#most of the hacking or at least the most serious aspects of it were done by bruno in s1

[fantasticstoryteller]

New Amsterdam Chapter 108

Peter whirled to face the speaker. The girl, Angel, stood on the side of the building, wind rustling through the feathers on her wings as she looked at him with curiosity. “How?” he asked, first question to run through his head.

She shrugged. “I have super hearing,” she explained, “and I’m always—attuned? Is that the right word?—to the sound of your voice. And Wade’s voice,” she added.

“Ah.” Peter fidgeted. He both wanted to ask for her help and scream at her to go home. She was way too young for this hero business—but then, he had been too. “Did you figure out what laid eggs in the sewers?” he asked.

She shrugged. “Nah. They’re just going to hatch. I don’t think they’re a threat—well, not to anything other than sewer rats.”

Peter shuddered. He knew way too much about the city’s sewer rats. “Have you seen Wade?” he asked.

“Not today,” Angel answered breezily. She tilted her head to the side, watching him through narrowed eyes. “Why?”

Peter explained what his aunt had done. “And now I need to find him,” he said.

Angel nodded. “This is going to sound strange,” she said cautiously, “but why do you need to find him so badly? He thinks you went out for eggs, right?”

“Right,” said Peter thoughtfully.

“Right.” Angel’s wings flipped lazily for a moment as she considered. She looked back at Peter. “What’s the nearest store that sells both eggs and poblano peppers?” she asked.

Peter blinked. “What?” he asked.

“Wade’s favorite food is Mexican,” Angel explained. Peter nodded; he knew that. “Poblano peppers are one of the most commonly used ingredients in Mexican food. I don’t think he even sees stores that don’t sell them.”

That made a lot of sense, actually. He didn’t want to think too hard about why Angel knew that, but it made sense. “Timon’s,” he said firmly before swinging away. He heard the thundering of wings behind him as she shot through the air following him.

Timon was a second-generation immigrant whose family had, quite literally, built the store from scratch—using debris from buildings around the area because aliens invading New Amsterdam was not a new phenomenon. The store was small. The store was sturdily built. And Timon had contacts that got him the freshest everything and everybody loved his store.

Timon also knew Peter. Back when he was a kid, every time he went into the store the man would give him a cookie filled with pineapple. When Peter became Spiderman, he’d stopped several huge pieces of debris from falling on the cherished store. He liked to think the man would understand what Peter was about to ask him, but he wasn’t sure.

Peter ducked into the small store and the bell above the door rang to announce his presence. “Coming!” Timon’s heavily accented voice called. (The man could speak with the same accent any New Amsterdamer could, but chose to cultivate the accent.)

“Hey, Timon!” Peter said nervously, not sure of the reaction he was going to get.

Timon’s dark face lit up. “Spiderman!” he said, all traces of his foreign accent gone. “Welcome! How can I help you?”

Wow. That was—a surprisingly positive reaction. Encouraged Peter said, “I’m looking for a friend of mine. Huge, red, swords on his back?”

“Deadpool!” Timon said, just as excitedly. “Oh, he saved my baby girl last week!”

“Is she all right?” asked Peter, worried.

“Eh, nothing that won’t heal,” Timon said dismissively. “Much better than it could have been. He stopped by earlier—is your friend sick?” Not noticing the shock on Peter’s face (thank goodness for the mask) he continued, “He collapsed and someone had to help him on his way.”

Before Peter could say anything, Angel spoke up. “Do you have cameras?” she asked. “Could we see? If we know who helped him, we’ll know where to look.”

“Of course, of course,” Timon said. “Come with me!” he led them to the office in the back of the little store that the security equipment hooked up.

As Timon was pulling up the video Peter realized that Angel had never said that Wade wasn’t being helped. She’d never said that he was the kind of person who simply didn’t collapse. She’d left Timon with the impression that that they were looking for him because he was ill.

Angel, Peter was coming to realize, was scary.

Peter put his thoughts aside as he watched Wade bend down by a hunched figure on the sidewalk. Watched as something happened to Wade and he began to collapse. Watched as suspiciously familiar multi-jointed metal arms sprang from the figure’s back to wrap up Wade and carry him like a small child.

No. It couldn't be.

But it was. He’d recognize those arms anywhere; he’d helped Dr. Octavius with the algorithms to make them work. And they’d been used to kidnap his boyfriend.

“Thanks, Timon,” Angel said. “We know where to go now.”

“Ah, no problem,” Timon said. “We gotta stick together, eh? I hope your buddy feels better soon.”

“He will,” Angel promised as she gently guided a stunned Peter out of the store.

Dr. Octavius had kidnapped Wade. That meant that Oscorp wanted him for—something. Peter wasn’t aware of any projects the company was working on that would require kidnapping Deadpool. Then again, Peter wasn’t privy to all aspects of the company; there were several bits that were under the direct supervision of Norman. Which meant—kidnapping Wade was a Norman level decision.

He was going to have to hack into the company’s system and find out why. He didn’t want to; he was terrified of what would happen if Norman figured out he did it; but he had to know why and where Wade was taken. He pulled out his phone and made a quick call.

“How can I help you, Mr. Parker?”

As usual, the AI’s voice made Peter grin. “Hey, you remember how you said that you were still looking for a way into the Oscorp mainframe? There’s about to be a breach.”

A moment of silence on the other end of the call. “Mr. Parker, I do not want you to commit a crime for this,” JARVIS told him firmly.

“They took Wade,” Peter said flatly.

Another moment of silence.

“Sir has several new, untraceable rockets in his arsenal. Would you like me to bomb them to the ground?”

Angel’s face turned bright red and she collapsed to the ground, shaking. Peter had the odd idea she was trying not to interrupt his call. “I, uh, don’t actually think there’s a need for that,” Peter hedged.

“Not to worry, Mr. Parker,” JARVIS drawled cheerfully. “I will endeavor to ensure there are no warm bodies in the building first.” Click.

Angel burst out laughing, tears streaming down her face. “I love him!” she squeaked.

Peter gave a weak smile. “Are you busy?” he asked. “Can you help?”

“Hmm. Well, the street children are holed up in their safe place deciding their future and the army gathering under the streets won’t be ready to try and take over New Amsterdam for at least two more days—so, yeah. I can help.”

Peter stared at her for a moment. “Shouldn’t you be trying to do something about that army?” he asked, curiously.

“You would think, but no. Trust me,” Angel said completely serious, “the best way to minimize loss of life here is to let the army commit itself and then chop off the head. Metaphorically speaking, of course.”

“Of course,” Peter echoed weakly. He’d have to assume she knew what she was talking about; he needed to rescue Wade. “Let’s go,” he said.

[songtoyou]

Letting Go

Paring: Steve Rogers x Reader/You

Rating: PG

Warnings: Swearing

Word Count: 1,616

Description: Steve and you are assigned in pairs for a team exercise. The task is to come up with positive solutions to a negative experience. 

A/N: I don’t know where I was going with this drabble exactly. I just wanted to write another Steve and Reader one-shot.

I don’t permit any of my fics to be posted anywhere else on the Internet without my permission

Note: This story has been updated for edits of grammar and punctuation.

“So, due to a slight altercation the other day, I think it would be best if we all partake in some team-building exercises,” Pepper announced to the group, which consisted of the original six Avengers, plus Sam, Wanda, Vision, and you.

You could not believe how you got the job position. You were not an enhanced individual, nor did you have any combat skills. Heck, you were not even a scientist. No, what got you the job helping the Avengers were your computer hacking skills that rivaled Daisy Johnson. It was Fury who sought you out. 

“You have made quite a name for yourself. Not only are you on the FBI’s most dangerous hacker list, but you made it onto the CIA’s, Shield’s, and I suspect Hydra’s as well. How about you use those skills for good?” Fury pitched to you.

That was about two years ago. With you primarily staying behind the scenes, it was your job to help guide the Avengers on missions. You were always “buzzing” in their ears, as Tony affectionately put it. Your task was to keep everyone safe and make sure they had the right information. They were not only your teammates but family as well. And with family comes arguments and fights about stupid things such as taking someone’s blueberry Pop-Tarts without asking. 

You raised your hand to get Pepper’s attention. “Pepper, I just would like to reiterate that the whole altercation, if that is what you want to call it, that occurred in the kitchen was Thor’s fault.”

“Y/N, we are not here to point blame on anyone,” Pepper clarified with a sigh.

“Uh, excuse me, Lady Y/N, but I told you time and time again that I was not the one to take your Pop-Tarts,” Thor defended himself.

“That is bullshit! You are the only one besides me that eats those. No one else! It was you! Do you have any idea how hard it is to find non-frosted blueberry Pop-Tarts? They’re almost impossible to find!” You were shouting now. 

“What the fuck! Are we stuck doing this due to fucking Pop-Tarts?” Clint yelled. His annoyance was evident on his face, similar to everyone else.

“Tony, I got to back to the lab. Do I really need to be here for this?” Bruce asked quietly.

“If I am stuck here having to do this, then so are you,” whispered Tony. He had to stick around to be supportive of Pepper. 

Pepper remained neutral. If she was annoyed or frustrated, the woman did not show it on her face. ‘This woman needs to be canonized,’ you thought.

“Look, everyone here is a team member. So, it is standard to do team-building exercises every once in a while. Whether the incident in the kitchen occurred or not, it is a good idea for all of you to partake in these exercises to help grow as a team,” Pepper informed calmly. “I’m going to pair everyone in teams of two: Thor and Sam. Vision and Tony. Wanda and Natasha. Clint and Bruce. Steve and Y/N. The name of this exercise is winter/loser. Partner A will share with Partner B something negative that in happened in their life. Now, this can be work-related or personal; however, it must be true. Partner B will help Partner A focus only on the positive aspects of the experience. The purpose is to help reframe our negative situations into learning experiences. I’ll give you guys twenty minutes, then we can reconvene as a group for the next exercise,” Pepper instructed the group.

You got up and walked over to Steve. You gave him a small smile, which he returned. Steve always made you nervous whenever you were around him. He was not only intimidating but devastatingly handsome. You never really talked to Steve outside of missions. You both did not have much in common as it would appear. You two were literally from different times. Steve was very conservative and a bit stuffy, while you preferred to be opinionated and outgoing.

“How about we go to my office? It’s quieter in there,” Steve suggested, and you followed him out of the conference room.

 Steve’s office reflected his personality. It was clean and organized—nothing out of place. One thing you noticed about Steve was his need to always be in control. Ushering you to take a seat at the table by the window, you obliged. 

“Do you want to go first?” Steve asked.

“Not really,” you stated honestly. “I’m not really in the mood to talk about the negative experiences I have endured. I like to put them in a box and bury them deep inside my soul,” you said with a hint of sarcasm in your voice.

Steve sighed. “Y/N, be serious for once,” he scolded.

You scoffed. “I am serious. Why don’t you go first?” When you saw the hesitation in Steve’s eyes, you clocked him on it. “See, it’s not that easy. You don’t want to go down that road either.”

The two sat in uncomfortable silence, with neither wanting to speak up. 

“Okay, how about we go about this a different way,” Steve suggested.

“I’m listening.”

Steve got up from the table to retrieve a piece of paper and pen. “How about instead of relaying our bad experiences, we look at ways to overcome them,” Steve said as he wrote a title on the piece of paper, ‘How to Let Go of Negative Thoughts.’

“You serious?” you asked.

“Do you have any better suggestions? I am actually trying to turn this into a positive experience for us.”

You knew Steve had the right idea. So instead of giving him an attitude, you decided to be a team player. “I think when it comes to dealing with negative experiences, the first thing a person should do is to choose to let it go.”

“That is good. Okay, what else?” Steve asked as he wrote down the first step. Writing things down helps to get something off your chest,” Steve recommended and wrote that down as well when he saw your approval.

“Playing the blame game never solves anything. How about live in the present? Focusing on the past never helps anyone, would you agree?”

Steve could sense to prying tone in your voice, so he merely wrote down the new step. After a while, the two of you came up with a list of ten steps:

1.) Make the Choice

2.) Write it Down

3.) Stop Blaming

4.) Live in the Moment/Present

5.) Be Empathetic

6.) Surround Oneself with Positive People

7.) Stop Replaying the Bad Experience

8.) Transform Painful Memory into Something Good

9.) Make a List of How You Can Control the Situation

10.) Focus on the Future

“I have to say, Rogers, that this is quite a list you helped come up with; you really are a good leader, you know,” You told him. 

In all honesty, you admired Steve. He was the embodiment of what a good person show strives to be. 

“I could not have done without your help, Y/N.”

“Can I share my negative experience with you?” You asked Steve sheepishly. 

He motioned for you to go ahead. After you let out a sigh, you went along. “When I was in fourth grade, one of my classmates told me that this boy liked me and that he wanted to be my boyfriend. I was shocked because no one paid attention to me. Least of all, boys. So, I was excited. I was happy. However, that turned out to be all lie. The guy who claimed he liked me came up to me and said it was not true. It was a prank. I was devasted. Not so much of not having the boy like me, it was feeling of being used as a joke that bothered me.”

Steve leaned in closer to you and placed his large hand on tops of yours. “The same thing has happened to me. Too many times to count,” Steve confessed.

“Why are people such assholes, Steve? I don’t get it. Like, it is not that hard to be a decent human being.”

“Apparently, for some folks, it is. Can I confess something to you? You have to promise not to get upset,” requested Steve.

“What is it?” You enquired, raising one of your eyebrows.

Taking a deep breath, Steve went on to say, “I was the one to eat your Pop-Tarts. I’m sorry. I had just gotten done at the gym, and it was late. I was tired, and I didn’t want to make anything. So, I saw those blueberry Pop-Tarts, and they just looked delicious…”

You shook your head. You were not precisely angry at Steve but more amused. “Steve Rogers, I will give you this one pass. But don’t you ever eat my Pop-Tarts ever again,” You reprimanded him in a nonthreatening tone. 

All of a sudden, the two of you busted out laughing. “Ugh, now I have to eat crow and apologize to Thor. We should head back to the conference room anyways,” You said, standing up from the table with Steve following you.

Before you reached the door to open it, Steve spoke up, “Hey, how about I take you to the store so you can restock on Pop-Tarts. I know a place that carries the unfrosted blueberry ones.”

You happily accepted his offer. “Do you want to get coffee as well? Don’t worry; I’m not suggesting Starbucks. I know a place in Brooklyn that has excellent coffee, and they aren’t too pricey.”

“I like that idea,” he replied as he led you out of his office and towards the conference room with the other Avengers.

[thanksjro]

Spotlight: Trailcutter - Trailcutter Threatens to Kill Several People For a Good Noodle Star

The Spotlight issues- the one-shots that focus on a single character in an effort to get readers interested in them (and sell toys, of course)- are a funny thing. The ones relating to MTMTE characters within the timeline of MTMTE’s events were written nearly a year after the events during which they are set.

The Spotlights as a whole don’t stick in my brain terribly well, and that’s probably because when I first read IDW’s run back in 2016, I went by publication dates instead of story chronology. I don’t think that really leaves itself for a properly cohesive reading experience, at least not in this particular case. It doesn’t help that a lot of the other ones weren’t super awesome reads, in my opinion. Spotlight: Cyclonus isn’t exactly my favorite thing, for example.

The Scavengers storyline gets interrupted anyway with the Annual, so I figure I might as well slot these in here as well. Really, I should have covered this between MTMTE #5 and #6. Well, technically, I don’t have to do anything in any order, but it’s what I would have preferred.

Anyway, let’s see what's up.

Looks like the Lost Light’s seen better days. It’s had a hole punched in the side of it, and Trailbreaker’s been asked to use his forcefields to keep the vacuum of space from doing its thing while all the Headmasters slap some duct tape on the rip.

No, they aren’t actually Headmasters in this continuity, but it’s not often Highbrow gets to exist in the story proper, so I figured I’d take advantage of that.

Rodimus, impressed by the quick response to the damage, decides he’s going to hold a little ceremony for the boys- not Trailbreaker though, because I guess nobody told Rodimus he’d pitched in too.

Soak it in, Highbrow, because this is the closest thing to main character status you’ll be getting this whole comic run. Be mindful up there now, because if Chromedome turns too fast he’ll take your head clean off with those massive shoulders.

Each of them receive a Rodimus Star, a medal with Rodimus’ face on it signifying that the owner has done something exemplary to earn it. It is in no way shaped like a star.

Trailbreaker, bummed out that he wasn’t recognized for the work he put in, decides to drown his sorrows at Swerve’s, which at this point is still technically not on the up and up and is running illegally. Unfortunately for Trailbreaker, the afterparty is also being hosted here, so he’s not actually escaped anything.

Off to the side, Chromedome and Brainstorm are chatting with Tailgate, who notes the theming of the award-winners’ names, and thinks it’s very funny. Chromedome explains that they’re actually nicknames, from when they all worked together.

Back at Trailbreaker’s table, he’s trying to keep himself entertained, when Whirl happens. Whirl, being Whirl, makes a rude comment about his face, claiming he has an expression he makes whenever he uses his forcefields. Trailbreaker denies this, but he totally does.

Whirl asks what’s eating at Trailbreaker, not that he really cares, and after a bit of hemming and hawing, finds out that Trailbreaker’s really bothered by the fact that he was the only one on the repair team that didn’t get a star. As it turns out, Rodimus has been passing these things out like hotcakes, because Whirl’s got one too. Pretty much everyone but Trailbreaker has a star at this point.

Whirl decides to cut out the middle man and yells at Rodimus to get his McDonald’s-looking butt over here and proceeds to cut to the heart of the matter.

Implying that Drift doesn’t already have twenty Rodimus stars for just existing.

C’mon Rodimus, just give him a star. You obviously ordered way too many if you’ve given one to Whirl by this point, and Trailbreaker’s obviously feeling low.

Whirl, not satisfied with this answer, decides to inflict his special brand of help on Trailbreaker, and decides that it’s time for a little self-improvement.

But y’know. Not like he really cares.

Totally.

The first step in the Whirl Self-Help program is to throw away your old identity while insulting/infatuating over Ultra Magnus.

Now the Spotlight subtitle makes a lot more sense. Trailbreaker/Trailcutter is one of the many characters within the Transformers franchise who suffers from trademark issues, which is why he’s got more than one name. We’ll see him flipflop between the two in MTMTE- or rather, other characters flipflop between them- OR RATHER Roberts flipflop between them.

As is, Whirl takes to the change immediately, probably because he himself has gone through the process in the past.

So, talking yourself up is the next step, but Trailcutter doesn’t really want to reinvent himself, per se; he just wants to be a little more than the guy who does forcefields. He wants people to see him for him, y’know?

Whirl thinks the answer to this conundrum is to get Trailcutter a gun.

They go find Brainstorm, who’s currently busy trying to figure out just what exactly the ship hit to punch such a big hole in it. They’ve brought in the big metal something, and he, Perceptor and a couple other nerds are giving it a good once-over.

As Whirl gushes over Brainstorm’s many inventions- lot of love coming from Whirl this issue- Brainstorm questions Trailcutter’s desire to get into traditional weaponry, seeing as he’s got some sweet stuff going on already, namely the forcefield thing and the magnawheels, which we’ll get to see in action later.

Trailcutter leaves to go take a depression nap.

When he gets to his room, he finds his roommate, Hoist, to be absent. Hoist is off on his own adventure, which is covered in his very own Spotlight. Of course, because Trailcutter is playing the buttmonkey today, he still doesn’t get left alone, as he receives a call from Swerve, who’s probably super jazzed that he’s not the most beat-down character on the ship for once.

Swerve’s supposed to be doing a sponsored silence in exchange for a Rodimus star, but he’s find it very difficult, thanks to the whole “cannot shut the hell up” thing. Swerve, much like everyone with teeth in this issue, looks like he’s got a retainer in, showing that little bit of artistic license off as he asks Trailcutter for a favor.

And on that note, let’s take a brief look at the artist for this issue, Matt Frank.

Frank’s only worked on a couple other things within Transformers, one of which being the second half of the Animated comic “First (and Second) in Flight.” His style is very different from our regular artist, Alex Milne. While Milne seems to prioritize the more technical aspects of the Transformers designs, even in the relatively streamlined looks for MTMTE, Frank’s art is much more simplified, almost soft-looking. Characters look as if their faces would squish if you grabbed them by the cheeks. There’s a lot of expression, almost to the point of looking straight-up cartoonish. While I’m not sure that this style would have worked with the more serious storylines of this series, I think it’s a shame that this was the only entry from Frank that we got to see. It’s a little funky in spot, but I like how emotionally open it feels, if that makes sense.

Getting back to the story, Trailcutter hangs up on Swerve and plugs in for beddy-bye, wishing that he were a normal dude and that everyone would just shut up about his forcefields.

See, I told you- depression nap.

Trailcutter, feeling that something’s up- both with the ship and himself- heads out to find a friend. What he finds instead is profoundly disturbing.

Clearly there is a dark evil at work, if Huffer’s smiling. He shouldn’t be able to DO that.

Trailcutter wanders around the ship, finding more of the same strangeness going on: everyone is frozen in place, even Rodimus as he yells at Rewind over those snuff films Red Alert found, firmly setting this issue for having happened right before issue #6.

Trailcutter heads back to his room, and is about to answer a call from Hoist- who is still on that mission from before naptime- when a laser blast explodes his monitor.

Zounds! Some Decepticons have snuck aboard the Lost Light, and they’re looking for trouble. Thinking quickly, Trailcutter pops out of his hiding spot to forcefield the pair… except he doesn’t, because something’s wrong. His forcefields aren’t working.

The art’s a little hard to follow here, but it looks like Trailcutter just ripped Whirl’s tit-guns off and used them to shoot that guy. Radical.

With the enemy fully distracted, Trailcutter jumps over a chair and bolts for the exit, using his magnawheels and showing us exactly why they’re called that.

They’re wheels that act as magnets. That’s why.

He hacks the door to the medibay and uses it to kill a man, crushing his head, then gets the other guy with a pair of resuscitation pads. Day’s saved! Good job, Trailcutter!

Just kidding, we still have another half of this issue to get through.

The guy Trailcutter just knocked out with medical equipment gets a call. Good thing Trailcutter’s good at impressions.

Turns out, there’s a LOT of Decepticons on the Lost Light at present, and they’re after something in the shuttle bay. Looks like Trailcutter’s got some work to do. Might as well set yourself up for success, huh pal?

Gee, Brainstorm, wonder how much of all this nonsense is your fault. I’m going to guess at least all of it.

Trailcutter stocks up on the heroic necessities, and heads over to shuttle bay 3.

Lockdown’s here, and he’s brought a third of the villain lineup from Transformers Animated with him. Trailcutter brings on the bravado, dumping the two Decepticons he took out earlier on the floor and asking just what the hell these guys think they’re doing on his ship.

Lockdown isn’t terribly impressed.

Trailcutter, what the actual, genuine fuck is that even supposed to mean?

Stealing Whirl’s little talking-up speech, Trailcutter frames himself as friggin’ death incarnate, again not impressing Lockdown very much. Honestly, Lockdown just wants to grab that big ol’ something the Lost Light ran into yesterday and go.

That big ol’ something, you see, is a Titan thumb, and Lockdown and his crew are in the business of Titan hunting. Trailcutter makes it pretty clear that he’s not going to let them take the thing, seeing as Lockdown and his goonies are probably going to use it for nefarious purposes, and so seals himself in the role of the hero for the evening. He informs the Decepticons of his claim to fame, even though his forcefields still aren’t working, then pulls a little magic trick by turning off the artificial gravity for the room, claiming it to be the work of his highly-specialized skills. He lets them go up… then lets them come back down, hard.

Then Trailcutter ramps up the psychological manipulation significantly, using his anime eyes to convince Lockdown that he’s planted a tiny forcefield within his spark, and that he’s fully capable of letting it expand until it rips said spark asunder.

Lockdown and company get the fuck away from Trailcutter as fast as they possibly can, completely terrified and also maybe just the slightest bit flustered by our forcefield specialist. Once they’re out of sight, Trailcutter allows himself a moment to reflect on a job well done.

ARE YOU FUCKING-

Roberts, please, we can’t keep doing this. The sad, proud smiles, I can’t take them.

Trailcutter plops down in the captain’s chair to take a load off, only to get spooked by the hand of Rodimus clapping down on his shoulder.

Later on, Hoist’s returned from his mission to their room, and Trailcutter regales him with his tale of derring-do. Turns out that everyone being frozen was absolutely Brainstorm’s fault, and the only reason Trailcutter wasn’t affected was because he was sleep-forcefielding.

Of course, we can’t just let the guy be happy, now can we?

Okay. I looked it up, and it turns out, the British use “snap” when they’re in a situation where they’ve got the same X as another person, i.e. two people show up wearing the same outfit to an event, or some such. It comes from a matching card game. In America, we say “snap” as an exclamation, like “wow!” or “Jesus Christ!” or “dangit!” Snap is a very versatile word in the States. So there’s your little culture lesson for the day.

Trailcutter, sinking back into his sour mood from earlier, decides to go get plastered, because he has a drinking problem, but not before he goes to make a threat on Rodimus’ life over a goddamn sticker. Thus ends dear Trailcutter’s Spotlight.

[hellzyeahwebwielingessays]

The Not-So-Amazing Mary Jane Part 28: AMJ #3.2

Previous Part

Next Part

Master Post

As with issue #2 (and all future posts) I advise you to read the prior instalment as I’m not going to recap the first half of the issue again here.

Moving on, we finally get to meet these new crewmembers. They consist of:

H.E.R.B.I.E. 1.05, a version of the F4’s robot buddy

Screwball, a “… self-styled as a performance artist and the world's first live-blogging super-villain. She was an Internet personality and social-media attention monger to such an extent that she committed crimes on camera.”

And Master Matrix. He's a whole mess. Basically he is the world’s most powerful LMD, and a highly dangerous weapon. He views Spider-Man and Deadpool as his ‘fathers’ in a weird way.

Beck starts to justify the hires, but MJ says that if they believe in the project as she does and have earnest intentions then she’ll reserve judgement.

Screwball tells McKnight that she’s leaked some fake photos to mislead the Savage Six and buy them some time. With that McKnight is eager to get to work.

Let me be upfront about this, I know little about HERBIE or Master Matrix. I’m not an F4 expert and I never bothered with the Spidey/Deadpool ongoing. So I will admit that maybe I’m missing some important context here. My research on the Marvel.wiki didn’t yield any results on who HERBIE 1.05 is beyond him maybe being the regular version of HERBIE. And last I checked the regular HERBIE wasn’t a bad guy. Master Matrix in contrast seems to have been a morally ambiguous character initially but grew to be a good guy. He has a kill switch he willingly handed over to SHIELD just in case he ever went rogue.

So 2/3 of them are perfectly fine. I don’t even know how much MJ would know about HERBIE or Master Matrix. However, Screwball?

Screwball is a straight up criminal. Not an especially dangerous one granted, perhaps not even a D-lister. But a criminal nonetheless. MJ has seen her before, as she witnessed Superior Spider-Man assaulting her on TV in Superior Spider-Man v1 #6.

Realistically, given how horrified MJ was by the incident you’d imagine it’d stick in her mind. Additionally, given how Screwball is an attention monger and very into social media I’d imagine MJ would have some awareness of who she is. MJ herself is very up-to-date with the latest trends and would be plugged into modern pop culture and social media.

However, for the sake of argument let’s say MJ doesn’t remember Screwball at all. Let’s say she’s never heard of HERBIE or Master Matrix. Given how in the first issue she was taking note of the criminal and super powered crewmembers, wouldn’t she at least suspect these people might be shady? Wouldn’t she double-check somehow that they are legit? It all leads back to the same complaints I made between my coverage of issues #1-2. She’s not even checked that Beck is out and about legally for God’s sake!

What’s so much worse is that the story acknowledges  that these hires might be shady. Beck is concerned MJ will have reservations. MJ decides to reserve judgement.

This means she doesn’t fully trust them, that she acknowledges they might  be sketchy.

And her conditions for reserving judgment depend upon even shakier criteria.

How the Hell can she tell in this singular moment, when she’s barely spoken to any of them, that any of these people:

a)     ‘Believe’ in the movie like she does?

Or

b)     Have earnest intentions?

She’s not verified any of them are reformed or on probation. She’s got no idea what they are fully capable of or if they are on the run.

