#great minds think alike teehee

[arkbeyond]

chrome is my fav but I like seeing my favs suffer a bit so 🤭 can I request an angsty to fluff one-shot (or whichever format you prefer) with chrome and a childhood friend gn!reader? (friends with feeling for each other teehee!!!) smth like reader goes missing during a mission on earth and a year later reader is found as a construct and brought back to Babylonia? emotional reunion with chrome and everything 😭🫶🏻

chrome makes me explode!!!! he has no business being so romantic.

Thank you! I adore your blog and I hope to see it grow in the future!! <3

hi anon, thanks so much you're so sweet !! i totally get you tho ... i loooove making my favs suffer teehee it's so fun ... i also really like this prompt i love love love angst to fluff !! fun fact, i actually have a wanshi smooching oc with a similar backstory !! great minds think alike (〃´𓎟`〃)

i wrote mooostly from chrome's pov since the reader got yoinked so i hope it's alright that they don't have Too much involvement, but all that aside i hope you enjoy!!

here i am (following your steps).

content warnings: implications of/vague allusions to death (you get better though)

When CHROME takes the mission report into his hands, he feels like the world has been pulled out from under his feet.

Your squadmates' faces were similarly grim — downcast eyes, lips pressed into thin lines — and no matter how hard he wanted to, he couldn't deny the truth of the matter, relayed to him in your captain's trembling apologies and Babylonia's standard typewritten font.

Your name, your rank, reported missing in action.

Chrome keeps his face carefully blank as he reads the rest of it over. Maybe he should have been there with you, he thinks. Maybe if you had one more person with you, then your squad wouldn't have had to split up, and you wouldn't have had to go alone, and —

"Thank you for letting me know," he says, a mask of fake reservation, and then he turns to leave.

There are pictures of you and him that you put up in his sleeping pod that he can't bring himself to take down, unopened gift boxes piled on top of the desk in the Strike Hawk lounge addressed to him. He thinks about how he wanted to straighten your jacket one more time before you swatted his hand away, and he wonders what you would say if he asked if you would still want to spend the rest of your life with him, like you believed you would growing up. You would always stay over for dinner, anyway, and his father already likes you — what's one more night, and one more, and one more?

It's a foolish, childish notion, but still the thought of it, the empty, gaping hole where you had once stood beside him, haunts him so.

Chrome sets the mission report face-down.

Time without you passes slowly. After each mission Chrome spends another hour searching for you, and after each mission he returns to Babylonia without even finding the slighest trace of you. Not a torn piece of your coat, your pistol, your remains — nothing to officially pronounce you dead, and precious little else to remember you by.

Sometimes, he catches himself checking in on the private comms channel he set up for the two of you. Today, too, he finds himself listening to the silence that your voice used to fill, casting his gaze off to the horizon, past devastated streets and ruined buildings —

— And then he catches a flash of something in the distance that almost eerily reminds him of you.

He doesn't waste a single moment before he gives chase, your silhouette that he was so used to seeing growing clearer and clearer with each step. Even though he might just be deluding himself, he needs to see with his own eyes that it's not you to believe it.

The silhouette turns at the sound of his footsteps and at the sight of your face, the world is pulled out from under him again.

"...Chrome?"

(How long has it been since he last heard your voice?)

"It's you," he says softly, falling from his lips like the answer to a prayer that even he can't quite believe. "...You're here."

The words bring a smile to your face — soft and bright and oh-so-familiar — and he reaches out for your hand, sliding down to hold your wrist. His fingers press against where he might feel your pulse but it's still, silent, cold, with only the same subtle thrum of electricity that sits beneath his own synthetic skin.

"I'm here," you echo, and for just a moment he sets aside all the questions running through his head.

Chrome takes another look at you, at your new metal body, at the same face he had seen every day growing up and seen in his dreams every night since you disappeared. He straightens your jacket and lets his hand rest on your shoulder for one moment, then two, waiting for you to swat his hand away.

"Chrome," you say, placing your hand over his. "Can I stay over for dinner?"

The question draws a surprised noise out of his throat, and his expression slowly melts into a smile.

"Always," he replies. "...And for however long you want to stay afterwards."

[slamminslamminmcgill]

okay hear me out- Jesse/reader, the reader rides Jesse as Jesse is cutting up the reader’s thighs a little- also Jesse praises the reader. Calls him a good boy and shit like that.

HEHEHEHEHE TRAUMA FETISH GO BRRRRRRRRR took some liberties w/ this hope that's ok. this is heavy so i'm putting it under a cut (no pun intended teehee) also if i left this in my inbox for a month no i didn't 🖤

warning: bloodplay, cutting, self harm

anatomical terms: tits, strap-on, dick, cock (jesse's), cunt (reader's)

How does that saying go? Misery loves company?

Whatever it is, it's true. Misery does love company. You guess that's why when you and Jesse stripped in front of each other for the first time, you both laughed at the barcodes carved into each of your thighs.

Jesse had pointed at the marks on his chest, the remnants of what were once his tits, "Ayo! I guess we got even more in common than we thought!"

You had cackled with cathartic laughter, "Dude, nice!" and pointed at the scars on his leg, "Who did your procedure? They did a great job!"

"I did! Self-made, yo!" Jesse replied, tears streaming down his face. You had thought they were from laughter, or maybe you had hoped.

From then on, cutting became your couple's therapy. Whenever one of you grabbed a blade, the other would pop in and say "Want some help?". No more words need follow. Just an arm around the other, a relay of the razor, and a love letter written in red ink.

It also became your foreplay. This was on accident (the first time at least). It doesn't take a genius to figure out that intimacy begets more intimacy. A hand on the inner thigh, a pleasant sting, what's a kiss or two on top of that? Certainly couldn't hurt more than an open wound, at least.

Today was an especially productive session.

It was your turn to bleed. You were about to take the razor to yourself when Jesse sniped it from you.

"Yo, don't cut with that shit. Look, it's all rusted and nasty. I'll get us a fresh one." Chivalry was alive and unwell. In going to grab the razor, he stumbled upon another hedonistic object, his strap-on. Right next to the band-aids and lube, duh, where else would it be? He grinned, turned around, and waved the dildo at you, "You, uh... you wanna go for a ride?"

You shrugged, wiped your tears away, and answered with a weak laugh, "Eh, what the hell. Sure." You patted the spot on the bed next to you.

Jesse set the razor on the nightstand and stepped into the strap, securing it around his bony hips. He hopped onto the bed and flopped onto his back, gesturing to the silicone dick. “Your throne awaits, my liege.”

You snorted, straddled his body, and mimed a curtsy. “Oh, thank you, sire.” You sank down onto the cock with a loud moan. “Fuck, Jesse, I- SHIT!”

A searing pain blitzed across your thigh when you least expected it. Your palm slapped over the epicenter almost reflexively. A muscle cramp? No, this felt too… precise. You pulled your hand away. Blood. Lots of blood. You looked at Jesse, who had a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Good boy... you like that?" He thrust his hips up into your sopping, needy cunt. Crying always made you wet. "You want another?"

You bit your lip and nodded, shifting your weight back and forth on top of him. "Mhm..."

