#THE WHOLE ACTUAL APOCALYPSE WITH CONSEQUENCES

[madds-halflingism]

Oh gods I forgot how devastating John's bite is

Like they're coming off this high after surviving an attack, they're even being silly and joking around with a recall to the before times

And just out of nowhere they get him, and immediately he's not even thinking about himself anymore, he sacrifices himself with all the remaining humanity he has to protect Anna, he saves her and she has to watch him die.

Like I'm so not normal about this they're literally the best friends ever like gooooooddddddd.

[autumnoakes]

i hate when i have a Point to make but i don't want to start like. a discussion about it i just want to post my unhinged ramble

[absolutedestinyapocalypsse]

i love how as you read more into tlt, the ninth house seems more and more normal. Like if i'm at an immoral evil government competition, and i use human fat as soap and animate skeletons to do menial labor, i'm gonna LOSE if my competition is the third house, represented by ianthe "who HASN'T eaten human flesh and fucked a corpse" tridentarius. My weird skeleton thing seems normal, suddenly. Well-adjusted, even. It's recycling. They're using resources in a sustainable way. Normal and regular and productive for a post-climate change apocalypse universe.

People go on and on about how Muir drops you into gtn hearing from the person who knows the least about whats happening, and does not hand hold the reader through the crazy shit that occurs, and that's all true. It truly is a crazy writing decision to make your first pov character come from the universe's equivalent of amish fundamentalists. But the reader is actually done a huge favor being dropped into the ninth house first, because we already understand that space is cold and what catholic nuns are, and what goths look like, and what lesbians are. Very little time is wasted in the first chunk of gtn ripping hair out of your head wondering what the fuck is going on, because for all of its strangeness, the ninth house is already the most familiar thing we're gonna get.

Because THEN we learn that this whole universe's medieval chivalry system is designed to groom people from CHILDREN to not only be exploited and used as human batteries for necromancers, but to LIKE it. to wax poetic about it. to confuse it for love, to write fucking academic papers about it! Then we learn about planet flipping, an act so horrific and violent it turns the planet's soul into a massive vengeful monster capable of killing GOD. Like what do you MEAN the animals "change"? Is this why noodle has six legs? I would MUCH prefer to wear skeleton makeup and repent forever if the alternative was to witness my family dog grow TWO EXTRA LIMBS because the planet he lived on fucking died. Suddenly, living in the asscrack of a planet where no light gets in seems like a sweet deal when the whole solar system is lit by a sun that MAKES YOU GO CRAZY. The ninth house's WORST sin, killing 200 babies to make Harrow, a waste of resources and an act so terrible it haunts Harrow for the entire span of her life, is like a BLIP compared to the death count Jod's empire. God even hears about it and he's like, no big deal! The cohort probably kills that amount of people in a DAY.

And its ALSO tragic because you realize that all of this trauma and abuse that Gideon goes through is not really because of the ninth house at all. It's really just an individual skill issue that she wasn't treated with compassion. Nobody hated her because she's jesus or a bomb, nobody even KNOWS she's a bomb. It's just Priamhark and Pelleamena being deeply guilty and scared people that motivates her treatment, and absolutely nothing else.

They did something bad, and they know it, and Gideon survived it, and they can't kill her to cover it up, and that's IT. They killed themselves for pride, because they were afraid of the consequences of their actions (both the baby killing and Harrow opening the tomb) coming back to bite them. You can argue this is the catholicism of it all, and I wouldn't say you're wrong, but compared to the cavalier system, where exploitation is in the very lining of the house's institutions, the ninth house is really removed from the space empire's blood factory. This is compared to the fourth house where they have tons of children to be CANNON FODDER to join the cohort at fucking 14, compared to the eight house uncle nephew fuckery, even the fifth house which actually does seems nice to live on but also seems to have the fourth house in some sort of fucked up political bear hug??? (maybe the fourth house has so many kids in order to fight the fifth's battles? which is EXACTLY what jod's whole empire is about; politely stirring your tea and acting nice while you destroy everything) compared to ALL OF THAT, the cruelty that Gideon faces is really more a bug of the ninth's system than a feature.

There's nothing baked into the culture and everyday life of the ninth house that necessitated that cruelty; in fact, for such a pragmatic and resource-scarce place, it's WEIRD that a strong able-bodied young person was treated like a waste of space and resources. It could just have easily not happened, if Harrow's parents had been different people. Maybe they were products of their environment, but so was Harrow, and she values Gideon's life SO MUCH that she'd literally rather carve out parts of her own brain than exploit her. Gideon grows up knowing really NOTHING about cavaliers, so remote from the horrors of the empire that she develops an idea of what the cohort is from porn magazines. And in a lot of ways, that upbringing was desolate and terrible, and in a lot of other ways it literally DID NOT HAVE TO BE.

Gideon's MAIN THING is that she wants to be useful, to be needed, to be loved and it SUCKS that she couldn't even get it in the one place where she was actually an invaluable resource, where the death empire had the weakest reach. Gideon can't even blame her lack of love on the fucked up chivalry system like everyone else can because it JUST WASNT REALLY RELEVENT!?!?! This is like if i rolled up to the trauma competition and everyone else was raised in a nuclear warzone by wolves or something and i grew up in like, the suburbs and was raised by teachers and i somehow STILL WON. truly what the fuck guys.

[acepalindrome]

I got emotional thinking about Chrono Trigger tonight, and the fact that the majority of the cast could have just given up on the whole ‘saving the world’ thing, gone home, and lived perfectly fine lives with no consequences for walking away.

If you’re unfamiliar with Chrono Trigger, the basic plot is that our plucky heroes accidentally get pulled back in time after a science experiment goes wrong. On their quest to get back to their own time, they accidentally end up in the distant future, and discover that the world is destroyed in the year 1999 (of course,) and the future they find is a desolate wasteland where the few surviving humans are on the brink of starvation. It’s terrible!

But here’s the thing: our heroes are from the year 1000. The apocalypse is 999 years away from their time. Once they find the way back to their own time, they could have just forgotten about the future. It wouldn’t have affected them! They would be long dead before any of that ever happened! The only character who would have been impacted was the robot they met in the future, but they could have brought him back to their time too and called it a day. There was no consequence for them to walk away.

But they don’t, of course. They make it their mission to figure out what caused the apocalypse and how to prevent it by jumping back and forth through time. They do all that, risking their lives, for a future that they wouldn’t live long enough to actually experience. They don’t do it for themselves. They do it for the world.

It’s just kind of a lovely thought. Planting trees in whose shade they would never sit.

[rafesbuzzcutseason]

wicked game

chapter 5 - fucking frat boys

synopsis: y/n is sarah’s roommate and the embodiment of sunshine. rafe, on the other hand, is her complete opposite. when the boys place a bet that he can't win her over, rafe takes the challenge without hesitation. after all, he never backs down from a dare. the closer rafe gets to y/n, he finds himself drawn to her warmth in a way he never expected, and for the first time, he wants to be more than just the guy with a bad reputation.

but secrets don’t stay hidden for long, and when y/n finds out the truth, rafe is left to face the consequences. now, he has to prove that somewhere along the way, the bet stopped mattering, because losing her was never part of the plan.

masterlist

cw: language

"nope," you mumbled to yourself, refreshing the screen just to make sure you weren’t seeing things. but there it was. his profile, profile pic and all. rafe cameron had just followed you.

you stared at it for a moment, torn between laughing and screaming. sarah clocked your expression instantly "what’s with the face?"

you turned your phone around. "your brother just followed me."

her eyes went wide, "what?"

"yeah. like, literally just now."

sarah’s brows drew together, suspicion immediately flaring behind her eyes. "that’s… weird. rafe doesn’t follow people he doesn’t care about. or isn’t planning to piss off."

you frowned, "how comforting."

she sat down beside you, scrolling through her phone. "maybe he’s trying to apologise for being a dick last night?"

you gave her a look. "he didn’t look sorry. he looked entertained."

sarah hesitated for a second too long before answering. "yeah… i don’t know. maybe he’s just being nosy."

you weren’t convinced. especially not when, a minute later, a like popped up. "oh my god, he scrolled,” you muttered, now slightly horrified. "he scrolled, sarah."

"what do you mean he scrolled?"

"he just liked one of my posts from 3 months ago."

sarah burst into laughter, "that’s not a like-by-accident. that’s a calculated like."

you gave her a look, shutting up her laughs. "what the hell is he doing?"

"i wish i knew,” she said honestly. "but knowing rafe… nothing good."

"sarah! not helping at all." you threw a pillow at her.

she caught it in her hands, bursting into a fit of giggles once again. "oh come on, i'm sure it's nothing. now you've got a class to get to so go on." she said, shooing you out the door.

as you were walking to class, you debated the whole time whether you should follow him back or not. the last thing you wanted to do was give him an ego boost, but before you could finally make your mind up, you bumped into someone.

you stumbled back, muttering a quiet "shit sorry." before being met with the reason you weren't paying attention in the first place.

he caught your arm to steady you, his grip firm and annoyingly confident. "you good?” he asked, his voice low, a smirk already tugging at his lips.

you pulled your arm back irritated, brushing off your top like he’d left something on it. "yeah. fine. didn’t see you."

he raised an eyebrow, "clearly."

"where are you going anyway?" you asked with a hint of annoyance.

"class? obviously?"

"ok no need for the sassy man apocalypse to arrive."

rafe let out an amused laugh, "is this you trying to flirt with me or something?"

"by calling you sassy? definitely not trying to flirt." you responded, straight faced.

he cocked his head slightly, "could've falled me princess."

"don't call me that." you snapped, attempting to brush past him.

"why?" he asked following behind you, "your boyfriend not gonna like it?"

"yes actually."