Once more she is engaging in blind faith. She is trusting the word of a super villain who’s entire skillset revolves around lying.

The final thing to take note of is the fact that the crew are actively avoiding the Savage Six; hence the new shithole location.

Um…why aren’t they just contacting the authorities or organizing protection for themselves?

SIX super villains just attacked them and want to do so again. That’s surely grounds to bring in the police or the West Coast Avengers or somebody.

Surely, MJ herself could arrange that.

Alright, maybe you could argue they want to avoid arousing suspicion because of their criminal crewmembers. But this leads back to the fact that MJ wouldn’t stand for criminals working on the movie and Beck wanted press attention for the movie anyway. In fact if a civilian like Diperna knows about the movie how do the press not? How could no one have noticed that there are super powered people and criminals working on the set?

Everyone should know that about the movie anyway, so why not bring in help from superheroes or the authorities for protection?

The answer lies in the fact that this story is incredibly half-baked and inconsistent.

I will also add that on a purely personal note I dislike 616 Screwball so just seeing her annoys me.

The next day filming has been delayed again because of bad weather. Mysterio decides they should shoot in the caves.

Filming inside some caves nearby an abandoned zoo whilst it’s raining. Seems like a health and safety nightmare doesn’t it?

If so then it’s yet more evidence of how vain and selfish Mysterio is.

Days later, we see some crewmembers intimidated by Screwball. Their conversation with her reveals she hacked someone’s private information and threatened them to deliver food to them.

MJ overhears this conversation and learns that, in order to evade the Savage Six, Screwball arranged an unmarked truck. MJ decides to solve the problem by contacting Peter and asking if he knows any teleporters in L.A.

Later, Cloak and Dagger show up and deliver food to the cast and crew.

*pinches bridge of nose again*

God, where to start with this?

So, Screwball has definitely committed a crime in the course of her role as production manager. Hacking someone’s cloud server is very much illegal and an invasion of their privacy.* Depending upon whether you believe her or the truck driver she might also have threatened the driver’s life.

Screwball admits to having done this and MJ over hears it. And yet MJ is still ‘reserving her judgment’? 

I guess earnest intentions+believing in a movie>>>>>>>>>>>harming people in Mj’s book right?...

...what the fuck Williams seriously…

But the stupidity goes another level when MJ contacts Peter so she can get super powered assistance.

Let me get this straight, MJ and Beck are on board with using superheroes to deliver food to them, but not as protection for actual super villains who want to hurt them?

And MJ in particular doesn’t feel she should let Peter or other heroes know about Mysterio or his criminal crewmembers. BUT she will still contact them for a far less serious reason?

Anyone still arguing that for MJ to ask for help would be reductive to her/female characters no longer has a leg to stand on. MJ just used super heroes to solve a problem for herself. Scratch that, she asked her super hero boyfriend to solve a problem for her. And by bringing in characters like Cloak, Dagger, HERBIE and Master Matrix AMJ has arguably invited the wider Marvel universe into the story too. At which point MJ has no end of options available to her to ensure Mysterio isn’t a danger. She just isn’t using them because Leah Williams Mary Jane is not the Mary Jane we’ve known and loved. She’s this weird facsimile with all her social skills and charm but none of her deeper moral convictions.

Finally, if Beck and MJ (hypothetically) aren’t getting protection because they have crooks on staff then why bring in super heroes at all? I admit we never see what crewmembers are in Cloak and Dagger’s line of sight, so arguably MJ asked the criminal crewmembers to scram. But a hint of that would’ve been nice.

As filming inside the cave proceeds we see the Spidey actor struggling with his lines. The scene depicts ‘Spidey’ saying ‘You’ve gone too far this time, Mysterio. Now it’s personal.’ Amidst a street full of injured/dead people.

Mallorie is playing one of the injured people.

First of all, Mallorie wasn’t an actor or extra earlier in the story. But I suppose it’s not uncommon for crewmembers to have small roles in movies and with a reduced cast it’s likely she was just filling in.

More problematically, the scene is clearly depicting the fact that Mysterio has hurt (even murdered) people in his past. He’s done stuff so bad that Spider-Man, a hero, has been personally enraged by his evil acts.

This is in the movie. It’s in the script. MJ read this. MJ is seeing this recreated.

This eviscerates  even the slightest remnant of deniability on MJ’s part. As I’ve argued in prior instalments, MJ SHOULD know Beck is a killer and a violent person. There was no denying that. But even if you were being wilfully ignorant or belligerently insisting only the events of this mini-series ‘counted’, the mini-series just spelled out for you that beck has seriously hurt people and that MJ knows  that.

But she is still allowing him to make his vanity project. She’s still letting him walk free. She’s still chummy with him. She’s still showing no sign at all that she’s going to make Beck face justice.

On the last pages the actor playing Spider-Man quits after a light falls nearby. This leaves Beck and MJ sad, wondering how they can finish the film without Spider-Man.

I have nothing to say about this beyond a heavy light falling inside a wet cave should’ve been an obvious health and safety concern.

So, that was Amazing Mary Jane #3, quite possibly the single worst issue of the entire series thus far.

Honestly, I’m going to soldier on through this series, but I’ve made my points.

There is no hope of fixing this series now.

Not because there couldn’t be a justifiable explanation (or several) that could address all the problems. But because it’s become plain to me that Williams will not provide them to us.

Williams frankly seems like someone who understands aspects of MJ as a character. She knows how to make those aspects shine.

But there are other aspects she so fundamentally doesn’t get that it debilitates any good she might’ve done.

And more poignantly, even within the context of the story she is telling she has been incredibly inconsistent and at times downright baffling.

She either needs a better editor or she might be someone who ultimately wasn’t a good fit for this character/story.

*It’s extra bad considering several years ago in real life there was a major news story about the private photos of celebrities being hacked, perhaps the most notorious example being Jennifer Lawrence. I’m like 99% sure Leah Williams heard about that because I  heard about that just from tumblr and I’m not someone who used to work in Hollywood nor do I work in the entertainment industry in any capacity.

P.S. How does Peter not know about the Savage Six?

Super villain attacks aren’t that common outside of New York city and the villains in question are predominantly associated with operating in NYC.

Three of them are very recurring enemies of his, one of which committed some very violent crimes during a traumatic recent event; the ‘Hunted’ storyline.

They attacked the set of another of his very recurrent enemies that his lover is working on.

None of this happened in a secluded location, it was all perfectly public.

So how on Earth does he not know about this? Why hasn’t he contacted MJ to ensure she’s okay? Why isn’t he riding down there to see if he can help her or trying to arrange his Avengers buddies to provide some protection?

The only answers are that MJ has lied about that again, Williams is mischaracterizing Peter indirectly or this story is badly written.

Previous Part

Next Part

Master Post

[dgcatanisiri]

I said I’d hoped to get this out by the end of the month. FINALLY, the next installment of my series of Hypothetical DLCs. 

Welcome to DG’s Listing of Wish These DLC Existed, where I theorize, speculate, and just kinda generally throw ideas at the wall about DLCs for games I love that never happened and never will happen, but damn, I’d like to see them anyway. 

Because I have ideas, I can’t get them made as mods, I don’t have time to make them into fic, and they’re never going to happen anyway, so why not put them up in a public place? After all, they’re tie ins to games I have no control over anyway, so it’s not like I’ll ever make money off of them anyway. And, as I’m not bound by any hardware limitations in terms of crafting ideas, or production cycles dictating when the game’s endpoint is, these can and do go on a great deal longer than the standard lifespan of a game.

A review of the format: There will be a name for the DLC, a brief synopsis, a reference to when this hypothetical DLC would become available/if and when it becomes unavailable, and then an expansion/write up of the ideas going in to them. Some ideas will have more expansion than others, because I’ve just plainly put more thought into them - in a lot of cases, I wrote them down just on the basis of ‘this idea seems pretty cool,’ and then gave them more context later on.

Feedback is welcome! Like an idea? Don’t like an idea? I welcome conversation and interaction on these ideas. Keep it civil, remember that these are just one person’s ideas, we can discuss them. Perhaps you’ll even help inspire a part two for these write ups! Because I do reserve the right to come up with more ideas in the future - these are the ideas that I’ve had to this point, but the whole reason this series exists is because I come up with new ideas for old stories.

With the KOTOR games both dealt with, we move on to the next category of the BioWare franchises, Mass Effect. This one took a while, considering the much more open-ended aspect of choices within the Mass Effect universe. And ME2′s edition is going to take a good long while as well, considering... Well, I’ll explain that when I get there. 

Anyway. Given the way that Mass Effect carries decisions forward, there is an additional category for the ideas within these editions, where there’s a brief summary of the way they will impact future games - granted, most of these are ME2 letters and ME3 war assets, but it’s still worth making a note of.

Also, given the context of ME1′s rather open-ended structure, where there aren’t really any serious plot breaks or boundaries that prevent advancement too soon, aside from Virmire and Ilos not being unlocked until events in the plot, assume that, unless otherwise noted, these DLCs are all available at any point after Shepard is made a Spectre and given command of the Normandy, and, obviously, must be played before Ilos. 

To business!

First Contact

As a Spectre and Alliance officer, Commander Shepard is called in when an Alliance team goes missing after reporting they had made contact with a new alien species. The Normandy is assigned to recover the team and establish peaceful relations if at all possible – yet there is a mystery here, one that the natives are not happy to welcome meddling in...

So, yeah, the basic idea here is simply that, with the whole Reaper thing, we don’t really get to see much of the more basic ideas of space exploration – big plot trounces little ideas. And first contact is as basic a concept for a scifi series as you can get. In my book, that’s the advantage of DLC in this series, to go for the smaller scale stories.

So let’s go into detail. We’re going to need a character to act as the exposition fairy – I vote that, at least in the briefing, this is coming from Pressley, so we can offer him a little more characterization and involvement (let’s honestly consider “Pressley gives a briefing that offers him more characterization, involvement, and general utilization” a thing for all of these, since he really doesn’t get a lot of usage in ME1, which is probably why he’s not really replaced on the Normandy after this game, and take this opportunity to give his character some expansion so that his death can mean a little more when ME2’s prologue goes down). He’s giving the baseline facts about why the Normandy is going in and handling this situation.

Obviously, the First Contact team has gone out of contact, and the Normandy is tasked to discover what has happened to them and make the best of the situation they end up in. I’m not locking this to after recruiting Liara, but I do picture her, Kaidan, and Ashley getting some fair use in any and all of these (a few in particular – we’ll get there when we get there), both because of their role as love interests and because of their general attitudes and thematic roles – Liara’s the wide-eyed idealist (considering her romanticizing of the protheans – any culture that refers to themselves as an “empire” is not going to be a peaceful collection of philosophers and scientists), Ashley’s the reasoned cynic, and Kaidan is something of the balance between them – cautious optimism and ready for if/when things go to shit.

The arrival finds Shepard and company on our new world (location to be decided – given Citadel rules on activating dormant Relays, it’s probably best that this is a planet within an already existing cluster, and we probably ought to put it somewhere within the boundaries of Alliance space, what with them taking lead on this first contact). The locals seem welcoming and friendly, but there’s a clear air of uncertainty – are they a threat, where’s the Alliance contact team, why are they acting like they know something that Shepard and crew don’t?

I know, we’re running the risk of retreading the ground of Feros and the thorian here, but, one, honestly, I like Feros, so I’m okay with revisiting it as a concept at least, two, it’s not like BioWare doesn’t recycle their own plots all the time anyway, even granting that they usually don’t do it within the same game, and three, I see it ending in a different place, so we’re going with this.

Anyway, investigation, suspicion, blah, blah, blah... I swear, the fun would be in the investigation, the building mystery, so I’m skipping over the work for the sake of a summary. The end result is that of course the natives killed the team, but the reason is because this is a group of descendants of a prothean subject race. They’d engaged in a revolt, adapted/stolen a colony ship, and flew off into the black, and done this right around the time of the initial stages of the Reaper invasion of the prothean empire – the protheans had bigger fish to fry (or be fried by, depending on how you use the metaphor), and given how proud the protheans are, I can see them covering this up in the name of saving face, both of which allowed these people to escape the notice of the Reapers – systematic destruction or not, finding one lone ship in the depths of space isn’t “needle in a haystack,” it’s “needle in the midwest.” It’d have been one thing if they’d found a planet to establish themselves on right away, but they dove into the black without a clear destination – also use this to emphasize WHY most Council explorations tend to stick to familiar clusters with an established Mass Relay nearby, that space is vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big.

As a detail for this race, I’m gonna include one of my headcanons for the protheans, since, hey, my DLC idea – while the protheans developed their technology around the Mass Relays and such, as the Reapers intended, the tech of their own design, without the influence of external powers, would have more of an organic bent to it, that they were more inclined to “grow” their tech than build it. Like they accepted the Mass Effect as a foundation for their tech, the Citadel as a base, but they weren’t all that happy about it, just never quite getting their own designs really match the designs of “inusannon” technology in effectiveness. So in response, this species turned towards cybernetics (maybe they’re members of the zha’til, to connect them having this knowledge with the tidbits Javik offers in ME3? *shrug* I’ll use them as the name for this species for simplicity’s sake, because that’s less awkward than no name at all, but I’m not married to it being them), to not just give them an edge against the protheans when they came after them, but also to serve as a taunt towards them, a statement of “you fear technology, so we’re going to become the personification of your boogeymen.”

So the survival of these zha’til has been their hidden nature, and they have developed into a pure xenophobic society – no aliens are accepted among them, and, with the appearance of Shepard’s team, they are fully of the belief that there will be those who come after. They can recognize that the appearance of outsiders once means it will happen again. And they will be ready – Shepard’s crew is a boon for them, allowing them access to biologies of not just humans, but asari, turian, krogan, and quarian. They’d prepared for the damage the protheans could do upon finding their retreat, spent fifty thousand years becoming something the protheans would have to fear. Of course, Shepard’s gonna have to ruin it. I can see them trying the ‘we’ll erase the coordinates, put up a warning buoy, ensure no one comes here’ argument, but that’s not flying with these guys, since organic nature tends towards curiosity, and just blanking the system would leave a mystery, one that organics would want to solve, and a warning buoy can malfunction or be ignored – they want total isolation, and, even if the odds are like one in trillions, that’s too high for them, so they’d sooner be the only life in the galaxy.

I’m thinking the solution is in their reliance on their tech, having attained this symbiosis with it that they all are implanted – tech can be hacked, it can malfunction, it can be a vulnerability as much as an asset. Going way back to the start of the involvement of Kaidan, Liara, and Ashley, here’s them all getting to voice their solution, with Ashley going the straightforward route of “they’re a threat, they’ll keep being a threat, they don’t want to change and stop being a threat, I don’t want to commit genocide, but I also want to defend the Alliance, and those options look mutually exclusive right now,” Liara is all “think of what they could offer us, their history is invaluable, they were contemporaries of the protheans, what might they know, and even if we have the ability to wipe out an entire species, that’s an action that can never be undone,” and Kaidan is the middle ground of “the leaders and people we’ve spoken to made a threat, but we can’t call the entire population of this planet genocidal maniacs, surely there must be something we can do to find a reasonable solution.”

It basically comes down to Shepard getting to hack the tech, and then faced with the decision – a) wiping them out by way of effectively setting all their implants to electrify themselves – they’ve shown themselves to be a threat, they have violent intentions towards other life in the galaxy, and nothing indicates that there is any dissent among their population, especially if their implants can allow for like planetary consensus or something, b) shutting down the tech, their greatest threat, as a way to keep most of them alive, but reducing their civilization to like Bronze Age – the Citadel races would certainly be willing to help the zha’til recover, but it’s not like they’d be happy to accept it, or c) use this as the way to force them to come to the table and negotiate in good faith, under the threat of destruction as a result of them using this weapon, give them a chance, with the downside being that they have done nothing to indicate that they deserve this chance, or that the second they develop a workaround, they’ll be back to threatening all alien life.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Letter from the head of a Council-approved research team, investigating the planet, with or without inhabitants.

ME3: Assuming the zha’til survive, a representative is on the Citadel, offering their aid. If they were reduced, they are a significantly smaller War Asset.

Investigations

The Citadel’s Wards house people from across the galaxy, and murder is a common occurrence. When the murder victim is a prominent Alliance politician, however, one whose controversial opinions made him a target for non-humans, the Alliance can only trust one person to investigate on the Citadel – the first human Spectre, Commander Shepard. 

Honestly, the Citadel could absolutely support its own game. Just the pieces we get of it from the trilogy and the Citadel DLC tease a massive station that probably has a population higher than some planets. So there’s A LOT to do here (indeed, looking over my notes for this, I have at least one DLC focused entirely on events on the Citadel in each game, and all of them can utilize entirely new areas, so...). And, really, who doesn’t enjoy an old-fashioned ‘whodunnit’ murder mystery?

Obviously, we have more than just the basic mystery happening here, or else we’d just have a standard sidequest, not a full DLC length story. I feel like this needs to go in depth on corruption within Citadel politics – poke around my blog, you’ll find I’m HIGHLY critical of the Council’s handling of the Saren matter, where they appoint a C-Sec officer with a reputation for not playing by the rules as the only investigator of the Eden Prime incident, give him roughly a day to look in to things, (Shepard’s out about sixteen hours, according to Doctor Chakwas, they arrive at the Citadel, get summoned to the Council, and encounter Garrus, at which point the trial is about to start, with no indication that more than hours at most have passed) and then TELL him that his investigation is over, Saren is allowed access to the files of the man he is accused of killing, an eye witness report of Saren’s murder of Nihlus is completely dismissed, while the data file Tali extracts from a geth, which Anderson says upon hearing that he’s never heard of this happening (to say nothing of the quarians’ status among the Citadel races) is deemed “irrefutable evidence”... There’s A LOT that is at best questionable about how the Council handles things. And that’s just sticking with the first game.

So I’d like to pull back some of the veil on Citadel politics, and use that to explore the human-alien friction. Due to Shepard’s rising profile throughout the series, we kinda lose a lot of the big level details of this, and it’s one of those things I like about the Mass Effect universe circa the first game – humanity ISN’T the big kahuna, they’re the latest arrivals, and the rest of the galaxy thinks they’re a bunch of jerks trying to take what they haven’t earned.

Hence where we start – our victim is an Alliance politician, someone who’s got one of those jobs that makes them friends and enemies of the same people. Obviously, this means that there are a lot of people on the Citadel (and outside the Citadel) who would easily be picked up as suspects – again, we’re going an investigative route, to help show off Shepard as a tactician, to show off their brains as well as their brawn.

This is going to lead us first to explore more of the Citadel Tower, the place where the Council and other assorted political figures meet. Udina probably plays a part in things, considering he IS the ambassador at this point, so he’ll probably be talking to Shepard about matters along the way, something of our regular check-in point (plus good to offer him some more characterization and expand him somewhat).

Obviously, with a murder mystery, we investigate through the location, taking us through the Tower and into its deeper structure, to the point that Shepard ends up in the Tower’s basement (or whatever we call the lowest level). Down here, the discovery is that there’s (what else) a conspiracy. Humanity is moving too fast – they’ve only been here for about thirty years and they already have an embassy, are angling for a spot on the Council, how long until they replace all the races who were here first on the Council, make the Citadel humans only?

I feel like we could also get some retroactive elements of Cerberus’s human supremacy in play here, suggest that our victim was being manipulated by them and used to advance their agenda – not just to foreshadow how Cerberus gains prominence in the next game, but also to show that even well-intentioned people are preyed upon by Cerberus’s actions (hello Paragon Shepard). Cerberus didn’t mind using him for their objectives, even if he’s not some pro-human bigot.

Speaking of, let’s tie in Terra Firma a little more into this – they seemed to have some influence in the first game, then drop off the face of the earth, so yeah, let’s throw them in somehow. Like I see that as part of our concluding decision, where the replacement political figure is one of their people, so they seem like the “obvious suspect” red herring – I think by this point we’ve established with these that one of my priorities is worldbuilding, and, again, Terra Firma dropped off the face of the series when it seemed to have developing prominence in the first game.

Anyway, back to the plot. Obviously, Shepard has to do something about this conspiracy. The problem is, of course, while extreme, they represent a dominant view among the Citadel races. And it’s one that has validity to it, humans are demanding more power than any other race in the Citadel’s history (this cycle, anyway, who knows about the previous ones?), and to these races, they are seen as aggressive in that pursuit.

Here’s the thing, and I’ve gone over this in my critiques of the Council before – humans are aggressive about getting more representation because of a handful of things. Number one, humans are out to advance, we recognize that we learn best from making mistakes, while the Citadel races seem to abide by a code of “none shall advance faster than the slowest.” That no advancement is made until all are “capable” of benefiting from it in certain ways, despite how we have the example of multiple species not even being able to compete on a level playing field with races like the asari, the salarians, or the turians – the volus are a client race of the turians, despite having been a part of the galactic community longer. It’s why we see the relative stagnation – the asari discovered the Citadel two thousand years ago, and yet so much of it is still a mystery.

Number two, humans are aggressive because the Citadel races were aggressive to them first. The First Contact War started because Citadel law is that no one shall activate dormant Mass Relays. Thing is, humanity opened Relay-314 at a time that they’d never even heard of the Citadel and its government. So the turians who opened fire first? They were holding humanity to the standards and rules and laws of a governmental body that they didn’t even know existed until the shooting started.

That the turians enforce this law so rigidly, and that the asari and salarians don’t seem to understand how much the asshole it makes them, is the honest source of a lot of the tension between the races in the game.

Like, I vehemently disagree with the racist attitudes of the Terra Firma asshole we meet, but he’s not wrong in pointing out that if you see a kid playing with a matchbook, you take the matches away, but you don’t shoot them for good measure. The turians started the conflict, and you can tell that the Citadel races never acknowledge their responsibility in this – it’s all “humans are so aggressive” without any understanding of why a species whose introduction to the greater galaxy came at a cost of life and involved acts of violence inflicted on them, literally on the basis of information that by definition, they could not have, just MIGHT hold a grudge.

...So, uh, bringing this back around to the topic at hand... This is where we get to the central conflict. Our Terra Firma assholes who are all “Earth first!” have a valid point that the Council and the Citadel races mistreat humanity, and wrap it up in condescending bullshit, so the fact that they’re looking to take some kind of action to do something about this is understandable, even if they’re doing it wrong. The opposition is the conspiracy folks, the ones who murdered the outspoken human, all in the name of protecting their people from perceived human aggression.

And yes, it really does all come down to something that simple, as both sides are right and both sides are wrong, and now someone has to clean up the mess their hostilities have created. I do want this to really come down to something so simple and, on paper, easy to resolve, because when this kind of thing happens in our world, it’s frequently just as on paper simple, but, because of the emotions involved and the personal grudges accumulated, no one is able to take that step back and try to make amends (not saying that as a value judgement, just a fact – sometimes it is appropriate to address the personal grudges, sometimes you need let them go for the greater good).

There’s an interconnectedness to the Citadel races in the course of the series, and this is one of the ways to showcase that, by displaying that both of these peoples need each other in the course of the continuation of this cycle’s civilizations. So Shepard’s ultimate decision is about making a decision, and the hard work is in making them both recognize and acknowledge that they are both wrong – pulling this off right, meaning Shepard found all the ways to make good in-roads with both factions so they’ll listen when they make a big persuasive speech, we have the legitimate grievances acknowledged and at least on course to be redressed (one of the galactic news reports can, if the Alliance fleet is sacrificed to save the Destiny Ascension, say that the turians are considering reparations – maybe with this option, this happens regardless). Pulling it off wrong, Shepard has to side with one faction or the other, leaving tension and hostility remaining unresolved, impacting future relations.

Post Game Followups: 

ME2: Emails from the sided faction, talking about their political advancement.

ME3: Impact on Citadel politics, affecting the attitude of the populace in the Citadel Defense Force

Old Wounds

Shanxi was the site of the First Contact War. Since then, the human colonists have resisted alien interference and involvement on their world. But things become complicated when a turian effort at reparations ends up as a hostage situation. Naturally, the Alliance has one person they want to send in to help smooth things over – Commander Shepard.

An Ashley focus mission, we’re giving her the spotlight here – consider this something of a proto-loyalty mission, since the game itself didn’t have these. Because Shanxi is a place that means a lot to her and her family, so we’re going to say that she is on this mission. That obviously also limits this to a pre-Virmire position in the plot, because she may not make it off of that planet.

Shanxi is talked about, but it’s never even given a flyby in the games proper, and so we head there. And, especially with the context of the last entry in this list, I feel like there should be some effort to acknowledge that there should be reparations to humanity – like I said there, the turians discovered humans on Shanxi and decided to openly attack them, hold them to laws and rules that they had no way of knowing existed, and then decide that humans are the aggressive ones because of how they respond? Yeah, that’s bullshit.

So we have a situation where a group of turians have this realization and are trying to convince the people of Shanxi of their good intentions. Shanxi is, understandably, reluctant to believe it. Shepard is going in to smooth things over, try and ease the tensions that are inevitably flaring up, and Ashley is, ultimately, conflicted about how to feel about this whole matter – this is Shanxi, Williams are not exactly welcome here. But there is still a feeling of responsibility here all the same, because her family impacted this world and now she’s here to help try to build a bridge. The “hostage situation” of the synopsis will actually take place during the course of events – before that happens, we get a chance to explore Shanxi, learn about the history there.

This seems like a point to bring it up: Ashley’s grandfather surrendering Shanxi, in the name of preventing a massacre, and being branded a traitor for it makes little sense to me. Of course, I get that surrendering looks bad, if you’re only looking at the act, and not the motivation. People were losing their lives, he acted to protect them. The Alliance military being unforgiving assholes is not unbelievable, but the general public going along with it, refusing to have his name cleared, even decades later, is.

So we’re going to have to dig into the reasons for this. People on Shanxi will resent the Williams for the surrender – they wanted to fight to the bitter end, and they passed this along to their kids. The “death before dishonor” crowd think it would have been better to have fought to the last – sent a stronger message to the Citadel about the wrongness of that whole “shoot first, ask questions later, blame the victim for everything” approach. They’re the ones who lead the charge against Williams’ actions, saying he was weak for surrendering to the turians. Meanwhile others are aware that he saved lives.

If anything, this makes things difficult for Ashley. As much as she lives under the specter of her family, she is not quite sure about what life would be like if he’s cleared – even knowing that things would be better, her family not getting shit details and crap assignments, it means getting a new perspective on the future that she never expected and needs to process that.

Core plot is still the hostage situation, one that Shepard ends up being involved in. The hostage takers are a group demanding more for the turians in terms of reparations – they can’t bring back the dead, of course, but the turians aren’t giving enough in their eyes. I don’t know, let’s say that it’s coming across as a perfunctory kind of apology, the “We’re sorry you feel we disrespected you” kind of reaction, which... Yeah, I totally see the turians doing that and the humans calling bullshit.

I mean, yeah, you want more to it than just “we’re angry” and such, because that’s a pretty straightforward mission, but the idea here is as much for exploring Ashley’s character and development over just an outright mission story. This is about her, and we’re going to explore her through this as much as the plot, so the plot can get away with being fairly limited in scope or scale, because this is about the character.

And this means that Ashley needs to have the big moment of resolving the crisis, rather than Shepard. Like, RPG, we’ll say Shepard gets the option to decide who gets that moment, but let’s be real, to culminate her arc in this DLC, it should be her. Bookend the portrayal of her grandfather with her – depending on how Shepard’s interacted with her, with how much digging they did into the history of the place, how they’ve interacted with the people, and it leads to Ashley (or Shepard) being able to talk down the hostage takers, defuse the situation, resolve things peacefully. If they can’t, violence ensues.

Resolution-wise, we’d be looking at the turians being upset and nearly starting conflict all over again because “you humans are too damn aggressive,” “the turians aren’t negotiating in good faith and wish they’d blasted humanity back to the stone age,” blah blah blah. Variation is in how the situation was resolved – peaceful resolution leads to the agreement to try this again later, let hostilities die down a little before trying to fix these long-standing grudges, violent is that the turians walk away, the human diplomats basically going “well, we’ll try this again at some point, hopefully.” And, for Ashley, she’s resolved some of her family’s old ghosts – best case scenario, she’s given Shanxi a different memory of the Williams clan, and can walk away with a tangible note on her record that, regardless of how anyone else might try to creatively reinterpret her record, says that her contribution saved lives.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Email from diplomatic representative about the advancement of the talks over the previous two years.