"That's what I thought... Good boy."

You closed your eyes, tears pooling from your clenched lids, and grit your teeth as you rode, bracing yourself for the next slice. Part of the fun was not knowing when it was coming. When you were about to sneak a peek, the razor showed itself, tearing open your skin, your eyes, and your mouth. "Ah! Jesse!" you cried.

"Good boy. God, you're fuckin' gorgeous like this."

Misery loves company. That's how the saying goes. And how does that other saying go? Right, that's it. Great minds think alike...

but fools rarely differ.

[sotwk]

Tumblr may not want this ask to go through, but I’m determined to fuel your Eomer Simping Disease at all costs and will not be stopped. So let me suggest, for no reason at all, Eomer getting so agitated over his love interest that he jumps into a lake Mr-Darcy style, only to emerge with his hair dripping wet and his very thin undershirt clinging scandalously to his torso

You know, just in case you need any ideas for your fics or anything. No pressure 😁

Behold everyone--my number one Enabler. <3 Always coming through with the gasoline to throw in my fires. XD

*grabs notepad and makes the list* Wet Eomer, Wet Clothes Eomer, Shirtless Eomer... man my next fics are gonna be, um, wet. (Teehee)

Gonna say with total honesty that I actually already had all of these planned between my two Eomer fic WIPs. Because, you know, great minds think alike.

The Wet Hottie Trope is exactly why I love this Extended Edition scene so much (damn you theatrical version cuts!). And this is exactly what fanfiction is for, to give the people more of what they need and crave! Fanfic writers to the rescue!

[waythroughtheice]

More thoughts on Geo Wily because I honestly kind of like the idea a lot and may incorporate it somewhere who knows (not me)?

You know the saying great minds think alike? I think itd be funny if Great granpa Wily was a netnavi. He hates it but he can't leave his descendants alone to suffer through possible bullying for their relation to him. He finds out later about Hub/ Saito.

I kind of want Lan/ Netto to also be a netnavi now.

They all were just regularly uploading their minds into a netnavi shell.

Kazuma is stuck with Lan and Hub.

Geo keeps begging his grandpa to deal with his cult. "The cult didn't really listen when I was alive the last few years what do you think I can do?"

Omega-Xis thinks this is hilarious.

Wily is... Oddly supportive of Geo's vigilante habits? Maybe it's because the police don't like him. Maybe it's the irony. Wily is not telling.

Geo has not been entirely isolated before SF1 here. Someone has to control the cult and his Dad is the only ither person they'd kind of listen to.

Lan and Hub are supportive of Kazuma and his crimes, for more teehee shenanigans.

For a while, Kazuma's crimes get blamed on "the hidden Wily descendant" and megaman is blamed on "did the Hikari family commit science crimes again?" Everyone finds this kind of funny. Roleswap.

Geo and Kazuma act like bickering siblings. They should be the only ones allowed to insult each other.

Wily, Lan, and Hub begrudgingly get along (they bicker like siblings too). There are many bets on when they admit to being honorary cousins.

The cops hate all of this chaos.

LOLOLOL--

This is so hilarious, so--

Okay, so Geo never becomes a shut-in, solely because of a) Grandpa Wily really approves of him brooding and Geo doesn't trust that, b) the cult needs a leader (aka someone to stop them from Doing Crime), and c) there's some idiot committing crimes and they're blaming it on him. Cue detective and coding shenanigans between Geo and Kazuma, who don't meet in-person for a couple of years but have a raging code-rivalry over the internet.

Once Omega-Xis comes, however, and all of his issues and the, you know, the war he fled--Geo becomes Mega Man. The name slips out accidentally--he'd just finished a massive report on the Adventures of Megaman.exe for homeschooling (he has a first hand account! Even if said first hand account sulked the entire time, served grandpa right--) and then he's stuck with it. People think he's a Hikari, ewwww. (Listen, he might not like being a Wily but he has some pride. Plus he's pretty sure that his internet rival is a Hikari, so.) Cue Kazuma Hikari, insulted that someone is doing stuff with his family's name, and goes out to find this Mega Man. In doing so, he meets his partner, Zer-Oth, who is coincidentally Omega-Xis's good friend. Once the two meet in person, it's like the rivalry never happened--they hit it off instantly, becoming best friends. They also cause a lot of trouble.....for their enemies.

Wily, Lan, and Hub are.....appalled, but also amused, and concerned because why don't any other adults watch these children--

They're having a time.

[bokutone]

teehee great minds think alike !!! i hope you’ve been doing well my sweets ^_^ ! sendin u much love !

aaaaye aims!! sending lots of love back to you<3

[rawliverandcigarettes]

Mass Effect Retribution, a review

Mass Effect Retribution is the third book in the official Mass Effect trilogy by author Drew Karpyshyn, who happens to also be Lead Writer for Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2.

I didn’t expect to pick it up, because to be very honest I didn’t expect to like it. 9 years ago I borrowed Mass Effect Revelations, and I still recall the experience as underwhelming. But this fateful fall of 2020 I had money (yay) and I saw the novel on the shelf of a swedish nerd store. I guess guilt motivated me to give the author another try: guilt, because I’ve been writing a Mass Effect fanfiction for an ungodly amount of years and I’ve been deathly afraid of lore that might contradict my decisions ever since I started -but I knew this book covered elements that are core to plot elements of my story, and I was willing to let my anxiety to the door and see what was up.

Disclaimer: I didn’t reread Mass Effect Revelation before plunging into this read, and entirely skipped Ascension. So anything in relation to character introduction and continuity will have to be skipped.

Back-cover pitch (the official, unbiased, long one)

Humanity has reached the stars, joining the vast galactic community of alien species. But beyond the fringes of explored space lurk the Reapers, a race of sentient starships bent on “harvesting” the galaxy’s organic species for their own dark purpose. The Illusive Man, leader of the pro-human black ops group Cerberus, is one of the few who know the truth about the Reapers. To ensure humanity’s survival, he launches a desperate plan to uncover the enemy’s strengths—and weaknesses—by studying someone implanted with modified Reaper technology. He knows the perfect subject for his horrific experiments: former Cerberus operative Paul Grayson, who wrested his daughter from the cabal’s control with the help of Ascension project director Kahlee Sanders. But when Kahlee learns that Grayson is missing, she turns to the only person she can trust: Alliance war hero Captain David Anderson. Together they set out to find the secret Cerberus facility where Grayson is being held. But they aren’t the only ones after him. And time is running out. As the experiments continue, the sinister Reaper technology twists Grayson’s mind. The insidious whispers grow ever stronger in his head, threatening to take over his very identity and unleash the Reapers on an unsuspecting galaxy. This novel is based on a Mature-rated video game.

Global opinion (TL;DR)

I came in hoping to be positively surprised and learn a thing or two about Reapers, about Cerberus and about Aria T’loak. I wasn’t, and I didn’t learn much. What I did learn was how cool ideas can get wasted by the very nature of game novelization, as the defects are not singular to this novel but quite widespread in this genre, and how annoyed I can get at an overuse of dialogue tags. The pacing is good and the narrative structure alright: everything else poked me in the wrong spots and rubbed how the series have always handled violence on my face with cruder examples. If I was on Good Reads, I’d probably give it something like 2 stars, for the pacing, some of the ideas, and my general sympathy for the IP novel struggle.