"didn't take you for the lying type." he raised an eyebrow.

"you think i'm lying?" you quizzed him.

"well you didn't exactly have any photos of said boyfriend on your instagram."

you stopped in your tracks, turning to face him. "so you admit to stalking me?"

he grinned, not even trying to deny it. "i call it light research."

you rolled your eyes, "you’re actually insufferable."

"and yet,” he leaned in slightly, voice dropping, "you’re still standing here talking to me."

you exhaled sharply through your nose and turned back around. "only because you’re following me."

"you’re the one walking away," he called after you.

without looking back, you threw up a middle finger and kept walking.

he chuckled, loud enough for you to hear. "see you around, princess."

you muttered under your breath, "fucking frat boys."

a/n: sorry this was so much conversation but i was actually giggling kicking my feet writing this

🏷️: @heartzshiftamy @hoefordrewstarkey @luvrclub @saintlaurentcowboyy @leleee3 @yktayy9669 @miumiuestmoi @anacamofficial @cokewithcameron @bloodofadoll @shorttandsweett @mysticbby2009 @emmiesummers @wintercrows @drewrry @starkeyxcameron @xxbirkindoll2 @stoned-writer @drewstarkeyslover @hannieskzzz @verycherryblossomhideout @letstryagaintomorrow @@jjsbbg7 @mariamadison6-blog @laniirackssss @xeneasworld @countryclubwhore @drewsphswife @mattyskies @moonywhisp3rs @starkeygirls @lmaolmaos @thereallifebambi @emeloyy @vcnillafairy @rafecameronswhoore @st8rkey @angeldiaryy @therealfairybatman @drewsephrry @vanessa-rafesgirl @dreamybabbyy @pogueprincesa @happy-mushrooms @hannaa20002000 @whoismxtti @darlingstarkey

[championari]

So I’m constantly thinking about Charles and how he could eventually meet Edwin with his feelings.

Here’s something I realized: Charles, despite constantly talking about things he miss, things he wants, he actually has a complicated relationship with desire as a concept.

How I would put it is by taking Supernatural as an example. There’s an episode in Season 5 where the boys meet Famine, a horseman of the apocalypse. However, Dean is not at all affected by him. It’s because due to being the older brother, and a Hunter, Dean was never allowed to consider acting on or even having desire for anything.

You can see where I’m going with this. Charles, like Dean, doesn’t actually believe he should want anything, due to “not being good enough”.

This is something actually touched on subtly in the show through the acting. When Niko says, “I know what it’s like to want something you can’t have.” Edwin directly looks at The Cat King’s bracelet, while Charles stares off into space. When Tragic Mick describes Angie’s light as enforcing a sense of yearning, Edwin looks at Charles, while again, Charles looks off blankly (can’t access screenshots right now). Edwin knows what he wants but is scared of it, while Charles doesn’t know what he wants because he can’t allow himself to consider it. This gives an entirely new meaning to Charles’ hatred of the Cat King. A supernatural entity who describes his kingdom as being about “want and pleasure”. Thomas is the encapsulation of everything Charles was never allowed to have. Charles chases after things that he knows he can’t have, romancing a living girl despite knowing she will eventually leave. Charles can’t consider returning Edwin’s feelings because that would mean he’s been running away from what’s been in front of him the whole time. That what he wanted was always there, at his lowest point, when he thought he deserved it least.

Returning Edwin’s feelings means he was already enough. And Charles can’t imagine that yet.

While I would obviously adore an interaction between Charles and Desire of The Endless, ultimately I don’t think it would do anything. Like Dean, Charles might be completely unaffected by them because he’s spent most of his existence building walls around his desires. Edwin was completely blindsided by Thomas because he never even considered having to think about Desire due to having no attraction to women and that being the dominant narrative of his time. Charles pursues Crystal because he still wants to feel like he has a chance at “normal life” (which as I said is self-punishment by throwing himself at something he knows he can’t have). To accept that he’s in love with Edwin would mean no longer pursuing a living person. Edwin would be it for him, which he kind of already gets but it hasn’t fully sunk in yet. Just like his death

There's also this exchange that drives me nuts:

"You gave up tranquil eternity…for your friend?" "Does that sound like someone who belongs in Hell?"

THIS. MAKES. ME. INSANE. Because Charles, like he always does when confronted with his own wants, completely avoids it. He doesn't respond to The Night Nurse's obvious confusion as to why he ran from Death, and instead turns the conversation back to Edwin. He makes it all about what Edwin deserves, not what Charles saw in Edwin that led him to make that choice. You could say this is practical as time is of the essence, but I think that's the point. Charles throws away the chance to explain his viewpoint on their first meeting, the consequences of his choice to run from Death with a boy he just met and knew for a few hours, and instead remains single-minded on Edwin's safety. Like when Edwin reasonably questioned, "Why are you getting angry?" when he began freaking out over Thomas getting close to Edwin, he says nothing.

There's just so much happening in that head that I can't stop thinking about.

[rederiswrites]

Just saw a (perfectly good otherwise, which is why I'm making my own post, because I have no desire to beef) post that talked about how good Veilguard is and hinged part of its argument on the idea that bringing down the Veil would kill everyone and would definitely be a bad thing. But that theme worked specifically because they forced the narrative that bringing down the Veil was a bad thing, and purged all evidence to the contrary from the game's lore!

Look, I think Veilguard IS a great game! I love it! But, like every other DA game before it, it leapfrogs right over some established lore to tell a different story, and the story it ultimately told was not about quite the same Solas many of us loved in Inquisition and Trespasser, and the difference is significant.

There was quite a LOT of reason to believe that the Veil is an unsustainable artificial structure that, by its existence, does literally incalculable harm. And no one, probably Solas included, knows what the final consequences of bringing it down would be.

The Veil was a mistake in the first place. It changed Thedas so completely that even the ancient lore of all currently existing cultures does not talk about what it was like before. It's unimaginable. We see only tiny glimpes of a world where gravity might as well not exist and form is mutable and elves don't age and if you got bored you could go on a whole-ass vacation from your body, for centuries if you wanted. Where magic was inextricable from physical existence. Where you could spend centuries playing a piece of music. And not only was it a mistake, but it didn't quite do what it was designed to do! The Blight got out anyway! Slower, and less, but it still got out.

So what Trespasser set up was a choice--continue the deep harms of the current world, a world that is in a near-constant state of apocalypse, or incur the terrible harms of bringing down the Veil for what might be a better world after. But what Veilguard gave us was a man who was used by someone he loved, betrayed by people he trusted, and never in all his wisdom managed to move past that. And your choice is to either trick him or help him move past that. It was actually a compelling story! I can buy it. The story of a spirit, deeply damaged by the things he felt trapped into doing. But it WAS a forced narrative, and they had to brush a bunch of really pivotal lore under the rug to make it work. "What is a Circle" levels of don't mind the man behind the curtain.

I defend the right of creatives to alter their story and tell it the way they want to. I also recognize the difficulties they face dealing with technical and business realities. But let's not pretend that people who were disappointed with Veilguard just don't get it or didn't understand the lore correctly. We can enjoy the game and also not invalidate that disappointment.

[sodaequalsbubbles]

One thing I really miss from Inquisition is the Game Over screens. I loved how they weren't just plain "your party went down, reload your save" screens. They were a little more like Bad Ends in an RPG horror game for instance, as it shows a bit of the aftermath if the Inquisitor dies or fails a main quest in some way. Even if they are just a single drawn panel with text on it, it's still pretty eerie to see the consequences if you fail.

The standard game over slide you get ( if you got party wiped while exploring for example):

______________________________________________________________

If your court approval goes down to zero during 'Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts' the Inquisitor is kicked out of the ball and is unable to save the Empress. Leading to Corypheus conquering Orlais:

______________________________________________________________

If you fail to escape the twisted future that Alexius's spell sent you into during 'In Hushed Whispers', it cuts to a screen where Cullen, Leliana, and Josephine stare mournfully at the Inquisitor's empty throne:

______________________________________________________________

During 'Champions of the Just', if you take too long in investigating Therinfal Redoubt the templars are overrun. And you see Ser Barris being held down and about to be executed by his former brethren, now corrupted red templars:

______________________________________________________________

Another game over in 'Champions of the Just' is if you die to the envy demon. The game over screen shows the Inquisition completely unaware that the real Inquisitor is dead, and that the envy demon has taken their place:

(I got these screenshots from FluffyNinjaLlama on YouTube, the link is here you wanna see all of the game over screens with the music attached.)

If I'm not mistaken DAI was the first (and I guess only da game) to have unique fail states. I really was hoping to see more of this in Veilguard, but we ended up getting just three endings (not counting the "secret executioner" ending crap ugh). And while it's obvious which endings are worse than the others, they can't be considered "fail states". They are just ENDS.

There is no possibility of true failure in Veilguard. No matter what decisions you make or who dies, Solas and the Evanuris are stopped regardless and the Veil stays up. Which is honestly pretty boring in my opinion, because it removes all of the stakes from the story.

I can't actually fail to save the world or make choices to change the world, so do my decisions really even matter? No matter what I do the world is going to be just fine and stay as it was. It made me completely uninterested in replaying this game, because I was going to see the same sequence of events that lead to basically the same ending over and over.

But of course, they were considering having fail states or maybe alternate endings in datv. But they ultimately never made it into the final product.

For instance, there was going to be a fail state if you were unable to stop Solas from completing the ritual, and he tears down the Veil.

______________________________________________________________

Another fail state that would occur is if Rook was unable to sever their mental connection with Solas. And that would lead to Solas actually killing Rook.