ME3: If peacefully resolved, a joint human-turian task force is a war asset.

Ascension

The Ascension Project is a home for human biotics. Rumors reach Captain Anderson that there is a biotic extremist group attempting to subvert the teaching and draw them towards pro-human interests, and he asks Commander Shepard to investigate what could be a threat to the human-Citadel alliance.

We had Ashley’s loyalty mission, here’s Kaidan’s. The advancement of human biotics was a running thread through the background of ME1, but sort of fell by the wayside as the series expanded its scope in successive games, so this is a chance to explore that further. And we’re going to do so in part by building on the mission in game that involves Chairman Burns, the Alliance Parliament member who is taken captive by L2 biotics seeking reparations.

Obviously, we see Grissom Academy, the site of the Ascension Project, in ME3, but hey, for one, I like the idea that (retroactively, anyway) this means that Shepard is returning there in the course of the third game, and for two, it’s entirely reasonable to make the Academy large enough to house areas that we just didn’t see in the course of the mission there. Plus we’re seeing it (at least to start) in less of a state of chaos as exists in ME3.

Again, we’re starting lowkey. The idea here is more infiltration first – if extremists are trying to coopt kids’ education, odds are sending in soldiers is gonna tip them off quick and easy. So instead this is going to be framed as an “Alliance biotic recruitment” kind of thing – “The Alliance wants you!” and all that sort. That’s the cover as Shepard’s team heads in. The name of the game here is stealth, that we’re not here to set off alarms, just to ensure that there’s no attempt at subversion of the Alliance’s goals of peaceful coexistence with the Citadel races.

As a sidenote, both this and the Ashley DLC are basically me engaging in retroactively applied stories to further justify why it is that Kaidan and Ashley get the Spectre wings come ME3 – as it is, that kinda feels more like a bone being thrown to humanity in the name of appeasing them with Earth captured by the Reapers, as well as Udina wanting a loyal bodyguard, as opposed to something that their skill and ability has earned them the position. I want some exploration of the skill that justifies them getting that position.

So, yeah, we see the Ascension Project in its glory, causing a bit of a stir of memories for Kaidan, aware that this is more like what he should have experienced at BAaT. He’s glad that there are biotics who are getting to learn about their abilities in a safe environment that isn’t going to treat them like trash – whether or not that’s the military boot camp way, these are kids who have been, by a quirk of fate and chance, given these incredible powers without their consent, they deserve sympathy and understanding regarding their lives abruptly turned upside down, not demands that they show the same level of skill as people who train through their lives to be weapons.

Another investigation story, as we look in on the various teachers, learning more about what the state of affairs with regards to biotics are – if Mass Effect Andromeda is going to say that Cora felt outcasted and isolated because of her biotics, lets at least make this have a tangible feeling of what the actual culture and society she left behind is dealing with, considering that this is something that I’ve seen EVERYONE side-eying at best with her. At least offer it some grounding in the universe so it’s not just her, in effect, whining that she felt alone when we have characters like Kaidan, who killed someone with his biotics as a teenager, and Jack, who was tortured from infancy in an attempt to build a better biotic.

Anyway. The idea is to see more about what the biotics go through, and to better explain what biotics even are to the uninitiated (re: the audience). Biotics are just an accepted part of the universe in the games as is, but these are still a relatively recent thing for humanity, and we don’t really know how people are handling it.

Honestly, I’m kinda inclined to fully lean into a “biotics = homosexuality” metaphor. Like, personal stuff here, that’s one of the things that really... bothers me about the way Cora is handled in Andromeda, that she has this very queercoded story in terms of her self-acceptance, to the point of at one point, in reference to her biotics, saying “what if someone had told me ‘that’s okay’?” about herself. And that’s a line that defines queer narratives, but it is coming out of this cis-straight person’s mouth. So yeah, I’m gonna fix that how I can, since canonically, Kaidan is a bisexual man, and he gets the focus here, and we’re gonna take advantage of this. I may have issues with how BioWare handles their not-straight characters, but since they’re not actually making this, I’m gonna take full advantage.

Oh, right. Plot. Something, something... We get to the overall plot. Of course, we can sway a few people over – these biotic extremists are looking for belonging and acceptance above all. We see things like Major Kyle’s biotic cult, biotics are looking for something that gives them a place, beyond just the military stuff – what happens to the biotic who is a pacifist, where do they fit in when the only place that really seems to accept biotics is the Alliance military? Yeah, sure, these extremists would be testing the idea of “pacifism,” but it’s still the general concept we’re going with.

Like with the above Ashley story, it comes down to Kaidan getting the option to take the lead on this. You know how in the situation in the base game with Chairman Burns, Kaidan will interject about being an L2, like those extremists? Last time I played through, I kinda felt like he should have been more in the lead on that mission, that it should have been his answer to Garrus and Doctor Saleon, or Wrex and the family armor, something like that. So we’re going to have a similar situation here. Like with Ashley above, his ability to talk down the leader of this group depends on how well the player investigated – find the details, talk to the right people, that sort of detective stuff (because I like there being more to gaining experience in games that just combat).

That’s especially meaningful because this particular pro-human person, the one leading these biotic extremists? He worked at BAaT, was one of the people supposedly tasked with watching the situations with the turian biotics who had been brought on. He knew Kaidan. Kaidan knew him. In some ways, because of what happened with Kaidan, that’s why he was inspired to this – letting aliens teach biotics to these children, dictate those terms, WAS abuse, and, in his mind, humans can’t let their children be so violently abused by aliens again.

Kaidan says he dealt with his past in the game proper. But this is still an echo of it, someone who he once knew, worse, someone who cites what happened to him as reason for what he’s doing. Which is why it’s important for Kaidan that he be the one to resolve this. As ever, it can be resolved with words or violence, yay Paragon/Renegade system. For Kaidan, though, it’s just important to see this through and make sure that he has this dealt with.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Email from a class of biotics saved.

ME3: Student saved during the Grissom Academy mission is among the students encountered here, their presence gives a boost to the biotic students war asset

Ruins of Preita

An asari colony world has discovered a prothean archive that could rival those on Mars. Due to the concerns of the Reapers, Commander Shepard and crew go to investigate – and find an empty world, the archaeology team missing. Finding the missing team leads into a world lost to the galaxy for over fifty thousand years – and a threat even the protheans locked away!

So, now we have a Liara loyalty mission story. If you’ve paid any serious attention to my blog over the years, you’re probably having a laugh at my expense here – I’m always complaining about an overfocus on Liara, and yet here I am, adding to her content specifically. Hey, I’m at least playing fair and giving her time alongside Ashley and Kaidan. Hell, that’s why I’m doing this. I gave them time in the sun, and it’s fair that I give her the same.

But yes, I want to explore Liara’s character through the lens of her as an archaeologist, which basically gets a little lip service in the games proper, but ultimately means nothing. She is supposed to be an expert on the protheans and an archaeologist of renown, and yet that gets dumped as her actual profession in ME2, so that she can “be a very good information broker,” which... Not to dismiss her in what is meant to be a focus mission for her, but that ends up being told, rather than shown. Let’s let her play to her strengths.

This is a mission about her getting to flex that muscle. She learns about this archive – actually, thinking about it, let’s say that this was a dig that she had the chance to go on instead of the Therum dig, and chose it instead in the name of it being more isolated (more on that later). With the latest report she’s read about it, she thinks it’ll be an assist to Commander Shepard – if nothing else, the fact that Saren was interested in Eden Prime’s prothean beacon means that a new prothean archive might well be a lure for him, and he might well show up, or have Benezia or one of her agents go there in his stead. It could lead them to Saren, is what she’s using as her justification for telling Shepard to go and check this out.

Obviously it won’t, because game mechanics, but it’s a solid enough reason to get us where we’re going, which is an asari planet. Here’s where we get a chance to see Liara in her element AND see this pushback against her theories. It bugs the hell out of me that Liara says that her theory of the cycle of extinction is dismissed by other asari because of her youth – by framing that dismissal of her peers with having to do purely with her age, it says that in the two thousand years since the asari discovered the Citadel, to say nothing of anything that might have been included in the prothean archive in the Temple of Athame, NO ONE ELSE has put forward the idea of the cycles. That Liara is the first to put those pieces together. In more than two thousand years. And, as things turn out, she is 100% correct about there being a constant cycle of civilization and extinction.

My suspension of disbelief breaks at that. That she and she alone has developed this theory – this theory that is absolutely fact – in two thousand years. Bare minimum, I would have said that she was part of a fringe collection of scientists who just don’t have the evidential support to justify this being the mainstream view. But it’s the canon we have to work with, so, fine. But this disagreement when it comes to theories on the extinction of the protheans would be another point of why Liara didn’t go on this excursion, that these other researchers are those who do not share her beliefs, and, as she believes, that would mean they would shun her.

But it’s important that these researchers not just be strawmen – they may have held opposing views to Liara, that doesn’t mean they would dislike her. In point of fact, one of them has to have considered herself a friend to Liara, for reasons I’ll get in to in a bit. But these are going to be people who are all for the most part entirely likeable and reasonable. They just don’t agree with Liara’s stance.

Or at least, the records and logs they’ve left behind make them entirely likable and appear reasonable. Because, of course the research team is missing when Shepard and team arrive – like research teams in these scenarios are ever able to avoid going missing and being presumed dead.

This sparks a conflict with Liara – she’s glad that they’re able to try and find them, maybe even rescue them, but she’s also guilty because she should have been on this expedition, should have been with them. Liara’s got a tendency to put things on her own shoulders (see her reaction after Thessia, assuming you don’t have Javik/don’t take the interrupt to get them to an accord). Hell, ideally, this would be something done after Noveria and her mother’s death to explore that some – I hate how by the time you try to speak with her about it, she’s already pulling that “I choose to remember Benezia as she was” thing, seeming to either be accepting or repressing what happened, when what happened is that, regardless of the why, her mother is dead, and Shepard pulled the trigger.

So yeah, while this is a mission available at any point after doing Therum, in my mind, it’s best to take this after Noveria for the ability for Liara to lash out at Shepard for not being able to rescue her mother, how do they think that they can save these people, one among them a friend of hers, look at that, it’s another situation where Shepard is going to fail to rescue someone who mattered to her!

That is her breaking point, where she can’t bottle this all up anymore. That, for the sake of the mission, for “the greater good,” she’s bottled up her feelings and anger and resentment and fear, and yet, here and now, she can’t help it, she has to address it. She knows it’s unfair to Shepard – she heard about indoctrination, understands that it was something horrible for Benezia, that Benezia accepted no alternative to death, but people she cares about keep getting caught in the line of fire, all in the name of what, exactly? “The greater good”? “The ends justifying the means”? Chance and circumstance?

Hell, include some elements tying her closer to Ashley and Kaidan at this point – it connects the crew together more for when the Virmire decision hits, considering that this game only has banter in the Citadel elevators, which, given fast travel, is heavily skippable, and competes with news reports. There needs to be more development of the character interactions, so let’s do some character interaction here, if nothing else. (And maybe also include a post-Virmire conversation with her about how SHE feels about the loss of Ashley/Kaidan, yes I’m moving out of the scope of this DLC idea, but it’s good for characterization, dammit!)

Investigation happens, records and logs do the ‘ominous mood building’ thing... The end result is that what happened was that this planet once housed a prothean lab. A bio-engineering lab. They were creating something that (stated ambiguously, since Shepard won’t know about the Reapers properly yet at this point in the timeline) was meant to fight the Reapers, be something that could stand against them and protect the protheans. But by the time that it was done, the war was all but over, the protheans having lost. The protheans never got the chance to let it loose, pulling up stakes from the facility before the Reapers hit it. But as time wore away the tech, this thing they created has gotten loose on its own after a few thousand years. This thing is like the rachni on Noveria, having been grown in isolation – there was nothing else on this planet, it was literally the only kind of life around, even before getting to it being engineered as a weapon above all else. It’s too mad to save, must be put down.

Easier said than done, of course. The archaeological team are contained inside of it (I’m thinking held in some kind of crystal-like stasis pods on its back), and is drawing on them for life, sort of in the same way that Malak used the Jedi captives on the Star Forge in KOTOR, where it taps into them and heals itself based on their life force. So the Paragon/Renegade choice in here revolves around how much effort Shepard’s going to put in to saving the captives. Freeing them before they get used as batteries, probably with Liara using her biotics to rescue those who they manage to get loose (meaning she’s unable to act as support in combat because she’s busy focusing her biotics), or just killing them first – with Liara distracted and unable to provide support, that justifies the Renegade stance, because it’s one less source of firepower against the thing as it tries to either kill them or add them to its collection.

That’s important because that aforementioned friend of hers is going to be rescued either way the player chooses – Liara will insist on getting her out alive, even if Shepard foregoes saving the others. Regardless of the player choice, Liara’s friend survives, and, once the creature is dead, she’ll respond to how Shepard chose to resolve the situation, if she’s the sole survivor or if Shepard made an effort to rescue everyone. She’s grateful for her survival either way, but she’s angry about the failure to save the others if they were abandoned.

For Liara, though, the ultimate result is seeing something of the protheans being knocked off their pedestal – regardless of the reason (which, yes, we know to be extinction by Reapers), they abandoned this creature, left it to be consumed by madness. The point here is seeing Liara have a moment where she grows up – she has to acknowledge the protheans she pictured for the last century were flawed (Partially because it bothers me the way she speaks of the protheans with such rose-colored glasses even by ME3, when she says “it’s clear they prized knowledge, growth, and cooperation with the rest of the galaxy,” even before Javik sends that image crashing – a species who form an empire, whose legacy is memorialized as an empire, is not going to be first and foremost wise scholars). She’s realizing that whatever the reasons were for creating this, whatever caused them to leave it behind, they still did this to an innocent being that they were responsible for. It’s something of her “loss of innocence” moment, considering that Benezia’s death currently doesn’t really provide that (though, again, we ARE also addressing that... Details.)

Her friend is also going to get a few moments with Liara, talking about the archaeology team, and commenting about how Liara’s development has gone. This is a moment for Liara, to really help give her a character arc in the game proper – considering that she can be left on Therum until right before Ilos, she kinda doesn’t have much of one as it is. Also, this gives a chance for Liara to exist outside of Shepard’s world, considering how she bubbles herself into it as the trilogy progresses. This is someone who’s only really in Liara’s orbit, not Shepard’s, and it gives her a little more grounding and existence outside of Shepard.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Letter from Liara��s friend, commenting about how she handled Shepard’s death, expressing concern for her losing direction

ME3: The creature’s remains have been examined, providing a War Asset, if the archaeologists were saved, they provide an additional boost, Liara’s friend has a cameo on the Citadel after Thessia

Incursion

An Alliance space station on the fringe of the Terminus system abruptly goes silent. As the Normandy’s stealth systems can get there without letting any invaders know, as well as Commander Shepard’s skill, Captain Anderson sends them to check on the station. The batarians specifically have been known to be in the area, but there remains the possibility that this is something worse...

Okay, out of the loyalty mission structure and direct character work, back to isolated stories in the setting. So, the frontier of space? I say this as a lover of scifi from a young age: It is TERRIFYING. You are on the edge of all that’s known, and any number of things, things you could never conceive of because they are so outside of your frame of reference, could show up and kill you. A flimsy barrier of glass (or transparent aluminum or whatever material they make those big honking windows out of) is all that separates you from a suffocating death.

Yeah, we’re doing a psychological horror story here. I suppose technically AGAIN, considering the stuff around the disappeared archaeologists in the above DLC idea, but that was as much about Liara as the atmosphere. This is pure paranoia and suspicion.

The inspiration I’m going with here is KOTOR 2’s opening on the Peragus mine. Something happened here, and the people are all dead or missing – a handful of corpses, but, yet again, we’ve got logs to find, and they’ll include people who we can’t identify among the dead. Because that gives motivation to stick around and solve things, rather than just blow the place to hell.

The first guess is that there’s a batarian slave raid happening here. There are indications that the Alliance officers here were thinking this at first, that this was some raid in progress – sure, it wasn’t open violence, but maybe they were softening things up, trying to get on board, lower defenses, and then let the slave ships show up and take everyone left. That’s what their last attempt at an outgoing message suggested, it’s what Shepard and company show up expecting.

But that wasn’t the case. The investigation continues through the station, with Shepard searching for signs of anyone still alive. And as they proceed through the station, there’s something that seems to keep just passing out of view. Something else is here with them.

Again, I’m skimping on the exposition here, just because the investigation is the important part, and that’s hard to develop without a layout of the station itself in front of me, and what and how the narrative has to adapt to the environment, but also because this is a very atmospheric style story, where the focus is in the build up, the mystery, the way to get to the big reveal of just what it is that happened here. In a story like this, the tension in this is built with how many times you think you’re going to have an encounter with “the monster” before you actually do.

This particular “monster,” as it turns out, is some kind of energy creature, something that came to the station from the unknown depths of space, drawn by the station’s power core emissions. All indications are that this is simply some space-born lifeform that evolved naturally, and isn’t like some Reaper weapon or anti-Reaper weapon. Just some non-sapient lifeform, drawn in by the power core (maybe it had been specially modified, to further explain why this station and why now), and ending up killing the inhabitants of it.

The thing about this is that I’m going to emphasize here is that I DON’T want this as some kind of creation of the Reapers or their servants OR something that was cooked up to combat them. This thing is entirely independent of anything to do with Reapers. One of the things that I appreciated with ME1 over the later games was the “lived in” nature of the galaxy, where there were a handful of things shown and revealed in the course of the story that just spoke to there being life and civilization wandering through the galaxy for countless millennia. Life is pretty persistent when given the chance, and there’s surely life that exists in the depths of space that is so completely alien to our understanding that we might not even recognize it as such. This creature is one such example of life but not as we know it.

Obviously, there’s a straight up Paragon/Renegade choice of killing or sparing the creature, finding some way to lure it off and away from the station. I’m also inclined for a neutral option of trying to humanely capture it – it’s a creature unlike anything they know, it could show them so many things about the greater universe in the examination – but I’m not sure I feel like there’s enough room in the series for that kind of variation, given the limitations – this IS meant to be DLC, you know? Or at least, hypothetical DLC. Either way, though, the end result is that there is a boss battle, Shepard having to either kill it or weaken it, the station is cleared of the threat and the Alliance gets to have the station back, with talk of it being repurposed into some kind of early warning system regarding threats from outside Alliance/Citadel space (hint hint, nudge nudge).

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Emails from the new station commander, referring to the reopening of the station and the fate of the creature

ME3: Station as a war asset, exo-biologists as a war asset, how they examine space-faring life in the galaxy and if they can be adapted in some way to resist the Reapers

Evolution

A mercenary contacts the Normandy, claiming to have information regarding Saren. Following this lead, however, proves to open a separate can of worms, as the mercenary reveals their connections to a cult of people who view synthetics as the next step in organic evolution, and, knowing of Saren’s ties to the geth, seek to stop Shepard – or convert them.

So the idea here is to give more attention to something that seemed to be a running plot thread during ME1 and ME2 – machine cultists. The ExoGeni survey team on Trebin got huskified by an unknown artifact, and in ME2, there’s the mine on Aequitas. Yes, technically that hasn’t happened yet, shush. But we observe this in action in the games proper, and no one ever actually acknowledges it beyond the simple immediate reaction.

So what we have here is a merc, trying to contact Shepard, claiming they have info on Saren. No one really believes it – if Saren’s working with geth, he would have no need for the liability of organic agents. Yet they also can’t really ignore the idea either because Saren is why they’re out here (I really intend to take advantage of the idea that the whole party cast comes back for these with a full on mission briefing/discussion to kick this off – sounds like some fun opportunities for character dynamics with them debating the validity of this claim).

The result of going in takes Shepard and team to a planet where, initial impression, something is OFF about this place. It’s a prefab colony in early colonization, and something about how the people act just doesn’t seem right. They seem to be in an almost trance-like state that no one can snap them out of, a fact that immediately puts everyone on edge.

The merc is here (let’s say he’s a turian), and keeps things frustratingly vague until the arrival of a leader of the colony. The kicker with him being that he appears partially huskified (sorta like the Cerberus goon on Mars that Ashley/Kaidan find). Yet he still seems to be able to act seemingly independently. Of course, someone this obviously not-right has made himself a target, but all the people in the colony, including the merc, are all on his side.

Shepard can try to fight out of this, but they’re overwhelmed – there IS an entire colony of people, and there’s still the possibility of getting them free, Shepard has a responsibility to not shoot civilians (no matter what trigger-happy Renegades might think), and the team at least is willing to take that stand.

The explanation is that this is a group of wanna-call-themselves “next phase of organic evolution,” people who believe that they are the future. That’s what got their attention about Saren and Shepard, knowing about how he is working with the geth (it was an open session of the Council when they got made Spectre, after all). They look to Shepard as a potential threat.

When we encounter Machine Cultists in the game proper, they’re too far gone to really give any explanation. The comics seemed to draw on this – in Mass Effect Evolution, Saren’s brother uncovered one on Palaven, the Illusive Man was involved, Saren had to nuke from orbit the location of this device and his brother with it. We’re kinda going into the same territory with this, but, you know, Shepard gets to save the day.

So the merc shows up, trying to explain, offer the sales pitch (i.e.: the carrot), try to convince Shepard that their leader has the right idea, that this is a true joining of organic and synthetic, and that it will avert the “coming apocalypse” (just in case the whole ‘Reaper artifact’ element wasn’t certain for anyone playing). Then the cult leader shows up to offer the threat (i.e.: the stick), the warning that whatever Shepard expects to do, they will not be able to succeed.

For pacing reasons, I think of this as a pre-Virmire thing, so there’s not a direct awareness on Shepard’s part that just being around a Reaper artifact is a cause for Indoctrination, leading to a period of wondering how this happened and assuming it comes from direct interface – this is as much an explanation for why, if the implication is that the cult leader got to interface with a prothean beacon of some kind (actually Reaper, in the same manner as the vision that Object Rho offers in Arrival), they don’t have Shepard try to interact with this one, that they’re afraid of Shepard becoming like these people.

Anyway, jailbreak sequence! Because we can do better than just running a game of Simon in order to get Shepard out of their cell. Shepard finagles a way out of the cell block and to the colony’s science lab (it’s a frontier world, they need a science lab just to stay aware of all the new things they discover here). Among the things there is the record of what happened here, and specifically the existence of the artifact. Leads to a simple solution – blow up the artifact, and see what that does.

Of course, the artifact is guarded in the heart of the colony’s main site. We meet up with the merc again, who’s seeming a little uncomfortable – the indoctrination hasn’t completely taken root in him, and so there’s some question of maybe he can be reached. Paragon/Renegade here about dealing with him – kill him or spare him. That sparing will come back in a short while

Because now there’s the colony leader – the cult leader, effectively, at this point – to deal with. He’s angry about the damage Shepard has done to everything, ranting about plans to bring the glory of evolution to the galaxy. Yeah, he’s round the bend, the device effectively having melted his mind (okay, yeah, I’m getting flashes of Kenson here, but hey, same tech, so it’s not ripping off, it’s continuity!)

After dealing with him, the plan is to blow the artifact sky high. Here’s where the merc comes back into play – he says he’s too far gone, and wants to be the one to push the button on this thing, die with it. It’s his way of having a good death after this. Another Paragon/Renegade choice about his fate before blowing the thing sky high – the colony, unfortunately can’t be saved, anyone not killed getting there dies when the device is blown.

There’s an after action briefing, too, where, because, again, the idea here is that this is pre-Virmire, the crew really discuss the horrors of what “these Reaper machines” can do, and what if they’re not some geth red herring or something.

Basically, my idea here is that this is adding to the atmosphere and mystique of the Reapers, in a way that, with the game proper focused on the concept of advancing the plot, doesn’t get a chance. This is a more traditional feature of building up the menace, by showing the insidious nature of things, having the Reapers’ subtle side at play – we see references of Indoctrination, but we don’t really get the horrors outside of some talk – sure, there are the salarians who are in the Virmire facility, and Benezia’s talk, but it’s all second hand. This is a case where we see the effects spread across the entire colony, which, given resources in the game, is all of a planet we get to encounter, and Shepard and company are the only ones who aren’t, and that can go to the paranoia, where the people surrounding them all are giving off the vibes of being a threat, but they’re not doing anything. What can I say, I am a sucker for a good atmospheric story.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Email about the aftermath of the colony’s destruction, and the research done on the corpses on the effects of Indoctrination

ME3: War asset surrounding Indoctrination research, preliminary anti-Indoctrination tech being introduced around the Catalyst facility, if the merc sacrificed himself, his family offers a boost to turian military morale on the basis of how one of their own resisted (pointedly ignoring Saren)

Relativity

The Mass Relays are the ancient devices that allow faster than light travel throughout the galaxy. The Charon Relay specifically was one that opened the way for humanity to join the races of the Citadel. This only makes a sudden distress call from the Relay all the more urgent, and Admiral Hackett believe that of everyone in the Alliance, Commander Shepard is right for the job.

So the Mass Relays are these massive facilities that are a key point throughout the entire trilogy. Why, exactly, do we never see one up close aside from transition screens? We should totally get to explore one! Like, I realize that it’s never explicitly said if there’s any kind of command station, or if “guarding a Mass Relay” was a ship-based action or if there was actual, physical contact with one, but I’m saying that something of the size of the Relays, even if much of it is a solid object, you maintain SOME sort of command structure within it in order to monitor and examine things. Even if the Reapers have some kind of robotic drones or Keeper analogues running around, doing standard maintenance, I cannot be convinced that there is not SOME areas of the actual Mass Relay that house facilities for organic life to work in. Especially considering the design having the light sources along the hull that we traditionally associate with acting as windows on starships and space stations.

So yeah, this is an adventure taking us into the workings of a Mass Relay proper. The general idea is that there’s a distress call from the Charon Relay, which is something that really worries the Alliance – lose the Charon Relay, humanity loses their connection to the galaxy at large. And the Alliance doesn’t want the Citadel to know about this, at least not right away – if something is impacting how the Relays function, the Council is going to demand getting involved, and the Alliance DEFINITELY doesn’t want to give the non-human races a free pass into humanity’s home system, so they’re calling on Shepard.

Also part of the novelty of this is that I kinda want to have the chance to explore what it’s like for those who are not exploring the stars in this setting – the Mass Relay’s crew is alive and intact and interactable. This isn’t one of the many cases of showing up too late to be able to properly save people (I’m looking mostly at ME2 on this count, even before we add in the above and below of my own creation).

Head of the team on the Relay is an engineer, not a soldier (pulling a name out of hat for them in the name of simplicity in this write up... Let’s go with Sarah Manning, just because my Orphan Black DVDs happen to be right next to me as I’m writing this and it offers as good as a placeholder as any – feel free to picture Tatiana Maslany as this character if you so choose, though, by the rules of this series, in an ideal world, this would have been DLC produced for ME1 in 2007, so this character would probably be at least a decade, probably more, older than she would have been at the time, oh no, I’ve gone cross-eyed...). She’s not just concerned about the Council finding out – not that she’s a Terra Firma type, just that she has Earth related pride and considers the Charon Relay humanity’s, and, on a personal level, HERS, given her responsibility for it – but also the lives on board. She wants to protect and preserve as many lives as she can.

The interior of the facility is a mix of reasonably sensical designs, in the areas meant for humanoid habitation, and something far more Eldritch abomination-y when we start moving out of those areas. And, you know, we pretty much HAVE to move out of them as time goes on, since that’s like half of the fun of this concept.

But we start in the more familiar areas, where everything seems normal. Except the people are missing (yes, I know I’m relying on this concept a lot, but it’s good as an in universe mystery and out of universe programming so that the game doesn’t have to account for like a dozen NPCs to fill space). In this instance, the distress signal itself indicates that the Relay’s station commander had ordered their people to a designated safe zone within the Relay’s structure, which is where Shepard will need to head to uncover things. Sarah’s staying in the control area, trying to ensure that nothing else goes wrong.

At some point in the midst of this, I do want the question of if the Relay will be/has to be destroyed to come up, better establish the idea that will come up in Arrival of the destruction of Relay in the game proper.