The indepth review continue past this point, just know there will be spoilers for the series, the Omega DLC which is often relevant, and the book itself!

What I enjoyed

Drew Karpyshyn is competent in narrative structure, and that does a lot for the pacing. Things rarely drag, and we get from one event to the next seamlessly. I’m not surprised this is one of the book’s qualities, as it comes from the craft of a game writer: pacing and efficiency are mandatory skills in this field. I would have preferred a clearer breaking point perhaps, but otherwise it’s a nice little ride that doesn’t ask a lot of effort from you (I was never tempted to DNF the book because it was so easy to read).

This book is packed with intringuing ideas -from venturing in the mind of the Illusive Man to assist, from the point of view of the victim, to Grayson’s biological transformation and assimilation into the Reaper hivemind, we get plenty to be excited for. I was personally intrigued about Liselle, Aria T’loak’s secret daughter, and eager to get a glimpse at the mind of the Queen Herself -also about how her collaboration with Cerberus came to be. Too bad none of these ideas go anywhere nor are being dealt with in an interesting way!!! But the concepts themselves were very good, so props for setting up interesting premices.

Pain is generally well described. It gets the job done.

I liked Sanak, the batarian that works as a second to Aria. He’s not very well characterized and everyone thinks he’s dumb (rise up for our national himbo), even though he reads almost smarter than her on multiple occasions, but I was happy whenever he was on the page, so yay for Sanak. But it might just be me having a bias for batarians.

Cool to have Kai Leng as a point of view character. I wasn’t enthralled by what was done with it, as he remains incredibly basic and as basically hateable and ungrounded than in Mass Effect 3 (I think he’s very underwhelming as a villain and he should have been built up in Mass Effect 2 to be effective). But there were some neat moments, such as the description of the Afterlife by Grayson who considers it as tugging at his base instincts, compared to Leng’s description of it where everything is deemed disgusting. The execution is not the best, but the concept was fun.

Pre-Reaperification Paul Grayson wasn’t the worst point of view to follow. I wasn’t super involved in his journey and didn’t care when he died one way or the other, but I empathized with his problems and hoped he would find a way out of the cycle of violence. The setup of his character arc was interesting, it’s just sad that any resolution -even negative- was dropped to focus on Reapers and his relationship with Kahlee Sanders, as I think the latter was the least interesting part.

The cover is cool and intringuing. Very soapy. It’s my favorite out of all the official novels, as it owns the cheesier aspect of the series, has nice contrasts and immediately asks questions. Very 90s/2000s. It’s great.

You may notice every thing I enjoyed was coated in complaints, because it’s a reflection of my frustration at this book for setting up interesting ideas and then completely missing the mark in their execution. So without further due, let’s talk about what I think the book didn’t do right.

1. Dumb complaints that don’t matter much

After reading the entire book, I am still a bit confused at to why Tim (the Illusive Man’s acronym is TIM in fandom, but I find immense joy in reffering to him as just Tim) wants his experimentation to be carried out on Grayson specifically, especially when getting to him is harder than pretty much anyone else (also wouldn’t pushing the very first experiments on alien captives make more sense given it’s Cerberus we’re talking about?). It seem to be done out of petty revenge, which is fine, but it still feels like quite the overlook to mess with a competent fighter, enhance him, and then expect things to stay under control (which Tim kind of doesn’t expect to, and that’s even weirder -why waste your components on something you plan to terminate almost immediately). At the same time, the pettiness is the only characterization we get out of Tim so good I guess? But if so, I wished it would have been accentuated to seem even more deliberate (and not have Tim regret to see it in himself, which flattens him and doesn’t inform the way he views the world and himself -but we’ll get to that).

I really disliked the way space travel is characterized. And that might be entirely just me, and perhaps it doesn’t contradict the rest of the lore, but space travel is so fast. People pop up left and right in a matter of hours. At some point we even get a mention of someone being able to jump 3 different Mass Relays and then arrive somewhere in 4 hours. I thought you first had to discharge your ship around a stellar object before being able to engage in the next jump (and that imply finding said object, which would have to take more than an hour). It’s not that big of a deal, but it completely crammed this giant world to a single boulevard for me and my hard-science-loving tastes. Not a big deal, but not a fan at all of this choice.

You wouldn’t believe how often people find themselves in a fight naked or in their underwear. It happens at least 3 times (and everyone naked survives -except one, we’ll get to her later).

Why did I need to know about this fifteen year’s old boner for his older teacher. Surely there were other ways to have his crush come across without this detail, or then have it be an actual point of tension in their relationship and not just a “teehee” moment. Weird choice imo.

I’m not a fan of the Talons. I don’t find them interesting or compelling. There is nothing about them that informs us on the world they live in. The fact they’re turian-ruled don’t tell us anything about turian culture that, say, the Blue Suns don’t tell us already. It’s a generic gang that is powerful because it is. I think they’re very boring, in this book and in the Omega DLC alike (a liiittle less in the DLC because of Nyreen, barely). Not a real criticism, I just don’t care for them at all.

I might just be very ace, but I didn’t find Anderson and Kahlee Sanders to have much chemistry. Same for Kahlee and Grayson (yes we do have some sort of love-triangle-but-not-really, but it’s not very important and it didn’t bother me much). Their relationships were all underwhelming to me, and I’ll explain why in part 4.

The red sand highs are barely described, and very safely -probably not from a place of intimate knowledge with drugs nor from intense research. Addiction is a delicate topic, and I feel like it could have been dealt with better, or not be included at all.

There are more of these, but I don’t want to turn this into a list of minor complaints for things that are more a matter of taste than craft quality or thematic relevance. So let’s move on.

2. Who cares about aliens in a Mass Effect novel

Now we’re getting into actual problems, and this one is kind of endemic to the Mass Effect novels (I thought the same when I read Revelation 9 years ago, though maybe less so as Saren in a PoV character -but I might have forgotten so there’s that). The aliens are described and characterized in the most uncurious, uninspired manner. Krogans are intimidating brutes. Turians are rigid. Asaris are sexy. Elcors are boring. Batarians are thugs (there is something to be said with how Aria’s second in command is literally the same batarian respawned with a different name in Mass Effect 2, this book, then the Omega DLC). Salarians are weak nerds. (if you allow me this little parenthesis because of course I have to complain about salarian characterization: the only salarian that speaks in the book talks in a cheap ripoff of Mordin’s speech pattern, which sucks because it’s specific to Mordin and not salarians as a whole, and is there to be afraid of a threat as a joke. This is SUCH a trope in the original trilogy -especially past Mass Effect 1 when they kind of give up on salarians except for a few chosen ones-, that salarians’ fear is not to be taken seriously and the only salarians who are to be considered don’t express fear at all -see Mordin and Kirrahe. It happens at least once per game, often more. This is one of the reasons why the genophage subplot is allowed to be so morally simple in ME3 and remove salarians from the equation. I get why they did that, but it’s still somewhat of a copeout. On this front, I have to give props to Andromeda for actually engaging with violence on salarians in a serious manner. It’s a refreshing change) I didn’t learn a single thing about any of these species, how they work, what they care about in the course of these 79750 words. I also didn’t learn much about their relationships to other species, including humans. I’ll mention xenophobia in more details later, but this entire aspect of the story takes a huge hit because of this lack of investment of who these species are.

