Alucard to be an emo boi. I get that it’s supposed to be symbolic of him going through the same issues that both of his parents went through, but none of that really showed how bad human’s are. Just that those two twins didn’t think things through apparently. So the point of Alucard having this odd character convenience shift feels by the numbers cliché, and most importantly CHEAP.

It really makes no sense to me why they’re adding so much of this filler for such a long time, especially with some of this filler being oddly sexual. I don’t mind honest depiction of sex between consenting adults of course, but it just felt so misplaced and awkward at parts where it showed itself. I felt like I was reading a mediocre fanfic of Castlevania instead of the actual show itself! Granted, Season 2 had somewhat of a similar dilemma but the lull in between was still showing the character specifically doing things to further the story along. Towards the end, it gave us a way more satisfactory closure of that saga with Dracula that felt natural and well earned. This season however, felt like they were scrambling with different ideas here and there and didn’t know which to go with. Alucard training new recruits in his castle, Trevor and Syph figuring out an estranged (and BORING/GENERIC) cult of Dracula’s plan, Camilla setting up an army with her fellow sisterhood of evil vampires to gain ultimate power, Hector surviving captivity by using his wit and charm, Isaac raising up the dead for revenge on his deceased master, a new character introducing an all new world to the lore of Castlevania as we know it, all of these interesting concepts and ideas that could easily make up for a good season alone! And instead of focusing on one or two ideas to develope into something natural, they ended up saying “FUCK IT! Fucking I dunno what to- WE’RE DOING ALL OF IT I DUNNO!” and mixed the whole thing in a blender of different flavors that don’t necessarily blend together well enough for a tasty satisfactory meal. It just ends up being a mesh of okay at best, and gross at worst.

IN CONCLUSION, Castlevania Season 3 had a rocky start, an okay middle, and a kind of cool end. There was definitely some cool and exciting ideas implemented in here, but not enough to warrant that lengthy amount of time that Netflix seems to love to give to most of their TV shows. Sometimes less is more, and all that shiny cool glitter isn’t necessarily going to turn out to be gold. I’ll give this season a 5/10. It’s not the worst I’ve ever seen but it certainly could’ve been a lot better.

P.S. “Who Do Ya Voodoo” from Dead Island is Isaac’s new theme song, you can’t convince me otherwise.

[silyabeeodess]

Fusionfall Headcanons: The Fates of Characters (Future)

When you arrive in the Future, you find that several of the characters simply "aren't around anymore," their fates either kept quiet about or left to speculation by those remaining. This is going to go into some dark territory given the topic, but the following will include a list of ideas focusing on the fates of those characters. Given that this will largely cover MIAs--many of which were listed due to being cut off and losing contact with various bases--and that we already meet several characters in the future portion of the game, I won’t be listing everyone/explaining all of their disappearances; however I will try to cover as many as possible in the context of “reports” known by the majority of Fusion Fighters:

Sector V KND Operatives:

Numbuh 1--Status: TERMINATED

Numbuh 1 fought hard in the Battle of Tech Square, however, he suffered grave injuries from both fusion monsters and overexposure to fusion matter.  To ensure that both his friends and the time-travelers survived, he remained behind and sacrificed himself. 

Numbuh 2--Status: ALIVE

Numbuh 3--Status: TERMINATED

Numbuh 4--Status: TERMINATED

Both Numbuh 3 and Numbuh 4 were confirmed losses after the KND Jungle Outpost was overtaken by fusion matter’s devastation of The Wilds.  As leaders, they stayed behind to the very end to ensure that as many people as possible could escape the base.    

Numbuh 5--Status: ALIVE

The Kanker Sisters:

Lee Kanker--Status: TERMINATED

Marie Kanker--Status: TERMINATED

When the fusion matter infection began to heavily settle in Peach Creek, both Lee and Marie were swept up in the destruction. They weren’t in a good spot and the ground collapsed under them, burying them with a ton of fusion matter.  If the collapse itself didn’t kill them, overexposure to fusion matter did as no one was around to reach them in time. 

May Kanker--Status: MIA

The Eds:

Ed--Status: MIA

Edd--Status: TERMINATED

When Lee and Marie Kanker stopped trying to get into the Cul-de-sac, everyone knew that in itself was a bad sign. Edd felt partially responsible for their disappearance, even though he wasn’t the only one who wanted to keep the sisters out, so he left with a small squad to go find them.  Unfortunately, only a few members of the squad made it back: The rest were ambushed by fusion monsters, Edd included.