The exploration takes Shepard into the Eldritch-y areas, which, sadly, because I am a wordsmith and not a picture kind of person, I can really only describe as messing with perception and going all Escher in the design. Basically, the idea is to present the interior and heart of the Relays as being these massively complex and complicated machines that function on a level not really human (or, in the case of the non-human races in the game besides the Reapers, human adjacent). Because, first of all, this is faster than light travel, which means this is this is this franchise’s handwave for how anything happens on multiple planets and is dealt with in (in-universe) real time, and second, Sovereign talked about a level of existence beyond our own and such. This leans into that kind of concept – yeah, sure, we may have the Reapers be shown as effectively fundamentally understandable, but let’s at least justify the hype a little, huh?

The big idea here is that we’re kinda throwing back to the puzzle style of play that you used to see in computer games in like the nineties. That’s why perspective is going to be a part of this. Basically, the engineers on the Relay found something that tripped the security systems, sort of “unhinging” standard reality around them, getting them lost in the various extra layers (dimensions?) that the Relay works in.

I don’t really know if I see any kind of real boss or major decision here, because this is basically about the gimmick over anything else – Mass Effect isn’t a bad place for a gimmicky throwback, right? Maybe... Ah, something’s clicking here for me – the guy responsible for all of this happening in the first place. He was trying to access an archive – he initially thought it was prothean, but he’s been able to realize that this is much older. He wants to get this information, and is the last one we rescue. The issue is that it’s going to be a choice – rescue this guy and lose the archive, or save the archive and he dies. Like, I’m thinking that there’s some kind of rip or maybe a miniature black hole that’s sucking in the both of them and Shepard can only save one. That’s a solid Paragon/Renegade choice, especially since I could see arguments for both.

Anyway, once the crew’s all rescued and the choice made, Manning gets back to Shepard and says that this is about to get slapped with a security clearance so high she’d “probably have to kill [herself] just for remembering [she has] it” (because yes, I want that as an actual quote), and recommends that they get off the Relay before any superior officers show up to rake them over the coals for their involvement – Shepard’s a busy person, doesn’t need to get bogged down in the red tape that’s sure to come.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Email from Manning regarding the Relay’s subsequent stability

ME3: Manning’s team as a war asset/the archive being tapped for Crucible data and information on the Reapers (mutually exclusive – the team will have disbanded after the loss of the one member if the archive was recovered)

Planet of Peace

An attempt at colonizing a planet, with the aid of all Council races, in an effort at fostering galactic peace, sounded great on paper. The diplomats jumped on the opportunity. The reality has been... less than stellar. Considering the first human Spectre a bridge between races, the Council asks Commander Shepard to try and help smooth over relations.

Frankly, while I understand the focus on the threat of the Reapers, honestly, this seems like a legitimate issue that would be an instant demand for the first human Spectre. And, given the tension and hostility between the races (even beyond humanity against everyone else), it seems like a natural fit, in all honesty. Because it does seem like all the canonical colony worlds always start as one species attempting to tame a single world, rather than taking advantage of the unifying effort of the galactic community.

At the forefront of this colony is the retired human ambassador to the Council, Ambassador Goyle (Anderson mentions her when talking about his candidacy for the Spectres and we see her in the first of Alec Ryder’s memories, now we get to make her a character we get to interact with). This was her passion project specifically, thinking that all races had something that they could offer one another and need to come together.

Basically, she’s underscoring what I like to think of as a core concept of the series, being stronger together than separately.

But, of course, there are tensions. I mean, not even just because we wouldn’t have a plot without it. She is concerned that there might be some extremists getting involved – aren’t there always? When things are tense, some idiot’s always going to come along, see the stacks of dynamite, and decide to light a match. She is specifically asking that Shepard come to help resolve some issues, using their symbolism. Her request is fully aware of this being an exercise in flag waving, but it’s an important bit of flag waving – doing this here can make the galactic community a more stable place.

Bringing back in the element of having the cast back for these, I want to include quite a bit of companion content in this one, including something like how Dragon Age 2’s Mark of the Assassin DLC had a short companion quest for everyone. On a planet that’s a melting pot of the various races that make up the Citadel species, there’s going to be something for everyone here somehow. I don’t know what specifically right now – these write ups focus on the main plot, not the sidequests. But these are things that are there.

As for what is happening on the planet, on the small scale, there’s your standard culture clash brushfires, things that seem small and petty, but have accumulated for the people involved because they’re in such close proximity. But there is a strong Terra Firma presence as well, the “Earth for humans!” type, in addition to similar groups among the traditional Citadel races – this is still only a handful of decades past humanity’s entry, and as we’ve discussed before, the arrival of humanity has made things much more chaotic than they were before, and there’s more than a little resentment among the non-human races for humanity’s attitude and approach to things coming across almost as if they’re demanding more, without anyone Citadel side acknowledging that First Contact was a shit show of THEIR making (scroll back up and see Investigations for more on that...)

But the larger scale conflict is a group out to make sure that this planet fails in its mission and goal, drive a wedge between factions. I’m thinking of going the Star Trek VI route on this, that this group is an ironic banding of humans and non-humans, determined to see peace fall apart at the cost of allying with their supposed enemies, and using “look at how easily they turned on their own to stop this!” as a justification for their own hypocrisy.

Going with the Star Trek VI reference, this group is gearing up for an assassination attempt on Ambassador Goyle herself, believing that stopping her will stop the advancement of this idea. Now, Commander Shepard HAS to save her, we’re not doing the question of “can they stop it in time?” but, for all those pro-humanity xenophobic “Cerberus was right all along!” types, the response of Shepard will be to either name the conspirators and why or utilize their designated fall guy.

BUT WAIT! That’s not the end of this one. See, we’re also going to get an aftermath – the results of this will impact how the population react, and there’s a second story mission that requires a plot progression to access.

Returning to this planet (I feel like it would get some ambitious name like “Hope” or something, but I think it’s kinda provincial for the planet to carry a human name, so...), things are even tenser than before. We get to actively see how the fallout is impacting things, with people drawing lines based on the earlier assassination attempt. This is a lot like how the turian weapons merchant on the Citadel in ME2 will respond differently based on how Shepard resolved ME1 – side with one faction in the first part, their supporters approve of you and their opposites are angry with you, and vice versa.

Goyle appreciates Shepard’s return, because she’s seeing the place beginning to collapse. She’s feeling ready to throw in the towel because of how poorly things are going. Still, until the place closes its doors, she’s going to stand up and act like the leader she’s here to be. Shepard saved her life, she’s going to commit it to preserving this colony. But she wants Shepard’s help all the same, because they can leverage that heroism to helping put things here right.

Of course, here’s where we get to the big finale choice – are you going to strengthen this colony or break it? And sure, it seems straightforward on the idea of what’s good and what’s bad, but here’s the thing that the overall narrative develops through investigation – the Alliance and the Citadel need to allocate their resources. Part of the reason that the sanctioned colonies tend to be dominated by one species or another is a matter of need – when you have a primarily human/asari population, you’ll have to import in resources for turians, things like that – even if they’re trying to grow them on their own, they probably need to import like soil for nutrients and such.

And that not only gets costly, that can divert resources that are more greatly in need. In the long term, this could tie up resources that are needed elsewhere. In the short term, if trying to make these disparate races and cultures work together and play nice is taking up this much time and effort, isn’t it possible, isn’t it plausible, that there are better things to be doing with those resources?

So, do we try and heal the divide and potentially tie up resources in what has been an uphill climb from the start, and right before the Reaper War begins (for all you forward thinkers reading this), or do we cut our losses and focus on making these types of cross-species initiatives at a later point in time? That’s the Paragon/Renegade choice here.

The resolution comes and Ambassador Goyle will be either thankful for the effort or resigned that her great initiative isn’t going forward. Regardless of Shepard’s actions, she’s thankful that they at least made an attempt – she isn’t going to see them as failing if they opted to cut the losses, but herself.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Letter either from Ambassador Goyle, reporting on the colony, or a news service announcement of her having further withdrawn from the public eye after the colony’s failure.

ME3: For Paragon choice, there’s a decrease in dextro-food reserves, given the colony’s need, but an increase in interspecies morale, with efforts to incorporate multi-species crews underway, and vice versa for the Renegade

Daedalus Station

A space station on the fringe of Citadel space sends out a distress call. When the Normandy arrives, however, no one there claims responsibility for it. Yet the station is in a spiral, a path that will, slowly but steadily, lead the station directly into a sun. Commander Shepard attempts to save everyone aboard from the inevitable death, and discover why they seem unfazed at the idea.

Okay, let’s just acknowledge first, yes, I’m aware that the synopsis sounds not just like a rip off of the first mission of Leviathan but also “Incursion” above. I’m aware. Look, the synopsis is a short brief, not the full details, okay? Strictly speaking, it’s more in line with the events of Leviathan, certainly, but I want to at least acknowledge that I’m aware that there are similarities. Okay, they’re there, LET’S MOVE ON.

Anyway. Distress call, brings in the Normandy. Station is obviously in a death spiral. The moment that Shepard and company board the station, everyone is going about their routine. Obviously, something’s a touch screwy about this set up. Another investigation must ensue.

Of course, as we’ve established, details of the investigations are not where my expansions really shine – it’s easy to stretch out a discovery of this sort, with development A leading to clue B and making revelation C... Yadda, yadda. I’m about the what of these things, not the how.

The ultimate thing about this is twofold. Part one is that this is basically going to be an introduction to the concept of Indoctrination – someone discovered a Reaper artifact, and is trying to adapt it to their benefit. Because frankly, the idea that someone wouldn’t try and take Indoctrination for themselves... Yeah, let’s be real here. Someone WOULD.

Obviously, since we’re still in game one and the Reapers are still mostly a mystery at this point in time, there’s the question of what this is. But, hey, it’s still something that should have happened, and this is the time when there’s the most mystery and least immediate “oh shit, this will horribly backfire if we don’t just straight up blow this up now” reactions.

So, our villain. They’re gonna spiral into insanity (thematic mirroring – as the station enters the death spiral, they spiral into madness), so we’re not going to push too much on making them seem sympathetic, in the traditional sense. Honestly, in writing this, I’m kinda getting parallels to your average dangerous incel aspiring mass shooter, so we’re gonna go with that, someone who perceived themselves as more isolated and alone than they were – the investigation will have us find private journals from other crew pre-artifact that mention him, usually in the fashion of ‘he doesn’t talk much, but doesn’t seem that bad’ kind of messages. Meanwhile, his own talk about the others has a more downcast approach, that he knows they’re not interested in hearing about him, etc. etc.

You know, this is the kind of person who, upon getting the ability to manipulate minds is basically doing it in an effort to bolster his own self-esteem, turning people who were once a little sharp with him one time into his whipping boys, and making himself the king of this little hill.

The problem of his plan? The mental degradation. The last of those to fall under his sway sent out the automated distress beacon, and knew that there was a danger in this guy leaving – but they also couldn’t be sure that their efforts would be successful. It’s a case of the distress beacon being a double-edged sword – can their rescuers save them, stop this guy, or will they fall under his sway as well? But there’s no other solution. They set the collision course (and yes, I’m aware that this is happening on a space station, hey, the pilot episode of DS9 showed that the station could travel through maneuvering thrusters and such – the idea is that they wanted to find a way to destroy the station), and then destroyed the controls so it couldn’t be undone, and disabled the alerts so that the station wouldn’t alert anyone, setting it up to make it that the station’s sensors all seem to send the green light to the rest of the station – the false data would hopefully prevent the station crew from noticing.

Yes, of course I want there to be an apocalyptic log, why would I deny that BioWare staple?

Another thing that I want to do here is kinda retroactively at least make it a part of the universe that Shepard is resistant to the efforts of Reaper Indoctrination. The idea I’m going with is that some of the scrambling of Shepard’s brain (which, sidenote, I also want to take some time in this and call out the fact that it’s a PLOT POINT that Shepard’s brain gets messed with repeatedly throughout this game and no one thinks that might actually be a questionable matter – if a key point of this DLC is “dude, you’re messing with people’s minds, that’s rather unambiguously Not A Good Thing To Do,” then it’s an elephant in the room to not bring up that this is what’s happening with Shepard) has made them more resistant to these effects, though that probably means justifying this as having a watered down effect so that the companions are feeling the tug to fall under our villain’s thrall.

That’s basically where I picture the boss battle going, that Shepard has to fight against one of their companions, who has been compelled to be this guy’s defender against them. I’d say both companions, but that might be a little much, in particular on lower difficulties. So I’m going to say that Shepard can knock out one of their companions before they fall under the sway of the big bad’s influence, but the other escapes. I feel like there could be ways to offset the difficulties of this by way of like finding objects that counteract the signal or whatever, but the idea is Shepard versus companion. While it obviously has to end non-lethally, I feel like this is the kind of thing that is morbidly fascinating to see in just about everyone’s book. I’d also figure that it would depend on a handful of variables that make them resist more or less (because the game should reward investigation, right?)

When that’s completed (I figure it ends with Shepard destroying the controller artifact), it’s time to deal with the station about to be caught in the sun – the station’s going to be locked in a death spiral, but the people of the station can now evacuate. Which leaves the person responsible. On the Paragon side, Shepard is not judge, jury, and executioner, this guy should be given a fair trial. On the Renegade side, he’s a dick who took over people’s minds with no remorse on the matter. Whatever decision Shepard goes with, the station’s population will abide by – they probably want him dead anyway, right?

Aftermath does come into play, with a conversation with the companion Shepard fought against, because, especially if they’re a romance, that’s gotta mess with their heads. Also some general discussion of the artifact itself – obviously, while I expect a variation in the event this is played after Virmire, my idea of this is that it happens some time before it, so things like Wrex and Ashley/Kaidan’s deaths (or possible death) are variation options, this is basically something that I feel can influence matters – if Shepard and Wrex have already fought, for example, I feel like that would earn them enough influence come Virmire for Wrex to stand down there, it’s got parallels/foreshadowing... That kind of emotional work.

Also there’s some consideration about that artifact – once a technology exists, putting that genie back in the bottle is nigh impossible, so now it’s known that you can use this tech to control minds, someone’s sure to try and take advantage of this tech somewhere down the line – Shepard and company will discuss what kind of precautions can and should be taken about these kinds of developments in the future (hint hint, Cerberus/Illusive Man, hint hint).

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Letter from a station survivor, variation on the matter of how the responsible party was dealt with.

ME3: Efforts have been undertaken to block Indoctrination tech, based on the information that Shepard gathered on the station.

Fleet Crisis

With the concerns of Saren and the geth rising, Admirals Hackett and Anderson want to get a chance to upgrade the defenses at the heart of the Alliance. Arcturus Station, home to the Alliance government, is housing a defense meeting, and Commander Shepard is being recalled to speak at it. The Alliance may be facing another crisis, however...

(Two plot planets completed)

We have very little actual Alliance elements involved in the game, did you ever notice that? Like, there’s Admiral Anderson and Admiral Hackett, and we get the inspection tour thing from Admiral Mikhailovich, but other than that, we really are not given much about the Alliance proper. So the idea here for us to go to Arcturus Station and actually encounter the Alliance government proper. We only ever properly encounter the Citadel Council, not the government that technically, Shepard is under the authority of. The closest we ever come is the (rather useless) Defense Committee at the start of ME3.

So yeah, we’re going to the home of the Alliance proper, and seeing the Fifth Fleet – like my first time playing the game, I had no real concept of the Fifth Fleet until it shows up at the endgame. I kinda would like more foreshadowing, more textual acknowledgement of the fleet that is the reason why we end the game as we do. Like, we get to do a fleet flyby in the process, allowing us to see the size of the fleet and talk about what makes the human fleets different from those of the other races. Although the Citadel races do have their bullshit reasons for distrusting humanity, the fact that humanity has this massive force is a reasonable excuse for the behavior.

I also see this as a very different style DLC. As it is, we got one DLC that was basically a shooting gallery, so here, we’re in the opposite direction, where combat is taking almost a total backseat to dialogue – I mean you have a dialogue system like Mass Effect, where every line gets voiced, you would think that would imply that there’s a lot of faith in the writing, wouldn’t you think? And, the whole beauty of DLC in general usually is the fact that everything’s option – if you’re really all shooty-shooty bang-bang, you don’t HAVE to do this. But the whole series paints Shepard as this inspirational figure, and their oratory skills should be on full display as much as their ability to fire a gun.

I’m also kinda anti-“going to Alliance vessels and the in universe equivalent of the House/Senate halls/White House combined and freely shoot up the place,” just on principle.

Anyway, here we are, visiting the heart of Alliance space. We honestly really should have more of an idea of what humanity has accomplished in the universe. Arcturus Station, the home of Alliance government. This is a big deal for the crew, of course – it’s getting invited to speak at the Senate in Washington DC. For the various non-humans, it’s a big deal as well.

Now, of course, in the heart of Alliance government, the involvement of a bunch of non-humans is going to be considered questionable at best. I won’t go straight to “you can’t use any companions other that Ashley and Kaidan,” but there is going to be more of a sense of observation from the other Alliance officers and officials when the non-humans are in the party.

The first thing to note about this is that Shepard’s position as Spectre has made them a combination of being a political tool for humanity’s better advancement, but (as evidenced by Mikhailovich’s ranting) some are concerned that Shepard may be – intentionally or not – turned into a pure Council flunky and only doing the work that they approve, regardless of acting in humanity’s benefit.

That’s part of the reason Shepard’s even here – their position is getting humanity’s foot in the door with the Spectres, but this is creating a conflict in various corners, wondering about where their allegiance will be if pressed. Admiral Hackett is, of course, speaking in Shepard’s favor, but just because they have the approval of Hackett and Anderson, there’s still concern among the brass.

This is going to start out seeming very low-key – we’re in the heart of Alliance territory, who would be foolish enough to come along and mess with anyone or anything here, right? So a lot of initial tone-setting, discussion and debate – the first half is a debate sequence, with Paragon/Renegade points abound as Shepard discusses with the various Alliance officials what they’re doing as a Spectre. That culminates in Shepard’s oratory really getting to stretch as they approach the seat of governing for the Alliance, and all those earlier discussions start to add up to how their performance is among the bigwigs – if you talked up human dominance in the one-on-ones, then talk peaceful coexistence, for example, you get called on it.

After Shepard’s speech is over, that’s where we start to see the real fractures starting to take place. We’re not quite at ‘military coup’ levels (let’s leave SOME plot elements for the later games, huh?), but there’s clear dissatisfaction, that Shepard’s words have only fanned flames for – regardless of the way their speech went down, there are some among the fleet, admirals and other high ranking officers who were involved in the First Contact War and just don’t like how the Alliance is handling things.

It’s not a coup, but it is, in effect, breaking away from the Alliance to set up an independent nation, separate from both the Alliance and the Citadel. It’s still in its earliest stages, of course, but it’s easy to see how it might well turn hostile to both – it’s got several military figures from the Alliance leaving, meaning a vulnerable gap for the Alliance military, and it’s got lingering hostility for the Citadel races (turians in particular, but let’s also not forget that the asari, the famed diplomats of the Citadel, seem to have never picked up on the fact that the human resentment towards aliens comes from the fact that an alien government came along and tried to impose their rules on an unaligned species as humanity’s introduction to the greater galaxy – they are complicit here).

Shepard’s task becomes trying to prevent this offshoot from happening. These are orders being cut by President Shastri himself (let’s make this major Alliance figure a presence we actually feel in the series, huh?), with Hackett’s blessing – meaning if things devolve into a shoot out (which will be possible), Shepard will not be held liable for the deaths of several Alliance military figures, that the record will show that they were acting in the interests of the Alliance in response to an imminent threat of potential armed conflict, even a human civil war. No one wants it to come to that, but it’s also going to be one of the most likely outcomes in the minds of those involved – even if Shepard weren’t a Spectre, if someone of their rank and stature on the galactic stage gets involved, it’s because diplomacy isn’t working.

So there’s another segment of trying to sway the people involved. Shepard will have the choice of approached armed or unarmed (like I said, I dislike the idea of a shootout, but I feel like Shepard’s in a position both to be legally entitled to wear weapons in this situation AND uncomfortable going in without any weaponry), which will feed into the metric of how well their argument is received. Because it’s a mechanic so good, we’re using it twice! (Okay, really, it’s because “dialogue” is the gimmick of this idea, but shush.)

Anyway, the various ‘points’ accumulate to the ultimate confrontation with the heads of this group planning this splintering. Shepard’s arguments are going to be along the line of (to summarize) “you’ll only weaken the Alliance, that can’t be your goal,” “if you have problems, work within in the systems and listen to both sides of things,” “put this aside or else,” or “I support your efforts, but this isn’t the time.” Yes, I’m going with four paths for this, the dialogue wheel does offer that, and I want Paragon/Renegade options for each of these. Like you basically pick a path at the start and argue from that position. Depending on the “points” accumulated through dialogue (and probably a handful of sidequests) in the lead to this debate), it will come to either a peaceful resolution or Shepard pulling out their gun on a handful of high-ranking Alliance officers, ready and able to pull the trigger.

While shooting them isn’t an ideal solution, it can bring the others back into line. It’s just going to cause resentment within the Alliance itself – threat or no, these were respected figures among the Alliance. Meanwhile, folding them back in is an ideal solution, but it still means the resentment lingers, because Shepard’s only delayed the boiling over, not prevented it. There’s still tension in the Alliance because this was about issues that can’t be solved with a few words, especially when this was about the involvement and actions of the Citadel. Shepard might be a Spectre, but whether or not they’ve affirmed themselves as giving the Alliance its due, they’re now wrapped up in those politics.

The curveball in things is that last one, Shepard suggesting that they should wait on this issue. I think it’s a valid possibility among the various permutations of the decision point, to have Shepard support them, especially given that ME1’s Renegade Shepard could be a pro-human asshole, but, considering that this is DLC, and particularly DLC that, by my self-imposed rule, cannot change the base game’s story (because if I could do that, I might as well be rewriting all the games in this instead of just created additional content, and this is all hypothetical to begin with), we can’t introduce some new faction into the galaxy, especially an optional one. So the idea here is that Shepard is supporting it, but saying that they can’t make this A Thing right now.

There is an aftermath discussion with President Shastri as well, discussing implications for the future. I also figure that the companions should have a lot to offer in both the aftermath and the core interactions – again, I see Ashley and Kaidan as greatly recommended for this story, and the Alliance officers should have a lot to add, including conversations in the midst of the crisis.

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Email from Shastri as an update of the tension in the Alliance – it’s also something that should be impacted by the decision of the Council at the end of ME1

ME3: Tensions between Alliance and Council forces are impacted by the outcome – if they were swayed by persuasion to rejoin the Alliance, there’s actually a bump in assets, as well as the Alliance bigwigs being a tactical resource, while there’s a decrease in cooperation if the bad blood was fostered.

The Clean Up

The Battle of the Citadel is over, but even if the geth and Sovereign have been defeated, there is a lot left for Commander Shepard and the crew of the Normandy to do. Investigating the damage done to the Citadel leads to a possible lead on the Reapers. In the wake of the battle, Commander Shepard and company set out to chase it down...

(Post-Game)

So, as I said in the KOTOR editions, we’re adding a Post-Game to ME1 (since this is all hypothetical to begin with, so we’re going to make that alteration to the mechanics), pretty much solely because I want to do some development of the aftermath of the game, as well as do some retroactive set up for Mass Effect 2. Because I don’t think there was a lot of emotional wrap up to the characters at the time. I will grant that we’ve got an awkward period of time between the games here, but, hey, we’ve got enough wiggle room I think to lead in to the opening of ME2

Basically, we can start in what’s basically the immediate aftermath – Shepard’s now out of their recovery, is looking to get back in the game. But, with the Council either still reacting to the events of the Battle of the Citadel or still needing to be reassembled, there’s really not any particular indication of what to be doing. This is some mood setting, looking at the rebuilding effort, how the Citadel was impacted and seeing the response of people to the attack – some are still shaken, mourning their loved ones lost in the attack, hoping for the lost to be found safe, and all that sort. Others are angry about the attack, and the ultimate approach to it seems to basically be blaming everyone, and Shepard in particular since they’re there, for the failure to protect those on the Citadel – and yes, we absolutely get to call out this bullshit for what it is, because Shepard tried, but the Citadel itself is something of a complacency trap, and even if the politics weren’t a distraction, the fact that the Citadel itself remains aloof is an actual problem

Anderson speaks with Shepard, regarding the geth that are still out there in the Traverse, and the need to deal with them before they put more human colonies in danger. The bigwigs are already trying to downplay the Reapers – Anderson basically tells Shepard that they need to go out, find proof of something that ties back to the Reapers or the Council will likely turn around and make this all about the geth and call it over (uh, yeah, Shepard, about that...).

The lead involved is going to be heading out to the border of geth space, which is also the line of what used to be quarian territory. This is convenient for Tali, who wants to return to the flotilla now that Saren has been dealt with. There’s a trading outpost that will be out there that will give her the opportunity to get a ride back to the Migrant Fleet (because, despite a couple of references, I have never believed that Tali lingered too long on the Normandy – either she has to get her data on the geth back to them, or she has to discover an alternative). Because part of this is also going to be the “characters splitting apart” stuff as set up for ME2. Tali’s going to assist through this branch of the mission, but she will want to come back here before the Normandy returns to Citadel space proper.

The trading outpost is Omega-esque, something of “the poor man’s Omega,” again, setting that up for ME2 (we’re doing a lot of world-building patches here, okay?) The citizens here don’t care about the Alliance and they’re not all that concerned about Spectres, either. This is not a friendly place and will not just accept the appearance of anyone with the supposed authority that Shepard is representing.

This is kind of an introduction to ME2’s merc gangs – ME1 seems to play the systems of the Terminus to have their own government, species not represented among the Citadel races, and just this general atmosphere of the Terminus being more developed than it ends up being when we actually go there (which, yeah, that’s how writing and developing and world-building goes, but we’re here to smooth things over). I’m leaning towards not having the big three on Omega be all that represented here, considering that, lawless border or not, this is not really a place where they care enough to expand their influence. But they should at least be mentioned and referenced as the big dogs of the pack, that the gangs that jockey for power here want to take them on. Probably some poaching of members (through recruitment or snipers) from those gangs that make their numbers never get to where they might pose a threat.

Anyway. What needs to be done here is find out where Saren discovered Sovereign – that’s the idea we’re going with in trying to track down evidence of the Reapers. Sovereign had to be hiding out somewhere, you don’t just stumble across something like that. Considering this is one of the last places you’d expect to be able to find a Spectre, especially a Spectre who is one of the Council’s top operatives, it’s a decent enough starting point for us as the audience – we’ll say that there are records that Saren was out here shortly before the Eden Prime mission and such, explaining why we’re starting here.

Garrus is also going to have a realization about the merc gangs, about the horrible things they’re inflicting on the people who are living here, and being infuriated at the injustice allowed to happen – the effective attitude of the officials here are basically ‘look, unless the merc gangs come after us, we don’t care.’ This is going to dig under his skin (plates... you know what I mean), lead him to why he ultimately breaks with C-Sec, despite Shepard being able to lead him to a better understanding of the rules and regs – he understands the need for them, but sees them being used and abused to allows these injustices to continue, that it becomes a personal mission to see ‘justice’ and ‘law’ be synonymous.

As for the plot, yes, we’re getting there. This does, of course, lead to a shoot-out with a major gang force here, some people who are indoctrinated spies (because, hey, we’re looking for evidence of Reapers). They were left behind as part of Saren’s contingency plans, meant to stop anyone hunting for him – it’s just that the investigation that Shepard went on in the base game didn’t send them here. Even with Saren and Sovereign dead, they’re still here, still indoctrinated – a reminder that this is a permanent thing, a devastating thing, because there’s no way to take the Reaper compulsion away. But this leads to learning about a place that Saren ventured to from here, a place wracked with dangerous phenomenon. The only way to get there is with a crack pilot – which, fortunately, Normandy has.

There’s a brief pause from plot for some further expansion with the others – Wrex has been contemplating the krogan, given what went down on Virmire. His people are dying out, maybe not in the way we traditionally think of it, but still in practice. What is there for the krogan but to be used and abused by the Sarens of the universe, so long as all they care about is getting offworld and fighting and dying, usually being pit against one another as the proxies for stupid, pointless conflicts. It’s not right, and it’s beginning to eat at him.