I’ve always find Mass Effect, despite its sprawling universe full of vivid ideas and unique perspectives, to be strangely enamoured with humans, and it has never been so apparent than here. Only humans get to have layers, deserving of empathy and actual engagement. Only their pain is real and important. Only their death deserve mourning (we’ll come back to that). I’d speculate this comes from the same place that was terrified to have Liara as a love interest in ME1 in case she alienated the audience, and then later was surprised when half the fanbase was more interested in banging the dinosaur-bird than their fellow humans: Mass Effect often seem afraid of losing us and breaking our capacity for self-projection. It’s a very weird concern, in my opinion, that reveals the most immature, uncertain and soapy parts of the franchise. Here it’s punched to eleven, and I find it disappointing. It also have a surprising effect on the narrative: again, we’ll come back to that.

3. The squandered potential of Liselle and Aria

Okay. This one hurts. Let’s talk about Liselle: she’s introduced in the story as a teammate to Grayson, who at the time works as a merc for Aria T’loak on Omega, and also sleeps with him on the regular. She likes hitting the Afterlife’s dancefloor: she’s very admired there, as she’s described as extremely attractive. One night after receiving a call from Grayson, she rejoins him in his apartment. They have sex, then Kai Leng and other Cerberus agents barge in to capture Grayson -a fight break out (the first in a long tradition of naked/underwear fights), and both of them are stunned with tranquilizers. Grayson is to be taken to the Illusive Man. Kai Leng decides to slit Liselle’s throat as she lays unconscious to cover their tracks. When Aria T’loak and her team find her naked on a bed, throat gaping and covered in blood, Liselle is revealed, through her internal monologue, to be Aria’s secret daughter -that she kept secret for both of their safety. So Liselle is a sexpot who dies immediately in a very brutal and disempowered manner. This is a sad way to handle Aria T’loak’s daughter I think, but I assume it was done to give a strong motivation to the mother, who thinks Grayson did it. And also, it’s a cool setup to explore her psyche: how does she feel about business catching up with her in such a personal manner, how does she feel about the fact she couldn’t protect her own offspring despite all her power, what’s her relationship with loss and death, how does she slip when under high emotional stress, how does she deal with such a vulnerable position of having to cope without being able to show any sign of weakness... But the book does nothing with that. The most interesting we get is her complete absence of outward reaction when she sees her daughter as the centerpiece of a crime scene. Otherwise we have mentions that she’s not used to lose relatives, vague discomfort when someone mentions Liselle might have been raped, and vague discomfort at her body in display for everyone to gawk at. It’s not exactly revelatory behavior, and the missed potential is borderline criminal. It also doesn’t even justify itself as a strong motivation, as Aria vaguely tries to find Grayson again and then gives up until we give her intel on a silver platter. Then it almost feels as if she forgot her motivation for killing Grayson, and is as motivated by money than she is by her daughter’s murder (and that could be interesting too, but it’s not done in a deliberate way and therefore it seems more like a lack of characterization than anything else).

Now, to Aria. Because this book made me realize something I strongly dislike: the framing might constantly posture her as intelligent, but Aria T’loak is... kind of dumb, actually? In this book alone she’s misled, misinformed or tricked three different times. We’re constantly ensured she’s an amazing people reader but never once do we see this ability work in her favor -everyone fools her all the time. She doesn’t learn from her mistakes and jump from Cerberus trap to Cerberus trap, and her loosing Omega to them later is laughably stupid after the bullshit Tim put her through in this book alone. I’m not joking when I say the book has to pull out an entire paragraph on how it’s easier to lie to smart people to justify her complete dumbassery during her first negotiation with Tim. She doesn’t seem to know anything about how people work that could justify her power. She’s not politically savvy. She’s not good at manipulation. She’s just already established and very, very good at kicking ass. And I wouldn’t mind if Aria was just a brutish thug who maintains her power through violence and nothing else, that could also be interesting to have an asari act that way. But the narrative will not bow to the reality they have created for her, and keep pretending her flaw is in extreme pride only. This makes me think of the treatment of Sansa Stark in the latest seasons of Game of Thrones -the story and everyone in it is persuaded she’s a political mastermind, and in the exact same way I would adore for it to be true, but it’s just... not. It’s even worse for Aria, because Sansa does have victories by virtue of everyone being magically dumber than her whenever convenient. Aria just fails, again and again, and nobody seem to ever acknowledge it. Sadly her writing here completely justifies her writing in the Omega DLC and the comics, which I completely loathe; but turns out Aria isn’t smart or savvy, not even in posture or as a façade. She’s just violent, entitled, easily fooled, and throws public tantrums when things don’t go her way. And again, I guess that would be fine if only the narrative would recognize what she is. Me, I will gently ignore most of this (in her presentation at least, because I think it’s interesting to have something pitiful when you dig a little) and try to write her with a bit more elevation. But this was a very disappointing realization to have.

4. The squandered potential of Grayson and the Reapers

The waste of a subplot with Aria and Liselle might have hurt me more in a personal way, but what went down between Grayson and the Reapers hurts the entire series in a startling manner. And it’s so infuriating because the potential was there. Every setpiece was available to create something truly unique and disturbing by simply following the series’ own established lore. But this is not what happens. See, when The Illusive Man, our dearest Tim, captures Grayson for a betrayal that happened last book (something about his biotic autistic daughter -what’s the deal with autistic biotics being traumatized by Cerberus btw), he decides to use him as the key part of an experiment to understand how Reapers operate. So he forcefully implants the guy with Reaper technology (what they do exactly is unclear) to study his change into a husk and be prepared when Reapers come for humanity -it’s also compared to what happened with Saren when he “agreed” to be augmented by Sovereign. From there on, Grayson slowly turns into a husk. Doesn’t it sound fascinating, to be stuck in the mind of someone losing themselves to unknowable monsters? If you agree with me then I’m sorry because the execution is certainly... not that. The way the author chooses to describe the event is to use the trope of mind control used in media like Get Out: Grayson taking the backseat of his own mind and body. And I haaaaate it. I hate it so much. I don’t hate the trope itself (it can be interesting in other media, like Get Out!), but I loathe that it’s used here in a way that totally contradicts both the lore and basic biology. Grayson doesn’t find himself manipulated. He doesn’t find himself justifying increasingly jarring actions the way Saren has. He just... loses control of himself, disagreeing with what’s being done with him but not able to change much about it. He also can fight back and regain control sometimes -but his thoughts are almost untainted by Reaper influence. The technology is supposed to literally replace and reorganize the cells of his body; is this implying that body and mind are separated, that there maybe exists a soul that transcends indoctrination? I don’t know but I hate it. This also implies that every victim of the Reaper is secretely aware of what they’re doing and pained and disagreeing with their own actions. And I’m sorry but if it’s true, I think this sucks ass and removes one of the creepiest ideas of the Mass Effect universe -that identity can and will be lost, and that Reapers do not care about devouring individuality and reshaping it to the whims of their inexorable march. Keeping a clear stream of consciousness in the victim’s body makes it feel like a curse and not like a disease. None of the victims are truly gone that way, and it removes so much of the tragic powerlessness of organics in their fight against the machines. Imagine if Saren watched himself be a meanie and being like “nooo” from within until he had a chance to kill himself in a near-victorious battle, compared to him being completely persuaded he’s acting for the good of organic life until, for a split second, he comes to realize he doesn’t make any sense and is loosing his mind like someone with dementia would, and needs to grasp to this instant to make the last possible thing he could do to save others and his own mind from domination. I feel so little things for Saren in the former case, and so much for the latter. But it might just be me: I’m deeply touched by the exploration of how environment and things like medication can change someone’s behavior, it’s such a painfully human subject while forceful mind control is... just kind of cheap.