Eddy--Status: ALIVE

Eddy was pretty stubborn when it came to both the Kankers and Edd’s decision to look for them, holding a fearful grudge against the girls for all of the stunts they’ve pulled both before and during the war--and, honestly, they were such a thorn in the Eds sides that he didn’t expect anything to happen to them.  When none of them came back ok, he became a little more serious, maintain an outwardly confident, business persona, but also trying to make up for what happened by trying to be a better leader.  It’s a lot harder without either of the other Eds by his side, and he has a lot of self-blame for their disappearances and not appreciating them sooner.

Father:

Status: DESERTED

When things started to really get bad, Father decided to “cut his losses” and abandon Peach Creek.  However, this was also around the same time when a report came out saying that the Delightful Children had gone MIA.  It’s assumed that Father went looking for them, possibly taking his family into hiding if he managed to find them.  

Stickybeard:

Status: AWOL/MIA

According to candy pirate Root Canal Rita, Stickybeard went missing while he was looking for a new ship.  Many of those who served under him claim that, while he left his post, he wouldn’t have done so to abandon the war effort, but rather to become an active fighter again.  Whatever the case, no one’s seen him at Candy Cove or anywhere else since. 

The Powerpuff Girls:

Blossom--Status: ALIVE

Bubbles--Status: ALIVE

After the Battle of Tech Square, Blossom and Bubbles opted to stay on one of Dexter’s airships to guard the survivors and search for any others. Able to fly at rapid speed, they were able to make great cover for the airship against any further attacks as well as split off to the collapsing structures in the area to save people. 

Buttercup--Status: ALIVE

Having Buttercup back in the fight was a huge morale boost for the Fusion Fighters, especially after facing a string of devastating losses.  Remaining primarily on the battlefront, she tends to go wherever she’s needed most for a fight.  After the Battle of Tech Square, that meant returning with the rest of the heroes to guard the remaining bases and ensure the time-travelers were prepared to face off against Fuse’s army.  

Professor Utonium:

Status: POW (Presumed Dead)

When Buttercup went missing, it took a large toll on the professor.  Seeing people around her age fight in the war--and knowing his other two daughters were also out there fighting a gradually losing battle--pushed him to taking a more active role as a soldier instead of just leading scientific/technological endeavors in Genius Grove. Unfortunately, while he was able to protect civilians, he was captured.  Fusion monsters don’t take many POWs, so the worst could only be assumed.  

Mojo Jojo:

Status: MIA (Presumed Dead)

At the point of the time-travelers’ arrivals, the Monkey Minions haven’t seen their leader for days.  Two theories, however, surround his absence.  The first is that Mojo effectively “went down with his ship,” unwilling to let Fuse get any of his tech from his volcano base to the point of dying over it.  The second is that he tried pushing forward on the frontlines and was inevitably killed in battle.  Either way, all of the monkeys insist that he wouldn’t have just turned tail on them.

Him:

Status: DESERTED

“Gentlemen, it’s been a pleasure.”  These were the last words and sole warning from Him just before the Fusion Fighters lose Endsville.  Leaving them to hand the area’s collapse, it’s believed he returned to the Underworld to spend however much more time Earth had there. People are just glad that things didn’t get worse.

Grim, Billy, and Mandy:

Status: ALIVE/AWOL

Placing these three together, because it’d be more difficult to talk about them otherwise. When things got bad, the Fusion Fighters were still somehow able to convince Grim to maintain the last few Resurrect ‘Ems--even if the reaper didn’t think there was much use for them up to that point.  Nevertheless, Grim opted to head back to the Underworld and Billy and Mandy tagged along, per his obligations as their “friend.”  No one really sees much of the three besides Grim on rare occasions, who spends his time out of the Underworld to vent when he’s not working.  According to him, Billy’s a pain, but at least Mandy’s still technically trying to help... if by getting into some pretty dark arts...

Dee Dee:

Status: ALIVE

It’s confirmed by Dexbot Q-33 that Dee Dee’s ok, however, she stays in her house at Genius Grove.  While still a kind of home-giver like she in the past at the base, she takes an even more active role now as a nurse as well, which always keeps her busy.  That, and that she’s also a target as Dexter’s sister pushes her to stay safe.