And then there’s Ashley/Kaidan. Given the events of Virmire, both of them are thinking about the family that was left behind – Ashley’s sisters lost one of their central figures, Kaidan’s family lost their only son. They both are trying to write a letter of condolence to their counterpart’s loved ones (and specifically asking Shepard about the one they should be writing), trying to figure how they can make it better that they were saved at the other’s expense. It’s a complicated matter, and I want to just explore, even retroactively, how these two were friends, were close, potentially (if Shepard shuts down a romance with both of them) starting to come together. Just a bit that not only reestablishes the friendship and emphasizes that the fallen character is not forgotten, plus giving more context to how they’ll say that they and Shepard got through the other’s death together in ME3

This is a point for some romance content, which, I realize I have yet to bring up Liara’s character bit for this – don’t worry, it’s coming. But we do pause for some smoochies.

Anyway. The Normandy arrives in the hazardous area and we get a team meeting – remember how back in the first of these outlines, I brought up wanting to give more for Pressley? I haven’t directly mentioned him much since, but here’s a place to feature him, in the same way that the landing on Ilos does, showing him having a greater involvement in the strategy and such. Team Shepard needs to figure out if there even is a place to investigate within this area. There are sensor ghosts that might be something that they could land on and investigate, though it’s too small for a Mako mission (I may love that tank, but I feel like its final ride being the trip through the Ilos Relay is poetic and I’m not going to mess with that). Joker gets his moment of putting the Normandy through her paces (which is also going to add to the pain of her loss in ME2’s prologue, that she could pull this off, but couldn’t out-fly the Collector ship).

They detect something with a similar energy signature to the prothean beacons on an asteroid large enough to land on, which makes it reasonable for Liara to go with – take the prothean expert to a place that could hold more information on the protheans. She’s nervous because of the confirmation of the Reapers has just made things really real for her – this is facing the same thing that destroyed the protheans, and how can they stand against them, given the protheans’ advanced nature?

Let’s also take a moment and, given the indoctrinated nature of the mercs who attacked back on the outpost, to have some follow-up for Benezia’s death – I may only be speaking for myself, but it has NEVER sat right that Liara’s response to that is to simply go “I choose to remember Benezia as she was,” given that Shepard was, regardless of their reluctance, responsible for the actual bullet that ended her mother’s life. She’s struggling – could the mercs have been saved? Could her mother? Could what they find below offer a way to have saved them, and, if so, would Saren have had it, could he have freed her mother before her death? Did she have to die? Why did her mother have to die? Cue Shepard offering their support for her emotional struggle.

And yes, for Liaramancers, this is where they get their smoochies.

As for what they find... Geth. Plenty of (heretic – though Shepard doesn’t yet know this) geth. They are crawling all over the facility, it’s a firefight all the way to the central database, and, as our big final boss, we deal with a geth augmented with some of Sovereign’s tech, meant to be a Reaper upgrade for the geth. Obviously, this is not going to make it into the geth consensus (heretic or true), and this is effectively the only existing prototype.

The result of this is that they do find an archival interface, the same kind that allowed the communication with Sovereign on Virmire. Unfortunately, it can provide nothing – without Sovereign connected to it, it’s got minimal functionality – something might be recovered, with some time and effort. But the facility is about to move into the areas of this area of space that will fry any systems that get close to it – Sovereign probably had this place selected in the name of being a place where anyone who might stumble upon its hiding place would decide to move on because it’s suicide to remain in the area.

The only choice is to return to the Normandy, without any additional evidence. There are indications of geth vessels having moved out of the area and into other sectors, which could give them something to go on for further investigations. But, with this stage of the mission being a bust, Shepard is going to have the Normandy return to the earlier outpost in the name of allowing all ashore who are going ashore – Tali, Garrus, and Wrex, specifically, but also any other Normandy crew willing to stand down for the time being. Investigating this further is a strictly volunteer mission. This will, of course, lead us to ME2’s prologue...

Post Game Followups:

ME2: Mentions of Shepard’s activities on the outpost while on Omega, a letter from a scientist, passed on by Anderson, about further studies made on indoctrination being done on the sly, considering the lack of approval from the Council.

ME3: Further research has been done on indoctrination, now publicly, and makes for a scientific war asset, the remnants of the merc gang that were indoctrinated have reformed and reassembled as a roving band of resistance fighters against the Reapers.

Miscellaneous 

Bisexual Ashley, Bisexual Kaidan, proper close outs to other romances, romances require proper flirts to start, additional conversations for all characters

Look, no one in space is heterosexual, okay? I don’t make the rule, I just enforce it. Actually, considering the context of these, I DO make the rules, and “no one in space is heterosexual” is one of them, so deal with it. Kaidan is canonically bisexual as of ME3, so there’s no reason he shouldn’t be canonically bisexual in ME1. And we’ll throw Ashley in for good measure, because why not? And we definitely – DEFINITELY – need to do something about the romance mechanic that seems to assume “I would like to get to know you better” means “you, me, my cabin, the way to Ilos, yes/yes?” There needs to be explicit markers for closing out a romance WITHOUT locking you out of conversations with the character in question (particularly considering that now, all of this game’s romances can be options in a given playthrough). And yeah, I think there could stand to be a few extra conversations with the characters, that focus on the characters proper – for most of the crew, they basically end up acting as glorified Wikipedia entries on their species, or, in Kaidan’s case, the plight of human biotics. Let’s give them some more personalized material that lets them tell Shepard something about themselves (and offer Shepard something similar, as character development for the both of them).

[catgirlxox]

The Significance of Ben’s Characterization in Season 3 of Alien Force Onwards

There has been quite a bit of controversy surrounding Ben’s characterization in season 3 of Alien Force onward. Ben is criticized for downgrading as a character, and just generally being written much worse than he was in the previous two seasons. Although there is definitely a shift in the way his character is presented, I would like to go over the why - aside from the writers’ decision to make him “more like his ten year old self”, which seems to be what the majority conclude his later characterization to. My point is not to defend everything the writers decide to do with his character, I only want to defend my favourite character by trying to understand where Ben himself would have been coming from since these events are still canon and true to his story. 

This “new attitude” begins to be apparent in the episode “Vengeance of Vilgax.”  I would argue this is the beginning of Ben’s “hero” identity really becoming a permanent aspect of his immediate life since he has obviously gained quite a large amount of notoriety from Alien Force’s seasons 1-2 concluding with establishing peace between the Highbreed and the rest of the Universe in “War of the Worlds.”  

I mean, when did he even get all of this?!

Being “Ben 10″ the “superhero” has become kind of a big deal at this point in his life. Not that he was unheard of before, but, like I said, this “title” is now much more permanent since he has proved that he is capable enough to stop, not only a war, but a xenocidal mass murder of every species in the Universe along with the Highbreed. And that this was ultimately done without resorting to complete violence, which is why I would say it is more important that peace was established between races rather than “a war was stopped.” 

Just to give Ben the credit he deserves, everyone depended on him to come up with a solution. To put this into perspective, all the pressure is on a fifteen year old to think of a way to stop an alien invasion which intends to commit alien genocide. 

Even Azmuth, who is very intelligent and probably has an even better understanding of what the Omnitrix can do than Ben, ended up saying “all is lost, they are too powerful to fight.” 

Ben realized that fighting the Highbreed to the death was not a solution because it promotes death on one side of the battle. It was more important to establish peace because that way, nobody “loses.” Everyone can continue to live - a hero’s job is to save lives. 

Furthermore, as we were shown throughout Seasons 1-2, this kind of work starts to become increasingly prevalent in his life. In other words, it starts to become his whole world. And as you might guess, that takes up a lot of his time. I'd say the amount of time he spends fighting aliens only increases the longer he does it. 

Being a “superhero” is a 24/7 job. There is no “schedule.” 

So even if he values the work he does and likes his job, doesn't that mean he has less time for himself?

You might say that this kind of rationalization is selfish since Ben chose to do this work out of selflessness. But, does choosing to do work which involves putting your own life on the line mean one must also sacrifice their own individual private identity? 

Does he automatically becomes only a an “alien superhero” and no longer has the right to be a human? 

In “Vengeance of Vilgax”, Ben is late for a mission with Gwen and Kevin because he was immersed in his free time, watching TV and being awarded another metal. 

On a separate note, Gwen and Kevin had an unusually hard time taking down Ssserpent. They should be powerful enough to do that in less than the hour they claimed to be fighting him for before Ben finally showed up. That only proves that Ben is the reason they win half the time - he really is the most powerful. This could have been because they were inexperienced with Ssseprent, but even so Ssserpent shouldn't be that hard to defeat because they absolutely have more than enough experience fighting much more dangerous offenders. Ben didn't even put that much effort into stopping him so that probably aggravated them even more. 

This is where his "arrogant" attitude comes in. Although I can see how his attitude would be taken as arrogant, I believe the bigger issue moving forward is a lack of caution when Ben is confident in his abilities. Which, in the given circumstances, he has the logical right to have. Anybody who has access to as much power as Ben does would realize how capable they are and in turn develop a level of confidence. The problem with this is that fact that it might lead them to either underestimating their opponent or overestimating their chances of being successful. Realizing one’s own strength can be both a blessing and a curse. 

Later in the same episode, Kevin brings up the idea to hack the Omnitrix, and because neither Ben nor Kevin seem to have much caution going into this operation, it backfires on them. Hacking the Omnitrix was a bad idea with even worse consequences. But, this was not just done out of stupidity. They were about to go up against Vilgax - who they haven’t seen since “Secret of the Omnitrix” and is now allegedly much more powerful. Keep in mind, Vilgax probably showed up again due to word of Ben 10′s recent success spreading across the Galaxy. Vilgax prepared himself to fight Ben 10 and end him.

They knew that they would need the best the Omnitrix could offer to take him on successfully. They had a justified reason, but it was absolutely still a bad idea. 

I get the feeling that many of us seem to think Ben has become a whole new character, possibly a “worse” character than he was in the first two seasons of Alien Force. “Vengeance of Vilgax” exists to set up a character flaw to demonstrate that Ben is human, and humans are not generally overpowered perfect Gods. Being a human means being fallible. But being a fallible human does not mean that one is no longer capable of being inspiring or successful. It does not make you a failure or useless. 

It must be even more damaging to think that, while part of you is strong, the “real” you underneath the superpowers is not as “great.” Would you not try to match that strength on both sides of your identity? 

Because Ben is written as a character who becomes a superhero by choice rather than being born super powered, there is a balance to be established between being the ideal version of himself that the Universe expects and not losing his true self in the process of fulfilling this “destiny.” 

Just because this flaw is being written into his character, it does not mean all his previous traits are erased. Something that is still constant is Ben’s motivation to do the right thing. Every time there is a scene where Ben interacts with Max, his tone of voice is more serious and he pays close attention to Max. This comes from his human connection to his Grandpa and all that he has learned from him. This is his vulnerable, human side. 

Max: It’s almost showtime, Ben, and I’ve been thinking. Vilgax is Plumber business. Good as you are, you’re still just a kid. I’ll take him on.

Ben: This is my fight, grandpa. Vilgax challenged me, and I’m the one with the Omnitrix. At least most of it.

Max: You’ve got less than an hour, Ben.

Ben: I’ll be there. And I’ll win. Love you, grandpa.

He jokes around, but he is not insensitive. 

Ben: “Hey, Kevin, why don’t you change back to normal? You've been ugly for like 40 miles.”

Kevin: “I can’t.”

Ben: “What?”

Kevin: “I can’t!”

Kevin: “Let me bring you up to speed, hero. Thanks to you, I can’t turn back. I’m a monster.”

Ben: “I’m sorry, Kevin. I didn’t know. I was just kidding around.”

That is because Ben has not just been reduced to “an arrogant jerk”, he is still the same person we have known the entirety of the series. And just like anybody would, he is reacting to the circumstances in which he finds himself in at this point in his life. People generally, in terms of personality, are not just one way their entire lives. Especially when the person we are talking about is a teenager who has been through much more than any other average teenager you may know. And on top of that, will continue to be faced with increasingly difficult situations as he gets more and more invested in the life of a superhero. 

If that is the case, how much would it help him to give in to every insecurity that might stand in his way? He has dedicated himself to being “Ben 10.” This responsibility only gets heavier as time goes on. Why else would Vilgax feel the need to acquire the powers of the greatest heroes of ten worlds in order to “prepare” to take on Ben again? Vilgax perceives Ben as a threat to his own strength. This is ironic because there are moments throughout the series where, even though his enemies think highly of him, he seems to believe he isn’t as great as they say. He needs to match the heroic greatness with his own personality, and that is where this shift in characterization comes from. It is entirely an emotional thing. 

The following are episodes which fall under Season 3 Ben’s supposed problematic Characterization: 

 “Simple”

This is even more proof of almost every species in the Universe having a very high expectation for “the great Ben 10.” He stopped one war, he could stop their war too, they seem to believe.The problem is that these aliens don’t seem to have any grasp on what it means to have so much responsibility. And when this is what is being asked of him, do you really expect Ben to not at least try?

“Vreedle, Vreedle / Don’t Fear the Repo”

The most important part of this episode in terms of Ben’s characterization was his dialogue in court. If just taken at face value, his words can be interpreted as very self-centered. But keep in mind at this point in time almost every being in the Universe who has heard of Ben Tennyson thinks very highly of him. 

In order to convince the court to take his side, he plays up his attitude to match this reputation. You’ll even notice the way he says it sounds “acted.” 

“Your honor, I am Ben Tennyson - The Ben Tennyson. Wielder of the Omnitrix, saviour of the Universe. I’m sure you’ve heard of me. I need you to do me a little favor, Judgey. There’s been a little mix up here. Ship is part of my team now. That’s, the famous Ben Tennyson’s team. Say, ever seen an Omnitrix up close before, Judge?”

“Judge Domstol. Dom, may I call you Dom? These things can happen when you’re chosen to bear the awesome responsibility of the Omnitrix.”

“The court rules in favour of...Ben Tennyson. There is no reason the wielder of the Omnitrix should have to bother himself with petty matters such as this. I apologize for wasting your time, Mr. Tennyson.”

It seems that if they had just tried to explain the matter in the way Kevin was attempting to, Baz-El would have won because, legally, Ship was his physical property, not Julie’s. But because Ship helped out during the Highbreed war, that makes him a part of Ben 10′s team and therefore it would be in an injustice to a very important public figure such as a superhero if the property had been repossessed, as well as an injustice to the rest of Universe because Ben 10′s team works to promote galactic peace.

Aside from that, another part of Season 3 onwards was the argument that “Ben was a jerk to his girlfriend.” Here, you might come to believe so because this episode makes it seem as though Ben doesn't care about Ship being Julie’s “dog.” The reality of the matter is that Ship is not “a dog.” Julie sees him as a dog only because she doesn’t have as much experience with alien technology as Ben does so it makes sense for Ben to perceive Ship as the Galvanic Mechamorph that he is. He should have his guard up when it comes to alien technology. What selfish reason would Ben have to not want Julie to have Ship anyway? Would it be so far fetched to assume Ship could potentially harm Julie? 

“Ghost Town”

According to Gwen, what Ben did here was “really really stupid.” 

He threw himself into Ghostfreak so that the rest of Vilgaxia would no longer have to endure his slavery. Ben’s intention was not to hurt anyone, especially not Gwen or Kevin and while he was possessed by Ghostfreak. He probably had no idea what was happening around him anyway! He didn't just act oblivious because he “didn't care.” That’s not like Ben to do at all. 

“The Secret of Chromastone” 

This episode is a great example of what was started in “Vengeance of Vilgax.” Not only does he have much less time for himself, but something like having a cold doesn't mean his job ends. 

Even if Ben did stay home, Tetrax would probably still find him to get to Chromastone. Being the wielder of the Omnitrix is still relevant in times where he probably feels less than heroic, whether he likes it or not. 

“Above and Beyond”

This episode might not have worked so well if it had been done in a previous season because Ben’s characterization here is very specific. The first time Ben went up against Manny and Helen in the season one episode “Plumbers Helpers”, they actually seemed to overpower him.  

I would argue that since then Ben has built up this confidence, so it allows him to believably pretend to be “evil” because he realizes what he is potentially capable of. This episode shows us how unstoppable he would be if morals weren’t a factor and he didn’t hold back. 

Contrast this with how unsure he was in “Ben 10 Returns” about whether he would even be able to do it without Max. Well, here, he is doing all of this without Max. 

“The Final Battle”

“Azmuth help me! Please! Just so I can help them.” 

The final episode of Alien Force, where Ben is shown having a very significant internal conflict after being forced to hand over the Omnitrix to Vilgax. If you put this turn of events into perspective, realize just how much it must weigh on him. He has previously proved to be so capable of defeating Vilgax easily. The entire Universe put him up on a high pedestal this entire season. 

It probably made him feel useless, like he really didn’t deserve to be so praised for everything, that it was all because of the Omnitrix. 

Is it the tool he had that lead him to act like a hero, or his selfless ambition to use this opportunity to do good? 

After all, anybody can be armed with a weapon, but it is then up to that person to chose what they will do with it. And now that he has chosen to use it to help others, that is what he is expected to continue to do. 

I feel like he needed this arc to establish how having the entire Universe begin to depend on him can affect him for better and worse. This was the transition from being a vigilante superhero, to well known on a galactic level, to world famous in Ultimate Alien. Moving forwards through the series as he ages, I would say there is definitely an improvement in how much of a hero he believes he is, and how he goes about doing his work as he settles into the reality that he can no longer be “normal.” The whole entire Universe is in his hands and he is expected to live up to their expectations of him. 

That is enough to make anyone start acting “different.”  

As he comes to accept this moving forward, just by his actions you can see it is not always an “act” he puts on to be considered “a hero.” This is especially apparent in the Ultimate Kevin arc. He so very cautious about Kevin's rampage that he couldn't allow him to hurt anybody else. Which is what led him to consider that putting him down might have to be a possibility. During the Ultimate Aggregor arc in general, Ben is always shown to be attentive to the immediate problem at hand. He is not so focused on appearing to be “the great Ben Tennyson” or be what everyone expects him to be. Rather, what is more important is handling the situation in a productive way. Again, he is not insensitive to others’ opinions on his “flaws”, but if it is not immediately vital, then he does not make the situation all about him. 

Azmuth: “We find ourselves in a situation so dire, that perhaps I should risk giving Ben my new Omnitrix.” 

Ben: “New Omnitrix? Gimmie! I’ll kick Aggregor’s butt!

Azmuth: “No, it’s not completely ready and clearly neither are you.” 

Ben: “Not yet?” 

Azmuth: “At the rate you’re regressing likely not ever.” 

Ben: “I’ve wanted a chance to apologize to you for months. But right now I’ve gotta stop Aggregor. If you’re not here to help, we’ll catch up later.” 

Max: “Wait. Ben. Hear him out.” 

Azmuth: “Your lack of patience is foremost among your many weaknesses.” 

In the Ultimate Alien episode, “Map of Infinity”, Azmuth interprets this as a lack of patience and claims he is “regressing.” Even if this is a flaw, it stems from a place of good intention - the reason why he continues to do this job. 

Now, here’s a question to consider when criticizing someone. 

Is there anyone who never does anything stupid? 

And just because this person has done something that some might consider to be “stupid”, does that mean you should totally give up on them? Are they not capable of improving? 

I would argue that there are levels of “immaturity” and “stupid decisions”, depending on the harm they cause and intention behind the action. And, as I keep reiterating, a person learning a lesson does not guarantee that they will never make the same mistake again. That is just reality.

So is it not a little unfair to continuously go back to Ben’s past mistakes since he has grown from that and established so much more character development? Doing something bad and then recognizing that what you have done is wrong is character development in itself. There does not always have to be a lesson learned or punishment given, just the realization that nobody is always perfect.

This is especially important when everyone expects you to be perfect because you are a “legendary superhero.”  

This is something touched on in the Omniverse episode “Showdown.” Ben is reminded of the time he lost his favourite transformation, Feedback, which he blames himself for. This loss clearly emotionally weighs him down because he doesn't blame anyone other than himself and realizes the mistake he made.

In order to accept it and move on, he realizes he must forgive himself because continuing to beat himself up over it is not going to help him in any way. He’s already established what he decided to do in that situation as wrong, now the only thing he can do is try to be better in the future. 

Forgiveness and acceptance that you are not and never will be “perfect” is the only way to improve in the present moment. 

Going back to the fact that “Ben 10″ is so glorified throughout the Universe, I’d like everyone to realize that, just because Ben has matured since he was ten years old, does not mean he has “left behind” his flaws. His has not suddenly become someone to idolize. It is absolutely fine to look up to him as, I believe, there is something everyone can learn from him. But, even though he has the ability to become one, he is not, and does not try to be, a God. 

Maybe this is what influences Ben’s quite accepting perception regarding other people’s flaws, weaknesses, and past mistakes. Come to think of it, he doesn't really tend to pick on people’s specific flaws all that much. Definitely not as much as others tend to do towards him. He “gives people second chances." 

“You trust people. You give them second chances. And they live up to your expectations. Kevin was a sociopath when you were kids, but you trusted him anyway.” - Max (Ultimate Alien episode: “Absolute Power” part 1)

As the series progresses, this is still something that is constant in his characterization. Ben doesn't seem to focus on what people have done wrong because blaming others for their mistakes and guilting them does not help them improve in the immediate moment. 

In the Omniverse episode “Hot Stretch” , Ester is responsible for what could have potentially been a disaster. 

The only thing is that she allegedly didn't know the full extent of what her petty crime would lead to. But does Ben see a point in guilting her for it when there are lives in danger as they speak?

 "We're past the blame stage."

This where I would like to insert some lyrics which provide a much more vulnerable view of the reality of such an idolized, legendary superhero who is still, and always will be, a fallible human underneath it all. 

“I'm more than a bird, I'm more than a plane

I'm more than some pretty face beside a train And it's not easy to be me

Wish that I could cry Fall upon my knees Find a way to lie About a home I'll never see

It may sound absurd, but don't be naive Even heroes have the right to bleed I may be disturbed, but won't you concede Even heroes have the right to dream And it's not easy to be me”

“Men weren't meant to ride With clouds between their knees

I'm only a man in a silly red sheet Digging for kryptonite on this one way street Only a man in a funny red sheet Looking for special things inside of me”

- “Superman” by Five for Fighting

Alien Force’s Season 3 onwards showed Ben finding how he can “be the hero” rather than just “acting” like how a hero should according to others not in his place.

It is not as easy as one might think to just be given abilities and always do that is expected of you to do with them. There will be times when you will doubt yourself, there will be times when others will underestimate you and it will affect the way you see yourself. Becoming one’s best self is a process of fall down and get up again, trail and error. That is part of being human. The part of Ben that seems to always be left out when talking about “Ben 10.” 

No Watch Ben seemed to parallel Prime Ben in “Ben 10 Returns” because of what he thought he was “missing” - not only the Omnitrix, but the authentic, confident, selfless, self-assured heroicness that is something he developed over the course of the series. 

The other alternate Bens also have their own watches along with level of confident attitude, but they were not heroes. They became their own downfall because they got so submersed into the act of being “all powerful” that they let it consume them. 

“It’s just a gadget. Be the hero!” - Prime Ben’s “dying words” (Omniverse, “And Then There Were None”) 

To conclude, I feel like the title "hero" ends up becoming somewhat restricting when it comes to this. It's like it takes up the entirety of his character, and people forget that you can't have "Ben 10" without "Ben." Ben, the human, is the one who is affected by all this underneath all the superpowers. He becomes such a great hero and fights for peace, but does he ever really get to experience peace himself?

There is quite a bit that Ben can’t be any more. Making a mistake on any level will be condemned by everyone if it falls out of the parameters that define being a “hero.” 

So how much time in the life of a hero is there to doubt oneself when everyone is depending on you to get the job done?

Not much when it’s always “hero time.”

[theajaheira]

imperfections (49/?)

read it on ao3!

i made very bad life choices in order to finish this chapter (gotta go finish a lot of homework very fast now) but!! it’s done!!!!

“I mean, we’re not inviting him over for bangers and mash—did I say that right?”

“No,” said Giles, who hadn’t looked up from the newspaper.

“Whatever. No one asked you.”

“You asked me.”

“Shush. Anyway, we’re not inviting him over for bangers and mash or anything, but—we’re for real pretty good. Or good enough for now, at least.” Jen handed a tentative Buffy a string of lights. “Help Xander string some of these outdoors?”

“Sure,” said Buffy, looking relieved at the opportunity to do something that wasn’t just standing around.

“Are we doing a gift exchange?” Willow asked, darting worried eyes to the presents heaped on the coffee table. “I didn’t get any gifts—”

“It’s not a gift exchange,” said Jen, who was haphazardly stringing garlands of tinsel over the fireplace. “We just, you know, bought all of you gifts. There’s no exchange there.”

“You guys bought us gifts?” Buffy looked like she might melt.

“Oh, damn, we should give you yours before you’re off for Christmas with your mom!” gasped Jen, tossing one of the garlands over her shoulder at random.

It hit Giles in the face. He spat out some tinsel, then said, “Jenny—”

“Whoops,” said Jen remorselessly, turning back to draping tinsel in a way that definitely looked like a fire hazard.

Giles very carefully set down his newspaper, got up from the chair, and wrapped his arms around Jen’s waist from behind, scooping her up and off her feet. She shrieked, laughing. “You,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, “have officially been stripped of all tinsel-related responsibilities.”

“Ugh, okay, on that note,” said Buffy, blushing furiously, and hurried out the door with the string of lights.

After a glance at Giles and Jen, Faith rolled her eyes, grinned, and followed, enjoying the gentle flurry of snow that was beginning to fall. “Is snow a usual thing in Sunnydale?” she asked Buffy, falling into step with her.

“Not usually,” Buffy answered, smiling softly as she turned to look at Faith. Snowflakes were catching in her hair, some of them landing on her soft red jacket, and she was probably one of the prettiest things Faith had ever seen. “Kind of a Christmas miracle, I guess.”

“Winter solstice miracle,” Faith corrected, grinning fondly in the direction of Jen’s half-open front door. “Jen seems pretty big on that aspect.”

Buffy’s attention had turned to the lights, which had somehow tangled themselves around most of her right arm. “What do you think the odds are that some of these are, like, magically annoying?” she grumbled, attempting to tug herself free.

“Oh, hey, don’t break those,” said Faith, hurrying forward to help untangle Buffy. Focusing largely on making sure Buffy was free of the lights, she almost missed the way Buffy’s blush returned with a vengeance. “You okay?”

“What?” squeaked Buffy.

Faith looked up at her, and that was when she realized how close they were. A few months of a solid, persistent crush on B had made her a little less panicky about physical proximity, which she felt kinda grateful for. The snow was falling softly around them, and the porch lights added a gentle glow to Buffy’s blonde hair—this kind of shit would have had her all kinds of nervous under different circumstances. “You okay?” she said again, ‘cause that was really what mattered after the few days they’d all had.

For a moment, Buffy’s deer-in-the-headlights look didn’t waver. Then she blinked, swallowed, and gave Faith a small, timid smile. “Merry Christmas,” she said.

“Winter solstice,” said Faith.

“Whatever,” said Buffy.

They stood there for another few seconds, and it felt…nice. In a not scary way. Faith hesitated, then said, “You know, you’ve been…I really like you, B. I’m glad we got to know each other.”

Buffy’s smile widened, and her eyes went all soft. “Me too,” she said.

There was a loud crash from the house, and then Jen shouted, “Okay, we are getting rid of some of these fucking boxes!”

Faith snickered. “I should probably get back in there,” she said. “Whatever’s going on sounds, uh, worth watching.”

“You do that,” said Buffy, who seemed to have finally managed to extricate herself from the lights. “I need to go see where Xander’s at.”

“I think he might be decorating the backyard?”

Buffy waved a hand. “I’m sure he’ll turn up,” she said.

“See?” said Xander, gesturing to the newly-furnished shed (newly-furnished, in this context, mostly just meant that he’d moved in a ratty mattress and a sleeping bag). “Sure, maybe it doesn’t have heating, but I moved most of my stuff in and now it’s actually pretty livable!”

Jenny pressed a hand to her temple. “Didn’t we have this conversation?”

“Yeah, but there’s so much more space in the shed,” Xander persisted. “And I figured, you know, with the boxes cluttering up your living room, it might at least make things easier if you didn’t have me taking up space on the couch on top of all that.”

Rupert had a strange expression on his face. “Xander, you really aren’t taking up space,” he said quietly. “You’re here because you need a place to stay. If anything, the fault is ours for not having a larger house.”