SPEAKING OF THE REAPERS. Did you know “The Reapers” as an entity is an actual character in this book? Because it is. And “The Reapers” is not a good character. During the introduction of Grayson and explaining his troubles, we get presented with the mean little voice in his head. It’s his thoughts in italics, nothing crazy, in fact it’s a little bit of a copeout from actually implementing his insecurities into the prose. But I gave the author the benefit of the doubt, as I knew Grayson would be indoctrinated later, and I fully expected the little voice to slowly start twisting into what the Reapers suggested to him. This doesn’t happen, or at least not in that slowburn sort of way. Instead the little voice is dropped almost immediately, and the Reapers are described, as a presence. And as the infection progresses, what Grayson do become what the Reapers do. The Reapers have emotions, it turns out. They’re disgusted at organic discharges. They’re pleased when Grayson accomplish what they want, and it’s told as such. They foment little plans to get their puppet to point A to point B, and we are privy to their calculations. And I’m sorry but the best way to ruin your lovecraftian concept is to try and explain its motivations and how it thinks. Because by definition the unknown is scarier, smarter, and colder than whatever a human author could come up with. I couldn’t take the Reapers’ dumb infiltration plans seriously, and now I think they are dumb all the time, and I didn’t want to!! The only cases in which the Reapers influence Grayson, we are told in very explicit details how so. For example, they won’t let Grayson commit suicide by flooding his brain with hope and determination when he tries, or they will change the words he types when he tries to send a message to Kahlee Sanders. And we are told exactly what they do every time. There was a glorious occasion to flex as a writer by diving deep into an unreliable narrator and write incredibly creepy prose, but I guess we could have been confused, and apparently that’s not allowed. And all of this is handled that poorly becauuuuuse...

5. Subtext is dead and Drew killed it

Now we need to talk about the prose. The style of the author is... let’s be generous and call it functional. It’s about clarity. The writing is so involved in its quest for clarity that it basically ruins the book, and most of the previous issues are direct consequences of the prose and adjacent decisions.The direct prose issues are puzzling, as they are known as rookie technical flaws and not something I would expect from the series’ Lead Writer for Mass Effect 1 and 2, but in this book we find problems such as:

The reliance on adverbs. Example: "Breathing heavily from the exertion, he stood up slowly”. I have nothing about a well-placed adverb that gives a verb a revelatory twist, but these could be replaced by stronger verbs, or cut altogether.

Filtering. Example: “Anderson knew that the fact they were getting no response was a bad sign”. This example is particularly egregious, but characters know things, feel things, realize things (boy do they realize things)... And this pulls us away from their internal world instead of making us live what they live, expliciting what should be implicit. For example, consider the alternative: “They were getting no reponse, which was a bad sign in Anderson’s experience.” We don’t really need the “in Anderson’s experience” either, but that already brings us significantly closer to his world, his lived experience as a soldier.

The goddamn dialogue tags. This one is the worst offender of the bunch. Nobody is allowed to talk without a dialogue tag in this book, and wow do people imply, admit, inform, remark and every other verb under the sun. Consider this example, which made me lose my mind a little: “What are you talking about? Kahlee wanted to know.” I couldn’t find it again, but I’m fairly certain I read a “What is it?” Anderson wanted to know. as well. Not only is it very distracting, it’s also yet another way to remove reader interpretation from the equation (also sometimes there will be a paragraph break inside a monologue -not even a long one-, and that doesn’t seem to be justified by anything? It’s not as big of a problem than the aversion to subtext, but it still confused me more than once)

Another writing choice that hurts the book in disproportionate ways is the reliance on point of view switches. In Retribution, we get the point of view of: Tim, Paul Grayson, Kai Leng, Kahlee Sanders, David Anderson, Aria T’loak, and Nick (a biotic teenager, the one with the boner). Maybe Sanak had a very small section too, but I couldn’t find it again so don’t take my word for it. That’s too many point of views for a plot-heavy 80k book in my opinion, but even besides that: the point of view switch several times in one single chapter. This is done in the most harmful way possible for tension: characters involved in the same scene take turns on the page explaining their perspective about the events, in a way that leaves the reader entirely aware of every stake to every character and every information that would be relevant in a scene. Take for example the first negotiation between Aria and Tim. The second Aria needs to ponder what her best move could possibly be, we get thrown back into Tim’s perspective explaining the exact ways in which he’s trying to deceive her -removing our agency to be either convinced or fooled alongside her. This results in a book that goes out of his way to keep us from engaging with its ideas and do any mental work on our own. Everything is laid out, bare and as overexplained as humanly possible. The format is also very repetitive: characters talk or do an action, and then we spend a paragraph explaining the exact mental reasoning for why they did what they did. There is nothing to interpret. No subtext at all whatsoever; and this contributes in casting a harsh light on the Mass Effect universe, cheapening it and overtly expliciting some of its worst ideas instead of leaving them politely blurred and for us to dress up in our minds. There is only one theme that remains subtextual in my opinion. And it’s not a pretty one.

6. Violence

So here’s the thing when you adapt a third person shooter into a novel: you created a violent world and now you will have to deal with death en-masse too (get it get it I’m so sorry). But while in videogames you can get away with thoughtless murder because it’s a gameplay mechanic and you’re not expected to philosophize on every splatter of blood, novels are all about internalization. Violent murder is by definition more uncomfortable in books, because we’re out of gamer conventions and now every death is actual when in games we just spawned more guys because we wanted that level to be a bit harder and on a subconscious level we know this and it makes it somewhat okay. I felt, in this book, a strange disconnect between the horrendous violence and the fact we’re expected to care about it like we would in a game: not much, or as a spectacle. Like in a game, we are expected to root for the safety of named characters the story indicated us we should be invested in. And because we’re in a book, this doesn’t feel like the objective truth of the universe spelled at us through user interface and quest logs, but the subjective worldview of the characters we’re following. And that makes them.... somewhat disturbing to follow.