The Foster’s Home Gang:

Pretty much everyone at Foster’s was TERMINATED or has gone MIA, because one of the first things Fuse did when closing in on some of the more secure areas was wipe out Foster’s Home.  This includes Frankie, Mr. Herriman, Wilt and Mac--the last two having gone there to try to protect Foster’s for as long as they could.  Three to have survived are Coco, Bloo, and Eduardo.  These survivors were split apart so that, in the event of Fuse capturing another base, they’ll still be a few imaginary friends left around.

Bloo fell into kind of a depression after losing Mac.  He lost his usual self and has gotten pretty reserved, unwilling to see much of anyone. Sometimes, he blames Coco, since Mac initially split off from him to protect her, but he also largely blames himself for not being there for Mac and the others in the end.

Coco is kept under constant protection by the Fusion Fighters, who are always worried about losing her support and all that she supplies to the war effort such as her eggs and her strength as an imaginary friend.  

Courage:

Status: MIA (Presumed Dead)

A loyal pet to the end, the Fusion Fighters last saw Courage trying to save Eustace and Muriel from the overtaking fusion matter claiming Nowhere.  They never saw him again after that, and at best could only hope that he and the elderly couple managed to meet up somewhere with some of the Eggplants/Chickens.

Juniper Lee: 

Status: MIA

Juniper just went missing one day in the middle of leading a battle, and while no one knows what happened many assume that Fuse or possibly even someone from the Underworld kidnapped her for her connections/abilities as the Te-Xuan-Ze.  Grim was asked to keep an eye out for her, given her ties to him, but there’d been no update.

Ben 10 Characters:

Vilgax--Status: DESERTED

As soon as things took a turn for the worst, Vilgax bolted.  He did try targeting Ben one last time, claiming that it was worthless to allow the Omnitrix to be destroyed along with himself and Earth; however, Ben beat him.  Everyone saw it coming anyway and nobody grieved.

Max Tennyson--Status: TERMINATED

Max perished with several other Plumbers trying to protect civilians from fusion monsters during the City’s final days.  

Hex--Status: MIA

Gwen Tennyson--Status: MIA

Kevin Levin--Status: AWOL/POW

When Fusion Fighters lost contact with the base in the Pimpleback Mountains, Kevin abandoned his post to go looking for Gwen despite all orders against it.  His last transmission was to report that the base had been overtaken, right before it cut to himself being caught by fusion monsters. It’s believed he was captured for his Osmosian DNA so that Fuse could experiment on him. 

Ben Tennyson--Status: ALIVE (wounded)

Ben fought hard in the Battle of Tech Square, but sustained heavy injuries and slipped into a coma-like state.  It’s a miracle at all that he survived, and it’s assumed he only managed to because of some alien DNA in the Omnitrix protecting him as the device’s host.  

Tetrax--Status: ALIVE

His initial plans were to study Fuse and while he has no personal investment in Earth, he’s remained loyal to protecting it from the remaining airships.  Nevertheless, he doesn’t have much faith in Earth’s survival, and so he mostly tries to convince several Fusion Fighters into leaving the planet--citing that they could do more good and save their species if they left and shared their powers/knowledge regarding Imaginary Energy and nanos with the galaxy, thus preventing Fuse from conquering anymore planets. If all else failed and Earth was lost, he planned to kidnapped some Earthlings anyway (including Ben) so that not all hope would be lost.   

Albedo--Status: DESERTED

Hardly anyone had any faith in Albedo’s intentions when he first signed on for the war, and the former Galvan never helped his situation thanks to a series of incidents where he actually sabotaged the Fusion Fighters–particularly to get to Ben and his aliens. To be honest though, it usually wasn’t much different than any of other villains’ antics, be it on purpose or not. Although he did takes things too far to the point where he got locked up more than once, like them, he was largely given a pass because of Fuse being a bigger threat and thanks to his abilities. Needless to say, no one shed a tear when he vanished one day–either still somewhere plotting how to take the Omnitrix from Ben or trying to find/craft a ship to escape Earth.  

The Scotsman:

Status: ALIVE

No one understood how this man’s survived everything he’s been through beyond sheer luck.  He constantly remains on the frontlines, determined to keep fighting for Earth until the very end no matter how hopeless things seem.  It’d really be encouraging in the med team and Resurrect ‘Ems didn’t have to keep pulling him back from the brink of death...

Demongo:

Status: DESERTED

The turn of war had already moved against the Fusion Fighters. In the middle of one of the final battles for the Darklands, after Samurai Jack had to return to the city, Demongo betrayed them--claiming many of their strongest soldiers before vanishing.  It’s assumed that he returned to Aku’s side, but there’s been no move by him or his master since.