Xander scoffed. “So what, the blame falls on you ‘cause Ms. Calendar didn’t think to buy a three-bedroom?”

“Oh, it certainly isn’t Jenny’s fault,” said Rupert earnestly.

“If anything, it’s the books’ fault,” said Jenny.

“Let’s not toss harsh words around,” said Rupert immediately. “The books are a non-negotiable.”

“Rupert, we need more space,” Jenny persisted. “And I’m not tossing the kids out on the street for the sake of your personal collection.”

Rupert’s eyes were soft and bright. “I’d never suggest that,” he said. “I would, however, suggest a larger house.”

Jenny blinked. “What?”

“W-well,” Rupert began, nervous but still determined, “I, I know the subject of, of commitment hasn’t really come up in any, ah, serious way, particularly since my moving in was more out of convenience than anything, but I—” He stopped, smiling shyly. “I love you very much,” he said. “I think I’d like to take that next step and buy a house with you. A real one, that’ll fit all of us.”

Jenny felt a rush of butterflies. “So you’re not planning on leaving?” she asked, the words tumbling out before she could snatch them back.

Rupert’s smile fluttered, then faded; he looked ashamed. “I won’t ever do that again, Jenny,” he said. “I regret—deeply—that that’s a question you even have to ask. No, I-I’m not—I don’t think I ever want to leave you and the children.”

It was the children,hesitant but still firm, that did it. Without a word, Jenny gripped Rupert’s lapels, pulling him into a soft, solid kiss.

Xander attempted to pointedly cough, swallowed wrong, and started hacking.

Jenny pulled away from Rupert. “Go drink some water,” she instructed Xander, stepping over to brush some snow out of his hair.

Through his coughing fit, Xander choked, “So no to the shed?”

“You’re going to have your own bedroom at the new place, Xander,” said Jenny patiently.

Xander stopped coughing, mouth half-open. Weakly, he said, “I’m not—I mean, you guys aren’t letting me stay, are you? You said not for anything permanent, you said—”

“Yes, well, that was before we had a big enough place to put you up,” said Rupert simply. “If we’re getting a new house, it stands to reason that we’re to factor in the innumerable amount of children that seem to be in it on a daily basis.”

Jenny elbowed him.

“Ah. What I meant was…” Rupert trailed off, his cheeks red from a mixture of cold and what Jenny knew was shy affection. It gratified her, seeing that look directed at Xander. “Your home situation isn’t ideal, Xander,” he said. “Given that Jenny and I have the resources to rectify that, I think it’s only appropriate that we shall. If you’d like to stay—”

“Yeah,” said Xander. His eyes were wet.

“And do you see your parents objecting?”

Xander wavered. Then he said, “When I went to pick up the last of my stuff from my mom’s, she said she thought it was a good thing, me and him not being under the same roof.” He swallowed, hard. “She said that maybe some distance is what me and my dad both need.”

Rupert cocked his head, a glint in his eye reminiscent of the way he’d looked during his and Jenny’s conversation about Angel. “Oh, did she?” he said coolly.

Jenny placed a calming hand on Rupert’s arm. “Well, that’s good, then,” she said, and meant it. “That means you get to stay with us.”

Xander had a look in his eyes that suggested, had he been a few years younger, he might have tackled Jenny in a hug. As it was, he wavered, awkwardly clapped Giles on the shoulder, said “Cool,” to the shed, and hurried away, a tentative smile lingering on his face.

“So, new house?” said Jenny, letting her hand move to Rupert’s shoulder.

Rupert turned to her, looking at her as though he almost couldn’t believe she was there. “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes, a-a new house, with, with bedrooms, a backyard, perhaps a study—”

Jenny stood on tiptoe and kissed him again, properly this time, twining her arms around his neck as he lifted her off her feet.

Faith was sitting on the couch when Xander came up, dropped the coil of lights on top of the coffee table, and fell into the seat next to her, a dazed expression on his face. “They said I could stay,” he said.

“Yeah, they’re cool like that,” said Faith, bumping his shoulder. “Merry solstice or whatever, I guess.”

Xander hesitated, giving Faith a sidelong glance. “So, uh, we’re gonna be under the same roof,” he said awkwardly.

“Looks like,” said Faith.

“You cool with that?”

“Well, if the new place is gonna fit you, me, Giles, Jen, and five metric tons of books, I figure it’s gonna be a pretty big roof,” said Faith lightly.

“Not what I meant,” said Xander simply.

Faith sighed, then took a moment to seriously consider the question. “You’re cool enough,” she said. “Plus you’ve kinda been living here already.”

“That wasn’t permanent—”

“Course it was, dumbass,” said Faith, amused, and that was when it hit her: she was going to be living with Giles and Jen for as long as she wanted. They were getting a new house for Xander and the books, sure, but for her too. “Course it was,” she said again, all but wondrously.

Xander gave her this annoying little smirk. “It hit you too, didn’t it?” he said, all but smug.

“Whatever,” said Faith, and settled herself into the couch, letting her shoulder bump against Xander’s. After a moment of contemplation, she added, “My room better be bigger than yours.”

“That’s seriously what you’re worried about?”

“I have seniority, Harris,” Faith informed him. “I have rights—”

This was when Jen and Giles stumbled through the hallway and into the living room, nearly knocking over two boxes of books. Giles’s jacket got caught on some tinsel. “So!” said Jen, who looked the happiest that Faith had ever seen her. “We are going to have to start instigating a semi-regular bedtime, because growing kids need their sleep.”

“Shit, Jen, two seconds of domestic bliss and you’re already trying to mom us to death?” Faith tipped her head back, grinning at the ceiling.

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” said Jen unapologetically, squeezing in between Faith and Xander. “Move. I want to watch some bad celebratory TV.”

“Actually, Jenny, I, ah, think we should all start looking at real estate listings,” said Giles suddenly. “There were a few I marked in the newspaper—”

Faith hesitated, then turned, tucking herself into Jen’s side. What the fuck, right? It was the best time of year to be sentimental and dumb as shit. “Love you,” she said, quietly enough that only Jen would hear it.

In answer, and very gently, Jen smoothed down Faith’s hair, fingers catching in a few lingering tangles from the mess brought on by the Bringers. “Happy solstice, Faith,” she said.

[coolandspice]

Affirmation

Saeran Choi Week 2018 7th Day : Birthday || Reunion

Summary:  On the morning after Mint Eye’s arrest, Saeran is unexpectedly reunited with MC when he saves her from danger, again. 

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15328704

Setting:  Ray Route Bad Relationship End 2

A/N: Here’s the long overdue Part 2 to my fic, It All Comes Back - MC’s side of the story. This one is both a parallel and a sequel to the first fic. Tagging @saeranchoiweek again as this is still an entry to Saeran Week 2018.

A real-time footage of the façade of an apartment complex is currently playing on the computer screen. There’s nothing to show except for a lady tenant entering her unit. Saeran watches the feed a minute more before deciding to get back to his work on consolidating evidences against Mint Eye.

“Go talk to her.”                                                                        

Saeran sighs as he turns away from the computer to face his older twin who enters the computer room with a pack of Honey Butter chips on hand. “You know I can’t.”

“Sure you can.” Saeyoung insists. “You just don’t want to, despite stalking her for months already.”

The younger twin pouts at the insinuation. “I’m just checking on her occasionally.”

Saeyoung stops stuffing his face with this favorite chips. He slowly licks his lips and flashes a shit-eating grin on Saeran. “If ‘occasionally’ means having hacked and reprogrammed the street CCTV camera positioned across her apartment building to send real-time footages to your computer every 8AM and 6PM, then sure, you only check on her,” he makes air-quotation marks with his fingers, “occasionally.”

“I-wha-how did you know that?” Saeran sputters, a raging blush creeps up on his cheeks. His skin is almost as red as their natural hair color now.

Saeyoung laughs out loud, thoroughly amused at Saeran’s indignation. “Well, this is my house and that,” he points at Saeran’s computer, “is my old computer. You can’t keep secrets from me when you’re using my old gadgets, Bro.”

The younger twin narrows his eyes at his brother. “You’re unbelievable.”

Saeyoung laughs again then ends it with a sigh, his face turning serious. “Go back to her, Saeran. I only got to talk to her in the chatroom but I know she’s a good girl. You shouldn’t make her worry for this long.”

“She’s an angel.” Saeran whispers wistfully. “But she’s better off without me. I…” he sighs, “I did despicable things to her. I don’t deserve to see her anymore.”

“Funny, that’s also how I used to think before I got kidnapped and thought I was gonna die without seeing my twin again.” Saeyoung smiles as he looks directly at his brother. “Thank God I was rescued by the exact person I wanted to see the most.”

Saeran shakes his head. “It’s not the same. You left because you thought it’s what’s good for us back then. You entered the Agency so Father can’t trace you and you trusted V and Rika that they will take care of me.” He says. “I left her behind because I can’t take the guilt anymore. I’ve hurt her, Hyung.”

“I think you’ve more than made up to her by getting her out of Mint Eye.” says Saeyoung.

“I got her out because I brought her there in the first place.” Saeran counters.

“Why are you so stubborn about this?” Saeyoung sighs again. “From what I remember from the chats, she likes you a lot – No, she loves you.  She purposely hid the fact that she was with you, the hacker back then, to protect you.”

“That was before I hurt her.” Saeran sighs. “She must hate me now.”

“Well, you would know.” Saeyoung lifts his glasses and massages the bridge of his nose. “You hated me when you thought I abandoned you. So now you think she hates you because you left her without an explanation.”

“That’s not true!” Saeran protests but Saeyoung looks at him sternly.

The younger twin averts his eyes. “Well, yeah, I did. I let Mint Eye make me hate you for leaving me behind.”

Saeyoung takes in a deep breath, readying himself for a long talk. “Saeran, don’t be like me. I left you without telling you why. I never checked how you were. I deluded myself that you’re doing okay with Rika because of the pictures she showed me. I know I should have at least checked on you personally, even just once. I kept telling myself that secret agents can’t have ties so I’m not allowed to see you. But in fact, I was afraid that if I see you, I’ll never be able to leave you again. I was a coward, Saeran.”

“Hyung, stop.” Saeran pleads. “We’ve talked about this before. We’ve decided to move on from that. No more blaming.”

“Then stop blaming yourself as well, Saeran.” Saeyoung follows up. “I’m thankful that you have forgiven me, but you have to forgive yourself too. You were not in total control when you were in Mint Eye. You know that, right?”

Saeran raises his hands in surrender. “Fine. I’ll think about it.”

The look on Saeyoung’s face is skeptical but he decides to drop the subject for now. He simply nods at his brother and leaves the room, probably to get a can of Doctor Pepper.

Saeran returns to his work, pulling up multiple media websites in search of more news that may relate to Magenta and Mint Eye.

Days passed in the Choi Bunker quietly, both twins working on the Mint Eye plan as per instructed by V and Jumin. The other RFA members are doing their best to help out too, with the exception of Yoosung who still has to come into terms with the truth about Rika. It was a hard pill to swallow so it was implicitly agreed on that they will give him the time and space he needs to sort his feelings.

V keeps in touch with the twins this time, making sure that they are both safe. He does not fail to remind them that he’d already lost them at two separate occasions. He and Saeran worked hard to recover Saeyoung from their father’s clutches and get the twins to reunite. V will be damned if it they get separated again. That’s why the guy calls the twins alternately every night. V never misses, not even on the day RFA exposed Mint Eye to the media.

It was a hectic day, with the RFA on the forefront, naming politicians, businessmen and other influential people involved in Mint Eye’s activities. The invited Media personnel at the press conference had a field day, asking questions left and right. Thankfully, ZEN, RFA’s elected spokesperson, did a wonderful job of delivering RFA’s stance on the issue. Given that he’s an actor, he will also be benefitting from the exposure. This is, of course, included in Saeyoung’s calculations. As it was immediately decided that the Choi twins will not be involved in RFA’s press con due to their family situation, Saeyoung and Saeran worked hard on the preparation aspect, crunching data that would benefit RFA’s cause before and during the conference. They also prepared multiple contingencies for several scenarios as requested by Jumin and Jaehee.

As the day comes to a close, Saeran’s phone rings right on cue. It was time for V’s call. Saeran shows the caller id to Saeyoung and signals that he will be going out of the computer room for a while to answer V.

Saeran sits on the couch as he picks up the call. “Hello, V.”

“I’d like to thank you again, Saeran.” V says on the phone. “We wouldn’t get this far without you and Saeyoung. By now, all of Korea already knows about Mint Eye and the evil it brought to its believers.”

“Are you sure about this, V?” Saeran asks him. “The Savior – I mean, Rika will be arrested too.”

V doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he sighs over the mic.

“I know it’s my ego talking, but I feel it’s my responsibility to stop Rika as her ex-lover. At first, I thought I can save her but when I learned of what she’s done to you and the other believers… what she’s done to her…” V sighs again, his tone regretful, “I knew it was too late. She needs to be stopped.”

Saeran stiffens, the memory of the night in the dungeons coming back to him. It’s been months since her cleansing but he has never forgotten that moment. He knew he hurt her more than the elixir’s damage to her physical body. When she realized he had forced her to take the sleeping pill through a kiss, she looked so betrayed and disappointed. It broke his heart to see her like that. He only wished she finds happiness outside of Magenta. He still hates himself for making her cry that time.

“Saeran?” V asks when he noticed that Saeran is not replying to him. “Is everything okay?”

Saeran closes his eyes and massages the bridge of his nose. “I’m fine, just tired I think… I need to go.”

“Then I’ll hang up now so you can rest.” V says. “Thank you for your hard work, Saeran.”  

“Yeah.” Saeran says weakly as he hangs up. He closes his eyes again, trying to not be bothered by his headache. He walks slowly walks back to the computer room. He sees Saeyoung talking on the phone. His brother mouths “V” as he points at his phone. Saeran nods. He whispers “I’ll take a break for now.”

Saeyoung gives him a look, silently asking how he’s feeling. “I’m fine.” Saeran assures him as he leaves.

He walks to his room and as he enters it, he feels slightly better already.

His room doesn’t have much: a single bed, a closet and a computer table. The growing potted succulent by his bedside table is the lone décor.  Saeyoung offered to get him more things but he refused, knowing he will be more comfortable to stay and rest in a simple room.

He opens his closet and changes into a loose shirt and shorts. He then settles on his bed and dims the light. The night is still young but the dull throbbing in his head will only be gone with sleep so decides to just sleep early for the night.

Hours passed as the night turns to day. Saeran wakes up with a start, panting from the recurring dream of his last moments with MC before he brought her out of Mint Eye and left her at Rika’s apartment. The betrayed look of MC’s face torments him as he recalls his dream again.

“I’m sorry.” he says as his heart continues to drum against his chest. “I’m so sorry, MC.”

The guilt weighs heavily on his mind until he couldn’t take it anymore. He scrambles out of his bed and heads to the computer. He turns it on and opens the application for the video feed. The still video of the apartment façade helps him calm down until eventually his heart rate returns to normal. Just seeing the building where he knows MC is in comforts him.

He was about to close the video feed when he sees MC coming out of the gates. She looks decent at first glance but he could see the disheveled state she is in. Saeran could tell she isn’t going out for work as she’s only got a small bag with her instead of the usual backpack she brings with her.

Instinct tells Saeran that something is not right. He sees her in the video feed, swiping and tapping anxiously at her phone then looking left and right, as if waiting for something. Then a black taxi arrives and she gets inside.

Saeran can’t shake the feeling she is getting herself into trouble again. He’s reminded of the time she willingly got in a car blindfolded just because a voice on the phone told her to. She’s too trusting and kind for her own good. Granted, it’s one of the things he loves about her, but it’s also the one filling his heart with dread and anxiety now.

As if on autopilot, Saeran’s fingers immediately start typing away on the keyboard. The search begins with the taxi’s plate number. In less than five minutes, he has the car’s destination, the driver’s bio and the car’s ownership history all printed on a letter-sized paper.

He commits all the information to his mind as he strips out of his sleepwear and slips on a black zip-up jacket over a red tank top, pants and boots. He runs out of his room fast and heads straight to the garage. Thankfully, Saeyoung’s garage door is an automatic roll-up so he just flips the switch. It’s fully opened by the time he gets on the gray Maserati and drives out of the house. He almost wants to floor the gas and break the city speed limits just catch up on MC’s cab

Not too long after, Saeyoung calls him. Saeran slips on his Bluetooth headset and answers the call.

“Where are you going?” Saeyoung asks. “Don’t tell me you’re eating take-outs for breakfast now.”

“Police station.” Saeran answers curtly. “It’s important.”

Saeyoung is quiet on his side for a few beats. “Just be careful, okay? Take care of yourself and MC.”

“I am not gonna ask anymore how you know I’m on my way to MC.”

“We’re twins, remember? We are always connected, Saeran.”

Saeran’s lips curl into a semblance of a smile. “Yeah. I’m glad we never lost it, Hyung.”

Saeyoung sputters on the phone then there’s a loud ‘bam’ that sounded like he dropped his phone and the call ended. Saeran couldn’t help chuckling at his twin’s misfortune. He hopes the phone wasn’t cracked or damaged.

He rechecks the GPS on the Maserati as he turns his full attention on the road again. According to his search on the cab’s company files, its destination is the City Police Station investigating the Mint Eye case. He is now terribly worried for MC as the place will be full of media personnel on the lookout for the latest scoop on the scandal. The V, Jumin and Jaehee will be there for questioning regarding the evidences they presented the other day.

“Please, don’t let her get caught up in this again.” He prays in his heart.

As expected, the police station is packed with people. He parks the car far a little bit far away from the crowd, not wanting to draw unnecessary attention onto it.

After making sure that the car is secured, he runs into the police station’s parking area, looking for MC.

He looks around for that familiar figure, hoping that she is safe. His heart almost stops when he sees her by the sidewalk, talking to a man whom he recognizes as one of Mint Eye’s believers. She looks distraught, slowly stepping back from the man. When the man seizes her arm and pulls, Saeran saw red and ran towards them.

“Sir, you’re hurting me. Let me go,” she says as she pulls back her arm.

Saeran’s jaw clenched as he tries to rein the anger inside him. It’s been a while since he felt anger as extreme as this. He could almost hear the dark voice inside him coming back. He slows his breathing to calm himself. He knows there are ways other than anger to handle the situation. When he feels relatively less angry, he calls out to the man.

“Let the lady go.”

Both the man and MC freeze up. He can tell the believer recognizes him as the guy drops MC’s arm and steps backwards. “Mr. Saeran.” he says fearfully. He turns and runs away from MC.

Meanwhile, MC is rooted on her place, her back stiff on her small frame. From their distance, Saeran could already tell that MC has lost some weight since he last saw her. Her arms and waist are slimmer than what he can remember.

“You really need to be more careful, Miss. Your guard is too low.” He tells her.

When MC turns around, it was like a slow-motion video. The way her breath hitches, her hair swaying, up to how she her face lights up when she recognizes him, Saeran saw everything. She is as beautiful as he can remember, if not more.

“Saeran.” she says.

Her voice is as how he remembers it too: as sweet as ice cream.

Suddenly feeling shy, he manages a small, awkward smile at her. “Hello, MC.”

MC crosses the distance between them, almost tackling him when she hugged him. Thankfully, he catches her quick and managed to keep them both standing. MC buries her face on his chest and he’s slightly worried that she will hear how loud his heart is currently beating.

“You’re real.” MC says as she pulls away slightly to face him. She reaches up to him and touches his cheek. “Saeran.”

“How are you?” He asks her. “Did that man hurt you?”

MC shakes her head. “I’m fine now.”

He panics when a tear suddenly drops from MC’s eyes. “MC!? You’re crying?”

She retracts her hand and touches her own cheek. “I-I’m crying. Oh gosh, this is embarrassing.”

Before he knew it, Saeran is already wiping her tears with his finger as he touches her cheek. “I made you cry again.”

MC leans on his hand and closes her eyes. “I missed you a lot.” She says softly. “But you’re here now, that’s what matters.”

Saeran’s heart flutters as she opens her eyes again and looks at him with very loving eyes. His heart is instantly filled with love and affection for her, he’s sure it will burst soon.

Driven by instinct, they both lean in towards the other and finally… finally he’s kissing her again. The memory of her lips from long ago preciously archived in his heart is renewed. Her nose lightly bumping against his and her soft lips making sweet, sweet whimpers as he dives in deeper into their kiss; everything about her in his memories is renewed. Her hands wrap around his neck and pull him even closer. He wraps his arms around her in response, settling them on the curves of her hips. Her body, warm and pliant, fits perfectly against him.

He missed her so much that he that the feelings inside him is overwhelming him. He’s drowning in her presence but he doesn’t want to let go. If time would stop right then and there, he will not have any regrets. They are together again and that’s all that matters to him right now.

Eventually, Saeran breaks their kiss to allow her to breathe. He goes for other places in the meantime: her forehead, her cheeks, her nose and even her neck. When he lightly bites, sucks and licks in a particular spot on the junction between her neck and shoulder, her stifled moan blazed a stronger desire within him to claim her.

“S-Saeran.” she whimpers, hands clutched at his shoulders. “W-wait.”

Saeran stills when he hears her. Guilt crashed on him like a bucket of iced water as he is immediately reminded of that time he acted this way in Magenta.

“I’m sorry.” He feels ashamed for losing control. He kisses her quick on the lips to apologize.

“Don’t apologize. I-I liked it.” She whispers. “Just that ---“

MC’s knees folded under her, unable to take in the stimulation anymore. Thankfully, Saeran was quick to catch her. She looks up to him sheepishly, a raging blush creeping from her cheeks to her chest. “T-thank you.”

“Are you okay? What happened?” he asks her. He helps her stand straight again but she keeps wobbling as her knees refuse to support her.

“The strength left my legs.” she answers, still breathless.

Her embarrassment is so apparent that Saeran feels a little bad for thinking how cute she is at the moment. He also can’t help the little pride blooming in his chest for affecting her so much just by kissing. Still, Saeran tries to maintain a neutral face as he asks her. “Do you want to sit down?”

MC nods, holding tighter on him. “Please.”

He looks around the parking lot for a bench or some place they could use but there isn’t one in sight.

Saeran thinks fast for an alternative. As much as he likes the way MC is holding on to him at the moment, he still wants MC to be able to relax.

“There’s no bench in here.” He tells her. “But I brought a car. Do you want to rest in there?”

MC nods again, her face buried on his chest.

Judging that she’s in no shape to walk, he scoops her up in his arms and carried her to the car, bridal style. As he walks to the Maserati, he sneaks a peak at her form and finds her utterly adorable with the way she’s clinging onto him and muttering about how embarrassed she is.

He sets her down by the passenger seat then placed a kiss on her forehead. “How are you now?”

MC takes a moment to massage her knees to check. “I think they’re fine now.”

The tension he didn’t know was there left his body. “That’s great.”

He gently closed the door and circles around the car. He opens the driver’s seat and got inside. Once settled, he looks at her briefly, taking in her profile view. “Should I take you home?”

“No!” MC blurted, surprising both herself and Saeran. “I mean, “she tries again, “no, don’t take me home yet. I want to stay with you longer, Saeran.” She takes his left hand and laced her fingers with his. “I really missed you. I wanna be with you.”

Saeran’s heart flutters as MC looks at him with loving eyes again. “I missed you too, MC.” He tells her back, immediately feeling the inadequacy of the expression to describe how he felt being away from her all those months. He leans into the passenger seat and shared a quick kiss with her again.

“So where do we go?” he asks her as he pulls away from her.

“Have you eaten? How about we go for a quick breakfast?” MC suggests. “My favorite café has a great breakfast menu plus their coffee is divine.”

By the way she lights up so beautifully in the prospect of having breakfast with him, she could have asked him to bring her to the skies and he will bring her there by all means. He may not have totally forgiven himself yet for what he did to her in the past, but if being with him makes her happy, he will do it. So he returns the sunny smile she gave him and holds her hand tighter.

“Breakfast sounds great.”

[glitched-reflections-blog]

Hacker Matsu Headcanons

It baffles me that there's very little Hacker Matsus content on here... So allow me to contribute! I might also be a bit biased considering I preordered their merch (like my Hacker!Ichi phone case I got last week that I love dearly). These headcanons got a little out of hand so this post is a tad long.

All Matsus

- In this AU, they're just as likely to not to go out looking for jobs. Not because of laziness, but due to being awkward shut ins figuratively trapped within their computer screens. They still go out into the city for errands sometimes.

- Each of the brothers have their own desktop that they decorate according to their tastes. It's rather easy to tell whose setup is whose from a glance.

- Prone to being forgetful about basic needs such as eating. Hey, we've all been there, right? They're lucky to have a caring mother to remind them every now and then. She even installed alarms with helpful messages that are often... shut off and forgotten, as is tradition with anyone who uses them.

- True to their nature as computer enthusiasts, they would much rather rely on powerful hardware they can mod at any time over flimsy laptops that are catered for people who seek convenience rather than strong performance.

- ...That's what they want you to believe, but sometimes when you need some well deserved "privacy", a laptop gets the job done. Moving a tower along with your screen to another room is more trouble than it's worth.

OSMT

- Probably the least interested in learning how to hack but what he does know, he does extremely well. He's not very serious about it. The potential is there though.

- Refuses to pay for quality porn and has a whole database dedicated to falsified information such as credit card accounts, emails, and physical addresses. Uses these for online shopping as well.

- Oso's desktop is the sloppiest. Mountains of beer cans, empty chip bags, candy wrappers are piled on top with reckless abandon. The only thing that's clearly visible is a small calendar with women in various styles of lingerie. Todomatsu doesn't understand the need for it - the date's already there on the bottom right!

- Several attempts were made to date people online using matchup sites but his overall writing ability and photoshopped pictures were never well received. Naturally, he keeps getting banned over and over. This is the main cause for his numerous email accounts.

- Knows every single one of his brother's passwords and can bypass their security protocols. He leaves them surprises that range from replacing their wallpapers to embarrassing candid pictures or jumpscare videos when clicking a certain file.

KRMT

- Relishes in customizing his equipment. There are glowing, sparkling lights emanating from his tower that serve no purpose whatsoever. His keyboard is covered with a tacky blue flame skin that he likes to pretend is caused by his "fingers being so fast that it leaves a blazing trail".

- At one point, when you opened the CD drive, it used to play a random sound file of his own voice. Jyushimatsu broke it once from having it open continuously by button mashing. It was fixed by a begrudging Ichi who unceremoniously replaced it with an out of tune rendition of Shooting Stars by Bag Raiders.

- Likes to create his own viruses in hopes of becoming famous on the internet. They've all failed except for one: malware that causes one's computer to just display Karamatsu's face on your screen, with the option to buy one of his painful shirts. Buying does nothing to get rid of it.

- Kara owns illegally downloaded synthesizer programs. Has an extensive library of remixed music and original content.

CRMT

- Out of all the brothers, this is one hacker you should not mess with. He has every single tool imaginable at his disposal and his knowledge of them is unparalleled.

- However, Choromatsu dreams of being hired as a proud white hat hacker one day and to be recognized by a bigwig company.

- Unfortunately, he spends most of his days cheating in his favourite MMOs. He loves exploiting in game currency and dominating level rankings. Not averse to hate messages from fellow players. Lucky for Choro, he can just delete their accounts if they get on his last nerve.

- His desktop is plain but clean. It's the largest in the room, to compensate for his two high definition monitors surrounded with idol merchandise steadily amassing around them. There are countless books stacked next to his chair.

- The third brother's rival is his eldest brother, who chastises him for not taking consideration in his hacking because he secretly admires his hidden expertise.

ICMT

- Similar to Osomatsu, he only joined their destructive antics to fit in and doesn't care much about the hobby.

- More of a traditional user that surfs incognito on the web. He's good at hiding his tracks.

- Uses his hacking to target individuals and organizations that are not above endorsing animal cruelty for their selfish gains. If Ichimatsu has his eyes on you, be prepared for a life of absolute hell. He is merciless in his methods. Good luck shaking him off. You probaby will never see the end of your nightmare.

- Quite talented with a tablet and uploads his work to dedicated art websites. Never interacts with his fans but appreciates their feedback.

- Always has a cat on his lap. Or several. They love stepping all over his keyboard, shutting his computer down, and knocking off his knick knacks onto the floor in an effort to win his undivided attention. He'll usually give up and lay on the floor with his feline friends.