I haven’t touched on Anderson and Kahlee Sanders much yet, but now I guess I have too, as they are the worst offenders of what is mentioned above. Kahlee cares about Grayson. She only cares about Grayson -and her students like the forementioned Nick, but mostly Grayson. Grayson is out there murdering people like it’s nobody’s business, but still, keeping Grayson alive is more important that people dying like flies around him. This is vaguely touched on, but not with the gravitas that I think was warranted. Also, Anderson goes with it. Because he cares about Kahlee. Anderson organizes a major political scandal between humans and turians because of Kahlee, because of Grayson. He convinces turians to risk a lot to bring Cerberus down, and I guess that could be understandable, but it’s mostly manipulation for the sake of Grayson’s survival: and a lot of turians die as a result. But not only turians: I was not comfortable with how casually the course of action to deal a huge blow to Cerberus and try to bring the organization down was to launch assault on stations and cover-ups for their organization. Not mass arrests: military assault. They came to arrest high operatives, maybe, but the grunts were okay to slaughter. This universe has a problem with systemic violence by the supposedly good guys in charge -and it’s always held up as the righteous and efficient way compared to these UGH boring politicians and these treaties and peace and such (amirite Anderson). And as the cadavers pile up, it starts to make our loveable protagonists... kind of self-centered assholes. Also: I think we might want to touch on who these cadavers tend to be, and get to my biggest point of discomfort with this novel.

Xenophobia is hard to write well, and I super sympathize with the attempts made and their inherent difficulty. This novel tries to evoke this theme in multiple ways: by virtue of having Cerberus’ heart and blade as point of view characters, we get a window into Tim and Kai Leng’s bigotry against aliens, and how this belief informs their actions. I wasn’t ever sold in their bigotry as it was shown to us. Tim evokes his scorn for whatever aliens do and how it’s inferior to humanity’s resilience -but it’s surface-level, not informed by deep and specific entranched beliefs on aliens motives and bodies, and how they are a threat on humanity according to them. The history of Mass Effect is rich with conflict and baggage between species, yet every expression of hatred is relegated to a vague “eww aliens” that doesn’t feed off systemically enforced beliefs but personal feelings of mistrust and disgust. I’ll take this example of Kai Leng, and his supposedly revulsion at the Afterlife as a peak example of alien decadence: he sees an asari in skimpy clothing, and deems her “whorish”. And this feels... off. Not because I don’t think Kai Leng would consider asaris whorish, but because this is supposed to represent Cerberus’ core beliefs: yet both him and Tim go on and on about how their goal is to uplift humanity, how no human is an enemy. But if that’s the case, then what makes Kai Leng call an Afterlife asari whorish and mean it in a way that’s meaningfully different from how he would consider a human sex worker in similar dispositions? Not that I don’t buy that Cerberus would have a very specific idea of what humans need to be to be considered worth preserving as good little ur-fascists, but this internal bias is never expressed in any way, and it makes the whole act feel hollow. Cerberus is not the only offender, though. Every time an alien expresses bias against humans in a way we’re meant to recognize as xenophobic, it reads the same way: as personal dislike and suspicion. As bullying. Which is such a small part of what bigotry encompasses. It’s so unspecific and divorced from their common history that it just never truly works in my opinion. You know what I thought worked, though? The golden trio of non-Cerberus human characters, and their attitude towards aliens. Grayson’s slight fetishism and suspicion of his attraction to Liselle, how bestial (in a cool, sexy way) he perceives the Afterlife to be. The way Anderson and Kahlee use turians for their own ends and do not spare a single thought towards those who died directly trying to protect them or Grayson immediately after the fact (they are more interested in Kahlee’s broken fingers and in kissing each other). How they feel disgust watching turians looting Cerberus soldiers, not because it’s disrespectful in general and the deaths are a inherent tragedy but because they are turians and the dead are humans. But it's not even really on them: the narration itself is engrossed by the suffering of humans, but aliens are relegated to setpieces in gore spectacles. Not even Grayson truly cares about the aliens the Reapers make him kill. Nobody does. Not even the aliens among each other: see, once again, Aria and Liselle, or Aria and Sanak. Nobody cares. At the very end of the story, Anderson comes to Kahlee and asks if she gives him permission to have Grayson’s body studied, the same way Cerberus planned to. It’s source of discomfort, but Kahlee gives in as it’s important, and probably what Grayson would have wanted, maybe? So yeah. In the end the only subtextual theme to find here (probably as an accident) is how the Alliance’s good guys are not that different from Cerberus it turns out. And I’m not sure how I feel about that.

7. Lore-approved books, or the art of shrinking an expanding universe

I’d like to open the conversation on a bigger topic: the very practice of game novelization, or IP-books. Because as much as I think Drew Karpyshyn’s final draft should not have ended up reading that amateur given the credits to his name, I really want to acknowledge the realities of this industry, and why the whole endeavor was perhaps doomed from the start regardless of Karpyshyn’s talent or wishes as an author.

The most jarring thing about this reading experience is as follows: I spent almost 80k words exploring this universe with new characters and side characters, all of them supposedly cool and interesting, and I learned nothing. I learned nothing new about the world, nothing new about the characters. Now that it’s over, I’m left wondering how I could chew on so much and gain so little. Maybe it’s just me, but more likely it’s by design. Not on poor Drew. Now that I did IP work myself, I have developed an acute sympathy for anyone who has to deal with the maddening contradictions of this type of business. Let me explain.

IP-adjacent media (in the West at least) sure has for goal to expand the universe: but expand as in bloat, not as in deepen. The target for this book is nerds like me, who liked the games and want more of this thing we liked. But then we’re confronted by two major competitors: the actual original media (in ME’s case, the games) whose this product is a marketing tool for, and fandom. IP books are not allowed to compete with the main media: the good ideas are for the main media, and any meaningful development has to be made in the main media (see: what happened with Kai Leng, or how everyone including me complains about the worldbuilding to the Disney Star Swars trilogy being hidden in the novelization). And when it comes to authorship (as in: taking an actual risk with the media and give it a personal spin), then we risk introducing ideas that complicate the main media even though a ridiculously small percent of the public will be attached to it, or ideas that fans despise. Of course we can’t have the latter. And once the fandom is huge enough, digging into anything the fans have strong headcanons for already risks creating a lot of emotions once some of these are made canon and some are disregarded. As much as I joke about how in Mass Effect you can learn about any gun in excrutiating details but we still don’t know if asaris have a concept for marriage... would we really want to know how/if asaris marry, or aren’t we glad we get to be creative and put our own spin on things? The dance between fandom and canon is a delicate one that can and will go wrong. And IP books are generally not worth the drama for the stakeholders.

Add this to insane deadlines, numerous parties all involved in some way and the usual struggles of book writing, and we get a situation where creating anything of value is pretty much a herculean task.

But then I ask... why do IP books *have* to be considered canon? I know this is part of the appeal, and that removing the “licenced” part only leaves us with published fanfiction, but... yeah. Yeah. I think it could be a fascinating model. Can you imagine having your IP and hiring X amount of distinctive authors to give it their own spin, not as definitive additions to the world but as creative endeavours and authorial deepdives? It would allow for these novels to be comparative and companion to the main media instead of being weird appendages that can never compare, and the structure would allow for these stories to be polished and edited to a higher level than most fanfictions. Of course I’m biased because I have a deep belief in the power of fanfiction as commentary and conversational piece. But I would really love to see companies’ approach to creative risk and canon to change. We might get Disney stuff until we die now, so the least we can ask for is for this content to be a little weird, personal and human.