[annakie]

An Annotated Mass Effect Playthrough, Part Four

Wherein we make it to the Citadel, and do a lot of running around.

List of Posts: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

So right away, we meet Udina and the Council, way to throw us right into it.  

It’s a brief introduction and gives us an idea what Humanity is up against and who is representing us.  Basically, we’re supposed to get the idea that it’s a lot of bureaucratic bullshit, I guess.

This is also the first time we see Asari and Salarians, and they’re in reddish-brown and white, which really isn’t the best look.

Bioware continues to push the story forward.  We get enough to know that Udina is kind of an ass, and the Council isn’t going to just trust what some guy says even if he is the representative for billions of people.

And finally, after this, we’re set free.

The Citadel I think is one of the coolest locations in like almost any game I’ve ever played.  They do a great job of both making it feel huge, but also accessible.  Enough bridges to get across to places you need to get to, and after you walk somewhere once, Citadel Rapid Transit is great.  I still choose to take elevators about 80% of the time even when I can CRT somewhere, just because I like the squad conversations and news updates. There’s a shorter elevator rides mod that helps, too.

There’s so much to do and see, and having one of the main areas just be such an awesome combination of scifi futurism and lush greenery + water is both trippy and breathtaking.  I think, especially with the updated graphics mods/settings, the Presidium especially holds up fairly well.  I mean it definitely feels more populated and modern in ME3 but, I just consider this to be more of a residential / professional area of the Presidium and most of what we see in ME3 is a more retail section.

It’d be annoying to be a groundskeeper here, though.  Lots of green areas that you’d really need to climb to, or garden on a steep slant. :p

I always found it interesting that the natural first place to head to is into the ambassador’s office next door, where we find some friendly aliens, and one not-so-friendly one.  But honestly, this is a great place to find out the different ways other species view humanity, and how there’s apparently tiers of respect given to various species.

I always kind of hoped the Elcor would feature more prominently into the world in future games, but at least we got Hamlet.  I have SO MANY QUESTIONS about how Elcor like... do things?  We never see it but you have to assume that their hands have opposable thumbs and they’re able to stand on two legs, right?  I want to see what an Elcor ship looks like and Dakuna specifically.  Give us more elcor, Bioware!

BTW, the Mass Effect: Annihilation (aka the book that was supposed to be based on the Quarian Ark DLC that never happened in Andromeda) is totally worth reading just for the elcor character in it.  It’s also probably the best of the Mass Effect books, in my opinion.

Din Korlack’s got a point though, they not only have to share an office, but their view isn’t nearly as good as the human’s.  This is especially bullshit for the volus, who could stand on that railing and probably STILL wouldn’t have a view.

I love how Mass Effect 2 takes her from a completely forgettable character to making me think  “Sorry you’re gonna die in a few weeks, your mom’s really gonna miss you.” every time I see her.

PALIN DESERVED BETTER.

I don’t remember which ME3 mod it is, maybe the Spectre Expansion Mod or maybe EGM, but thank you whichever modder it was who made Palin’s story and death more clear in ME3.  Sorry Udina got you killed.

Also, it was good to get a dissenting opinion on Spectres from him.

Avina is such a good, optional way to get more loredump.  Yes, you can again ask them about Spectres if you want to hear about them again.  But I liked that each Avina terminal taught you a little more about whatever you were nearby, and the state of the galaxy in general and since they were programmed to be information dumps, it felt more natural to get information this way.

Don’t these people have jobs?

I love the Krogan statue, and the Avina terminal nearby telling you about it.  But now every time I see it, all I can picture is Grunt and his buddies climbing it.  So good.

Managed to get a clean shot of the crew without the UI in the elevator, thanks Flycam!  You have about a half a second to get this shot though, because the camera is stationary while the elevator is not.

Oh hell-lo Pailin, who is your charming-looking friend there?

This entire conversation needs to be longer. It’s a nice, quick introduction to Garrus, but, well, let’s spend a little more time with the main characters!!

I mean how can you not just not immediately love that?  Hey remember how bad Garrus’ face texture used to be?  Thanks, modders.

I just really love the Citadel tower.  Absolutely beautiful and atmospheric.

SO the thing is, if you can pretend that Saren isn’t, you know, already half Reaperized, 100% the Council is right to not just go throwing one of their longer-term agents in jail because Shepard had a bad dream and a random dockworker said the guy who killed Saren looked like this.