But I guess that all comes down to me feeling that Datv just does a horrible job in realizing how serious this whole situation is. Solas and the Evanuris are trying to destroy the world as they know it. The apocalypse is right at their doorstep and the odds are stacked against them in almost every way, and yet there is no such thing as a true bad ending in this game. Or at the very least choices that affect the outcome of the ending far more than "everybody is alive and we saved the day :)" and "everybody is dead but we still saved the day :/"

[cyten0]

Dragonfable was a big influence, but would you recommend playing it now?

Yes, absolutely, positively, 100%.

The game is constantly getting updates. Like. Once a week. It's got a really neat world and story and just about everything if I'm being perfectly honest. ESPECIALLY for what you would expect from what started as a 2006 free-to-play flash game. Like. Leagues better. Hell, it's better then a lot of games out there.

And unlike other Artix entertainment titles, it focuses a lot on actually staying a good game, and not just chunking out new content meaninglessly. (Looks at AQW. I love you Elegy of Madness but you are trapped in such a shit game)

Fuck, I gotta rant about it a bit.

Okay, for starters, the devs clearly CARE about the game being nice to play. I mentioned it has weekly updates, but not all of those are new quests or stuff, but quality of life or balance changes to keep the game interesting and fun. Like, they are even going back and revamping the original questlines just to add a bit more polish, like adding music to stuff from before music was even in the engine, or cleaning up dialogue. They make nice interfaces to help you find your way around the story, they give exploration, they ease the player into the complexities of the battle system, ect.

And it's also very friendly in other ways. LGTBQ+ friendly, and they mean it. Pride stuff up always, gender changes easily accessible and including NB options (not body types YET but considering they would have to make a new variation for every single armor type in the game to do so I don't blame them). Very accepting, nice community from what I've seen, both in and out of studio.

And the story. GODS I love the story. And the world. You start out as a fairly classic hero, saving the world from the evil bad guy, with prophecy on your side (Kind of?), things are a lovely mix of serious and silly that hits just right.... And then, after you've won? It keeps going. Because the world wasn't magically fixed. Because the battle has consequences, on both you and the world. What was once a playground becomes obviously more serious BECAUSE you won. The world is fleshed out, always HAS been, but your character never payed attention to it before things fall apart and running along with prophecy and skill no longer cuts it.

And god that's not even going into the absolute JOY of how it handles it's tie in's with other games. You don't NEED to play the other games but... Short answer is that the game is technically a form of post apocalypse from the Sci-fi spacefaring game, because you RESET REALITY and you start Dragonfable technically thousands of years after that one, in a whole other reality, and THE INSTANT AFTER IT ENDED. All at once. And it's not entirely gone. It's kinda still there. And you... you were the hero of that one too, and you don't remember. (Or do you? some things feel... familiar...)

Also it's art SLAPS. Both it's visuals (a 2-d sidescrolling game on a small crew is normally hard to pull off but Dragonfable is fucking beautiful) and it's music. I use dragonfable music for Symphony in Crimson for a REASON. There's SO MUCH OF It, and it's a lovely music of royalty free stuff from good artists, and in house music made across the entire Artix entertainment studio. And 90% of the time, Dragonfable uses it the best, across the various games.

Now, it IS technically a free to play game. and that comes with some connotations. But uh. I've really never seen a game handle it better then them? Free version covers the entire story and 83% of the gameplay, the 'full' version is a one time $20 purchase, and it's paid currency is mostly for cosmetics. Honestly? I wouldn't be surprised if the game is barely kept afloat with how generous it is. You can beat endgame bosses without paying a penny.

Overall, Dragonfable is one of those games that... feels like it would have died out years ago. Or wouldn't be able to exist in the modern market. But it's not, it's still here, and better, and gives me just... that little bit of hope? for stories and games and everything.

And again. It's story and world is wonderful. I cannot recommend it enough.

[artbyblastweave]

Regarding the semantic limitations of capeshit, is there a decent term for "superpowers exist but capes and costumes just isn't a thing for whatever reason" be it due to it never occurring in the first place or due to the status quo settling without capes and costumes and the whole hero vs villain duking it out thing? Like especially the it never occurring in the first place I find quite interesting, and is something I see often enough in media in which magic and spells are innate and the consequences of that power being unrestricted and unpredictable, but I don't think that is termed either afaik

I think that the TVtropes parlance for this is "Not Wearing Tights-" works with that label are often in conversation with or direct adaptations of traditional cape-and-costume superhero stories but with the aesthetic sanded down out of a combination of budget pragmatism and excessive self-awareness.

Unfortunately it's kind of a self-justifying trope in a lot of ways because the logistics of creating an effective traditional costume are genuinely batshit crazy on a lot of levels. Wild Cards is a setting where the idiom exists but fell off as a mass practice because there were very few would-be heroes with powersets and resources that made a typical superheroic presentation practical. Mutant City Blues is a TTRPG setting where, in the face of widespread mutation, would-be "traditional" heroes exist but are largely limited to the convention circuit for liability and practicality reasons and are viewed as unserious weirdos by those who tend to their business in plainclothes. Heroes is a universe where there are several characters who probably would costume up if the opportunity presented itself but shit's going down too fast and too constantly for that to ever become workable. Ex-Heroes is a setting where many of the powered vigilante heroes used to have costumes but they were almost universally really shitty hack-jobs produced on shoestring budgets, propped up aesthetically by the users put-up-or-shut-up ability to flip cars and fly, and, in the face of zombie apocalypse that defines the setting, eventually became just too much of a pain in the ass to repair and replace.

Mass adoption of costumes and code names is, unfortunately, something a setting actually has to do a lot of legwork to justify, and this has been true since at least Silver-age marvel, where, if you go back with a fine toothed comb, a surprising number of the characters are visibly coming to their heroism from a showbusiness perspective- Spider-Man the would-be wrestler, Daredevil the son of a prize fighter, Hawkeye the circus performer, Iron Man the unofficial corporate mascot, Wasp the fashion designer, Cap the USO propaganda object, this crops up a lot. Likewise, works like Worm and Abberant and The Boys burn a lot of narrative capital on the logistics of acquiring a costume that doesn't suck shit, and the proximity to power that a really high quality costume implies.

[icharchivist]

when you know the critisms often given to the DA franchise it's so obvious DA4 is reactionary to everything people complained about without a care as to why it was a complain and it makes me so mad dklfhdjlkfjd

Like there was this whole meta about how the Storm Coast having a paper saying "careful, rocks can fall!" but never delivering on it was encapsulating the way DAI tells you things will have consequences but you don't really feel it (whether you agree or not), and i could NOT stop thinking about it when Arlathan had whole sections where Rocks fall randomly on you at all time. Meanwhile DA4 doesn't make you feel the consequences of what you've done much better than DAI did, in fact it's worse because it gives you illusion of choices without actually showing diverting paths.

The total removal of talks about racism, slavery, or even the Vallaslin, is reactionary to people saying "careful you're playing too hard on racist tropes and you really need to handle it better". Instead of "handling it better", they removed it all together.

Likewise with complains about how the Elves are too much in focus, where they instead just decided to stop addressing the Elves.... without exactly focusing on any of the other groups of Thedas, and now they say "the time for the elves is over" without addressing at all that the elven are left in the worst situation possible after an apocalypse in the name of their gods. Likewise for people being tired to hear about Mage Rights.

There was complains about the omnipresence of the Chantry in DAI and discussion of Faith? Don't worry, now no one has Faith in anything and the Chantry, or any other religions for that matter, is never mentioned again. Similarly to critiscms about the way the Qun was handled translating to "no discussion of the Qun anymore, the enemies broke from it so don't worry about it."

They said there will be no fetch quest that are useless, instead every side mission is focalized on the factions you try to help, as a result you just feel like you're working for a selected few people instead of just helping the world heal even if it doesn't advantage you.

They made a huge deal about "you're not special now, you don't have a magic hand" as a reply to the concerns about thee Inquisitor being too chosen-one-ey (disagree but it was a complain) and instead made a MC who has no reason to be here... if not for a magic connection to Solas and the special weapon of Solas. But don't worry you're not that special. You don't even feel guilt for what you unleashed.

They tried so hard to capitalize on "everyone loves Purple!Hawke right?" without realizing that people love Hawke because of the small scale of da2, and love Purple Hawke because you still have different personalities available for Hawke and can play mix and match. My purple Hawke honestly used just as many diplomatic options and a few very angry options esp when Carver was in danger. Rook only has Purple. The others options are just Purple A Bit To The Left.

People complained about how you could do the game without doing the character quests and nothing of note would happen (unlike DA2 where if you ignore your companions they can turn against you in the end of the game, or DAO where eventually some of them will fight you for it), or how there's no stakes because unlike the previous games they can't leave or die, so now they keep telling you to play the companion quests else they will die in the final battle. Doesn't matter that the Companion quests are incorporated in an even worse way that feels disconnected to the main plot (which was NOT the case in DAI), or that there isn't exactly this much change depending on the branching path, the characters don't change. It's really just about whether or not they live in the final battle.

DA4 is inherently reactionary to the criticisms (fair or not) put onto DAI, but somehow missed the point of what those criticisms were about (ultimately: "DAI is a step down from the previous games in the way consequences manifest itself" and "careful you're threading into topics that can get very offensive") and hypercorrected into something worse (mainly: "no more consequences now outside of "if you don't play them you die"" and "we can't be offensive about those topics if we refuse to mention them")

the moment you know some criticism sent at the rest of the saga da4 becomes just this sort of feeble game that is terrified of its audience that it's trying to do whatever it wants without ever once questioning what those criticism were even about.

[cleopatraphouse]

Top nine Wormfics (as picked by someone who has read over a thousand Wormfics)

(I know Wormblr can be kinda tight-knit so please don't feel bad if you're not on the list.)