That’s it. That’s the whole review. Thank you for reading, it was very long and weirdly passionate, have a nice dayyyyy.

[cow3survivor]

Ep. 12: “Go Back On Mute” - Jennet

JENNET

trying to strategize and my mind is blanking... missing ethan hours :pensivestrawberry:

JONES

https://youtu.be/NrJhg-j-6WI

JESSICA

Here is what happened last round, another essay by Jessica. So everyone started targeting Lindsay again. This was not ideal for me because I'd like to keep Lindsay in the game as long as possible -- right now she is in my final 3 but she also is extremely unlikely to vote against me or really do anything against me. When I came online, everyone was acting as if this had just already been decided which was super annoying. Mikey said "I've heavily heard Lindsay" and it's like.... from who?? From our alliance of three other people?? That isn't heavily, that's everyone else making a decision and just saying I have to go along with it. The annoying thing was I couldn't really push too strongly for Lindsay to stay without that looking suspicious, plus apparently she doesn't really talk to a lot of people so like... I can only do so much. Then I spoke with Jake an hour before the vote and he suggested voting Sam. I said that I found that to be a waste of a move because Sam doesn't have a lot of close allies so we could always just vote him later. Also personally I wanted Sam to stay because I don't think he'd ever vote me out but I didn't say that. Obviously I preferred Sam leaving over Lindsay though, so I mean I'll take what I can get. Then as Jake and I were on call, he gets added to a chat with Jennet, Sammy, and Mikey. I find this very suspicious because ummm I'm supposed to be aligned with three of those four people and it's a very Choice Decision to leave me out of that. I extra do not love that move because I feel like Sammy and Mikey were basically willing to ruin their relationships with me to keep Jennet in the game; they played it off like "oh well I just like Jennet more than Lindsay, we aren't aligned" but I'm not buying it. I don't think Jennet made that chat entirely on her own without any prompting -- I'm pretty sure Sammy and/or Mikey told her not to put me in it which is giving me a huge pause. I told Jake that what we should do is make sure Shane/Lindsay/Sam were voting Jennet, figure out who Jennet/Sammy/Mikey (and mysteriously Jones, who Sammy just magically happened to get to vote his way? Okay...) were voting and then we could just pick who left. I said that personally I didn't want to keep Jennet over Sam because that chat was making me feel like there was a three or four person alliance we weren't in and that if we took out Jennet, we'd be breaking that up. Then I had to talk with Shane and Lindsay which was ummm interesting to say the least. I like working with them but they just??? Will do and say things that make no sense. Like Shane said if we couldn't get the votes on Jennet, we needed to vote for Jake. Ummmmm I am not voting for Jake, Jake tells me things and might be my only lifeline in this game. Anyways, I told them please do not do that let's vote Jennet. Then during the vote, I messaged Jake and I said hey what do you want to do, Sam or Jennet? He told me Sam buuut I said that I was still doing Jennet because I was worried about that alliance being a thing. He told me he'd do that too but then ended up switching back to Sam which is not a big deal, I don't think there's a big conspiracy there I think he genuinely changed his mind during the vote. Even if I knew he was voting Sam, I probably would not have done it? Just because I wasn't supposed to know what was going on.... although I haven't officially said that to Mikey and Sammy. After the vote I nicely :) confronted both of them (which quick note --- how can y'all not only lie to an alliance member but?? not even approach them after the vote????? jury management found dead). They originally tried to tell me it was very last second / imply it was made through a game of telephone and not an organized chat but I was like uhhhh nice try I know that isn't the case. This round if we could get Sammy out.... that would be really truly amazing. I do not want that vote block he has going into the final 7 and even though he says he trusts me, I feel like we just don't connect strategically in a way where I feel like I can actually trust him with information. It's weird everyone thinks Jake is playing the middle because I honestly think Sammy is. A f7 without Sammy is great because I feel like everyone would be very fractured, like when Daisy left, and then they'll all need me to move forward so I'll (hopefully!) be safe. But in order to vote out Sammy, I need Jake (and possibly Jones? or Mikey?) to be on board. For now I'm working on Jake and if I can get him on board, I might let him take the leap to tell Mikey and then I will approach him afterwards. I'm hoping Jake could also pull in Jennet or Jones to make that happen but it's hard to say. I know Jones and Sammy are friends outside of this so I'm very hesitant to try and break that up and Jennet I really cannot read. She's dug her heels in when I've tried to talk strategy with her before and I also get the sense she's too focused on what has happened in the past instead of what could be happening right now. But if Jake tells her the plan, maybe I could get Sammy/Jennet/Mikey/Jones against Jake/Shane/Lindsay, I pull Mikey over and/or Sammy wastes his vote cancel? Who knows.... hopefully people come online soon!

SAMMY

Tbh...I am feeling a bit annoyed in this round with my allies. I am one of the few original Brookesia left so obviously I am feeling a bit nervous that there could be connections too strong for me to surpass. The alliance I am in (called) wants to go after Jess. While I didn't want to contest this idea, I felt as if Jess wasn't going after me so this isn't really great for my game? I want Jess in this game more than I want others so like I tried pushing the Lindsay agenda a bit more just cause I would rather OG Brookesia people not keep going as it looks like that's the trajectory of the game right now. I need to find a way to split up Jake/Jones/Jennet as well and it seems like the best bet is to go after Jake. I know Jones already expressed her feelings about getting rid of Jennet in the future anyways so I know that connection isn't as strong as her and Jakes. I know Jess/Shane/Lindsay all think alike. Mikey wants to do whatever the alliance wants to do. I considered using my vote block power this round but I just don't know if it's worth giving up right now if that makes sense? Like I could flip to Jess/Shane/Lindsay and use a vote block and then vote out like Jake? I love Jake but I just can't be a part of an alliance knowing there are three people who have a tighter connection with each other than they do with me. I need to flip but I don't know if this is the round to do it in. ugg decisions. I love Jess so much and I want to tell her that her name is going around but I don't want it to fall back on me that I leaked so I really just want to observe as much as possible and make my decision right before the deadline teehee.

JENNET

after tribal i spent like 30 minutes being gaslight by shane and then letting jessica guilt trip herself, a good week

(a little later)

shane won immunity and i bet hes jumping for joy since i told him hes my #1 target but the gag of it all is i want miss jessica out bc shes won a few challenges and shes very complacent/ doesnt make her own moves and just does what others say

(after making a gameplan)

after tribal i spent like 30 minutes being gaslight by shane and then letting jessica guilt trip herself, a good week

JESSICA

I think we may have the votes to get Sammy out.... hopefully Jake is being honest and will at least tie it because I think if he does, we've got this! If he isn't and I am voted out, I just have to say yikes @ Sammy @ Jennet @ Jones ignoring me all day before voting for me? Once again, jury management found dead. Hopefully I survive!