Honestly though, this and OH A GOOD CHUNK OF MASS EFFECT 2 would be so much easier if Shepard wore a bodycam. :p

Also, I wonder who took the dockworker’s testimony?  Did Kaidan run back real quick while Shepard was sleeping?

This was an embarrassment for humanity, and I agree with Udina that we needed more to go on before making demands of the council.  The council is right to not convict based off a bad dream Shepard had.  Go get some real proof!  Also, do a bunch of sidequests!

And scan some Keepers for this shady guy!

Which is actually good quest design, because you really have to go to every nook and cranny in the Citadel to find them all, though it would have been nice if they showed up on the minimap.   Really gets you to explore and get to know the area like the back of your hand.

This time around, I forgot to grab the one outside Dr. Michele’s office and had to hunt for it before heading up to grab the last one at the docks.

Thank you, though, Barla Von, for telling us all about the Shadow Broker and telling us about Wrex.  See u in ME3.

Bioware please give us diverse-suited volus in a remaster.  Maybe I’m reusing a pic of Din Korlack, you’ll never know! :p

Thanks, texture modders, for really highlighting what the end of the hanar’s noses look like. 

The hanar are another species I wish we got more of throughout the series.  They are probably the most alien of all the aliens we interact with.   I mean, at least we got Blasto.  I’d really love to visit Kahje someday.  I know it’s in the comics, but you know, in-game.

Annnd let’s go visit Sha'ira.

I have very mixed feelings about Sha'ira.  On one hand, she’s clearly very respected, is probably making bank, in control of her own destiny etc.  On the other hand, she’s probably the asari we have the second most interaction with in this game after Liara, and after just seeing Benezia’s boob-tastic clothing and then heading to Chora’s Den soon to see the dancing asari we’re getting a very slanted view of the species.  I think Bioware course corrects in later games but oof this is such a dude-fantasy alien species in ME1 it hurts.  Especially since Liara is almost a born-sexy-yesterday trope.

Also... don’t touch me if I don’t wanna be touched. =\

Noveria advertisements... that just say Noveria.  I guess this is effective marketing in 2148.

Look how great those shadows from the tree are... actual definition in shadow... wow.

Raise your hand if you’ve missed this conversation in a playthrough before and reloaded like an hour or more past to make sure you get it.

It’s one of those little moments that they didn’t have to put in.  Just a little conversation reflecting on humans and humanity, and our place in the world, and showcasing Ash’s wit and Kaidan’s adorkableness.  Also making sure you appreciate all the work that went into this particular view.  It’s a pause in the action and all the things you have going on, and it’s so great for characterization and making you feel a part of the world.  

Speaking of the view... I decided to flycam it.  Warning, I spoil some of the “magic” below.

Pretty quickly, you see that the arms are actual objects, untextured on the non-visible side.

I decided to head for the closest line of “cars” on the bottom center-left to see what those “cars” looked like.

Flycam feels pretty fast when you’re trying to frame a specific shot just right... but when you need to travel a great distance, it feels verrry slow.

It took me probably close to five minutes of traveling to make it all the way there.

What I discovered was... a few of the buildings are real, the rest are a very good painting.

This is how far away the citadel is from the rest of the map. That grid would be that entire view from outside Dr. Michele’s office all the way to the edge of the shops on the other side, plus some extra.

So both the building that those “cars” (the string of white lights) are coming from and going to are... on the painting.  Neither one are physical objects.

Made some gifs.

You can see the lights moving at a mostly-downward angle, while it looks like they’re just heading south when standing on the Citadel.  Also you can see other lights moving farther up the map.

And here you can see the lights “disappearing behind a building” but they’re really just hitting an invisible wall, the dark angle of that building is just a part of the wall painting.   

Looking up from the wall...

So that was a fun distraction.

Emily Wong deserved:

Better.

An entire shirt.

A mention in ME3 after she gave her life on social media defending Earth against the reapers while keeping her cool reporting on the invasion the day before ME3′s release.

That day before launch though... was amazing.  Bioware did such a great job on social media with the reaper invasion happening on twitter.  I loved that lots of fans got into it, too, posting photoshops and their own reaper invasion stories.  I remember being at work that day but not actually working very much.  A few friends and I had a google hangout going on to report in on anything we saw happening on social media and keep up with it and to be very hyped together online.  

We reblogged a bunch of it on fuckyeahbioware starting about here and working backwards through numbers.  

One of the ME3 mods, and again, sorry, don’t remember which, does give Emily a nice tribute through an email.  She deserves it.

Okay that’s enough for this post!  Will try to finish up the Citadel next time!