- The sextuplets have designated him as their personal resident computer technician because he knows his way around their parts along with their individual functions. Makes his repairs on Karamatsu's exceptionally faulty on purpose.

JSMT

- Loves playing FPS games and anything that can be modded for his own amusement. The master at finding game breaking bugs. Quite a few well known game developers have approached him for testing that he simply does for free. It's not as if he finds bugs on purpose!

- Most likely to burst out laughing by himself at a funny meme or video. He'll instantly message his brothers on Skype to send them the links even if they're two feet away.

- Big screen for watching the good ol' baseball game. The size makes his eyes cross-eyed.

- Hijacked a news site with Ichimatsu's help to make his own article detailing the cuteness of harp seals and the importance of wild animal conservation in Japan. There's an abundant use of caps lock and exclamation points.

- Jyushi doesn't spend his days inside the house as much as the rest do. Staying fit is still a crucial aspect of his life. If he wasn't so bent on becoming a baseball player, his brothers would most likely never see the light of day - he forcefully drags them outside for fresh air when he thinks they need it.

- Loves spinning on his computer chair.

TDMT

- It's not hard to imagine Totty as anything but a social media expert. He is on every popular website available, his cute and sly face everywhere you look.

- Blogs about multiple subjects to expand his horizons. His favourite is his photography blog that is updated on a daily basis. He specializes in countryside landscapes and food pictures. Of course, his selfies make their way on there too...

- Has the means to destroy your hard earned online reputation should you think of crossing him. Stay on his good side and he might let it slide. Emphasis on the word might. He's capable of tapping into your cellphone to edit information, including abuse of paid services to rack up your bills to dizzying numbers.

- A part-time graphic designer who created the Matsuno Brothers Cyber Hacking Project logo and its overall aesthetic. It's thanks to Todomatsu that they all have stylish sweaters to show off.

- The second most secretive of his hacker identity next to Ichi. His reasons differ in that he hides it to protect his social standing within his circle of real life acquaintances.

[ellie-valsin]

Okay, you guys know what this means, right?  (Other than the fact that I will surely end up arranging a trip to “visit family” in Tokyo in January 2019.)  That’s right, it means that Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812 will be getting its first post-Broadway production in Tokyo next year!

Congratulations to the show, and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t going to make every earthly effort to get there to see it.  Because my husband does still have family living in Tokyo, we’ve been there a number of times and I’ve been lucky enough to see several Broadway-style shows there.  Let me give some straight-talk insight on what to expect from a Japanese production; those who are offended by straight-talk may stop reading now.  ;)

-The company producing it:  Toho Stage.  If I’m being totally honest, this fact has kept me up half the night worrying.  To be fair, they have produced plenty of what I would call “legit” musical theatre, including, coming soon, Fun Home, as well as everything from South Pacific (I know, whut) to Secret Garden.  The problem is that they also produce tons and tons of Bway flops and Euro-pop musicals, which is mostly my personal experience with Toho.  (Anytime a French musical is licensed in Japan, I know before even looking that it will be with Toho.  No exceptions.)  And they are usually veeeeery loose adaptations of those shows, so I am a bit concerned.  But probably I’m worrying for nothing on this point...We’ll see.

-The staging:  Japan does many musicals, both old and new, American, European, and Asian, but when it does first run versions of recent Broadway musicals, it usually makes some attempt to replicate the staging, stage design, and/or costumes.  You see much more slavish imitation productions out of Shiki musical productions than out of Toho ones, but that’s because Shiki holds the rights to every Disney musical ever, and Disney is very particular about such things.  When Toho puts on Les Mis, they do have an exact replica production of whatever’s playing in other countries, because Cam Mac is similarly particular about it--however, I’ve also seen them change many production designs for other shows.  It all depends on who’s granting the rights and what restrictions are placed on those rights.  The Natasha, Pierre rights holders would be very wise to insist on a similar production to the American one, imo, but then again, I really can’t see any of the immersive stage designs working in the theatre that Toho uses...Not because the stage couldn’t be adapted to, say, the A.R.T. configuration they used in Boston, but because I don’t think the interactive elements/jokes would go over that well with typical Japanese audiences (I think the majority of Japanese musical fans would be very uncomfortable with it).  

Whatever the stage and costume design, I imagine it will be beautiful, since I have always been impressed by that aspect of every production I’ve seen there, whether imitation staging or new staging.

The only thing that worries me about the staging is, well, the stage--or, more precisely the theatre.  Toho’s usual theatre is huuuuge compared to your standard Bway theatre.  We always knew this would be a problem if this show toured, since most touring houses in America are also huuuuge, but I always secretly hoped they’d go back to a tent format and do sit-downs in big cities that way.  I...don’t think a tent is what Toho has in mind.  We’ll have to wait and see, but I will say I don’t think I’d want to be in the back of the balcony on this one.....

-The casting:  Yes, they will all be Japanese, except for the Koreans they hire.  So, in that sense, yes of course it won’t resemble the diverse ensemble from the OBC.  On the other hand, I am quite confident they can find a girl who can look and act the part of Natasha, since most of the female leads I’ve seen in musicals there are quite ingenue-typed sopranos.  They will also make a killer Anatole.

Also, I forgot to mention: it will likely be double-cast, meaning there will be two separate actors or actresses cast for each of the most demanding parts (in this case, probably Natasha, Pierre, Anatole, Sonya, and maybe Helene), and they’ll rotate their schedules throughout the run.  This is typical of Japanese musicals, and should be interesting.

-The singing:  Compared to the OBC, it will most likely suck.  Japanese musical theatre voices are trained to sound a bit different from contemporary Broadway voices, so they usually already sound pretty different when singing regular Broadway scores, but this one?  I predict that this’ll be baaaad.  But you may say, ‘everyone in the OBC sounded “different” from a standard Bway voice, why couldn’t that work for the Japanese, too?’ to which I say, well, it’s a different kind of different.  The OBC had distinctive voices, interesting voices (which, personally, I feel like we’ve been missing more and more on Broadway in these past 10-20 years), but they were hitting very specific notes, often weird ones, since it’s Dave after all.  ;)  Not only have I not seen proof that the average Japanese musical singer can sing a score of this complexity (I’ve never seen them do Sondheim, for instance, though I know it does exist), but they seem to be mostly trained to do a sort of “Rodgers & Hammerstein” style of singing in which everyone attempts a pretty classical musical theatre sound with lots of vibrato and a woman’s break occurs very low, that is, the head voice is used where often the original show belted the notes (see: the painful rendition of Evita’s “A New Argentina”).  High belting is not even a lost art in Japan, because I’m pretty sure it was never found to begin with: clips from shows as disparate as Aida, Hunchback of Notre-Dame, and Wicked have made this clear to me, and certainly every experience I’ve ever had mixing Wildhorn with Japan (Scarlet Pimpernel, Jekyll&Hyde, etc.), or even the more poppy French musicals in Japanese.  Does every actor/actress belt flat?  No, of course not--but plenty of them do.  New contemporary musical theatre continues to move into the realm of American Idol, producing beltier and beltier music, so it’s only bound to become a worse problem over time...

But anyway, even with bum notes and heavy vibrato being consistent annoyances, will that really affect Nastasha, Pierre, which is not really an example of the “belt it higher/longer” Wicked school of musical writing?  Well, of course it will, sometimes.  Don’t expect anyone who can tear into Maria Dmitrievna in Japan.  Don’t expect Natasha will be able to powerfully slam those top notes in her “argument” scenes.  Don’t expect the end of Dust & Ashes to sound great.  And certainly don’t expect to get a reliable “PETERSBUUUUURG!!!” out of anyone (though one might say that for most actors working on Bway, too  ;)).  

And even if they somehow find a miraculous cast hidden away somewhere who can sing the shit out of the notes, there will always be:

-The translation: This shit will be difficult as all hell to translate.  Between Malloy’s own writing style and Tolstoy’s text, I really don’t know how it will be done.  I’ve attempted it myself, so I’ve already seen the challenges first hand...  Japanese is acknowledged as one of the most difficult languages to translate English lyrics into, mostly because the structure of the two languages differs so greatly: in Japanese, you can usually express pretty much any of the same ideas you can in English, but you usually can’t express them in as few syllables.  When my husband and I made a project of translating “No One Else,” it proved almost impossible to fit every idea expressed in the English lyrics into the translation without running waaaay too long to fit the meter.  This is usually solved for in professional Japanese musical translations by cutting out whole lines from the original libretto and taking, say, two lines to translate one line of English text.  It can also be solved by pretty much ignoring the English lyrics and just making up some different ones in Japanese that fit the meter and don’t sound too out of place thematically.  These methods work fine for shows that were lyrically insipid to begin with, like the Euro-pop musicals (yes, Romeo & Juliette, I am looking at you), but on Dave Malloy’s libretto???  Why bother if you have to do a hack job to make it work...?  There’s a reason Sondheim is so infrequently produced in Japan......

Now, for many of you, the translation will not affect your life in the slightest.  For my husband and other bilinguals, it will be excruciating to listen to.  He already gets annoyed enough listening to Japanese Les Mis...I don’t know how I’m going to get him to listen to a translation of lyrics he actually loves to death in English.  ;) 

Anyway, if it sounds like I’m very wary of this production, that’s because...I am.  It’s scary not only because it’s a Japanese production, but also because it’s the first production post-Bway, and nobody knows quite what sort of adaptation to expect.  I’ll try to keep the faith, while still keeping it real...  The good news is that you all will likely be able to judge it for yourself, because Toho usually puts out at least a cast recording for its musicals, and sometimes even a DVD of them!

And will I be attending, in spite of my serious concerns?  Yeah, duh, if I can swing it.  XD  I can already tell you there will be tears at the end, which is one thing I fully expect them to get perfectly right.  :’)

[ol-razzle-dazazzle]

Your title says fic requests are open? More Oguri would be nice. I read some of your stuff on AO3 and I thought it was good! I'd prefer something non-shippy though. If not, it's perfectly fine. :) Thank you, and have a nice day!

Heyo anon!!! I’m very sorry it has taken me a while to get to you, I’ve had Trials for my final exams. You have excellent taste in characters, Ogurin is one of my favourites. I’ve been Jojo trash for a while, so please enjoy this secret killer…and a friend he finds along the way…

The eclipse of late night convenience stores upon dark moonlit nights was a common sight to Oguri, avoiding detection was of utmost importance, especially considering his new job. Thankfully, the blood didn’t get on his suit this time, though he did lack some grocery essentials, and thus spent time hurting his eyes at the glare of bright storefronts and neon lit signs.

It never particularly occurred to him that he was staying at a house for such a long time- home was never a term that could find meaning within him. To avoid patterns he stayed in different regions and hotels, and everything was cleaner that way.

So he was leaning from one side to the next and fingers cramping from holding shopping bags, as well as the former ache of a cold metal and the recoil of a gun. But irregardless, he is now but a normal citizen, roaming the streets, stopping at every bench or so because damn, is milk really /that/ heavy?

Paranoid eyes glanced at any lurking shadows, ghostly witnesses to potential crimes, maybe reapers making their own crimes- in this side of Yokohama a glance the wrong way could take one down a dark, dark path. He sighed, resting his back against a brick wall of some backstreet.

It’s the one part of the job he can’t stand. The one thing he never is suited for. The panic, the heartbeat, the adrenaline and anxiety. Eyes swirling and head cluttered full of thoughts. He beckons them forth, and smooth ghostly figures come to his hands. Oguri sighs, yes- everything is perfect. Perfect and transient and never going to plague him. The smooth, vapourish texture calms himself, as the ghosts roll around to his pats with ethereal forms smiling in delight.

A small squeak disperses them instantly at reflex. A weak noise of breathing, hacking for air. He looks around, the noises draw nearer but he hears nothing. Fear always makes one see better in the dark, and when Oguri’s heart rate quickens he swear he can see a splatter of blood, or is it water?

His knuckles are paling, plastic stretched thin as he sets them down carefully, without a rustle or sound, hand warming itself within a suit pocket gripping his gun for the second time that night.

Another hiss, and he cocks the pistol around the corner, teeth gritting. Distant shouts of ‘the Boss’ this and ‘come on man, you can’t just leave them here’. He puts the gun away, cackling.

“Amateurs. Pure, filthy amateurs.” He enjoys not talking for such a long time but the curling of his lips can’t help but break the silence in hushed stifles of laughter. “A killing in their own home, evidence everywhere- and the loudmouths can’t help but yell it around for all to see? Pathetic, utterly pathetic.” He murmurs, unheard, but can’t say it out loud for the possibility of the Devil calling. ‘Such atrociously haphazard work can only be done by minimal gangs or Port Mafia scum.’

He continues furthering his mental critique until a weight makes itself known against his ankle, the sensation making him crouch down and retrieve the gun, gasping. Oguri’s eyes scan the vicinity, nerves tested at the utmost when the sensation coils around his leg, moving. His eyes flicker downward, and his gun clatters to the floor.

A furry little tail roped around his pant leg, as whiskers twitch at his clamouring state.

A kitten. Just a kitten.

An adorable, most likely excellent at assassination kitten.

The clatter made it’s ears perk up, hugging closer to Oguri’s leg, a scared mewl emanating from its throat, croaky.  

Oguri’s instinct is to hiss and kick it off it’s leg, but he steadies and steels himself. Just nerves, just nerves and fluff and my goodness that cat is adorable.

He can’t bring himself to loathe the creature, even with its aspects. Sharp needle-like claws that have most likely pulled a seam on his pant leg, dusty fur that’s scattered dust and fluffy evidence on his shoes which he /just/ shined 30 minutes ago, and mews that would draw attention and adoration of anyone like a siren.

He scoops it up, getting a further look at it, his fingers sinking into soft winter fluff. The kitten blinks slowly, ears back, but not baring it’s teeth. Oguri sighs, moving his arm under it to support and…cradle the kitten, leaving his suit in minuscule ruin. There’s patches of dry blood on its underbelly, and the cat looks up with him with pleading eyes, before hacking a little- garnering extra pity points.

Look. He’s a perfect criminal. Oguri never leaves any evidence behind, even without his ability. No possibility for discovery. There’s some further shouts from inexperienced mafia men and the kitten buries itself further into Oguri’s suit. He’s covered in evidence. A menial thing as cat hair is still a thing, menial as it may be.

The ghostly creatures beckon at his call again, though hesitantly and confused. They float among Oguri’s body, staring at the intruding strands with a smile. One even /pats/ the damn fluff maker. It shivers in his arms, but glances over, trying to lick the form in the air.

Great, even /they’re/ for the cat.

Well…if it would’ve been potential evidence, they would’ve erased it, right?

It’s just snivelling and curling up here.

…Well, he is a murderer, a criminal, a monster, a rat, an assassin and mercenary. A job that requires no intimate attachment to anything, human or feline.

…But even he can’t resist such manipulation.

Though the mater comes, of how to carry the kitten, and without suspicion. The bags are too thin and might get scratched, he certainly can’t hold the thing in his arms.

It curls up, purring. Like it has no idea there’s a gun right beside it.

Wait a second…no, he isn’t really doing this.

Oguri takes out the gun from his jacket pocket, burying it under the plastic bags and food.

The suit is ruined anyway, right?

The kitten resists the movement, meowing. It’s about the right size… he sets it in his jacket pocket, stroking the kitten’s cheek to sooth it.

There’s a moving bulge in his suit, but it’s fine- it’s night, no one would notice such things…

If the infernal thing would stop meowing already!

It’s fine. It’s fine.

And for the second time that night Oguri experienced paranoia and panic, surprisingly not due to the gun in his bag, but the kitten in his pocket. He shudders, hoping that at least the kitten didn’t have any fresh wounds.

Actually come to think of it, stealing a cat is a crime, so it wouldn’t be too bad to clean…but there wasn’t any response from his ability. That doesn’t mean…

Oguri summons them again, quickly- as he nears his apartment. He really should get something better- a house by the sea, with only china cutlery, yes- that will be his next demand for his next employer.

The ghosts emerge, but only bury themselves in his coat, not attempting to clean any of the fluff.

It’s a stray, that would be the best situation. Otherwise…

Well no matter, he struggles to open the door with the rustling in his pocket. The good thing with no cleaning also means that pets are allowed in here.

Now he’s getting ahead of himself. It’s just a cat. He just wants to clean it up a bit.

…Two hours later, the feline is perfectly groomed, shining and fed only the highest quality of sushi (such scent-heavy food as tuna were potential obstacles and evidence…as well as being a picky eater.) To his surprise, the kitten didn’t cower in the water, instead purring and enjoying the bath…it was almost worth it for the awful texture on Oguri’s hands.

The kitten pads around the room, Oguri peers over it. Is it going to go to the futon? 

It paws at the blankets, before turning away.

No.

Oh god no. 

It jumps on the couch, a vile tiny scratch. 

Are you serious, it can’t be going…

The kitten curls up on the suit. Said suit’s worth is most likely in the four digit figures of American dollars.

But the way that kitten curls up to it, makes it’s value increase ten fold.

Oguri sighs, looking down at the cat hair and scratch on his pant cuff. It’s made a hole on the edge. This is despicable. 

He grabs some scissors, sitting next to the kitten, as he snips carefully around the hem of his pants, taking the strips of cloth to a sewing machine. 

The kittens ears prick up at the noise, before mewing at Oguri’s return. It struggles a bit, feeling something against it’s neck- fluffy paws pushing on Oguri’s hand.

It has been complete. The kitten peers down, pawing at the little bow wrapped around it. 

“Mi…”

“What about Emi?” The cat brushes itself against Oguri’s hand.

“Emi it is.”

[alluringholland]

the good die young, but so did this #3 | t.h.

WARNINGS: angst, smut, alcoholism, drug abuse, manipulation, an all around bad time

part 3: alone (previous)

"I know you're dying to meet me"

5 years ago.

New house. New location. Same city. Must fill with people I don't know.

I had connections all over the place. I just had to drop an invite in one of my abandoned group chats to get the word out. I had been making more friends than I had been in my life. I just had to provide music and booze for them to be there.

My publicist, Nancy, suggested that I try to at least be seen with some big shot celebrity. I said I would, hung up the phone, and drank myself into oblivion.

The house was full of people by the time it got dark outside. People were on the sundeck, at the pool, and probably christening all the bedrooms. No one seemed to care who was hosting.

I did make one acquaintance, though. Went by Nessa. She was also a model on the rise, and she liked to crash parties for the booze. We got along like a house on fire, and that wasn't just because of the alcohol.

“Wait, Nancy works for you too?” she asked after our third tequila shot.

“Yeah, isn't she cool?” I said back. “Where you from, by the way?”

“Chicago! I bet we have the same manager too! Mine is-”

I don't remember what she said, but later I found out we did not have the same manager. Anyway, Nessa and I made a couple more friends that night. I met a guy named Tom, and he brought his friend, Harrison. There was one for each of us.

That's how it started. How many people can say they don't remember meeting the love of their life because of how hammered they were? Well, maybe a lot here in Los Angeles. I guess that should have been a sign for me.

It wasn't until I was alone with Tom in the bathroom did I realize that he was British. Had I been sober, I would have recognized who he was, and maybe I wouldn't have started off by going down on him. But it was late into the night and my noisy head was screaming about the hot, British guy taking his shirt off and pulling me back to my feet.

“Why don't you model your pretty body for me?” he asked lustfully.

Then he pushed me up onto the counter, lips at my neck, and then...

I woke up alone in my bedroom. My mind was a blank slate during the time it took me to get to the bathroom and hack up all the liquor. I also discovered a straggler in the bathtub. A random blonde girl jumped at the sound of my retching and got the fuck out.

When I was done there, I decided to scope out the rest of the house and make sure everyone was gone. I found my phone in the only vase that hadn't been damaged last night, and I had texts from my manager, Charlotte, and my new friend Nessa.

Charlotte wasn't exactly pleased by the things that went down last night. Then again, hardly anything made her not act as cold as stone. She was like a strict school teacher, or an even stricter mother. She called for a meeting in the next two hours. Apparently, my party made the news.

Nessa told me she put her number in my phone in case I needed anything. She also took that guy Harrison back to her place. That brought my mind back to-

“Oh!” I yelped when I saw a naked guy raiding my fridge.

He quickly shielded himself with the door of the fridge and stuck his head out from the side, curly hair falling to one side. “Hi, hello!”

“Why are you still here?” I asked, clutching my chest. Wow, what a nice way to greet the person you slept with.

“I was hungry,” he replied. “Your fridge is empty.”

“That's what happens when you fill the house with strangers,” I paused, looking down momentarily. “You don't have to hide, by the way. Nothing I haven't seen already.”

His cheeks flushed. Hesitantly, he stepped back and closed the fridge and covered himself with his hands. “Well, hi. I'm Tom. I'm, uh, I'm a fan… o-of your work...” He looked down sheepishly.

“Same,” I replied in a similar tone. “I kinda got excited when you followed me on Instagram.”

We exchanged goofy grins. Then Tom spoke again, like it wasn't the most obvious thing in the room,

“I can't find my underwear.”

I tried to think back to where we were last night. Then I gestured for him to follow me to my room.

“I'm actually shocked at how many people left clothing behind,” I told him, looking at my messy bedroom.

“You sure they're not yours?” Tom asked as he picked up a pair of black jeans. “You don't remember, uh, modeling for me?”

My heart fluttered as some of it came back to me. Another look at the clothes on the floor made me realize that they were all mine. I can't trust my drunk self.

“It's gonna take more than showing off my clothes for me to remember,” I told him with a smirk.

His eyes lit up, like he was pleasantly surprised. He was in the middle of doing up his jeans, but then he paused and tugged them down slightly. “Oh, alright. Remember this?”

He exposed his hip bone to me, which wasn't at all what I was expecting. There was a small but noticeable hickey on the skin, and that memory hit like a tidal wave. I got on my knees on the first date.

“Oh…” I blushed deeply. “There's more going down, right?”

Tom nodded, a sultry look in his eyes.

That was all it took. Next thing I knew, he had me up against the wall by the door. Now that we were in our right minds, I could properly enjoy the feeling of his lips, and his strong biceps under my fingertips. His soft hand grazed my thigh before he picked it up and hitched it around his waist.

I felt the heat forming between us. My hands greedily felt around his shoulders and his hair. If I had stayed there any longer I would have just melted into the palm of his hands.

But alas, I had to get back into the real world.

“I have things to do,” I told him as he nipped at my neck.

“I'm one of them,” he mumbled.

I giggled, but gently pushed him back. “We'll do this another time, okay? How long are you in LA for?”

“About a week or so,” he replied, still gripping my waist. “I'll come and see you again.”

And he did. We went on an actual date a couple of days later. I had more parties at my house, which he attended with his friend Harrison, who was very taken with my new friend, Nessa. Tom and I usually just ditched my house and went to a bar or a nightclub.

Then Tom was extending his stay in Los Angeles. I was telling the closest things I had to friends about him. Then, Tom and I were “caught” in public, thanks to our publicists working together.

That was when I learned that most celebrities call the paps to follow them around, and 90% of the time, it wasn't a choice by the celebrity. Exposure and publicity was always needed to stay relevant. Tom didn't particularly enjoy that aspect, and neither did I. It didn't matter, though, because we had each other. Everything seemed to go away when I was with him.

I fell hard and I fell fast and I didn't care who knew it.

~

Our little time period of dates and spending time between the sheets only lasted so long. Tom had to go back to London after his press tour, and I had to get back to booking photoshoots. We said our goodbyes at my house and then went our separate ways.

I now had paparazzi on my tail wherever I went, and that wasn't on my publicist’s doing. My follower count on every social media platform went up too, and that only led to “She's using Tom” comments. I didn't really care, though. It was best not to comment on anything. It was several months into the relationship already, so why get petty and angry now?

On the plus side, I was booking plenty of shoots. I even got to do one with Nessa. We were dressed in these fancy, black and gold jumpsuits by Versace and we were being photographed by some dude with a beard.

My favorite thing was that we had to be serious for the camera, but Nessa would say something inappropriately funny before we got our pictures taken. Pretty soon, I had a case of the giggles and we had to take a break, much to the photographer's disdain.

“At least someone appreciates my comedy!” Nessa said as she went to her chair.

I went to mine as well, where I had left my phone. The screen was lit up with a new text, and my heart pounded. I was already smiling because of Nessa’s innuendos, so it was easy to hide my excitement.

“this is the real love of my life, you're only my side piece✌”

He attached a photo of himself with his dog Tessa. My heart melted.

“I'm only dating you to get closer to Tessa so jokes on you :^)” I sent back.

_____

next.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHAT I DID THIS THE ESSAY

It's a false analogy even to use the word unfair to describe this kind of thing at the end. What you need to find out. But the way they talk about them is that they can hack the admissions process: that they wasted so much time. Not only was this work not for a class, but because he spent all his time on it and neglected his studies, he was kicked out of grad school for writing the Internet worm of 1988, I envied him enormously for finding a way out without the stigma of failure. The great mathematician G. And yet the bullshit you choose may be harder to eliminate than the bullshit that's forced on you, the bullshit that sneaks into your life by more than you decrease your income. Now women ask me where they can meet nerds. And of course you have a new idea you can just use them in whatever way is appropriate to the task at hand, instead of drying up, curiosity becomes narrow and deep. On a whim I studied Arabic as a freshman. Hard means worry: if you're not worrying that something you're making will come out badly, or that you won't be able to increase your strength of will somewhat; you can definitely learn self-discipline; and almost everyone is practically malnourished when it comes to ambition. I've detected this investors aren't worth the trouble, that could be bad for VCs.

What hard liquor, cigarettes, heroin, and crack have in common is that they're all more concentrated forms of less addictive predecessors.1 It's a lot of time trying to learn how to operate hers. Technology is a lever. At the extreme end of the spectrum is designing chairs. For example, I know that Richard and Jonathan Rees have done a lot of big, serious programs started as throwaway programs.2 If you're solving an important problem, you're going to do, or know, things you're not supposed to supply job training. We probably spend more time thinking about human butts. But there is a second much larger class of judgements where judging you is the end goal. Fake stuff that matters usually has a sharp peak of seeming to matter. But different things matter to different people, and most have to learn what math is really about. In the real world: they're small; you get to the truth, the messier your sentence gets.

So look at your slides and ask of each word could I cross this out?3 The real thing is not something one could have for waiting on tables. The venture capital business is pretty incestuous, and there were presumably people in a position of power. But when you ask adults what they got wrong at that age, nearly all say they cared too much what other kids thought of them. The aspect of the Internet Bubble that it became trivially cheap to start a startup, we never anticipated that founders would grow successful startups on nothing more than YC funding. Too much money seems to be quite malleable; there's a lot you can do this at the request of a company that made you wear a suit and tie to work. To make sure, they were moving to a cheaper apartment. I'd say that my first priority was to learn what math is really about. Will you be able to violate this rule.

There's something pleasing about a secret project.4 Rebellion is almost as stupid as obedience. People there are trying to build the future. If you have any kind of data structure, like window systems, simulations, and cad programs. I at least don't have any regrets over what might have been tempted to do something trivially easy. There are two ways this kind of thing gets into your life: it's either forced on you than you think. We'll increasingly be defined by what we say no to. They seem to work just as well without, however, which makes me think I was wrong to emphasize demos so much before.5 So if you try, anything you achieve is on the plus side of the ledger; if you could, you'd have made it. In fact, even that won't be enough.

Result: a capital investment in a startup this quarter shows up as Yahoo earnings next quarter—stimulating another round of investments in startups. This will sound shocking, but it is at least an interesting question. And what makes them congeal is experience. Another powerful motivator is the desire to do something trivially easy.6 We didn't even know when we started the company I was 30 and Robert Morris was 29, so we'd seen enough to know users would need this type of software. People who majored in computer science. The fact is, despite all the nonsense we heard during the Bubble than ever before.

This could become more common. My latest trick is taking long hikes. But I think a lot of time doing it. What makes the Bay Area superior is the attitude of a governess: they try to do it. At Rehearsal Day, we have to remember that it's an admirable thing to do, or know, things you're not supposed to supply job training. Beware of bad models. There is a huge standard deviation among 26 year olds who can compete with anyone.