9. Wink

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By: Idiom Alpha

Status: Dead. 29K words.

Summary: Post- Gold Morning, a small-time band of villains struggle to survive in post-apocalyptic America.

Gold Morning and its consequences are fairly underrepresented in Wormfic. Even the fics set on Gimel tend to feature it as more of a new settler town than a ‘rebuilding after the end’ Eaden. Part of the reason is the relative newness of Ward, part of the reason is the relative badness of Ward; but let’s be honest, a lot of the reason is that post-Gold Morning there’s no Taylor. And no one reads Wormfics without Taylor.

Wink doesn’t have Taylor, except vaguely in the background of a flashback scene. And it’s really really good anyway.

After a slow bit at the start of chapter one, we get to see into a fully realized scavenger civilization Earth Bet. Some towns exist, held together by capes or regular human grit and spit. But most of the world’s population has died or relocated. But it’s not really a sad story, as dark as the subject matter gets at times. The narration (given by OC cape Bystander, whose deal I’ll leave as a surprise) is purposefully light and jovial. Example sentence: “You know, I think the funniest part about the apocalypse is that it left everyone with a lot of free time.”. This has the dual purpose of giving the exposition pizzazz and personality, while making the emotional moments that come later hit harder.

Speaking of. So, like, I have autism (and a couple of other things but that’s the important one here). I don’t know exactly how severe it is on a scale of one to ten, but it does make my life difficult. I’m not sure how much detail is appropriate to give here (yknow, because of the autism), so I’ll keep things vague. Suffice to say that many things are difficult for me that I really really wish weren’t.

I bring this up because the most seen I’ve ever felt, as an autistic person, was reading Finale in Ward. (Even though she gets called not-autistic in the same chapter...)

The second most seen I’ve ever felt is reading Sentiment’s interlude in Wink.

I’m not going to give the whole thing away, but the line where her brother tells her to be normal, and the narration follows up with “Kinneret tried being normal. It wasn't a very fun game, but she played it for years. It didn't help her make any friends.” Yeah. Yeah, that’s real shit. Way realer than that one Questionable Content strip which still bugs me years later even though it’s not important or relevant at all.

The fic unfortunately died shortly after the plot started actually picking up. Thankfully the chapters are fairly substantial. An arc for Bystander is successfully conveyed, even if it’s not the fully realized arc that was clearly being built to. There are even twists! And there’s some pretty good art, drawn by the author.

Idiom Alpha has written a bunch of Wormfics! Sadly literally all of them are dead. They’re still really good though! My favorites are Not Looking Forward To It (which has my favorite takes on Dinah and Flor), Lean (which has my favorite take on Noelle), and Don’t Do Brains! (which has the only ending Idiom ever wrote even though it’s officially unfinished).

8. Santa-Assault And Imp The Elf: Christmas Carnage

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By: Rukaio Alter

Status: Complete. 79K words.

Summary: Assault just wants to teach Imp the meaning of Christmas in his own roguish way. When he’s kidnapped by The Elite, she gets dragged along and triggers, which might be what they need if they’re going to escape.

There are perhaps a surprising amount of Christmas-themed Wormfics (Visited By Three Villains and The House Of Mortal Clay spring to mind as choice picks). This is the best one though, partially because it’s more Home Alone than Prep And Landing. While Christmas is inherent to the plot, set dressing, and even themeing; the fic is not trapped by being ‘a Christmas fic’. While there is a “saving Christmas” bend to the plot and imagery, it’s more just a very very well written story about two strangers trying their best to save some kids with cancer from supervillains... during Christmas, while dressed as Santa and an elf. It’s a fun ride at any time of year. I read it slowly to savor it.

This is easily my favorite take on Assault. I mean, the portrayal of Imp is really good too, but this is the version of Assault that the other fic!Assaults wish they were. Roguish and irreverent without being uncaring, goodnatured and upbeat without being saccharine, and burdened by his past without being maudlin; Christmas Carnage is able to fully explore and flesh out a character relatively underutilized by canon. And yes, there’s more to his relationship with Battery than sitcom tropes. We even get to see him as an angsty kid!

People completely allergic to cheese probably won’t be able to tolerate the sillier moments, the jokes can get goofy. (Sample joke: “You said it made me look professional!” / “And you were stupid to believe me.”) It’s a fairly deft management of tone though, it never slips into outright farce even when the comedic explosions start up. And Ruk gives most of the serious parts (even a tearjerker or two) room to breathe.

Some of the fight scenes maybe lack some of the impact they should have (Ruk has a bad habit of starting action paragraphs with discourse filler words). That’s just kinda something you gotta accept, treat it like part of the shonen-esque action-comedy the fic is clearly modeled after.

I really wanna stress that this could have easily just been a silly crackfic, the title even wants you to think that. But instead there’s really tight plotting, moments building naturally from character interaction, lots of setups and brick jokes, and subtle background worldbuilding. A few of the payoffs are admittedly easy to see coming, but they’re still fun. And I’m not gonna spoil it, but the ending did give me that warm holiday-with-friends feeling.

Ruk is probably most known for his Unimaginatively Titled Worm Snippet Collection, which has some of the most creative and good short stories in the fandom. I’m specifically shouting out “Screenbug” and all his takes on Contessa. He’s also done an enjoyable-if-a-bit-underseasoned crossover with Columbo, Just One More Thing, Mr. Anders...; and the weirdly problematic crossover, Brian Laborn: Ace Attorney. Outside the fandom, he ran an original fiction and review blog for a few years, and has done stuff in a couple other fandoms I’m not in.

7. The Postdiluvian Road

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By: Aleph (Immatrael) & EarthScorpion

Status: Complete, with a sequel hopefully on the way eventually. 115K words.

Premise: In a timeline where Leviathan wipes Brockton Bay off the map, Lisa and Taylor go on the run together as the only surviving Undersiders.

This is technically a shipfic, but don’t let that color your preconceptions too much. This is a story about Lisa and Taylor getting to the point where they might wanna date, but that’s not the main events occurring. They don’t even kiss. Taylor thinks a lot about Lisa’s lips, and Lisa confesses to a sleeping Taylor that she’ll always be there for her. It’s a very slow burn, is what I’m saying.  But it’s not plotless, it’s not a coffeeshop AU (as much as I enjoy Coffee Machines And Golden Mornings); the whole story is character development skillfully interlaced with conflict scenes.

In the hands of less artistic writers, the Leviathan attack would be an easy excuse to get two characters alone. That’s not what happens here. TPR completely commits to the premise. Just as every canon chapter set in post-Leviathan Brockton is soaked in filthy water and supply chain problems, every moment of TPR is suffocated in paranoia and desperation. This is, as a result, the fic on this list that keeps most closely to Worm’s apocalyptic tone. Lisa is never sure that Coil’s really dead, that she’s really free. Taylor never stops grieving her dad. Brief moments of respite feel less like breaks than they do pauses. Every bit of emotional development comes after struggling to find food and a place to sleep.

One of my favorite aspects comes when Lisa and Taylor are trying to get some quick cash. They steal some suitcases, one of which contains some mysterious vials. They throw the vials out because they only want the money and the vials are worthless to them. Obviously, the reader knows they’re Cauldron vials, but the story never feels the need to point it out. And it wasn’t just a thrown in detail, it sets a group of capes after them. Lisa and Taylor are stumbling through other stories that we only get snippets of. The world is real and big and scary, but maybe these two can find safety in each other’s arms.

This fic also features the most subtle and tasteful Simpsons reference I think I’ve ever read. Keep an eye out!

I’ve seen people say that TPR!Skitter is weaker than she should be, but I think that can be chalked up to her having less grounding, less familiarity with the environment, and less backup. All she’s got is whatever bugs are around her and a squishy thinker to protect, she doesn’t even have a base to build up stores. There are understandable reasons for Taylor to be the underdog, is what I’m saying.

The fic is wrong about Niagara Falls, though. Niagara Falls is goddamn beautiful.

I am given to understand that this is only part one, and that a part two is or was meant to come out some day. Even if that doesn’t happen, we still have is a complete story of two girls who gradually realize they might wanna be gay in between doing crimes, and I think that’s great.

Aleph and EarthScorpion previously collaborated on Impurity, a Taylor alt-power Wards fic that to be honest I didn’t get much out of. EarthScorpion also wrote a crossover with a video game I’ve never played, and Aleph contributed some interlude chapters to something called Silence Is NOT Consent!.

6. Silence Is NOT Consent!

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By: JustAnotherCat (justanothercatgirl) and Aleph (Immatrael)

Status: On hiatus. 310K words.

Premise: After the Slaughterhouse Nine leave Brockton Bay, Skitter finds Amy having wretch’d Victoria, forces her to undo the physical damage, and takes Victoria in.

This is a hard one to talk about. There’s so much discourse attached to Amy’s character already that mentioning her becomes a minefield. Add on SINC’s brutally honest depictions of the aftereffects of rape on the victim, and I’m just painfully, painfully aware that if I don’t write this right everyone will (justifiably) get mad at me. 

So, what I’m going to say is that I think this is a horrifically accurate portrayal of severe PTSD. If you are lucky enough to be neurotypical, I imagine parts might seem unrealistic or unintentionally comedic. No. That’s what it’s like. Or, yknow, as far as I’m capable of understanding. Basically every chapter has some kind of gut punch, where Victoria again realizes how she’s still being affected by her trauma. It is uncomfortable and horrible and real.

But even besides all the heavy stuff, this has a great portrayal of Taylor and Victoria. The story’s written first person, from Victoria’s perspective, and it’s so great to see her act as a kind of straight man to Skitter’s usual deranged determination. This is the most in-character Taylor I’ve ever seen in a Wormfic, how she’s constantly going to eleven for the greater good, even when and ESPECIALLY when it’s unwarranted. One of my favorite moments comes shortly after the Rachel interlude: an uncontrolled emotion power goes off without warning during a negotiation; Taylor pretends she did it on purpose; and Victoria watches, bewildered. It’s funny, dramatic, and characterful all at once.