MIKEY

there really isnt any. these ppl are predictable and boring. I wouldnt mind leaving so i  didnt have to pretend to care about their boring lives. im kidding but im not tbh. anyways im voting lindsay shes very fun but i want her out

JAKE

Okay so no video this week I’m with ~*family*~ but in short I’m continuing my flip-flopping and I’m trying to gun for Sammy this round... he’s just so dangerous and clearly the Touchy Subjects questions are telling of how “safe” he is and the kind of chances he has to win the whole game. So right now we’ve got four votes for Sammy if Shane Lindsay and Jess are being truthful, and if the “five” is being truthful then they should be voting for Lindsay (or Jessica because apparently no one here can make up their minds lmaoooo). I’m hoping that Jennet doesn’t want to go to rocks and she flips to vote Sammy but I’m going to stick with this group, I think keeping Sammy any longer is really risky (especially with his supposed relationship with Jones and Daisy and the potential that he has a block vote advantage??  Just found out about that today eek). So in short I’m hoping Sammy goes this week and hopefully I don’t totally burn the bridge with Mikey and Jennet and Jones? We’ll see hehe 🤪 xoxo gossip girl

SHANE

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1UpF46NGRB-92jGSyhbOeRSAPgqImwT43

LINDSAY

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1901p_EYd1N_iKGJKG6YeMTbedcGPcYNW/view?usp=drivesdk

[spookcon]

Flight Rising Drabbles

“Hi!!!!!!!! Im cooper and I write maybe ill do something teehee!!” ((messes around and ignores account for MONTHS.))

Well lets get this thing sorted now. Why not add some of my spicy writin’? ➳ ONE MUST KNOW better than to listen to the rambles of a madman, however, in the case of Arion- one must know better than to listen to the rambles of a sane man. With an altered state of mind at best, and the tendencies of a young murderer in the making at worst. Arion is good with thinking, but not good at speaking the words he wishes to speak. Just as his face suggests, he speaks in snake-ish hisses and he moves like his slithering cousins. Arion is highly proficient in the area of intelligence and mind- a good one to have on the team, but not one to have to fight. ⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚　˚୨୧⋆｡˚ ⋆ SPEAKING IN COLORS and tones comes easy to one Uthril. Her butterfly-like appearance and choice of color makes her almost alien at times. She moves easily through battle, not finding it difficult- however most times she doesn’t actually fight. Often just there to enjoy the fire show of her fellow dragons, finding their flashes and boasts impressive. Her main pride and joy is her abilities with nature’s worst and most abominable creations.  ♚ A MOTHER OF ONE and almost professional trinket collector, Karal is one of the first to join Lovis Lac clan. During her wanderings she found the small hide and took a liking to it. Karal is the Tank of the lot, using her body (which is outfitted with thick scales) as a shield for many- however her imposing figure alone is good enough to be quite the scare for any potential enemies. She isn’t just all a hard and scary figure though, she cares for the young of the clan, having a soft spot for all that is smaller than herself. Karal is one of the leaders of the small clan, ensuring it keeps its tight knit qualities. ♛ THE FIRST TO BRING Lovis Lac to life was one “Apollo”. Apollo fought tooth and nail to clear out the small area of land that belonged to the Shadowbinder. Scars of his battles still lay scattered upon his body, they are very much clear and Apollo uses them as conversation starters in most cases. He is not as old as he acts, only around middle aged for dragons, but his mind is apparently elderly. Apollo is a vicious fighter, his brute strength and high vitality make him a danger to deal with.  ❧ VAULTER OF THE STARS Cassini is one of the youngest and most peppy of the group. She says she was brought by the tears of a star, but in reality she was simply hatched in a strange mix of the astral and physical plane. Cassini is not one to fight- actually afraid of battle and fighting, seeing it as something that should be a last resort. She is the one to bring most strange things back home, once retrieving an armored spider back to the den (much to Uthril’s delight and to Arion’s horror). She spins many great tales, most of which are unbelievable and feature her as the main character. ☙ HOLDING SHINY OBJECTS and carpenter bees’ honey dear is Hessiss, the eldest of the hatchlings (and most recently grown up!) in the clan. Able to form sentences and request certain items, she has outgrown her hatchling babbling. Now able to fight- Hessiss is still learning how to fight, but she has taken to her rank as a shield well. Hessiss was originally left to perish in the Driftwood drag, but she was found by Karal and helped back to the safety of the den. Something she was clearly glad for as she grew. ☛ SHARP WITTED and even sharper tongued, is Mercury. With a body blanketed in hypnotic patterns and words of honey, he is the winner of most (if not all) arguments held. During battle, he mostly uses magic and defense tactics- often only there to watch his follow dragons lose or win and he prides himself in avoiding physical fights. Prone to finding himself in drama or arguments, Mercury has become a target of gangs and higher ups alike. While he came to Lovis Lac for sanctuary, it appears his love for attention and need for engaging arguments and conversation, has brought many weird characters and trouble following him. ಥ YOUNG AND STILL STUMBLING is Jupiter, as clumsy as he is fluffy- he is one to get himself into disasters. While as small as he is, he has learned that speech is not something that is too hard for him, able to speak easily. He is the second eldest of the hatchlings, still one minute shy of being the same age as Hessiss. He ran to the clan in a state of pain and terror, purple eyes wide with an unknown fear and fur tangled with twigs and leaves. Being a gaoler, it was strange to see him not with his parents or running about.  ✿ THE MOST RECENTLY HATCHED member of the Lavis Lac is Altair. Still shaking off the shell of her egg and stumbling into the arms of Apollo and Karal, she is the first hatchling the couple have sired. She will most likely not be the last though. Karal carries her about often, scooped close to her chest. She is still just opening her eyes to the safety of the den- and is not ready for much beyond that, but with many different dragons in the clan, she will likely find more to the world quicker than most. 🖾 RESIDENT PRETTY BOY Erostle could be almost more full of himself than Mercury- and he wouldn’t be blamed for it, his eye catching appearance is one to be desired. Luckily he was raised to not be as vain as he could be. While he is still working on a battle technique, Erostle seems to have taken after Uthril, fighting as if the world was just a haze around him. One for dramatic gestures- if you ask Erostle to present something, he will be sure to make quite the show of the object. Blessed be the poor dragon who catches his attention, as he is also known to confess to quite literally anything in fantastical dramatics. ╰☆╮ ONE OF THE SMALLER hatchlings is Galileo, he is almost the youngest at only one day old. His fervent wonder for anything above our own world shows in his constant stumbles outside. Galileo often cannot sleep if he isn’t able to look outside at the stars. Too caught up in the clouds to pay attention to battle training, it is likely Galileo will be one to not fight. Found staring at a glowing mushroom right outside of the den, Galileo was adopted on the spot, guided into the den by Apollo. ✪ SMALL AS WELL and just barely older than her brother Galileo, Venus is already one for attention. Taking after Mercury- the one who found her not too far away from Galileo, Venus squeaks along to arguments as if they were music and often falls asleep to the sounds of fights beginning to bubble over. Already trying (and thankfully failing) to use spells, she will likely be the one to both start and finish fights. Venus brings chaos and fun to the den of Lovis Lac.