It's the same process at work.7 Probably most ambitious people are starved for the sort of trifle that breaks deals when investors feel they have the upper hand, and your achievement will revert to the mean.8 Com. You have to know if I bet on everything just being on the server and talk to you through a Web browser. It's a false analogy even to use the word unfair to describe this kind of lonely squirming to avoid it will increasingly be the fate of anyone who wants to get things done. You take things for granted, and then they're gone. We wouldn't want to stop it. Explain what you're doing as soon as possible, preferably in the first paper on Lisp, in 1960.

Who cares, really, if it's 500 million or 5 billion a year? We've taken a nice, neat but wrong slogan, and churned it up like a mud puddle. I felt like an immigrant from Eastern Europe arriving in America in 1900.9 If this is true it has interesting implications, because discipline can be cultivated, and in fact does tend to vary quite a lot in the course of an individual's life. And what makes them congeal is experience. Another sign of user need is when people pay a lot for something. There is not a direct correlation between the skills you should learn to get a job depends on the kind you want.

Notes

But you can describe each strategy in an industrialized country encounters the idea upon have different needs from the other direction Y Combinator in particular took bribery to the inane questions of the device that will replace TV, go running. This would penalize short comments especially, because the proportion of the Times vary so much better to get the rankings they want. If you look at what Steve Jobs did for Apple when he was exaggerating.

The kind of protection against abuse and accidents. Articles of this model was that there were about 60,000, because by definition this will help dispel the cloud of semi-sacred mystery that surrounds wisdom in this evolution.

Doing a rolling close doesn't mean the Bay Area, Boston, or invent relativity. Some government agencies run venture funding groups, just as you start to spread the story. If you're expected to do this with prices too, but it is less secure.

The situation we face here, the average reader that they have that glazed over look. In this respect as so many others the pattern for the first phase of the next three years, it means to be younger initially we encouraged undergrads to apply, and on the other meanings are fairly high walls between most of their peers.

Hackers Painters, what if they miss just a Judeo-Christian concept; it's random; but random is pretty bad. The CRM114 Discriminator.

Good news: users don't care about.

Francis James Child, who adds the cost of having someone from personnel call you about a related phenomenon: he found himself concealing from his predecessors was a kind of method acting. But core of the young care so much a great hacker. We're only comparing YC startups, who've already made the decision. The threshold for participating goes down to you.

There are a different attitude to the founders'. So if you suppress variation in productivity is the ability of big companies funded 3/4 of their due diligence tends to happen fast, like good scientists, motivated less by financial rewards than by you based on that? Most employee agreements say that intelligence is the new top story.

Without the prospect of publication, the term whitelist instead of crawling back repentant at the final whistle, the employee gets the stock up front, and thereby subconsciously seeing wealth as something that was really only useful for one another indirectly through the founders are effective.

[sparda3g]

My Hero Academia Chapter 183 Review

Okay. I can definitely say this is the end of the arc; I’m 100% certain. Kohei decided to go through a montage or quick run of other events from the Festival. It’s probably for the best in my opinion due to how they don’t hold that much prestige to focus thoroughly. That being said the chapter did end on a nice note for an overall enjoyable arc.

If there’s one event that I would have like to stretch out more, it would be Class-B play, which is practically “I understood that reference” moment. I know not everyone is into pop-culture references, but I thought this was amusing for what it is. It would be a joy if it lasted more than a page, showcasing the ridiculous amount of storyboarding. Regardless, it was a funny moment.

One thing I remember from the anime is smartphone’s existence makes communication easier in today’s world for better or worse. It seems that Kohei has to keep Deku irresponsible when it comes to it. That way the plot or battle would ensue solo, though it can get redundant. Breaking the phone made sense in the Training Camp, but anything more would be head scratching.

I thought Deku would get some punishment for the action earlier, including how he should have rely on other heroes. The sad part is this moment would have been more effective if Deku purposely left others unnoticed to keep the Festival going. It would have been a good life lesson for him and the fans; instead, it only comes off a lesson learn that he’s already aware of. Remember, he only lie about the severe of his battle against Gentle, so it’s not like he purposely ignored the concept of heroes.

In any case, he is allowed to roam free and have fun with his friends, because Hound Dog is a good boy. Granted, he knocks him away, but you know, dogs can be rough. I’m going to save Eri’s part later, so in the meantime, let’s cover the other aspect of the Festival. Class-A gets praised for the performance. I would say  it’s only because they have main characters, but they were the opening act, so this scene is appropriate to exploit. It may be a bit too much, but it’s the main class.

I really don’t think it was needed to have committees from the Departments to be haters only to be convinced otherwise. It didn’t have much ground to begin with, so it didn’t hold much importance to the overall. All I remember is Bakugou saw those guys and never really reflect more until last chapter. Sure, it gave them a reason to go hard, but it can be said with any reason. Oh well. At least it was settled, so that’s that.

The Beauty Contest is shown and for what it is, it’s fine. I didn’t mind too much since this chapter is largely a relax one despite not really caring much of these events. Again, that Class-B play should have gone on a bit longer. At least we got to see what made Kenranzaki stand out; that’s probably understatement. She brings in some vehicle that could be in the next Twisted Metal game with her face on it. That would also include those eyelashes. It’s actually a funny visual with how it looks like it has fangs. It even pops out with a small body; how she won before is a mystery.

It’s predictable that Nejire is going to win this content, especially how this is her last year. I assume she lost last time because she tried to be flashy like Kenranzaki; dare I say there is no try. Instead, she goes out there and be herself, do what she does best, and her quirk is good for her quality to dance like a fairy. Sadly, the visual only shows her in the midair and that’s it. I guess Kohei is still exhausted from the last chapter in which we will get to that shortly. But really, it is him getting done quick as possible. Later, she is voted as the best, so good for her. It must be a bone thrown of Kohei because well, you know.

The scene enters a montage of everyone enjoying the Festival. I thought it was neat and probably for the best to get the narrative across of the students having fun. I would have like more of it, but when the series got mixed with the training and battle portion, one may get sacrificed in the importance level. I don’t recall at this moment on which series balanced it well, but I thought this could have done so. That said there are points that Kohei did good on.

The moments with Eri is charming and although you could argue that her development should have been taken care of last time, this was a fitting time as well. It’s nice of her to gain a human personality, let alone a child’s, so she can actually express her opinion with joy. Kohei did have two routes to choose and he chose the good side. It’s rewarding of its kind and I like it.

Deku did his job, so good for him on that regard. I like how he even got her an apple candy, so she can taste the sweetness. It’s a good end for her and although I don’t know when we will see her again, I wouldn’t mind. She obviously has an ability that can be helpful, so we will most likely see her again. It probably take time since controlling quirk is different than just gaining humanity. Other than that, I enjoyed this.

The other part that I like is the ending for Gentle and La Brava, mainly the former. I once had a feeling that Gentle being the main target for development, let alone sympathetic backstory, would mean something more. He too learned something from his confrontation and probably the only villain that has good morale than being completely evil. Because of his timing and lesson learned, the Gorilla cop, which is comical, let him know that he should be grateful that he is a rare one that actually got something out of it rather than laze around.

I like it because it shows how his character was the main focus in development term, since others kind of just get it on the spot without any action. Jirou’s development gets told about music and off she goes; somewhat undermined later on. Eri is a child, so it’s fine. Gentle gets the shine because he wasn’t a real villain, just a sympathetic guy. It’s no wonder he received it this way. Plus it helps the concept of the Festival bringing a change in a person for the better.

There’s a suggestive tone that maybe Gentle and La Brava will not go to jail or at least sentenced for a long time. Cops were impressed with La Brava’s hacking skill, but she only does it for her darling, Gentle. Maybe having both of them work for them is an ideal, like a service community. If so, that would make the development more reasonable and not just a one-time moment because jail and all. Granted, we will lose the villainy portrayal, but there are other points that can shine their characteristic. I guess we have to wait and see.

The visual is good though pretty simplistic this time around. It is better than sketches no doubt, though the amount of white background is plenty enough to make it feel a bit hollow. It’s kind of ironic if you ask me. The only time it was detailed was the beginning with the play. The character design is simpler like no need for shades or anything, though that’s fine with slice of life being the focus. I hope Kohei is healthy but I am probably overthinking.

This was a nice end chapter for the arc. It covered the last remaining pieces and it ended nicely for certain characters. While I don’t think it rejuvenated my attachment greatly like during the current run of the anime, this was meant to be relaxing. If the next arc is a serious one, I hope the joy of it will come alive like before. With this arc ended, it’s only matter of time to see what’s next.

[aion-rsa]

Cyberpunk 2077 Review

https://ift.tt/3mI17m9

A preface: Cyberpunk 2077 has had one hell of a rocky release, and it’s almost impossible to play the game while also ignoring the controversy surrounding its disastrous console launch, among other points of contention. That being said, in my time with the game—which I reviewed on PC—I remained focused on assessing the game that was in front of me, period.

Cyberpunk 2077 is without a doubt a mixed bag, though its strengths ultimately outweigh its weaknesses. The game blew my hair back with its immersiveness, art and sound design, staggering scope, and production value (at least on PC). But its shortcomings are just as notable, although never catastrophic or deal-breaking. Gameplay has blemishes all over, the writing is tonally inconsistent, and bugs do mar the experience to a certain extent. This is far from a perfect game in its current state. But in spite of all this, part of me fell in love with the game for its ambition, boldness, and eye-popping presentation.

The story is set in the year 2077 in Night City, a Central California metropolis run by megacorporations, populated by millions of cybernetically-enhanced denizens, and poisoned to the core by deep-seeded corruption and crime. You play as V, a small-time crook who by seedy happenstance befriends another gun-waving lughead named Jackie. Together they take on a big-time heist that goes tragically wrong and results, impossibly, with the personality construct of a decades-deceased rockstar/terrorist named Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves) implanted in V’s brain, chopping his remaining life expectancy down to a sliver. V and Johnny must work together to split their respective consciousnesses and take down the Arasaka corporation, whose borderline-demonic tech brought forth their doomed coexistence.

From this point on, you’re free to explore the city and get into all kinds of trouble. There are a multitude of slimy sleazeballs to meet, complete jobs for, and get into shootouts with, as well as all of the other side tasks you’d expect from an urban open world. You can buy/steal cars and motorbikes and use them to compete in street races, stumble upon police shootouts and join in on the action, or steal copious amounts of money and paraphernalia from warring street gangs. There’s A LOT to see and do in this game—the question is, is any of it fun?

The answer is complicated. In short, my answer is “mostly.” I find Cyberpunk 2077’s gameplay to be problematic at worst and, at best, reasonably fun. If the game didn’t look and sound so good, I don’t think I would have enjoyed the gameplay almost at all. I have yet to tire of playing Cyberpunk 2077, but I think that’s a testament to how much I love the audio-visual presentation and the characters, not the gameplay itself.

Before diving into the gnarled, twisted matter of gameplay, let’s get this out of the way: this game world is one of the greatest I’ve ever seen. Several studios have delivered amazing looking game worlds this year, but Night City is a serious design achievement that the folks at CDPR should be very, very proud of.

Looking up at the looming, almost monumental buildings that shape Night City’s skyline is breathtaking, but it’s what you see when your eyes come back down to street level that impressed me most. Trash bags piled up two stories high, plugging up alleyways with graffiti of cybernetic freaks scrawled across deteriorating walls. The environments are insanely detailed, but they tell a story, too: look up and you see big money, squeaky clean windows, and technological ambition; look down and you see a sea of sufferers, psychologically and physically wounded citizens bled dry in the name of corporate conquest. From a purely cosmetic perspective, the game looks phenomenal, but it’s the artistic intention behind the designs that really makes the visuals sing.

As far as technical prowess is concerned, the game is spectacular provided you have the right machine to run it. Texture quality is insanely high, the environments are absurdly detailed, and the game’s lighting, especially with ray tracing enabled, is incredibly realistic. The atmosphere in this game is as thick as I’ve ever seen, and combined with the game’s pulsating, evocative, synth-based score, it creates a mood that few other titles can rival. Simply taking a walk around Night City and soaking in the sights was my favorite thing to do.

The character models are another high point–from the detail of the models themselves, to the way they move, to the top-notch facial animation, every weirdo you meet in Night City is unique and expressive. An interesting thing I noticed was that during some cutscenes that I found to be banal from a narrative point of view were still captivating to a certain extent simply because the character animation and voice acting were so well done. Some of the writing is a little odd, particularly when characters who are meant to be thugs and grifters speak in an unusually formal tone, but overall, the voice actors and animators do enough to make the dialogue-driven moments engaging.

What I fear won’t be discussed enough about this game is its sound design, which is just as excellent as the graphics. Cyberpunk 2077 embeds you in its world better than any game I’ve played this year, and that sense of immersion can be largely attributed to the finely-tuned symphony of sounds that is constantly being streamed into your ears. From the squeaking of leather couches when you sit in them, to the muffled thuds you hear when you drive over speed bumps, to the way crowds sound in enclosed spaces versus outdoor spaces, the level of detail and care that went into immersing the player is incredible. The three-dimensional sound design actually makes the visuals appear more vivid and tactile than they actually are.

As for the gameplay, I found Cyberpunk 2077’s combat in particular to be clunky and a tad slow. It isn’t broken or imbalanced, but it isn’t snappy enough and there isn’t that x-factor that you find in most great shooters that keeps you obsessively coming back for more. To put it another way, The Witcher 3’s combat was so compelling and entertaining that I happily played that game for over 400 hours largely because of the combat. Cyberpunk 2077’s combat is absolutely not what pulled me through the game for the 60+ hours I played it, and there are many reasons why.

Release Date: Dec. 10, 2020 Platforms: PC (reviewed), PS5, XSX/S, PS4, XBO, Stadia Developer CD Projekt Red Publisher: CD Projekt Genre: Action RPG

Combat is of the typical first-person shooter variety, with both shooting and melee combat supported. There are a slew of weapons to acquire and upgrade via the game’s crafting system, and the weapons all look and sound pretty sweet but are somewhat forgettable, which is a shame for a game boasting such a breadth of artillery. The “iconic” weapons, which you earn at different points throughout the campaign, stand out the most and come with useful perks. But none feel exciting to wield are pack the punch of Doom’s BFG or Half Life’s gravity gun. I did however enjoy the smart targeting feature you can access through a combination of smart weapons and a handy body mod, which allows your bullets to find their target no matter what direction you aim and can save your ass if you’re cornered and hurting behind cover.

Then there are the other two pillars of combat: hacking and stealth. Hacking allows you to wreak havoc on enemy tech to sabotage or distract them long enough to give you an opening to pounce guns-a-blazing. You can frazzle a baddie’s optics while you sneak up behind them, take control of all security cameras on a given network, or turn on a flood light to manipulate enemy movements. The possibilities are innumerable, and it all sounds great on paper.

But in practice the hacking system just isn’t all that fun to use. I was amused for a time, as I got increasingly more creative with how I used my scanner to tag enemies and objects and sabotage them from afar. But after a while this system became tedious because it slows down the action to an absolute crawl, and the tactical aspects of combat just aren’t polished or engaging enough to make up for the pause. In the later hours of my playthrough, I found myself almost always resorting to in-your-face combat because, well, it solved problems more quickly.

Stealth feels even shoddier than hacking, unfortunately. In most missions, there’s a big emphasis on taking your targets out quietly, but for me sneaking around almost always led to bouts of frustrated groans and eye-rolls. For one, enemies’ lines of sight are really difficult to gauge—some will spot you from seemingly a football field away, while others won’t notice you cross a walkway mere feet in front of them. On top of this, the window of opportunity you have to grapple enemies from behind is finicky—I’d be standing right behind a guy ready to grab him when suddenly the “grab” prompt would disappear inexplicably, when neither of us had moved an inch. I’d move in closer to try again and he’d turn around and…you know the rest.

I believe that if the stealth and hacking were more polished and refined, or even de-emphasized to a certain degree, it would free up the shooting to feel a lot more kinetic and exciting. As is, the combat grows old over time, which is a real shame when you think of The Witcher 3’s combat system, which is incredible and only gets sweeter as you play.

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Games

Cyberpunk 2077: Every Romance Option in the Game

By Matthew Byrd

Games

Cyberpunk 2077: The Best Cyberware Upgrades

By Matthew Byrd

There is a whole litany of gripes I have with Cyberpunk 2077’s gameplay. The driving—be it on four wheels or two—feels slippery and unwieldy. The menus are an eyesore. Melee combat is atrocious. The “braindances”–investigative crime-reconstruction mini-games–are headache-inducing…I could go on. But there were other aspects of gameplay that I did enjoy, like the streamlined stash mechanic, the flexible crafting system, the number and variety of missions available at any given time, and most of all, the well thought out RPG elements.

The character progression system didn’t immediately strike me as anything special, but the more I played the game and explored the five skill trees (Reflexes, Technical Ability, Body, Cool, Intelligence), I found that the omission of a traditional class system actually makes character progression more fluid and encourages experimentation as opposed to nudging (or shoving) you down a particular path of mastery. Although I didn’t always enjoy enemy encounters, I did feel like the different perks I acquired helped me succeed in combat in ways that were easily measurable. For example, the “Vanishing Point” perk, which increases your evasion stat for seven seconds after you dodge if you’re dual wielding a pistol and revolver, totally changed the way I approached enemies. I quit stealthing for quite a while because darting around with my pistols blaring turned out to be super effective for me.

Generally, I did enjoy Cyberpunk 2077’s story and the fact that it’s more character-based than plot-based. The relationships between the characters take precedence over the machinations of the narrative, and I appreciate that. As in most RPGs, you meet characters and complete various tasks and quests for them, but with Cyberpunk 2077, I felt that the characterizations were so strong that I was actually more compelled to find out how the relationships between V and his supporting characters progressed than I was to collect precious loot at the end of missions. 

I found all of the game’s characters to be memorable, which comes as no surprise considering the character work CDPR has done in the past. Rogue nomad Panam can be both compassionate and vicious; the dutiful Goro Takemura is almost comically stoic and serious; Jackie’s tight relationship with his family and friends permeates the game in a poetic way. And Reeves does a fine job as Johnny Silverhand, though his style of voice acting took a bit of getting used to for me, particularly when compared to the rest of the cast.

The nice thing about V’s relationships is that the more you explore the city and the more characters you meet, the more possibilities open up to you in the campaign’s final act. There are a multitude of endings that you can reach, but these outcomes are largely dictated by the people you’ve met and how close you are to them. 

What irks me about the game’s last act is how it plays out leading up to the ending. After playing for hours and hours in the beautiful game world that is Night City, I was expecting to be treated to even more imaginative environments and enemy encounters at the game’s conclusion. Without spoiling anything, the final enemy encounters and environments are almost laughably unimaginative and generic, and that was a big letdown.

I indeed experienced bugs during my time with Cyberpunk 2077, but far less than I’ve seen for other platforms online. A couple of crashes and a slew of visual glitches definitely cropped up for me, but they didn’t color my experience nearly as much as the game’s positive traits did, particularly in the visual department. The bugs that bothered me most were the ones that affected the narrative, like when dialogue options would be missing or when characters’ voices would drop out inexplicably. But overall I had a relatively smooth experience that was no more buggy than your typical open world game.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

My relationship to Cyberpunk 2077 is a fraught one. I have so many issues with this game that I couldn’t possibly fit them all into this review. And I have just as many positive things to say. The grandeur of the project is both what I love and hate about it. I do wish CDPR had tightened its focus and worked out some of the game’s more glaring issues before rushing Cyberpunk 2077 out for a holiday release. But at the same time, I deeply respect the scope of the studio’s vision. This is a game with a strong sense of identity, and that’s something that you can’t say about a lot of AAA open-world games these days.

Cyberpunk 2077 is problematic, but ultimately I’m a fan of it in spite of its flaws. And I think in time its flaws will be ironed out and my fandom will only grow.

The post Cyberpunk 2077 Review appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[jopok-krp]

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Personality: 

hyunwoo is far from the nicest. he has a cold exterior and prefers to be by himself rather than around others; a good day for him consists of staying home while playing games or working. he has a hard time communicating in person due to his lack of verbal speech, and he absolutely despises anyone that looks down on him for using KSL or text to communicate with others. his words towards those that do so are incredibly harsh, though that isn’t too far off from how he acts in the first place. he tends to give short and blunt answers, and he’s far from afraid to let people know if he isn’t interested in them in general.

with hyunwoo, you reap what you sow. he isn’t overly rude to those that are nice to him, and he knows when others are putting in an effort to interact civilly. those are the people he respects and finds himself enjoying interaction with, even if it’s only vaguely.

Background:

𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙨𝙥𝙞𝙧𝙞𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙

born into a family of hackers belonging to a notorious group known as omicron, hyunwoo starts out his life comfortably. they have no shortage of money to spend on the necessities and more, and they certainly have no shortage of affection to offer their son. it’s a healthy environment, one where hyunwoo goes through school far easier than most kids his age. he learns to read and write quicker and aces his tests, though he hardly interacts with his peers. his parents and teachers chalk it up to him being shy, especially when the child is almost always happy in his parents’ company.

truth be told, his lack of seeking out others to socialize doesn’t seem to be that big of an issue. his parents take that opportunity to offer hyunwoo early insight towards their line of work, and he’s all too happy to indulge in the digital world. the numbers and countless lines of code mean nothing to him yet, but he enjoys immersing himself in different games more and more over the years.

[ 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚜𝚙𝚒𝚛𝚒𝚝 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚕𝚍: 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚍. ]

𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙚𝙣𝙙

hyunwoo opens up to people eventually. he makes a few friends in middle school, most of which seem more interested in his intellect than his personality — but that’s okay, because “at least you’re making friends.” he genuinely likes some of them, at least, and the moral of the story for this ten-year-old seventh grader goes as follows: not all people suck.

he progresses through life as any kid would (with added work, of course, but he doesn’t mind), spending time with friends here and there but clearly enjoying books and games far more. he has a knack for technology that slowly grows as time goes on with his parents’ added pointers gearing him towards learning about the inner workings of it all in the future; after all, they’d love for their son to work with omicron just like they do when he gets older. he has the tools to become a prodigy, so why not?

[ 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚕𝚒𝚟𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚎𝚗𝚍: 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚒𝚜𝚑𝚎𝚍. ]

𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝙞𝙘𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙞𝙣

the shortage starts when hyunwoo is thirteen, and his family works tirelessly with omicron to find any and all information they can. when hyunwoo isn’t in high school (skipping grades due to his own intellect put him as possibly the youngest sophomore at his school), he’s at home doing homework or watching his parents work side-by-side. this only becomes an issue when his mother manages to hack into an elite family’s cameras, and, though hyunwoo doesn’t understand the exact importance of it, his parents clearly do. they all gather around the monitor and watch as the higher class swim in ridiculously large pools filled to the brim with water that most people could only dream of having at this point in time, and they truly believe they’ve found the breakthrough they needed to force some kind of response from the government. —which would be great, if hyunwoo didn’t lean forward a bit too far and hit a few keys on the keyboard. the led light for their camera flashes on for a mere second, and then everything turns off all at once. it isn’t hyunwoo’s fault, not really— not when their defenses are far too weak in the first place with elites lurking just behind encrypted lines of code and waiting for the right moment to counterattack. he doesn’t register just how bad the damage may be in that moment anyway.

his parents share worried glances, and then they continue on under the same mindset hyunwoo had for that moment: all that happened was he crashed their programs on accident, and it didn’t mean a single thing. days pass of hyunwoo continuing on at school, of his parents contacting omicron and trying to hack into the cameras all over again. if only things continued on that way.

it starts with a relatively odd occurrence at school; hyunwoo gets called down to the office to check out early, but he doesn’t recognize the person waiting for him. the person claims to be his mother’s cousin who is there to get him because his mother fell ill suddenly and is currently being taken to the hospital. at the time, hyunwoo decides not to question it; after all, the school has a strict policy of strangers not being allowed to take anyone anywhere. this person surely is related to him and documented somewhere in their system, so he goes with them while asking far too many distressed questions about the state of his mother.

it’s unfortunate that the situation continues on with hyunwoo being taken somewhere that definitely isn’t a hospital nor his home— even more unfortunate when he’s put in a room and held for ransom to lure out his parents and maybe even other members of the hacker organization his family took part in.

the days are long and painful.

in the end, no one comes for him. it’s as if he’s forgotten — lost in a system he hardly understands. they try to get information from him, of all people; him who didn’t have a single ‘technologically gifted or important’ friend to point out to them, him who was at least smart enough to feign some level of ignorance when it came down to his parents’ line of work.

eventually, the elites run out of use for him. he clearly isn’t a good bargaining chip, nor is he any good for spilling loads of information even under pressure (but holy shit, was that ‘pressure’ of theirs harsh for a child), and nor is he useful for keeping the situation contained when others have already done what omicron failed to — so, ultimately, they “let him go.”

letting him go consists of the following: they take him someplace secluded and tell him he’s free to go as long as he keeps his mouth shut. the moment he gets out of the car and they deem no one else to be around, they slit his throat and leave him there (“why would we let a kid like you cause more trouble for us?”).

he feels and hears his own scream at first, and then he’s silent. the world goes dark, slowly but surely.

[ 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚎𝚗𝚍𝚎𝚍. 𝚢𝚘𝚞𝚛 𝚏𝚒𝚗𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚛𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝟸𝟶𝟶 𝚙𝚘𝚒𝚗𝚝𝚜. ] [ > 𝚒𝚍𝚍𝚚𝚍  > 𝚒𝚍𝚌𝚕𝚎𝚟 𝙼𝙰𝙿𝟹𝟶 ]

𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙧𝙞𝙣𝙜: 𝙞𝙘𝙤𝙣 𝙤𝙛 𝙨𝙞𝙣

hyunwoo wakes up what can only be days (weeks, maybe? who knows) later in a hospital bed. his throat feels raw and his whole body aches, but the worst part? he can’t speak. he tries to make a sound countless times, but nothing comes out; it’s only when he reaches over for the nurse call button that he receives any sort of answer — and the answer he does get isn’t one he likes. the nurse tells him not to so much as try to speak because his vocal cords were damaged, and he’d likely be dead if someone hadn’t seen him and dialed 112.

weeks pass by of slow recovery, his only visitor being the person who saw him in the first place. he gets through it, somehow, and the moment he’s discharged he asks the lady to take him home. the only thing he wants is home these days — something about homesickness, something about not knowing where else to go.

he returns to an empty home devoid of any sentient beings, though it seems as if that’s what his parents wanted.

so, at thirteen, hyunwoo takes what his parents left to him (a house, money, a note tucked away with instructions and resources pertaining to various things) and lives the best he can. it’s hard at first; he’s young, and his mind can only handle so much despite his keen intellect.

things get better, though; he progresses through life slowly. first, he learns to take care of himself— eating properly, keeping the place decently clean, finally wrapping his head around how some financial aspects work. two years later, he begins using the other resources his parents provided— learning the basics of coding and attending school online. two years after that at age seventeen, he graduates high school and moves on to college as an online attendee. he uses money left over and money gathered from the small side job he works (a hacking-for-fun type thing, something that won’t get him in legal trouble but still nets him some money) to pay for the tuition, and that’s that.

somewhere along the line, he gets himself tangled into a bit more than he ever thought he would. he becomes a far better hacker than intended (his focus is cybersecurity, after all, so maybe that’s what gave him those tools), and his attitude towards his side job becomes far more serious the moment he realizes some of the people wanting his services are involved in far less legal aspects. that’s okay, though, because hyunwoo — omega, now — is twenty and good at finding information about others that is buried so, so deep in the depths of the internet. he works for whoever pays the most and decides he can be a bit picky with what jobs he accepts; his services are limited due to his own cold disinterest and his desire to finish his degree.

at twenty-one, he graduates college and, again, moves on. he doesn’t care for a “proper” job anymore; others coming to him to dig up information on interesting people is far better, so he continues down that path. omega becomes notorious in his own right, though it isn’t always for his good work; a lot of his notoriety stems from the fact he turns down clients in a heartbeat if they don’t offer him a good payment or an interesting job to complete.

[ 𝚌𝚘𝚗𝚐𝚛𝚊𝚝𝚞𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗𝚜, 𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚛 𝙾𝙼𝙴𝙶𝙰! 𝚔𝚒𝚕𝚕𝚜 𝟷𝟶𝟶% 𝚒𝚝𝚎𝚖𝚜 𝟷𝟶𝟶% 𝚜𝚎𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚝 𝟷𝟶𝟶% 𝚅𝙸𝙲𝚃𝙾𝚁𝚈. ]