I will say I respectfully disagree with some of the decisions regarding Alec and Aisha, although I understand why those decisions were made and get how they fit thematically. In general the side characters are noticeably weaker than the main duo (although I think this is my favorite ever take on Charlotte). See the Brian interlude for what I mean. It’s a worthy portrait, sure, I agree with the author’s note that Brian doesn’t get enough love in fic. But does it go as deep into his character as it could?

The worldbuilding, however, is a highlight, fleshing out Brockton just that little bit. I particularly enjoy the details about the entrance to Skitter’s lair. It never feels expositiony either, every line of description comes off as an in-character observation from someone desperately trying to keep her shit together. And as the story progresses, so too does Victoria’s familiarity with her new situation, leading to my favorite Taylor/Victoria pairup. Like The Postdiluvian Road, this is not a romance story so much as it is a survival story that happens to include learning to trust again. It is bleak, sad, beautiful, and even occasionally funny and cute.

Silence Is NOT Consent! is currently on indefinite hiatus, sadly. But even if it never comes back, it’s well, WELL worth reading, even if you haven’t cried to "Body Terror Song" by AJJ.

justanothercatgirl also has a one-shot collection (which has my favorite depiction of Shatterbird) and shockingly little else. I hope she’s writing other things in her spare time, because I’m not kidding when I say the world needs voices like hers.

5. Intercession

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By VigoGrimborne

Status: Complete. 189K words.

Premise: Post-Gold Morning, Taylor is Isekai’d by Contessa into the Harry Potter universe, and given an infant Harry Potter to raise.

I'm a little reluctant to mention this one; apparently the author is uncomfortable with the amount of attention it got. Also it’s a Harry Potter crossover, and fuck J.K. Rowling. But like, the story is really good. REALLY good! Don’t get mad at me, I’m a transgirl, I know how bad Harry Potter is!

I had no idea how badly I needed to see Taylor Hebert being a good mom, or, for that matter, to see Harry Potter vehemently defending an adoptive parent. The fic isn’t perfect, there are certain comedic moments that just fall flat for me (the most forced ‘Taylor's boobs’ joke outside of canon). But that doesn’t matter. This is close to the platonic ideal of the ‘Taylor gets isekai’d post-Gold Morning’ fic. And it has really good pacing thanks to it being planned out in advance, almost every chapter feels like a nearly-complete story on its own. Other writers, take notes.

Other writers should also take note of how Taylor doesn’t waltz into the situation and immediately beat everyone else. There’s actual tension and stakes as she struggles to deal with magic for the first time, to shake off the rust and get back into combat. Even when she wins, it still has that skin-of-her-teeth desperation to it that Worm did so well.

Tellingly, a lot of the worse parts you’ll want to skip on a reread are the parts most rooted in Harry Potter canon. Harry’s first perspective chapter detailing his first three years at Hogwarts is great, but the parts spent at Ron’s house are pretty inconsequential. Maybe it was meant for the people who didn’t come from the Worm side of the fandom crossover? Harry’s classmates, at least, are given actual personalities and arcs totally absent from the books.

Credit must be given to the romantic pairing. VG somehow, miraculously, managed to make Taylor Hebert x Sirius Black not only a not-creepy pairing, but a straight-up great match. This isn’t teenage Taylor shacking up with an adult; this is Taylor as an adult mother, fully prepared to kill Sirius if his roguish charm starts negatively impacting her son.

VigoGrimbone also has a collection of side stories, outtakes, and rewrites called Of Summoning Snakes And Sorting Hats, definitely a must-read if you like Intercession even a little bit; and a collection of Worm one-shots called Chunks Of Worm, which features my favorite Amy/Lisa pairup in one story.

4. Mixed Feelings

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By Kittius

Status: Dead. 1M words.

Premise: In a slight AU, before canon start, an OC named Astrid (not to be confused with Aster) triggers after years of abuse from her Nazi father.

I found this one thanks to ColossalMistake plugging it in an interview they did, and I'm honestly flabbergasted that I hadn't heard about it before. It's straight up brilliant. Is it the one million plus wordcount that's making people rec it so infrequently? Is it the unashamed British slang that keeps making it into the dialogue of ostensibly-American characters? All I know is that Mixed Feelings is astonishingly good.

It would be irresponsible of me to not address the length. This story is a million words long even before we add in the 50K of sidestory and the other 50K of author-written apocrypha. And no, it did not need to be that long. A million words into Worm and we had at least fifteen arcs and all that entails. A million words into Mixed Feelings and we’ve had five arcs, a few fights, and one major character breakthrough.

Some of the wordcount is justified. Astrid is constantly repeating certain phrases in her head (“There is always a basement.”, “Failure is always punished.”) and this is great! It really gives you the claustrophobic feeling of being controlled which she’s dealt with her whole life. It’s like SINC, only it’s CPTSD instead of PTSD. Some of the wordcount is... less justified. The Emma interlude goes on for three parts, the Battery interlude goes on for five, and both could have made their points in two. And just skip the Testing, Testing sidestory. Even back in the main story, I do not care about Kid Win’s relationship fumbles.

It’s worth pushing through though. For one thing, the worldbuilding is fucking incredible. Astrid was raised by her Nazi father to be a child soldier, and this is reflected in how she sees the world. So we as readers get to see how the Wards HQ works, from the workout room to the cafeteria to the Youth Guard advocates. But we don’t just see them, we see them through her viewpoint. Sometimes this adds a tinge of comedy, like with her continued bewilderment that other people are engaging in decadent behaviors like eating candy or making jokes. Other times it adds little dramatic flairs, like when she’s incapable of understanding that “punishment” does not mean “extreme physical abuse”. The world feels real and lived in, with PRT foot soldiers irritatedly gossiping about Assault’s criminal past, Carlos sadly reminiscing over his dead boyfriend, and the Youth Guard desperately and futilely trying to stop more superpowered children from dying.

The overall mood is dark, which partially comes from Astrid’s fucked worldview and her slow healing process, but it also comes from looking straight on at what the Empire Eighty-Eight would actually be like. Worm justifiably gets flack for having a depiction of Nazism that’s only slightly more real than Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Mixed Feelings has a depiction of Nazism that’s clearly had research put into it. Pay attention to how an OC villain is clearly based on ‘women are property’ incel screeds, without it ever being actually spelled out. And as horrific and disturbing as the depictions of Nazism are, they’re probably as respectful towards the real-world victims as possible. And the best part is that the fic repeatedly, repeatedly shows that growing up as a Nazi (even unwillingly) is actively killing Astrid. She is almost totally incapable of functioning in the real world, because every interaction is filtered through trying not to be hurt. Her actual body is failing on her, because of her father’s lifelong abuse. You just wanna give her a hug. Except you don’t, cause she’d flinch at the sudden movement. I can relate!

Mixed Feelings has my favorite take on Piggot and Carlos, as well as Rennick, for what that’s worth. But the real star of the show is Amy. She’s such a bitch, to EVERYONE, it’s great! If you’re a big Ward fan I imagine you won’t love her as much as I do, but for anyone who’s able to imagine Amy Dallon happy, here she is, miserable and annoyed and taking it out on whoever is nearby at the time.

The author’s notes are super neat too, going into why they made certain decisions based off of offhand dialogue from across the whole of Worm.

All that said, it is funny how there’s NO EFFORT AT ALL put into making the story seem American. I learned like fifty British slang terms from my readthrough. Not that it affects the quality of the story, but it is funny to imagine American teenagers in 2011 casually saying things like “all and sundry”.

Kittius also has a snippet thread, which includes some non-Worm stories that are pretty nifty, although the overall quality is, to be honest, variable.

3. The Great Escape

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By ColossalMistake

Status: Dead. 106K words.

Premise: Eidolon must deal with the loss of his reputation due to the revelations during the Echidna fight, while at the same time attempting to help with a total breakout from the Birdcage.

Apparently this was made partially as a self-challenge by the author. ‘Is it possible to make Eidolon interesting?’. And If that story is true, this is one of the biggest slam dunks in writing challenge history. Absolute knocking it out of the park. This goes beyond “my favorite take on Eidolon” to “I now want to read more Eidolon fics”.

Eidolon here is a tragic superman. He’s tormented not just by his diminishing powers, but also by his pact actions in Cauldron and his impotence in the face of larger societal structures. The Great Escape has a lot to say about the actual nature of power. Early on, Eidolon briefly tries finding escapees manually before giving up and having Doormaker send him where he needs to go. This is after he’s kicked out of his homebase in Houston. He can go anywhere he wants, but that’s not his office anymore. Later, he tries to help put down another situation, only for it to be revealed that everything he did was part of Contessa’s plan. He can fight Endbringers, but he's still human, he's still part of the system. This all has even greater thematic resonance when he goes to church and talks to a priest as himself, as David. He’s a Christian, struggling to be what God meant him to be, struggling in a world that seems beyond God. Even I was touched, and I’m an annoying atheist edgelord.

As you’ve probably gathered by the other descriptions in this post, I’m a sucker for fanfic that expands the world of the original work. Imagine my joy when on top of the previously-mentioned setpieces, we get mention of a website besides PHO. Eidolon meets a young, naive OC named Amp, who is specifically trying to use him for a photo op to boost her rep, since she read online that it was a good move. Words cannot describe how much I love this scene. Eidolon’s gradual realization of what exactly Amp is trying to do... damn it’s good. And then Amp gets one of the top-two Wormfic interludes, where we see her entire life story, and we understand her, warts and all. Beautiful.

All due respect to the very good Initiation, Covalence, and The Problem With Other Realities, but THIS is the deadfic I most hope comes back. Everything from the prose to the characterization to the worldbuilding is spot on. (The plot is maybe a LITTLE loose…) And look out for the most admirably restrained Taylor usage in any Wormfic, she appears in the background for half a chapter, and it’s perfect, no notes.

Besides a couple of short, cracky one-shots and a contribution to the fanzine; ColossalMistake also wrote The Underside Of Gotham, a very very good Batman crossover that is brilliantly plotted and arranged. Every member of the Undersiders and every member of The Bat Family gets exactly one POV chapter. It’s downright impressive how every perspective feels like the perfect viewpoint for that chapter, and every chapter fluidly builds towards the story’s ending. He also wrote Internal Calculus, a CYOA crackfic where YOU are an intern at Cauldron trying to seduce Number Man. There are a whole lot of endings and some very funny lines, and also one ‘frustrated writer’ rant that you kinda have to just raise an eyebrow at and move on.

2. Intrepid

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By Cerulean

Status: Ostensibly only on hiatus, but don’t hold your breath. 860K words.

Premise: In an AU with many major and minor changes from canon, The Locker Incident leaves Taylor with a power that makes her seem catatonic, leading Emma and Madison to trigger. Emma joins The Undersiders, Madison joins an AU New Wave, and Taylor joins Faultline’s Crew. Meanwhile, Sophia attempts to deal with how the other Wards hate her even more now by helping out a new trigger in her spare time.

Anyone lower on the list is fully justified in getting mad at me. Intrepid has a lot of problems. The prose can be clunky, some moments (especially redemption arcs and romance scenes) feel unearned or rushed, many plot elements are introduced and then underutilized, and fight scenes often end too quickly. Some of the examples of ‘an adult guy trying to write a teenage lesbian’ are, er, unfortunate. And uh. There are way more slurs than were necessary to show that Nazis are bad. That’s before we even get to how the story handles the concept of ex-Nazis, which can politely be described as “naive”.  

This is the most Marvel-y of the fics on this list, with a lot of focus on exciting battle scenes with lots of people, even when the fighting seems kinda contextless. Madison especially enjoys throwing out quips a la Spider-Man in a way that can be jarring given the surrounding violence.

But no matter how much I thought about it, I couldn’t make myself move Intrepid down a slot. Those moments may be unearned but damn if they don’t hit. Interlude 20B is an incredible example of how to do a ‘minions rebel against their boss’ thing. Chapter 6-07 might be my favorite car chase I’ve ever read (admittedly not a lot of contestants in that contest, but still). There’s another chapter which is almost a blueprint for how to perfectly kill off a certain kind of villain. The “You like girls, Captain Oblivious.” monologue is just a fantastic bit that I needed to mention. And Intrepid also has one of the only Endbringer arcs I’ve EVER enjoyed, INCLUDING in canon.

This is also my favorite take on Sophia. She, through a somewhat elaborate set of circumstances, becomes the leader of an independent hero group during her off hours from the Wards. And while this causes her to become a less shitty person, she never loses her anger issues, she never stops being Sophia. I hesitate to call it a redemption arc, it’s more just character development. A lot of ink has been (justifiably) spilled over her canon appearance, which barely rises above racial caricature, and I’m not going to pretend that Intrepid has a radical deconstruction of her which makes it okay somehow. But yknow, if you’re stuck with it, this is maybe the best you can do.

Intrepid also has my favorite take on Labyrinth, which I will fully admit is pure bias on my part. I just really like it when neurodivergence is portrayed as endearing and not annoying, okay?

In the end, this is a fic that’s on this list not because it’s necessarily better written or better plotted, but just because of how much fun it all is. This is a fic where every cool idea the author could think of got shoved in there. Sometimes that leads somewhere, sometimes it doesn’t, but it sure always feels like it’s going to, which is skilled writing in and of itself. The Travelers show up, and just for fun, Noelle is their leader and they’re all alt-powers because they drank different vials. It’s great! New Wave shows up, but they haven’t unmasked and Fleur isn’t dead and Amy and Vicky both have alt-powers. Wonderful! That girl who Taylor mentions to Emma once in canon shows up and becomes the Butcher but the Butcher has a new name because they got subsumed by a new group. Fuck yeah! This fic is an example of how many changes you can make to canon while keeping it recognizably Worm. Why don’t we have more of that in the fandom? I mean, I can think of some examples (Slick, The Fall, even Inheritance) but so many people are content to follow the goddamn stations of the canon. 

This is also the only Wormfic I think I’ve ever read that does Armsmaster’s transformation into Defiant in a unique way. I love when fanfics are able to recreate arcs or plot moments in new contexts!

The most recent arc (written after a five year hiatus) admittedly makes me doubt that Cerulean still has what it takes to give Intrepid the conclusion it really deserves. But the fic is still too damn fun for me not to love. In short, this is Wormfic’s answer to Kingsmen: The Secret Service, another awesome fun action romp that doesn’t totally make sense plot-wise if you think about it for too long (and kinda sucks right at the end).

Cerulean started in the Animorphs fandom with the pretty decent Animorphs: Redux series. His first Wormfic, Atonement, is retrospectively a sort of dry run for Intrepid, exploring the same themes and ideas but not as good. And it has my favorite take on Legend! I do, however, need to specifically disclaim the original character of Vacate, who has some of the worst attempts at ‘realistic Urban dialogue’ I’ve ever read, it’s kinda uncomfortable. Currently Cerulean is publishing two original web serials, neither of which I can recommend in good faith. Heretical Edge is impossible to describe because the plot changes every other chapter, and Summus Proelium is just Worm but worse. Read the first chapter of each and then skip everything but the interludes, treat them like short story collections.

Bonus Round: Other Wormfics which have a particular special sauce

Absolution by Quantumsheepery, which has the best dialogue in any Wormfic, and the only good use of ‘aura theory’.

Broken Crown by thevalleyarchive, which has my favorite takes on Theo and Krieg, and also some of the most horrifically realistic depictions of Nazism I’ve seen in fiction. If it was far along enough to know that it’d stay this high quality, it’d be in the top ten list, easy.

Chain by Truebeasts, which has my favorite Dragon and Aisha.

Collagen by T0PH4T, which has my favorite Hookwolf, my favorite Endbringer arc, and an almost unforgivably clunky start before getting incredible out of nowhere.

Episodes by Sharpes_Tanith, which has enough plot to fill an entire arc used as background flavor for a one-shot of an uncomfortably honest portrait of bipolar disorder.

Glassmaker by JinglyJangles, which has this totally unique tone and vibe.

Here Comes The New Boss (Nothing Like The Old Boss) by HowlingGuardian, which has my favorite Spitfire, Velocity, piece of fanart, and Amy/Taylor pairup.

Just The Two Of Us by Discreet, which has a great plot I won’t spoil.

Mandible by Dragobeisha, which has my favorite Teeth and one of my favorite capefights.

Powers And Profits by Partizanka, which has one of the most out-of-the-box story concepts I’ve ever seen, executed flawlessly.

Slaughterhouse 9 Power Taylor by Thinker6, which has my favorite two-shot.

The Girl That Lived Through Time by 3ndless, which has a demonstration of exactly how much you can do with the Worm setting.

The Third Door by Dysole & TelegraphNine, which has my favorite Bonesaw’d!Taylor, and is a potential candidate for the awkward ‘most improved’ award.

These Bloodied Hands by beef jerky, which has some of the best prose in any Wormfic.

Unbreakable by JackSlash, which has my favorite Jack Slash.

1. Riley, Alone

(x)

By R3N41SS4NC3

Status: Complete. 94K words.

Premise: No spoilers just read it. Even if you hate Worm go read it right now. Seriously, there’s one moment that made my jaw drop with how good and clever and creative it was, it was like getting hit by a truck. Read it!

That’s right, my pick for all-time best Wormfic is one where Taylor doesn’t show up at all and The Undersiders get mentioned like once.

This is a story that has a very special place in my heart. As you can probably gather from the other fics on this list, themes of atonement and redemption just resonate with me more than themes of recovery. I find the question “Is it possible to still be a good person after hurting people very badly?” more interesting than “Is it possible to heal after being hurt very badly?”. (Is this because I am a bad person? Possibly!) And without giving anything away, there’s a sentence roughly in the middle of the fic that monocasually destroyed part of my Catholic guilt complex.

But besides that, the story is just extremely good. The prose is top-notch, the plot progresses at a steady clip without sacrificing detail or forgetting character moments, and the standard cliches of Wormfic are either avoided or given unique twists. My favorite example for that last one is a trigger event scene. Everyone who’s read enough Wormfic has seen the phrases “DESTINATION. AGREEMENT.” just so. so so so many times when a writer’s being lazy. Or, if they’re not lazy but they’re still kinda uncreative, it’s just the visions from Worm rewritten again. Giant whales and all that. Riley, Alone has a completely original, totally unique interpretation of a trigger event vision and it makes the scene so much fresher and newer while also contributing to our understanding of the characters.

Even the chapter titles are great! Riley, Alone is divided into three sections, plus an interlude and an ending. Each section has its own unique chapter title gimmick and it just adds this tiny bit of flourish that makes the story feel that much more cohesive and planned out. I can only think of one other Wormfic (the very good, previously-mentioned Just The Two Of Us) that’s taken the time to do something more interesting than Wildbow-style arc titles.

Speaking of chapters, credit needs to be given to R3N41SS4NC3 for creating a totally new take on the concept of a Worm-style interlude. Again, I don’t wanna give it away, but if you’re like me and you still think it’s kinda annoying how Worm switched between first- and third- person, you will maybe love this.

And yes, I am avoiding detailing what plot points the story has, but that’s because I really really feel like it’s best gone into as blind and unsuspecting as possible. It starts focusing on Bonesaw before the Nine get to Brockton Bay and that’s all you need to know.

I guess if I had to say something to criticize it, the plot slowing down in the second half makes the story feel a little lopsided towards the front. I kinda wish there was just a little more Bonesaw body horror stuff shown on-screen. There’s a scene with the Siberian where it’s debatable how well it holds up to scrutiny. Chapter fifteen specifically feels like it was crying out to be absolutely nightmarish but it isn’t really. Uh. That’s it. That’s all I’ve got. I love this story so much. It’s got my second favorite take on Jack Slash and my favorite-ever take on Bonesaw. It’s got meditations on identity (gender and personal and societal). It’s got a nicely subtle Pact reference.

Okay, there is one thing that annoys me. Early on, Jack Slash is suggesting names for Bonesaw’s latest creation, and starts to say “Murder Rat” before getting cut off in the middle of “Rat”. So he’d say “Murder Ra-“, right? But it’s written in-dialogue as “Murder R” even though that’d be read out loud as “Murder Arr”. Anyway go read it already.

R3N41SS4NC3’s other fics include Charity Begins At Home, which has my favorite Madison; Desperate Times Call For Desperate Pleasures (co-written with piperfurby), which has my favorite Manpower but does veer between brilliant and bewildering; and Pyrrhic Love, which has my favorite Emma. There’s also another story that I don’t wanna mention in case people get mad at me but it’s very artfully done. And when you've read all that, read its first fic, what if catgirl!taylor got stuck in a tree?, which is near-Wattpad-level crack, and see how all great artists have to start somewhere.

[astupidweeb69]

You know x-virus don’t get enough love…. Do you have any head cannons regular or nsfw (maybe both)??

I've been thinking about this guy a lot lately for some reason. Also I've never written for Cody before so hopefully this came out okay.

I was going to work on Toby's but.... I have more inspiration for Cody at the moment. He absolutely doesn't get enough love!

X-Virus Headcannons

SFW

Isn't related to Toby at all. In fact doesn't really look like him either. Sure, he's got the brown hair, but he looks waaay more dorky than Toby does. While Toby has kind of a boy-next-door-from-hell look to him, Cody is more slender and works out less. He looks like your typical STEM student (sickly complexion, poor nutrition, etc.). His whole schtick requires him to stay indoors most of the time, in a make-shift lab.

Has a refrigerated van, which he paid to be converted to safely transport whatever science experiments he's got going on in a temperature-controlled environment.

He tries to stay in one place. He's less of a drifter than most of the other creeps but sometimes... the things he does requires him to uproot his life and start over in another town. (No Cody you can't just infect your landlord with a mutated form of tuberculosis when they raise your rent! There will be consequences!)

Has kind of a nasally voice. I feel like he always has a bit of a cold too.

Ironically has a shitty immune system, and probably drinks those Airborne Immune Support drink mixes like it's his job. Also a germaphobe, wearing medical gloves all the time, and his hands are dry and cracked from overusing sanitizer.

LOVES Re-animator. He's rewatched that movie more times than he can count. But he has a love for science fiction movies in general, with horror elements to them. Like Alien.

Also loves zombie apocalypse movies, but that's an obvious one. Specifically 28 Days Later and World War Z.

Sometimes he's like... should I try to make a zombie virus? nah.... unless...?

I also think he was raised by a single father, who worked for a large pharmaceutical company.

Antisocial. I know Toby and him are compared a lot and people give them similar 'hyperactive' personalities, but I don't see that for Cody at all.

Cody's more focused, and is less inclined to interact with others. He doesn't really get lonely?

I'd say he'd get along okay with someone like EJ (both like science, ya know?).

Toby and him hang out a bit - they'll stay in and watch movies together. Or Cody will tag along with him to a bar and watch as Toby fails to pick up anybody. Cody wouldn't say it to his face, but it makes him feel better about his own social skills to see Toby strike out like that.

NSFW (Under the cut!)

I don't know how he'd find himself in this situation - but if he DID have a partner.... the sex would be kind of bland at first?

He doesn't know what he wants and frankly is too much of a germaphobe to get up close and personal with someone he doesn't know well.

You'd have to spend months getting to know him for him to feel comfortable to engage in anything sexual.

I think at the start of the relationship, he'd want to experiment with voyeurism.

He'd be across the room watching you touch yourself, giving you directions while he slowly strokes his cock, loving the feeling of ordering you around.

But as things escalate, of course, he'd give in to his urges. However, the voyeurism would become how he likes to foreplay.

Out of all the creeps (most of whom I view as being dominant) he's actually pretty tame.

He whimpers a lot, and it sounds almost pathetic when he moans. He's been holding out for so long for the right person, and when he finally gets to fuck he's absolutely drunk off of you.

That said, his sex drive is about average.

One of his roleplay fantasies is him being the experienced scientist, and you being his lovely little assistant.

Probably started after the first time you helped him in his lab.

He just kept thinking of you in a tiny little lab coat, bent over his desk - papers and test tubes falling to the ground while his hips piston into you.

[greypistacchio]

Castiel, Angel of the Lord, is the autistic rep we deserve

DEAN.- The general vicinity? That's all you've got? CASTIEL.- Yes, which is why I need your help. It seems this is gonna involve talking to people (...). But it seems I lack a certain... DEAN.- Skill?

how wonderful that there's no self-deprecation in Castiel's voice as he acknowledges this, nor is there an ounce of shame! instead he sounds puzzled, like he can't put his finger on exactly what it is that he's getting wrong about human social interactions? he has been studying Social Skills 101 through TV shows, which will surely be enough to pass as A Human Man!

(spoiler alert, it doesn't, because you can have an amazing repertoire and still mess up by not knowing how to tell what is and isn't appropriate depending on the context and the people you're with)

the beautiful thing about Castiel's trouble adjusting to the human world is that he never beats himself up about how unexpectedly difficult it seems to be for him. he's aware that his "people skills" are "rusty", and what does he do about it? he asks for help without it becoming a big deal.

something in the very chill way he goes about this makes me super happy. unlike lots of other autistic-coded characters, Castiel doesn't feel dismayed whenever his lack of social skills gets in the way, and what's more! his friends never shame him for it! yes, Castiel often says things that are inadvertently funny to everyone else for reasons he can't figure out. yes, Castiel misreads social cues more often than not, and whenever he explains his thought process about them out loud it's clear that he has been trying to build himself a mental handbook about Human Interactions For Dummies. yes, Castiel tends to clarify figurative language for others despite it not being something he was asked for, and yes, he often takes sayings at face value and struggles to understand what they mean because he's going off of literal meaning.

and you know what's beautiful about all of this! the fact that neither Dean nor Sam give him hell about it!!

even though there is never any label assigned to Castiel per se, which on the other hand makes sense because when exactly would he find the time and motivation to go get diagnosed... the show makes it clear enough that he is, in fact, on the spectrum. the way he talks is described by alluding to Rain Man, which is about an autistic man played by Dustin Hoffman. Castiel's favourite Heaven is that of an autistic man who's happy to fly his kite in a beautiful meadow for eternity.

Castiel is as explicitly autistic as he can be, and he's never made to feel bad about the struggles that come with it. what's more, though! many of Castiel's most beautiful qualities and choices are directly related to autistic strengths.

for example, the strong sense of justice. Castiel has got a heart of gold that's in the right place, and he can't bear the idea of falling back into line if it means not doing what's right. but he isn't an arrogant assbutt about it. instead of trying to preach some holier-than-thou crap, he thinks out loud about what's right and what's wrong and the consequences that each option comes with. he is genuinely invested in doing what's right.

or the unwavering loyalty and devotion to those he cares for. Castiel loves the Winchester brothers deeply, and Dean in particular, because they listen to him and have actual conversations about the stuff Castiel asks himself questions about. they are the first people who treat Cas as an equal, as a friend, as family. and so Castiel does the same. he loves them enough that he'd rather swallow Purgatory whole to stop Raphael, who is planning on resuming the Apocalypse, than let his brother put Dean and Sam in the line of fire. he would rather protect the family he's found than comply with the Heavenly Plan.

or his extraordinary ability to notice the smallest things. as shown often enough whenever Castiel is taking his time to appreciate what's around him, he has an extraordinary eye for the subtlest details. even when he uses his powers, he is immediately able to figure out stuff in very precise detail.

or his boundless empathy. what enabled Castiel to rebel against Heaven in the first place was his inability to ignore how much Dean was hurting. nevermind how many times Uriel snapped at him for giving the mud monkeys too much credit, or how utterly racist most angels seemed to be towards human beings. Castiel was immediately struck by the pain that Dean felt, and in the end he stood up for what he figured was right because of his willingness to put himself in Dean's shoes to understand his point of view.

or his genuine authenticity. no matter how many times others screw him over and take advantage of how very sensitive he is, and how badly he wants to do what's right and will save people, Castiel still wears his big heart in his sleeve. in a world where most characters lie and deceive and betray and pretend their way through things, Castiel remains genuine in his quest to do the right thing. he keeps being open about his feelings and his motives and what he longs for, even though it is something that can and will be exploited to his detriment, because he doesn't know how to not be his true self.

or his complex and intense emotions. even though Castiel admittedly struggles to express his emotions in a typical way, and at first had trouble identifying and naming them too, there is never half a doubt that he feels them deeply. everything Castiel does is imbued with so much emotion, and if there's one character with a strong sense of transcendence it's him. if there's one character who created free will and stopped Fate dead in her tracks out of love, it's him. if there's one character whose fury was enough to decimate Heaven, it's him. if there's one character whose embarrassment was strong enough to keep him in Purgatory, it's him. there is an explicit acknowledgement, in fact, that Castiel has a larger-than-life heart that's always been a core part of who he is. no matter how many times it lands him in trouble or brings him great distress.

or his great tactic ability to analyse situations. as shown time and time again, Castiel is an extraordinary asset to have in one's team due to his sharp intellect regarding strategic planning. he is Team Free Will's brains, and every time he's involved in a case or an offensive he voices all the foreseeable concerns and possibilities so they can be ready for them. whenever someone is upset or conflicted, and by someone I mostly mean Dean, Castiel is able to analyse everything that has happened to figure out what Dean might be feeling and why. from the very first time they meet, Castiel is able to put together the many pieces of Dean Winchester at the speed of light, and when he himself makes mistakes he has an insane sense of introspection that enables him to realise what happened or didn't happen so he can improve moving forward.

and let's not forget his expressiveness. yes, Castiel's voice is often flat and monotonous. yes, he makes interesting word choices that don't quite land in many contexts. all of this is a clear result of his trouble with unspoken social cues regarding what is and isn't "appropriate" in a certain situation, or with certain people, but he nonetheless expresses so much all the time. in fact, I'd say that he's one of the most emotionally aware characters in this whole show, and he has a fucking ton of lines that are absolute bangers and capture really, really nuanced and complex thoughts and feelings beautifully.

all in all, Castiel is beautiful autistic rep, and I'm so very happy that he exists!!

[orphiclovers]

as an anorexia fetishist I feel like it’s my duty to correct some of y’all on some cold hard facts. First of all, being malnourished as a child or teen does not automatically make you skinny because life isnt sims 4. it does happen, but only in rare cases, usually in combination with some kind of chronic illness that fucks with the metabolism that the parents arent properly accounting for ...otherwise we're talking literal starvation-level neglect, like being locked in a basement and not fed for weeks to make you visibly bony.

And no matter how much fanon loves to exaggerate the mistreatment KDJ suffered from his relatives into literal supervillain shit that just wasn’t the case. Neglect? Sure and canon! But not to the level where he was wasting away from lack of food. I know plenty of people who didn’t have proper or regular meals growing up due to family or financial situations and their body weight was still completely average or even overweight throughout all of their lives

cause malnutrition in most cases causes non sexy issues like weak immune systems or vitamin deficiency related problems. most people massively underestimate just how severe malnutrition has to be to actually stunt someone’s growth in a visable way. it has to be war or famine level of extreme which most abuse and neglect cases dont reach before someone intervenes. you cant TELL someone is malnutritioned just by looking at them 95% of the time!!! its an invisible illness!! theres a reason even the majority of anorexics arent visibly underweight as media would have you believe

and especially in boys, puberty is a hell of a drug. A lot of guys still shoot up in height even if they lack some nutrients because genetics are doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to height and body mass. if hes short with narrow shoulders, he was already always going to be short with narrow shoulders which is FINE and you dont need to justifying it with some excuse. it explains itself! (purely from personal experience everybody who I knew who was starving ages 11-18 is like 185+ cm tall its freakish)

also maybe let’s stop with the whole “he skips meals so he has a snatched waist” thing. That’s not how bodies work. even actively skipping meals as an adult doesn’t give you some dainty anime boy waistline. rather than sexyness it just leads to fatigue, poor concentration, slowed metabolism, increased risk of particular types of diseases and mental illness etc. so if you want to explore the consequences of poverty and food insecurity go ahead! its a very interesting topic! but dont start and stop the discussion at "hes super short and has a sexy skinnyyy waist you could wrap your hands around🥺 poor baby" that shit is vile

there is actually a REAL explanation as to the reason the Webtoon drew KDJ, YJH, HSY, YSA etc with identical twig waists and thigh gaps and pale skin and sorry, it has nothing to do with their backstory or characterization or the story

most webtoons of this genre especially are designed to reach a broad demographic of readers and make profit and part of that is sticking to safe designs and not including any features that arent conventionally attractive and migh turn off someone from reading. like ugly faces or fatness or darker skintones, especially for characters with a lot of screentime. thats just the industry standard baby

marketability is more important than good character designs that actually communicate something. they even chose not to include the one feature everyone in orv WAS described as having - being absolutely covered in a shitton of scars on their faces and hands because its the fucking apocalypse. but that would be too "ugly". and I know for a fact most of y'all really WOULDNT read orv if the protagonists were ugly, so are they really WRONG to be worried about losing out?

there is a reason why the FOURTH most used tag on orv fanfiction is "pretty kim dokja" at a whopping 1166 fics tagged and counting. cause you really really need to make sure no one EVER accuses you of being emotionally invested in a character thats not attractive🤢🤮

so yeah. thats the only reason their designs look like kpop idols. its definitely not to show kdjs mistreatment or poverty or whatever. stop trying to give webtoon credit for things they didnt do

[lookingforhappy]

TUA wasn't "always meant to end like this" nor did it build up to a tragic everybody dies ending in any way

sorry this is long and rambly but im noticing a lot of people coming out of the woodworks saying that the ending wasnt even bad actually and i just.. its not a redeemable ending to me and yes it does ruin the rest of the show for me and i wish i had the strength to make it not so but im stuck rn.. anyway:

i don't think i can forgive the ending, more than anything that happened in the final season

they had interesting character points, in an interesting setting.

and yeah they didnt tie up anything, and several people were out of character this season but thats nothing new in this fandom

eudora was forgotten, diego and luthers personalities didnt develop they were altered to be more palatable for the audience, grace and pogo became cameo characters instead of finishing their arcs or development in a meaningful way, reginalds plan has made less and less sense as the seasons go on, the commission was entirely changed from its set up in s1 and then forgotten.

thats all forgivable as long as the season is self contained and satisfys the tone and story.

s4 did none of these things - its not self contained as it leaves jennifer and abigail severely underexplained, and then flips the tone and message of the entire series on its head.

people have already noted that the theme of the show is that recovery from abuse haunts you into adulthood but with love and hard work and perserverance you can overcome it. the apocalypse has always been a metaphor for the cycle of abuse and how it continues to harm people after its been done, and how allowing it to dictate your life will end up in it imploding in your face etc.

but theres also just the general tone of the show.

the final season tries to make out that the siblings are themselves responsible for the apocalypses and only their death can prevent more apocalypses (twisting the meaning to be that of "if you have trauma then you should kill yourself" which like.. clearly bad, no explanation needed)

but to pull through on this ending the previous seasons need to have ended in tragedy too, or hinted towards it tonally. they never do.

the obvious way to do this would be to write each season ending/apocalypse to be sad/tragic. have the focus be on the people dying horribly in pain, show the remorse of the siblings, punish them by making it personal, show that they killed everyone and they know it.

the only season that even slightly does this is s1 as patch is killed because of diego, pogo and grace are killed because of luther and viktor, and the rest of the supporting cast is killed due to viktor.

but even season 1 isnt framed as a tragedy or a story leading up tot a tragedy.

its a story of hope. the siblings arent upset by the apocalypse because they can survive and prevent it and theres hope for the future and more specifically for THEIR future. nothing else remains from this timeline other than them because the whole show is centred as their recovery story. their hope.

if this was ever going to be presented as a hopeless tragedy then we needed to see characters like claire killed brutally. we needed to actually see Grace's lifeless body. we needed to see the consequences and see that nothing they did was fixing anything by having these consequences follow them and not just in a "this happened and im sad" but in everyone around them and them becoming worse as time goes by.

if they wanted the whole "we cant exist" ending to work then we needed to frame s1 and all subsequent seasons to actually show that it was their actions that caused the apocalypses.

viktor causes the first apocalypse because of reginald's abuse.

the US government causes the second apocalypse because they tortured an innocent to the brink of death and then got upset and aggressive when that had consequences (viktors powers overspilling and destroying the fbi building). like sorry that apocalypse was never viktors fault - its like false confession under torture, it doesnt count as real because he only did it to make torture stop.

the 3rd apocalypse is caused by Harlan accidentally killing their mothers, which again is not even his fault. he didnt want to kill them he just lost control and he had no idea that it would end the world (logically it shouldnt because this apocalypse defies the laws of time that they themselves established for the show).

the final apocalypse isnt even caused by them its caused by abigail and reginald. as are, technically, all of the apocalypses as abigail created the marigold and reginald released it and created the broken timeline by allowing it to travel with him to the umbrellas world.

in s2 the apocalypse has no consequences because they prevent it. ray and sissy and harlan get to live. klaus' cult memeber get to live. they even punctuate this ending by showing that theyre moving on and progressing in their healing because ben is finally allowed to move on with his afterlife, and he is no longer kept there, stalling their recovery from his death. even five's integration into the family again in s1 showed growth and recovery and HOPE.

in s3 the world is saved, and luther is brought back to life and five and diegos limbs are returned. everyone who was erased/died like lilas family and reginald are brought back to life because there is HOPE.

if they wanted to sell a tragedy and sell it well then we needed to see consequences. allison should have died in s1. five should have given up and returned to the commission in s2. luther should have stayed dead in s3. their families should have died and caused them pain.

nothing about this ending followed through on the theme of hope.

there are ways to do it. and its been done well.

romeo and juliet works because they are remembered. star wars prequels are loved because its a doomed from the beginning story that ends with hope in the form of luke saving his fathers soul and returning the jedi to their true state - protectors and peace keepers. frodo and bilbo return from their journeys ill and grieving and forever changed, and they and the magic beings of middle earth have to pass on before their time because of the harm of their stories. macbeth dies in the end because his story was one of a hero becoming a villain.

theres so many good examples of tragic endings but s4 wasnt one of them.